Recent art that you liked

[stlukesguild]

Colorful flowers are cliché? What subject hasn’t been done to the point of cliché? Portraits? Landscapes? Cityscape? Animals? Nudes? Fruit?

 

[john]

Colorful flowers are cliché? What subject hasn’t been done to the point of cliché? Portraits? Landscapes? Cityscape? Animals? Nudes? Fruit?

You have a point, but not colorful flowers. And not a subject. I mean just the foreground hot colored flowers. With landscapes it's a such a convention to have hot color flowers in the forward. I personally just find it to be too obvious. I've done it with some of my paintings. Not a huge deal though. She sold it for fifty grand and it's a pretty painting.

 

[john]

I asked Google AI because I still find this confusing..... what is the difference between art and craft?

Key Differences:

• Purpose: Art is primarily focused on personal expression and evoking emotion or thought in the viewer. Craft, on the other hand, often emphasizes functionality and skill, creating objects designed for a specific purpose or use.
• Intent: Art is often created with the intention of being a unique and original work, while craft may involve the creation of multiple, similar objects. However, this isn't a hard and fast rule, as some artists work in series, and some craftspeople create one-of-a-kind pieces.

So the Mona Lisa is craft. It was made to be an object, designed to have use as a portrait. There is little personal expression. It may provoke emotion and thought in the viewer but that was not it's intent.

 

[Artyczar]

I'm not a fan of the Mona Lisa, but it says, "personal expression and evoking emotion or thought," and that seems like art to me.

 

[john]

I'm not a fan of the Mona Lisa, but it says, "personal expression and evoking emotion or thought," and that seems like art to me.

True. But da Vinci painted it simply as a commission. He was just performing a service and producing a piece of craft. Like a portrait photographer. He wasn't personally expressing anything or trying to evoke emotion or thought. He was essentially just copying what was in front of him like a modern day portrait photographer would. A really really good photographer.

Now if Francesco del Giocondo had just given a grant to da Vinci and told him to paint whatever he wanted, and Davinci painted Mona Lisa with a banana taped to her.....that would be art.

The hole in my argument is that portrait painters do want to illicit feelings in their viewers. That even though they are constrained to a certain task, they still want the recipients to smile and find satisfaction and joy. Mona Lisa was trying to smile, or something, and that amuses us.

I give up. LOL

 

[Artyczar]

All of Michelangelo's works were also commissions, I believe.

 

[brianvds]

All of Michelangelo's works were also commissions, I believe.

Yeah, he was a mere illustrator.

 

[stlukesguild]

What works of Art prior to the late 19th century were simply created as “self-expression”? How many works of Art created today are created without any thought to the wants or demands of a given market?