Right… exquisite… this makes absolutely zero sense to me. Is this not the equivalent of paying more for a “name brand” than a generic?
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True.
There is art that transcends the centuries, and there is stuff that doesn’t. Art historians and critics try to explain it, but fail.
True story. We had an Irish art master at school. To our amazement his exhibition in Dublin got a full page in the Times Literary Supplement, which we duly read and then asked him what it meant. He told us that what it meant was that critics don’t really have much of a clue, and that it was all bullshitting. Then his agent summoned him back to Dublin because his exhibition was sold out and he needed to talk to patrons who wanted to commission work. As a result I never got to take the exam…but that’s it from the horses mouth, there is art, and there are people who write about it, but the Venn diagram may not intersect very much.
One of his other comments was that you don’t really know if an artist was any good or not till 150 years after his death, because that’s how long it takes for society to absorb anything genuinely new. It could be that, if there is a human civilisation in the 22nd century, they will be regarding people like Picasso and Rothko as the not very good precursors of people we currently never hear of.
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Is that from an actual Olivia book?
In contrast, there’s a Fancy Nancy book that takes a more appreciative view toward Pollock. FWTW.
Nope, I can’t afford context…
…which means this is just an inept attempt at painting a canvas green.
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second that. i was never a fan of Rothko’s work, having seen it in catalogs and textbooks, until the day i finally stood in front of one in-person at Tate Modern for 20 minutes. it was—to me, in that moment—transcendent.
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I’ve always imagined that “great art” is an aggregate score comprised of:
- being the first person to do something new,
- having a tortured, eccentric, or unique personality, and
- knowing how to self-promote and/or create controversy.
None of the above are self-sufficient to qualify as great art, and I think it explains the tension in the movie “My Kid Could Paint That”; if it was the kid painting those pieces, it makes a great story. If it was the dad, who cares?
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“Every one a Maserati!”
Avoid all IMAX theaters, or you may transcend right out of your loafers.
A hot take on modern painting from someone who thinks the pinnacle of achievement is canvases with monkeys, cats, and post-pubescent nude girls. How droll.
Yeah, there is a lot of big-dick swinging in modern art. Size doesn’t impress me in art any more than it does in bed.
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Rothko isn’t just bigger for the sake of being bigger. Their are subtleties of texture and color that they lose when scaled down (to say nothing of .jpeg compression).
There are a lot of prominent modern artists I’d classify as borderline frauds, but Rothko really isn’t one of them.
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I have to second an earlier comment. I never thought much of Rothko, except to deride it. Then I went to the Tate Modern and stood in awe in their “Rothko” room. It was a really powerful moment, probably one of the most powerful moments I’ve had with any art.
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Have you SEEN a Rothko in person?
The size does add to the overall effect, but you can also get lost looking at things up close that you can never see in a print in a book.
Bigger doesn’t make something better alone. But it can be a factor.
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I’ve always thought of him as interesting, but wasn’t really a fan, until I saw his works at the Tate and MoMA. Then I was like, “OH, so that is why he got so well respected.”
You need to see a Rothko in person to properly appreciate it. If you’re looking at it on a monitor, you’ll need this high quality HMDI cable:
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Just FYI, Prager University is deliberate misinformation at best and borderline fascist propaganda at worst. This is evident in the way they talk about “artistic relativism.” Art is inherently subjective. The close-up of his smock is art of the best kind, that which makes you reconsider your definition of the medium. The fact that they can’t recognize that himself shows the lack of nuance in these kinds of arguments.
Furthermore, innovation itself clearly has some kind of importance. If nothing else, Pollock and Rothko were innovative, and they knew they were pushing boundaries. Modern art has always focused on pushing art forward, and progress is inevitable. Splattering paint on a canvas is no longer innovative. We must find new ways to express our artistic desires, and new ways to share these desires with the world. The video’s creator has made a very postmodern, relativist statement about modern art in the vein of modern art itself without even realizing it, a true tragedy.
Ironically, they have managed to create bad modern art.
True art should be recognizable on a postage stamp.
That’s subjective surely?
I laud it as a masterpiece.
Why? Should true literature be recognizable when summarized in a tweet?
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Color is another thing that doesn’t translate well. For example, here is a painting I have seen recently. It looks like crap in all photos I can find, but it is really impressive in person.
