Recent art that you liked

Colorful flowers are cliché? What subject hasn’t been done to the point of cliché? Portraits? Landscapes? Cityscape? Animals? Nudes? Fruit?
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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.
 
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
 
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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?
 
I just came upon a number of more recent painting by “Pop Surrealist” Casey Weldon:

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Saint LG, thank you for posting these, and Michelle, thank you for painting them.
 
We don't usually associate Goya with still life. But I like this one. And it's kind of funny that even his still life pictures are somewhat grim and morbid. :LOL:

Francisco Goya (1746 - 1828) - Still life with Golden Bream Oil on canvas 45 x 63 cm.jpg

Francisco Goya (1746 - 1828) - Still life with Golden Bream. Oil on canvas, 45 x 63 cm.
 
We don't usually associate Goya with still life. But I like this one. And it's kind of funny that even his still life pictures are somewhat grim and morbid. :LOL:


Francisco Goya (1746 - 1828) - Still life with Golden Bream. Oil on canvas, 45 x 63 cm.
Still life in French or Italian translates to a suggested double meaning of 'death life' so sometimes they were used deliberately as a hidden message on the briefness of life. So, it's possible Goya was taking this and running with it.
 
Still life in French or Italian translates to a suggested double meaning of 'death life' so sometimes they were used deliberately as a hidden message on the briefness of life. So, it's possible Goya was taking this and running with it.

The vanitas paintings were usually full of life, with a few symbols of death, like a skull or blown out candle. In Goya's version, it's just death all the way. :LOL:
 
The vanitas paintings were usually full of life, with a few symbols of death, like a skull or blown out candle. In Goya's version, it's just death all the way.

Checkout the “still life” by Théodore Géricault:

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He picked up the body parts from the guillotine during the “Reign of Terror”.
 
... well, I guess I won't be posting in still life again .. never knew that position on still life but in reality the name says it all.
 
The vanitas paintings were usually full of life, with a few symbols of death, like a skull or blown out candle. In Goya's version, it's just death all the way.

Checkout the “still life” by Théodore Géricault:

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He picked up the body parts from the guillotine during the “Reign of Terror”.

It's the kind of thing that demonstrates the adage "the past is a foreign country." It gives me an idea for a movie: serial killer paints bits of his victims into still life pictures... :)
 
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