Inconsistency or ability to make a bad artwork is not necessarily a bad thing but rather an condition of modern/experimental artist. Jean-Luc Godard is the best example which came to my mind.
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I think you kind of answered yourself there.
If for centuries one ideal existed throughout a group then that’s either the definition of absence-of-subjectiveness OR the group holding the ideal was absoluteley homogenous thus the art they were idealizing was not all-art but a subgroup of artworks.
So “wrong” in the sense of
- this ideal cannot be subjective if all subjects hold the same ideal.
- this ideal is only this one subgroups subjective opinion, thus no THE ideal, but AN ideal which is not better/worse than others.
Yes I answered it on purpose because Anna used the term “wrong” as though it was a thing of fact, but I believe it to be a thing of taste. As per your second dot point, we each may have a different view of what the ideal is. The important thing in this thread is not whether one likes modern art or classical art, it is whether one works according to their ideal and has found a way to produce consistent works accordingly, or whether they are forever trying on a new coat, thus not having a consistent process. Nothing wrong with trying on a new coat, I’ve tried on many, but I also believe there comes a point you pick the one you like best. Doesn’t mean you can’t change again later, but it does mean you are not in a constant state of change.
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I obviously misunderstood this then. Sorry.
I agree 100% on a personal level but also want to leave the door open for people for whom the search is their consistency.
Classical canon and “the ideal” in betazoid’s comment and the aesthetics of Classicism which she is talking about are transcendental, universal and somewhat more than things of subjectivity or taste.
Actually, betazoid and I did never talk about modern art vs classical art.
This is about Classicism.
This is, yes, about modern art.
But the point is that an modern artist is, by (a) definition, an artist who does not believe there is the ideal and, in Soupy’s words, must be continually searching (or experimental, in my word) .
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Exactly
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A lot of this comes down to limiting your choices.
From the art world:
- Hilla & Bernd Becher
- The white portraits by Richard Avedon
- Any portrait by Platon
Use a certain lens, in a certain type of scenario at the same time of day and/or situation of light with the same processing technique and your images will be the same. Also a lot of the hipster instagrammers do not have a style, they have a technique … or to put it more bluntly … a preset.
But the other ingridient which is way more important is the waste basket. Throw away everything that does not match your vision. And that vision has to be truly narrow, wether that is a good or bad thing is a personal choice, but it influences the outcome by a large degree.
Or phrasing it all differently: be as inflexible and stubborn as possible.
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btw, I think it is good that there is someone who disagrees here
So if everything is a search, and there is no ideal, how can classicism be wrong? Doesn’t make sense according to your own ideology. It should just be another place to search.
This is wrong, “classicism” is the correct term.
Classicists believed that there was the ideal. So if there is no ideal, they are wrong.
I never told my own ideology in this thread. What I wrote is simply a history and a common definition of modern art.
Yes, one can talk for a long time about the nature of art. To put it provocatively, great artists do not theorize, but create creative works.
Personally, I am not a great artist, but I love to experiment and try out different things within the limits of my possibilities. It may be that once I find “my style” and then make lots of similar photos. But at the moment I’m still a beginner and am very happy to discover new things.
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We are going in circles now. I hope you can see the contradiction of that statement. If there is no ideal, there is no right or wrong, therefore classicism cannot be wrong. Just different.
To put it provocatively,
Leonardo Da Vinci, “A Treatise on Painting”, “Notebooks”
James Whistler, “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies”
Vincent Van Gogh, “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”
Miles Mathis, best of essays by Miles Mathis
To list just a few.
And you can be absolutely sure that every artist theorizes at some point, even if they don’t publish their thoughts. To not do so would be to go through life thoughtlessly. It’s not even possible to do that (although some people certainly appear to be giving it their best shot).
Obvious business related explanations aside: mass consumption breeds mass conformity, otherwise the whole concept of an influencer makes no sense. Innovation usually happens in isolation or at least with very small groups.
We’ve put millions of people together on the internet and with social media it’s even more difficult to find a small, isolated enclave. It’s probably only natural art starts to trend largely in the same direction. We’re a social species after all and acceptances among the group is paramount to that.
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Ok, I got you.
Yes, that might be true. That’s why I said “provocatively”. However, my point was, that great artist have a strong disire to do creative work. Yes, they may also reflect about their work. But in my opinion, great art originates not from theory.
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I am always amazed by the number of people who imagine that by pressing the shutter thousands of times, they will necessarily make THE “good” image, that it will then be enough to find like the golden flake in the tons of mud…
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My theory is that most people who make pictures theorise about their own work. What makes this picture good and that picture bad? What changes to some other picture would make it better?
With practice, the process can become instinctive. But in the early stages, the process needs thought and imagination, perhaps guided by teachers, certainly by considering works by other people. This develops into a personal aesthetic which is (or can be, or should be) far more than simply “style”. A style is about visual similarity. An aesthetic is deeper. It is about emotion, feeling, resonance, communication, evocation, call-and-response, digging into the subconscious.
On books by people who make pictures, I suggest anything by Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Johannes Itten. And Albert Henry Munsell. EDIT: and Ansel Adams.
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Pressing the shutter thousands of times will train you in getting a good picture. Just because you can study most photographic elements like composition, lighting etc, it won’t make you a better photographer if you have no actual experience and practice. I don’t believe that just because the camera does all the capturing work nowadays, that you don’t need to train, like any other art.