Art.....

[huckelberry]

Hi Morley, it is good to hear you contribute here.

You make some interesting points about the interplay between paintings and photos. Perhaps it is relevant to mention that photo realism normally uses a projected photo for basic drawing and guide. That does not eliminate drawing and color skills but is assistance and guidance.

Poser can mean different things such as projecting a theatrical persona. Perhaps there is a touch of art to that. Dali pops I to my mind. He had skill and imagination in work and in his presented persona.

I find myself wondering about pose more with conceptual art. I find myself thinking perhaps some vapid concepts pass as important due to artist, gallery, and critic creating a pose. Perhaps there are aspects of some conceptual art I miss or are just not responsive to. Morley, You expanded my view of the banana and tape fellow.

[Morley]

All those cool ones, and only those ones, turned out to be by the same person. And that's how I discovered that Pablo Picasso wasn't only a painter.

Pardon me dantana and canpakes if I rattle on here about this. The message board is a bit slow and I am a very long standing fan of modern art. I do not mean to push others to agree but I might attempt to say why I might have a love of a Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Diebenkorn, etc.

I was still in high school when I got a chance to spend a couple days with a large exhibit of Picasso in the Dallas art museum. It included many works from many periods in his work. I was enchanted by seeing a vision of human experience without the boring dull mask of photo appearance. It was like seeing life through new and revealing eyes, liberating.

Huck, Picasso was my gateway drug, too.

I was at conference in Ottawa about 25 years ago. Except for the day that I presented my paper, I ended up spending the whole week haunting the city and its museums. Part of the reason for that was that The National Gallery of Canada was hosting a Picasso exhibit that blew me away. Seeing his work up close and personal changed my mind about the value of abstraction.

If I had to reduce the experience to one piece of art, it would have been this painting that was my Road to Damascus:


Pablo Picasso, Girl Before a Mirror (1932)

The image looks so small and stupid as I post it here--but I was stunned. After that, I had to rethink my whole attitude and approach to art.

[Morley]

Hi Morley, it is good to hear you contribute here.

You make some interesting points about the interplay between paintings and photos. Perhaps it is relevant to mention that photo realism normally uses a projected photo for basic drawing and guide. That does not eliminate drawing and color skills but is assistance and guidance.

Poser can mean different things such as projecting a theatrical persona. Perhaps there is a touch of art to that. Dali pops I to my mind. He had skill and imagination in work and in his presented persona.

I find myself wondering about pose more with conceptual art. I find myself thinking perhaps some vapid concepts pass as important due to artist, gallery, and critic creating a pose. Perhaps there are aspects of some conceptual art I miss or are just not responsive to. Morley, You expanded my view of the banana and tape fellow.

Yeah, sometimes we forget that the word 'art' comes from 'artifice.' The Ancient Greeks certainly saw it that way. Those who are artists are just those poor souls who help cast the shadows on the walls of Plato's Cave.

[huckelberry]

Hi Morley, it is good to hear you contribute here.

You make some interesting points about the interplay between paintings and photos. Perhaps it is relevant to mention that photo realism normally uses a projected photo for basic drawing and guide. That does not eliminate drawing and color skills but is assistance and guidance.

Poser can mean different things such as projecting a theatrical persona. Perhaps there is a touch of art to that. Dali pops I to my mind. He had skill and imagination in work and in his presented persona.

I find myself wondering about pose more with conceptual art. I find myself thinking perhaps some vapid concepts pass as important due to artist, gallery, and critic creating a pose. Perhaps there are aspects of some conceptual art I miss or are just not responsive to. Morley, You expanded my view of the banana and tape fellow.

Yeah, sometimes we forget that the word 'art' comes from 'artifice.' The Ancient Greeks certainly saw it that way. Those who are artists are just those poor souls who help cast the shadows on the walls of Plato's Cave.

Growing tired of the board grumpiness I thought it might be nice to return to this subject of Art. Thanks Morley for the comments. I do not see your Picasso image as small or silly. Perhaps I remember his work as on the large side an material so that memory attaches itself when I see a small reproduction.

I have some doubts about Plato's scheme. I see particulars and material as in some ways having reality lacking in ideas. It might be argued that is a limitation of human ideas. Perhaps but art with its physical, emotional, and experiential focus helps us humans with our limited ideas. As you noted, it may also beguile and perhaps deceive. Perhaps it is best not to turn off one's reflective questioning mind.

[Morley]

Thank you for posting this, Huck. I’ll respond, but it’ll have to be in a couple of weeks. I’m sort of out of the loop right now.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

What list can be complete without the erotic art of Joseph Brickley. Brickley is a Mormon artist who is very popular at Deseret Book and well-known for having semi-nude men/boys in many of his paintings. He's also responsible for many of the paintings found in the temple.

He also is well known on reddit for a painting which can only be described as "Erotic Jesus." It's a best seller at Deseret Book and there are literally thousands of homes along the Wasatch Front with this highly inappropriate painting in their family room:

(I have no idea what Jesus is doing in this painting, but I'll have what he is having)



(Another famous Brickley painting. The good Samaritan is helping a completely body-waxed and muscular Jewish man.)



(A ripped Nephi with smoldering, come-hither bedroom eyes)



(A nearly naked shepherd boy, inappropriately dressed for a cold night)



(A body-waxed and hairless Jesus wearing a loose robe with clearly nothing underneath)



(Not sure what this is supposed to represent other than two nearly naked grown men, one who is clearly doing a ballet dance)



Whatever Joseph Brickey's sexuality, I hope he can be himself. If he is gay, it's got to be difficult knowing that a good chunk of his livelihood comes from artwork he does for Mormon temple interiors. Here are some Joseph Brickley sculptures:

[huckelberry]

Everybody Wang Chung, I am completely unfamiliar with this fellow you present. His drawing skill is very sharp. I share your puzzlement about his expression. In Catholic circles there is some precedence for art to use images hinting at sexual feelings to express spiritual experience. It can leave me a bit uncomfortable.

Are the works for temples similar? You mention that first image is LDS popular. Perhaps it is only us impure who might feel awkward hanging it in the living room. . . maybe more awkward in the bedroom.

[Morley]

Yeah, sometimes we forget that the word 'art' comes from 'artifice.' The Ancient Greeks certainly saw it that way. Those who are artists are just those poor souls who help cast the shadows on the walls of Plato's Cave.

Growing tired of the board grumpiness I thought it might be nice to return to this subject of Art. Thanks Morley for the comments. I do not see your Picasso image as small or silly. Perhaps I remember his work as on the large side an material so that memory attaches itself when I see a small reproduction.

I have some doubts about Plato's scheme. I see particulars and material as in some ways having reality lacking in ideas. It might be argued that is a limitation of human ideas. Perhaps but art with its physical, emotional, and experiential focus helps us humans with our limited ideas. As you noted, it may also beguile and perhaps deceive. Perhaps it is best not to turn off one's reflective questioning mind.

Huck, you're right that the real painting of Picasso's "Girl Before a Mirror" is neither small nor silly. However, compared to the painting I saw in Ottawa, the wiki photo that I posted of "Girl Before a Mirror" seems unbelievably trite.

Unfortunately, I'm not always able to fully appreciate art that I haven't seen in person. In my experience, the difference between standing in front of a painting and looking at a photo of the same work can't be overstated. Ha! I guess I'm saying that there's no comparison between the fridge magnet of David and the giant statue of him that you find in Florence.

Like you, I appreciate a pretty eclectic array of artists. Also like you, I've found that there are artists that I just don't seem to be able to engage with. Their work never gets better, no matter how much I read or study about it--not even when I go see it in person. For instance, though I didn't want to pollute the thread by saying it earlier, I'm not crazy about Grandma Moses. Her naïve, idealized, folk art representations of rural, white America are mostly not my thing. Even if they were, there are other self-taught, naïve painters who do the job of pushing nostalgic Americana much better than she does.

I'm sure that you won't be surprised to learn that I'm also not a fan of the self-styled 'painter of light,' Thomas Kinkade. By the metrics that many use--how much money he made, his overall popularity, and the number of his pieces that are in hanging in homes, Kinkade was wondrously successful. Unfortunately, when I see his stuff, I have work hard to suppress my gag reflex. But that’s the great thing about art: There's something for everyone to either love or induce vomiting.

If I'm not mistaken, you and I are about the same age. I'm guessing that, in college, you were an Art History major. I do so envy you. You see, I came late to art, so I lost many years that I could have spent learning and appreciating.

I spent most of my life getting educated in, and working in, another field. When I became disillusioned with the work I was doing, I quit. After that, I decided that I'd go back to school and learn something that was completely out of my wheelhouse--so I spent an improbable decade studying painting and sculpture.

I wish I'd known to do it earlier. I rue that I lost so many years. If I had known, I could have started in my twenties. Painting is difficult. It’s also occasionally extremely satisfying. I’m lucky.

[Markk]

I do a lot of browsing and look of gems at thrift stores and antique malls. Which leads me to this post. When at art, especially in the thrift stores, there are what I will call "the regulars." If they were TV shows, they would be I Love Lucy, Seinfeld, or Mash. Or if a Rock Song, Stairway to Heaven, Let it Be, or every James Taylor song..... really good TV shows and songs, but worn out. I'd love to see yours?

So these are some works of Art I often see at thrift stores and antique stores, that might fall into that category....great but worn out.



I just read this and I learned it is actually a black and white photo of a real person, a Charles Wilden. I did not know that. I thought it was a painting all these years. My grandparents had a colored version in their little dining room; he wore a green shirt which is what I always see in the thrift stores.



I could have picked from a score of Rockwell's, but this one jumped out for me.



We grew up with this in our home.

[Morley]

Markk, I'm sure you'll agree that thrift store art can sometimes be heartbreaking. This is especially true when the object in question is a meticulously painted, somewhat unskilled, but hopelessly heartfelt picture of a rooster atop a red barn. It will invariably be signed on the back, "For Rebecca, With Love, from Grandma Tilly."

Reading the clues, you know that Grandma Tilly died, and Rebecca felt bad about it and cried and everything, but in the end she needed the space on her wall to put that Billie Eilish poster she had under her bed. Poor Grandma Tilley, you're off to the Goodwill, along with that signed gingham quilt that nobody quite liked, but felt like they had to keep around.

Sometimes, my sweet wife will buy these things out of sympathy and respect for the dear departed.