Great artists?

Coluber, regarding your statement that "we can judge the significance of any art form by its accessibility by ordinary people". I'm confused by your use of "significance" and "Accessibility". Are you saying that a work that is available to people is more significant in the effect it will have on society?
"Significance" may be ascertainable only by a minority of well-prepared individuals; and a work may be "inaccessible" to some minds while accessible to others. This implies, I know, an elitism of the arts. I'm afraid that is the reality.
Everyone can enjoy a coke, but not everyone can appreciate a fine wine. I can enjoy, like everyone else, a Norman Rockwell, but its sad to me that very few people share my appreciation of a late Beethoven quartet or an early Diebenkorn.

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I have to see my art on a visceral level. Passion beats draftswmanship, but doesnt exclude it. "The Fighting Tammierrere" (Oh I know I screwed that spelling up) is a painting I can stare at for hours and feel the life of the fine old ship going as it gets towed to its scuttle.

My taste in music goes the same way. Im not much for the pure intellectual experience unless I can discern how the artist manipulated me. I need gut wrenching high drama and counterpoint. Carmina Beuranna, Appalachian Spring, D minor Fugue , St Anne Fugue, Russian Easter. I think its an endorphin thing . If I can get goosebumps, Ive had a succesful afternoon at a gallery or concert.
They did a special on the goings on at Rittenhouse Square on PBS last night. There were 3 or 4 kids from Curtis School of music who played the "Ashokan Farewell' (Ken Burns specially written theme song for his series on the Civil War) It brought tears to my eyes and goosebumps.
Now, put me in a room with the Edgar Winter Consort and I wanna commit suicide.

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coluber2001 wrote:

mmm .... I don't agree with that. A great many people have seen Tracy Emins unmade grotty bed - but aren't in the least touched by it.

Any subject studied to a high degree is no longer totally accessible to the world at large. I don't understand rocket science but can appreciate that there was a heck of a lot of very clever stuff going on to get the probe to Mars etc and enjoy seeing the images.

Similarly art is appreciated at different levels by different people, the more you study it the more you get out of it - just like any other subject, science or art.

Art that may not be widely known, and even if it is may not be appreciated by the general public, nevertheless has knock on effects. One example is Op Art in the '60's - it influenced Mary Quant (fashion designer for those too young to know Very Happy

) and people were wearing dresses influenced by the work

Work that is popular with the public in its day may not stand the test of time.

Today there is a lot of dumming down Crying or Very sad

but the stuff that is shallow - Keith Haring, whatisname with his sickly cottages - Kincaid - will disappear as passing fads of no worth. Time filters out the best.

Gwen John wasn't widely appreciated in her day, whereas her brother Auugstus was highly successful. With time, she has become the more respected artist (as her brother forecast),

Music, Theatre, Literature and Art will always have degrees of intellectual accessibility - not everyone will read Dickens or Vikram Seth or go to see good contemporary art or be affected by it except indirectly.

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Vivien, well put.

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JLNobody wrote:

Coluber, regarding your statement that "we can judge the significance of any art form by its accessibility by ordinary people". I'm confused by your use of "significance" and "Accessibility". Are you saying that a work that is available to people is more significant in the effect it will have on society?
"Significance" may be ascertainable only by a minority of well-prepared individuals; and a work may be "inaccessible" to some minds while accessible to others. This implies, I know, an elitism of the arts. I'm afraid that is the reality.
Everyone can enjoy a coke, but not everyone can appreciate a fine wine. I can enjoy, like everyone else, a Norman Rockwell, but its sad to me that very few people share my appreciation of a late Beethoven quartet or an early Diebenkorn.

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farmerman wrote:

I have to see my art on a visceral level. Passion beats draftswmanship, but doesnt exclude it. "The Fighting Tammierrere" (Oh I know I screwed that spelling up) is a painting I can stare at for hours and feel the life of the fine old ship going as it gets towed to its scuttle.

My taste in music goes the same way. Im not much for the pure intellectual experience unless I can discern how the artist manipulated me. I need gut wrenching high drama and counterpoint. Carmina Beuranna, Appalachian Spring, D minor Fugue , St Anne Fugue, Russian Easter. I think its an endorphin thing . If I can get goosebumps, Ive had a succesful afternoon at a gallery or concert.
They did a special on the goings on at Rittenhouse Square on PBS last night. There were 3 or 4 kids from Curtis School of music who played the "Ashokan Farewell' (Ken Burns specially written theme song for his series on the Civil War) It brought tears to my eyes and goosebumps.
Now, put me in a room with the Edgar Winter Consort and I wanna commit suicide.

That's like listening to Shostokovitch; it makes me want to commit suicide, but I love it anyway. Try Mahler. He'll take you on an exhausting rolle coaster of a ride through all your emotions and feelings in an hour and twenty minutes or less. He condenses the whole world into one symphony. Then you just lay there exhausted, like you've been on a drug trip.

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Coluber, I share the thoughts you've expressed both to me and to Farmer COMPLETELY.
By the way, it's true that we can take a horse to water but we cannot make him drink. But if we salt his tongue he will both go to the water and drink it of his own volition. Art education must develop that equivalence of salt.

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Selectivity, I can appreciate some Mahler but not all, Same thing Gorecki. This may be part of my ADD, but I cant sit and listen for hours to passages of music that are symphonic equivalents of elevator music, Richard Strauss fits in there as does Eric Sate'
As JL said, everybody can appreciate Norman Rockwell, but not everyone on the exact same level. Im fascinated by his layoutr and design skills. He manipulates the viewer so well that it used to be quite popular among the NY and Chicago crowds, to dismiss him.
My latest artist to appreciate is an AMerican Indian named George Morrison, who died in the 90'2. His work does not show well on the net because, like many of the old landscape artists, it has to be seen in scale .

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Yes, what I like about Rockwell, is not so much the cuteness of his content, but his very effect composition. Is that what you mean by layout, Farmer?
The Indian painter I've like the most is the late Fritz Scholder. And, again, it's mainly for his "layout."

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JLNobody wrote:

Coluber, I share the thoughts you've expressed both to me and to Farmer COMPLETELY.
By the way, it's true that we can take a horse to water but we cannot make him drink. But if we salt his tongue he will both go to the water and drink it of his own volition. Art education must develop that equivalence of salt.

"Salt their tongue." I like that! Smile

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farmerman wrote:

Selectivity, I can appreciate some Mahler but not all, Same thing Gorecki. This may be part of my ADD, but I cant sit and listen for hours to passages of music that are symphonic equivalents of elevator music, Richard Strauss fits in there as does Eric Sate'
As JL said, everybody can appreciate Norman Rockwell, but not everyone on the exact same level. Im fascinated by his layoutr and design skills. He manipulates the viewer so well that it used to be quite popular among the NY and Chicago crowds, to dismiss him.
My latest artist to appreciate is an AMerican Indian named George Morrison, who died in the 90'2. His work does not show well on the net because, like many of the old landscape artists, it has to be seen in scale .

Yeah! Mahler takes repeated listening. And then to listen to a whole symphony at one sitting is too exhausting; my attention span is too limited for it, and it takes intense concentration. That's like reading "War and Peace" at one sitting.

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