• Trouble logging in? Send us a message with your username and/or email address for help.
New posts

danhall

Beach Lover
Jul 14, 2006
140
9
danhallstudio.com
DanHall, I think your question is interesting, but let me ask you another question regarding a similar subject of which you are very aware -- music. Do you think that folk musicians are taking away from the classical style of music? I for one, can greatly appreciate both, and listen to one as much as the other. I could honestly say that it would be difficult for me to say which I liked best.

That's a very good analogy. I can work with that. Please bear in mind that these are my perceptions only, not some dogma I wish to force on others. I should really just keep my mouth shut, but since you asked....

I think that most people can relate to music more readily than visual art. Something about taking the time to "read" an image has gotten lost in the age of television. To that extent, I certainly have a different experience of visual art than most. I hear music in the same way that I see paintings. There are notes which "go" together and make harmony, and there are colors that do so as well. When I see an untrained "artist" who hasn't yet learned to carefully consider the choice of color or form, it is directly analogous (for me) to a teenager playing guitar in a music shop, clumsily hacking out old Metallica riffs and generally sounding like the murder of a young cat. Neither have yet to grasp the language. Art is indeed a language, as is music. It is just non-verbal. It has been developed over thousands of years. We should respect that in this disposable culture.

There have been many occasions (here and elsewhere) when I have seen some or another painting hanging in a coffee shop or restaurant that I found visually offensive (bad color, form, etc.). Just like if there was punk music being played at an exquisite Sunday brunch. It just tells me that we, as a culture, have lost our sensitivity to images. This may sound rude, but just because you can go out and buy paints, canvas, and brushes does not make you an artist. I might fix my sink, but I am not a plumber.

I do not equate "untrained" and "folk" with each other, either. Folk artists (visual and musical) have found a unique way of looking at the world or putting things together. Whereas, untrained people make dissonant music, play wrong notes, or make swirly paintings with no focal point, meaning, or color scheme. These are two different things, and thus is my lament for art instruction. If everything can be posited as art, then nothing is. We have somehow lost our ability to frankly state: "that is awful".

My second semester painting teacher came around the class one day and asked us to name five LIVING painters. Let's just say it was an embarrassing exercise. We all know Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, and Rembrandt in the same way that we all know Mozart, Beethoven, Elvis, and Michael Jackson. But are we really engaged with the art that is being made in our own time? Many people will dismiss some things as being frou-frou New York crap, but there are beautiful and intensely cerebral works being made all over, that are also quite lively and engaging. That is why I am visually offended when I see the swirly, amateur stuff hanging with a high price tag under the guise of art. This "artist" doesn't look at other painters, or is not really invested in this pursuit. It's just fun-time. Woohoo.

They have a name for my affliction. It's called the Po-Mo blues. I should write a song about it. It would be in the key of F#min.
 

seacrestkristi

Beach Fanatic
Nov 27, 2005
3,539
36
That's one of the things I:love: about this country is our freedom. Our freedom to put out whatever we feel is art to our own soul and also the freedom to keep on truckin' :leaving: when we see art we don't :love: If some one else wants to pay big bucks well good for them. Maybe they see something awesomely beautiful that I missed. :bow: Maybe if I'm lucky they will share with me or enlighten me to a new view. :dunno: :love:
 

danhall

Beach Lover
Jul 14, 2006
140
9
danhallstudio.com
i realize that I might not have answered the original question.

No, folk music doesn't take away from classical music. Just as Pop-Art doesn't take away from Impressionism. These are genres, and I am mostly concerned with quality, whatever way it may be made manifest.

thanks
 
New posts


Sign Up for SoWal Newsletter