Who's your favourite painter?

Nomad

JezWynd said:

That's nice. Is it a flat field of blue or there stuff going on in it?

Looks like French Ultramarine to me. With a bit of practice, I'm sure I could make a passable copy...

Nomad

sev112 said:

and learning about VG's interactions and successes and then stresses from his work in Arles with Gaugain really helps one understand what was going on in his life and his paintings

some bbc prog on next Sat at 8pm apparently

The style in his later period was consciously and methodically developed after he was exposed to impressionism and pointilism in Paris. It's often thought that he went out and painted that stuff because he was half-barking and going through manic episodes, but the images were often designed and planned beforehand. There are various preliminary sketches for the paintings which he used for working out compositions (often done with pen and ink, and they show the same linear brush stroke style). He worked very quickly, but the overall style and colouring was deliberate and controlled. In his many letters to his brother Theo (art dealer in Paris), he comes across as lucid and fully aware of the style he's developed.

For me, his later stuff is the beginning of proper modern art. Although impressionism and pointilism stepped away from the traditional methods of painting, they still sought to look realistic when viewed at the right distance (ie, at the point where the detail, or lack of, in the painting was too small to make out, giving an overall image that was drawn and coloured 'correctly'). Van Gogh's later style often eschewed that - colours became more saturated, shapes more wonky, and the linear impasto brushstrokes created a drama and sense of  movement that wasn't in the scenes and objects he painted.

Looks like the BBC prog is about the ear-lopping, and claims to solve the mystery. Legend has it that he gave the lopped bit to a prostitute called Rachel that both he and Gauguin frequented, and asked her to look after it (gawd knows why). There is some disagreement about how much got cut off - some say it was most of the ear, leaving a bit of the lobe, while others say it was just the lobe that got chopped.

octatonic

I quite like Sargent:




and I'm a huge fan of Francis Bacon:

ICBM

JezWynd said:

ICBM said:

I have to say I haven't seen any Rothko I really like, but I did very much like this Yves Klein in the Centre Pompidou…

That's nice. Is it a flat field of blue or there stuff going on in it?

In theory it's a flat field of blue - Klein's standard "International Klein Blue' colour - but in practice it's not completely even, even discounting the texture of the canvas.

When you stand in front of it, it has a sort of mesmerising depth - I think it really is very slightly lighter in the middle as it appears in that image, but it makes you feel like you're looking through into another dimension.

It's my new favourite colour -  but I always did like deep blues, like the kind you see in power valves .

octatonic

Rothko is a tricky one for me.
I've seen many of his original paintings in galleries in Switzerland.

I can't deny that he painted but I'm not sure I'd call him a painter either.
He seems to exploit something akin to confirmation bias- there seems to be very little presentation in what he does- he relies on the audience doing the work more than they do with, say, a Carravagio, a Van Gogh or a Bacon.
I'm not sure how I feel about that- it depends on my mood- sometimes I quite like it as a concept, sometimes I can't be bothered with it.

I've got very little time for folks like Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst.

Reverend

I like Blake and Bosch. 

I really like Seen,  Dondi,  Bates,  Daim,  Sky High, Fuel,  Lee,  Kast,  Pride,  Zaki Dee,  Just Ice,  Glory DVA,  and loads more graffiti artists. 

octatonic

Two other art works worth mentioning.

This is hanging in our home:



It was one by a friend of ours, Max Schindler.
He's an illustrator, he did some album art for Mansun and various other things.
He drew this before 9/11 and it was a gift from him to my wife when she moved to New York.

The other one is this:



It is a North Korean propaganda poster that I love.
I've used it as a sound hole label on one of my guitars and had it printed out and it hangs in a prominent place in the house.
The text says something along the lines of 'Destroy the American Invaders'
I think it is an exceptional piece of art.

Nomad

octatonic said:

Rothko is a tricky one for me.
I've seen many of his original paintings in galleries in Switzerland.

I can't deny that he painted but I'm not sure I'd call him a painter either.
He seems to exploit something akin to confirmation bias- there seems to be very little presentation in what he does- he relies on the audience doing the work more than they do with, say, a Carravagio, a Van Gogh or a Bacon.
I'm not sure how I feel about that- it depends on my mood- sometimes I quite like it as a concept, sometimes I can't be bothered with it.

For me, at a certain point, it becomes some sort of intellectual thing rather than a visual thing. When people are looking at what amounts to a couple of colour swatches and trying to work out what the artist is 'saying', it's descended into intellectual bollocks. The interplay of the particular colours might be interesting in and of itself, but it's hard to take it as 'art' in the more generally accepted sense - not because of its abstract nature, necessarily, but because it's too easy to make. If Joe Punter can get a canvas and some paints and duplicate a Rothko or whatever with virtually no knowledge or experience of painting, where does that leave Rothko?

ICBM

Nomad said:

For me, at a certain point, it becomes some sort of intellectual thing rather than a visual thing. When people are looking at what amounts to a couple of colour swatches and trying to work out what the artist is 'saying', it's descended into intellectual bollocks. The interplay of the particular colours might be interesting in and of itself, but it's hard to take it as 'art' in the more generally accepted sense - not because of its abstract nature, necessarily, but because it's too easy to make. If Joe Punter can get a canvas and some paints and duplicate a Rothko or whatever with virtually no knowledge or experience of painting, where does that leave Rothko?

Ah, but that's the difference between art and craft .

Taking a completely blank canvas and exhibiting it to make a statement can be art - or at least it could if it hadn't already been done. Joe Punter didn't come up with the idea, but the artist did.

Craft is the execution. Many great artists are fine craftsmen as well, and until the modern period it was assumed that they must always go together, but they don't really have to.

Sorry, I'm being pretentious as usual, but I do think the difference is real.

Nomad

ICBM said:

Ah, but that's the difference between art and craft .

Taking a completely blank canvas and exhibiting it to make a statement can be art - or at least it could if it hadn't already been done. Joe Punter didn't come up with the idea, but the artist did.

What 'statement' does a blank canvas make? In what way is it art for one creator, but ceases to be if it's a copy?

What 'statement' does this make? If somebody copied it, would it cease to be art?

http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y521/Nomad_Zamani/Paintings/LangloisBridge_zpswx5oqyp1.jpg

Where do blues musicians fit into all this? A bunch of unartistic imposters?

ICBM

Nomad said:

What 'statement' does a blank canvas make? In what way is it art for one creator, but ceases to be if it's a copy?

Whatever statement the artist wants it to, if they explain it . It's the original idea that matters for things like that - you can't repeat the idea and be original.

I'm not sure whether it is if you use the same end result to represent some other concept .

Nomad said:

What 'statement' does this make? If somebody copied it, would it cease to be art?

If they copy it accurately, yes - it's just craftsmanship at that point. If they re-interpret it and add something new, it can still be art.

Nomad said:

Where do blues musicians fit into all this? A bunch of unartistic imposters?

See above . No problem in calling them artists if they re-interpret the material and bring something new to it.

Just my opinion of course...

Budgie

I couldn't choose a favourite artist. I tend to be more interested in certain paintings. A few which I particularly like..

Peter Lanyon - Porthleven 1951.



Richard Diebenkorn - Berkeley #32 1955



Joan Eardley - The Wave 1961



Willem de Kooning - Pink Angels 1945

Nomad

Here's my latest work...

http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y521/Nomad_Zamani/Paintings/Albino Cat in Snowstorm_zpset2aw0ha.jpg

"Albino Cat in Snowstorm", Nomad, 2016, acrylic and chalk on canvas.

This contemporary minimalist work presents the plight of a warmth-loving creature that finds itself in a cold, hard environment that it would ordinarily make great efforts to avoid. The question of whether the cat chose to be in a snowstorm, or was somehow thrust into it against its will, challenges the viewer and leads him/her to question their own environment and its comforts and discomforts.

Is it art?

Is this art?

http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y521/Nomad_Zamani/Paintings/LangloisBridge_zpswx5oqyp1.jpg

octatonic

ICBM said:

Nomad said:

For me, at a certain point, it becomes some sort of intellectual thing rather than a visual thing. When people are looking at what amounts to a couple of colour swatches and trying to work out what the artist is 'saying', it's descended into intellectual bollocks. The interplay of the particular colours might be interesting in and of itself, but it's hard to take it as 'art' in the more generally accepted sense - not because of its abstract nature, necessarily, but because it's too easy to make. If Joe Punter can get a canvas and some paints and duplicate a Rothko or whatever with virtually no knowledge or experience of painting, where does that leave Rothko?

Ah, but that's the difference between art and craft .

Taking a completely blank canvas and exhibiting it to make a statement can be art - or at least it could if it hadn't already been done. Joe Punter didn't come up with the idea, but the artist did.

Craft is the execution. Many great artists are fine craftsmen as well, and until the modern period it was assumed that they must always go together, but they don't really have to.

Sorry, I'm being pretentious as usual, but I do think the difference is real.

I don't think you are being pretentious at all- that accurately describes the situation.

I'm more interested in the craft- I want to be blown away with technique or execution more than I want an abstract mind-blowing concept. That could because pretty much all the mind blowing concepts are now old hat, in this post modernist world it is more about combining stuff that came before than it is creating something new.

But I don't want technique only, or for its own sake but if it isn't done well then it doesn't interest me.

What I dislike more is something is something that is all concept with zero skill- Emin's bed for example.
I don't care how original it was, or how transgressive.
I'm not denying that it is art, as some do, but it just isn't for me.

I'm kinda the same with music, actually.

ICBM

Yes .

octatonic

ICBM said:

Yes .

Agree.

Frank Zappa puts it quite simply:

“The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively-- because, without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to put a 'box' around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?”

Budgie

@Nomad ;

You should check Ad Reinhardt's black canvases. I didn't bother with an accompanying image because it's just a black, square canvas.He describes them thus;

'A square (neutral, shapeless) canvas, five feet wide, five feet high, as high as a man, as wide as a man's outstretched arms (not large, not small, sizeless), trisected (no composition), one horizontal form negating one vertical form (formless, no top, no bottom, directionless), three (more or less) dark (lightless) no–contrasting (colorless) colors, brushwork brushed out to remove brushwork, a matte, flat, free–hand, painted surface (glossless, textureless, non–linear, no hard-edge, no soft edge) which does not reflect its surroundings—a pure, abstract, non–objective, timeless, spaceless, changeless, relationless, disinterested painting—an object that is self–conscious (no unconsciousness) ideal, transcendent, aware of no thing but art (absolutely no anti–art)'.

http://www.moma.org/collection/works/78976

Reverend

What if the artist does not have the the craft down,  but the ideas are framed by someone else? 

ICBM

Reverend said:

What if the artist does not have the the craft down,  but the ideas are framed by someone else? 

You mean a film director?

Evilmags

Goya Black period