Recent art that you liked
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txomsy
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Don't know where to start. Just stayed three days in London, went to the British Museum, Wallace Collection, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Guildhall Gallery, Tate Modern... and likes pretty much everything I saw.
If you go to London, it is amazing the amount of incredible museums with free entry. An Art lover's paradise.
If you go to London, it is amazing the amount of incredible museums with free entry. An Art lover's paradise.
Bongo
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"White Garden in Twilight" reminds of Henri Rousseau's "Football Players". I have no idea what they could be playing it's not football (soccer).Well, that would be fabulous to see. so much to discover in those paintings. What task painting that!
In 2016 I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) to see Mystical Landscapes. An astounding show. Here is the description.
What a variety that demonstated man’s encounters of the spiritual, through different paths.
I fell in love with this quieter piece. It was not large compared to some of the other paintings. But I definitely felt drawn into that yard at twilight. I practically could feel and smell the green, the quieting of evening with nightfall approaching. The cooler air suggesting dew in morning.
I would absolutely love to buy the book the gallery put out of this show, that shows everything, but the price is unbelievable. It was high then and it’s higher now. $499 Which is a great shame. The surprise of the show for me were some pieces that were painted during the war for the Canadian government by our future famous artists- and they actually fit into the premise (MacDonald for ex). The cost of war. They were incredibly moving. But there were all kinds of styles and a wonderful list of artist. It was wonderful seeing their approaches to this part of our human experience.
Here’s a more descriptive and enjoyable article about this show.
White Garden In Twilight By Henri Le Sidaner
View attachment 45083
When I see pictures of this on the Internet, I see some where the flowers look white and there’s more color. But I remember it being this green when my face was 1 foot away from the painting.
stlukesguild
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That landscape painting is by Frederick Edwin Church: Rainy Season in the Tropics
Bongo
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Thanks John. I'm a big fan of George Bellows too
Bellow's "Dempsy vs Firpo"
my homage - "After Bellows"
TK H-H
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This piece by Ilene Meyer. I really love her work and find it inspiring. I hadn't seen this piece before.
I absolutely love surrealism, and find her work particularly eyecatching because of her choice of colors. Almost psychedelic in a way. Her work served as the inspiration for some surreal insect pieces I designed years ago. I never finished them but am thinking of revisiting the concepts soon.
I absolutely love surrealism, and find her work particularly eyecatching because of her choice of colors. Almost psychedelic in a way. Her work served as the inspiration for some surreal insect pieces I designed years ago. I never finished them but am thinking of revisiting the concepts soon.
Artyczar
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I don't know...kinda?
john
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Yes. I think it's beautiful. And it was made by humans with the intent to be beautiful and thought provoking. It's a little soft core porn-ish also but art has been like that at times. Those faces are so perfect. I'm amazed at the detail. Pausing the vid to admire the images helps.
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john
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Yeah, somehow because AI is involved it seems artificial. But then what about film making? A lot of artificial stuff with that also.
brianvds
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I have long wanted to zoom in on the paintings of Pieter Bruegel. Well, hi-res reproductions are available online, but the files are so huge they take ages to download, and then they promptly crash my computer.
I discovered a second best option: I have been following an account on X called Bruegelbot - it seems to be automated, but for once, AI is doing something useful: it posts random details from Bruegel paintings, in fairly good hi-res, like this one from "The Fight between Carnival and Lent":
What a marvelous painter. What I find interesting is that here and there, he used oils like tempera, i.e. building up his surface texture with lots of hatching with a fine brush. One can see this in the above detail, e.g. in the shadow side of the sleeves. But he also used a lot of more modern-looking painterly effects, cheerfully smearing on impasto wherever it suited him, e.g. in the upper left background here.
He seems to have found the perfect balance between painting from observation and painting from imagination.
I discovered a second best option: I have been following an account on X called Bruegelbot - it seems to be automated, but for once, AI is doing something useful: it posts random details from Bruegel paintings, in fairly good hi-res, like this one from "The Fight between Carnival and Lent":
What a marvelous painter. What I find interesting is that here and there, he used oils like tempera, i.e. building up his surface texture with lots of hatching with a fine brush. One can see this in the above detail, e.g. in the shadow side of the sleeves. But he also used a lot of more modern-looking painterly effects, cheerfully smearing on impasto wherever it suited him, e.g. in the upper left background here.
He seems to have found the perfect balance between painting from observation and painting from imagination.
txomsy
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There you have it. Is it art? Kinda(?).
What we forget is that this is not an AI work (guessing here, but I doubt an AI spontaneously created it of its own volition). It is the work of someone who engaged in conversation with the AI directing it what to do, trying and essaying over and over again until the AI produced what they wanted. The level of detail shown has required a similar level of attention from the author(s). Not that much different from any other digital art, for instance: instead of picking a brush you tell the computer to simulate one for you. You may move the "simulated" brush with a mouse of tablet, or with voice commands, but if digital art is art, if non-oil paintings are still paintings, then...
Now, for me: that doesn't mean it is Art. When I scribble a series of scratches on a sketchbook to make a < 5 minute sketch, I do not consider it Art, not intend it to be Art: most often than not it is a set of quick notes that by themselves look awful, with little attention to composition or quality, and anybody seeing them should notice that. Similarly, that it is made with a pencil, brush, computer program or AI is of no consequence, it is the qualities of the final work that matter. So if for you this works "kinda", it is "kinda" art. If it is "awesome in detail but dull in content", then it is "awesome in detail but dull in content" art, if it is a plagiarism or a lookalike, so it is, & so on.
OTOH, I remember reading last year (methinks) that there was a second Mona Lisa in Madrid, apparently from the same workshop and dates, and that it seems to be the earliest known copy of the original -mimicking in detail the whole creative process (hidden corrections included) meaning it must have been done simultaneously to the original. What is certain is that the "genius" was in the first one -whichever it was-, copies didn't require as much genius, just "technique" (and the technique in that copy was lesser than the Louvre one). The first was Art, the others might be "lesser art".
What I think I am trying to say is that there is not just a definition of "Art", but a continuum that is often blurry and subjective. So, the original question can only be answered in a similar, blurry and subjective way.
Artyczar
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Exactly. But also, we all have our own definitions of art. Some don't even think that digital art, created on a computer, is technically "art." You don't think your sketches and notes are art because you didn't intend them to be. Someone else may see that much differently, both of your, and their own rough sketches that they make. Historically, Aboriginal art probably wasn't intended to be art. The first murals in the caves were not intended to be either. At least not in the way we define art these days (not that there is an agreed-upon definition, anyway), which might be a moot argument. I personally feel both of these are indeed art. However, and I think we have all talked about this before, intending something to be art doesn't exactly make it art, though it seems like it must have something to do with it, especially since cave art hasn't been recognized as art because it wasn't intended to be. The definitions and the acceptance of these things are murky, and I predict it always will be.
txomsy
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Fully agree on most. Jut the thingy about cave art: whoever affirms it wasn't intended as such is probably overreaching. First there is no way to know for sure what it was intended to be, but for some (many, I'd say) pieces there was obviously an intent to make them aesthetic and realistic and abstract to some extent. One could argue the Sistine Chapel was intended to glorify the divinity rather than as Art, or many emperor/great person statues to glorify their subjects, even that many works are currently made to make a living primarily or sold to make money or bought as an investment. There is also an utilitarian dimension to Art. But that is not incompatible with it being Art as well.
Back to caves, I've seen paintings in places where only an aesthetic motivation would explain it. And many stone engravings that are not that different from grafitti. And Stonehenge surely had a ceremonial and likely scientific goal but is still an amazing feat of Architecture (which is also an Art). Not less than, say, the Smithsonian which also has a functional goal (museum), or the renewed Pompidou (hopefully) once the current works are finished, or Don Quixote which had an educational/critical main goal was Literature (also an Art). Potter decoration of the same times was certainly not primarily utilitarian either, bone/shell ornaments hardly, Venus statuettes had a mythical or maybe toy dimension, yet also an aesthetic one. Neanderthals 150.000 years ago made bone flutes, so they must have played music. Fur and leather clothing is at least 120.000 years old and its is difficult to believe they didn't develop more or less ntricate woving or use tools/ornaments to keep it in place... even if not, head skins were carefully extracted, it is difficult not to think they had a "magical/aesthetical/identification" role. It is even more difficult to accept that they had so many forms of art but their paintings were not.
You see, I have trouble with the assertion that utility is incompatible with Art. Or that Art is limited to painting.
I fear many need to compensate an inferiority complex by feeling superior to our ancestors, or denying their merit ascribing it to extraterrestrials (like the pyramids, Nazca lines or "astronaut" petroglyphs) or anything that detracts from their merits.
john
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It's been said before that if the person making it says it's art then it's art. No matter what it is. Even a banana taped to a wall, or a urinal. If they just made something without that intent, and we called it art later, I venture to say that it's not art. It may be incredibly beautiful and complex and engage the intellect but if the creator did not have the concept of creation of art in mind, then it isn't art. I think that the definition lies purely with the creator's intent. The cave painters were trying acquire the game animals. The graffiti writers were about their egos. Saying look at me, I was here. The religious paintings were about religion.
Of course this is a very modern biased sense of it. Art for merely art's sake is a fairly new concept. But maybe the only valid definition. The other was just craft, for various purposes.
To take this radical and admittedly possibly stupid erroneous idea to it's logical end, the Mona Lisa isn't art. Nor the cave paintings or Stonehenge It's merely a piece of very well done craft for the purpose of making a portrait. The banana taped to the wall is art.
This makes defining what art is very simple.
Of course this is a very modern biased sense of it. Art for merely art's sake is a fairly new concept. But maybe the only valid definition. The other was just craft, for various purposes.
To take this radical and admittedly possibly stupid erroneous idea to it's logical end, the Mona Lisa isn't art. Nor the cave paintings or Stonehenge It's merely a piece of very well done craft for the purpose of making a portrait. The banana taped to the wall is art.
This makes defining what art is very simple.
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