NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm really looking for a discussion here from people who have a passing interest at best in visual art, paintings primarily, and not from the artist's point of view, though everyone is certainly welcome to chime in.

I've been working--well, hard to really call it working when I only look at it once every 5 or 6 months--on an essay based on the ideas found in John Berger's book Ways of Seeing and Walter Benjamin's Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, but updated to include the digital age.

I like to teach the opening chapter of Berger's book when I teach freshman composition, and as part of the assignment, I ask my students to find a piece of art they can relate to. I generally limit them to paintings because that's what Berger primarily talks about, and they, with a few rare exceptions, immediately head for Google's image search to find their examples, and I can't blame them--it has the easiest access and widest variety.

Here's what I'm wondering, however. How much are tools like Google image search impacting the ways people, especially young, digitally minded people, perceiving works of art, especially painting? Some of my students have had problems understanding the impact of particularly large or small pieces, mostly because everything is the same size on a 14 to 20 inch screen. Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" becomes the same size as Seurat's "A Sunday at La Grande Jatte." How does that change your perspective as it comes to appreciating the impact of a painting?

Or anything along those lines. I figure if there's any group that is diverse enough to make this an interesting conversation, it's you people.

I think you are right that it takes a lot away from the experience, but that problem was around pre-google. I remember as a child, pouring over books of photos of paintings, there were some I liked and some I did not. I remember my grandmother having a coffee table book filled with paintings by Native Americans, and looking at it, and seeing a painting I just didn't care for, that she happened to have a framed print of in her bathroom (of all places) that was about 10 X 13 in size. I loathed that picture, I asked her one day why she liked it and she said "I fell in love with it at the art museum.

Well, she took me, and it wasn't a small painting, it was huge.....at least 5 feet tall, and it wasn't flat and shiny like it was in the book, nor was it framed and matted like the print in her bathroom it was huge, and textured, and beautiful.

sorry.......I don't know what else to say.

I think you are right that it takes a lot away from the experience, but that problem was around pre-google. I remember as a child, pouring over books of photos of paintings, there were some I liked and some I did not. I remember my grandmother having a coffee table book filled with paintings by Native Americans, and looking at it, and seeing a painting I just didn't care for, that she happened to have a framed print of in her bathroom (of all places) that was about 10 X 13 in size. I loathed that picture, I asked her one day why she liked it and she said "I fell in love with it at the art museum.

Well, she took me, and it wasn't a small painting, it was huge.....at least 5 feet tall, and it wasn't flat and shiny like it was in the book, nor was it framed and matted like the print in her bathroom it was huge, and textured, and beautiful.

sorry.......I don't know what else to say.
Berger's and Benjamin's pieces deal with the pre-google world, which is why I was hoping to hear from people whose primary contact with visual art has been digital. I had a similar experience with Pollock's work. The first time I saw it was in a dimly lit auditorium as a projection on a distant wall. I wrote at the time that it looked like someone had dipped a cat in paint and flung it at a wall. I didn't appreciate the power of his work until I saw it face to face a couple of years later. I've tried looking at his work online and it's so lacking now that I've seen it live.

How much are tools like Google image search impacting the ways people, especially young, digitally minded people, perceiving works of art, especially painting? Some of my students have had problems understanding the impact of particularly large or small pieces, mostly because everything is the same size on a 14 to 20 inch screen.

This is probably not the answer you are looking for at all, but I'd say it is not impacting the way I perceive works of art at all - which is not because I'd migitate the effect the digitalization/re-formatting has on the spirit/whatever of a piece, but because I'd never say that I form an opinion/perception of "that piece of art" by a google image of it. If you allow me to make a rather shaky analogy, that is like asking whether I think the idea of putting abstracts/summaries in front of a longer text is revolutionizing/altering the way I perceive longer texts/books today. I'll be ale to classify it very roughly (statute/portrait/abstract art or, say, essay/scientific study/romance) and get a main idea of what it might be about, but nobody'd say you can judge a book from its abstract/summary, right?

I do not think that looking at visual art on a computer screen actually counts as visual art unless it was made to be seen on a screen. Smunkee's example is perfect to show the difference between art and the representation of art. On the screen, you get the latter. Not the art itself.

I do not think that looking at visual art on a computer screen actually counts as visual art unless it was made to be seen on a screen. Smunkee's example is perfect to show the difference between art and the representation of art. On the screen, you get the latter. Not the art itself.

But what if that's the only way you can experience it?

I don't know if Google image search would have any more impact on perceptions of art any more than seeing them only in a book would, though. Take any painting and Google it, and you'll see a wide variety of colors represented on the same image -- it's no different with books (how true was the color in the reproduction to the original painting, how old is the book, how much has the color faded)

But to see a painting in person, where you can really see the brush strokes, see how thick the artist has set the paint on the canvas, that's where you see a difference, I'd think.

It's funny -- go into a museum and so many people seem to stand a "respectful" distance from the artwork. Me...I'm getting up as close as I can and standing way back and walking all around the gallery.

edited: sorry for repeating what had already been said!

i dont see the difference between seeing a painting in a book, on a screen, or projected onto the classroom wall.

well except that once you decide you like picasso its easier to see bunches of pictures of his work online than you did back when it was just books.

none if it is the same as seeing the work in person but how much chance do you get to see any particular painting much less the body of an artists work?

on the screen, you miss the details the artist puts into the painting.

take "Sunday in the Park with George" on a screen you just see a bunch of people enjoying a park, but when you look at the actual painting and can see the fine detail the artist puts in, you can spend the entire day focusing on a child dancing in the background and the next time, be captivated by the crew on a rowboat.

Digital imagry does not capture the feelings that the artist puts into his paintings, nor does it show the interactions between the canvas textures as well as the painting styles used.

I don't know if Google image search would have any more impact on perceptions of art any more than seeing them only in a book would, though. Take any painting and Google it, and you'll see a wide variety of colors represented on the same image -- it's no different with books (how true was the color in the reproduction to the original painting, how old is the book, how much has the color faded)

But to see a painting in person, where you can really see the brush strokes, see how thick the artist has set the paint on the canvas, that's where you see a difference, I'd think.

It's funny -- go into a museum and so many people seem to stand a "respectful" distance from the artwork. Me...I'm getting up as close as I can and standing way back and walking all around the gallery.

edited: sorry for repeating what had already been said!


theres nothing wrong with making the same point.

i do that too, the move around to see at different angles thing. its part of the joy of seeing great art in person.

Is it possible, do you suppose, that any effect that the ubiquity of images might have on their special nature is counterbalanced by the idea that people who really care enough to examine them closely and search them for meaning won't be satisfied with a digital reproduction in the first place? In a sense, the googlization of visual artwork is democratizing--reproductions of famous pieces are now more widely available and easily accessible than ever before--but the flipside of that is that appreciation of visual art has never been what one might consider a popular pursuit. It's always been something that's been appreciated on the margins.

How does that change your perspective as it comes to appreciating the impact of a painting?
It doesn't really change my perspective - but then I'm not one of those "young, digitally minded people" ;).

I didn't grow up with the internet and I only started to use it when I was already almost 25 years old. The internet isn't a good medium to display paintings for any use except to basically list what's out there.

I remember a thread on here asking what one's favourite works of art were and the insane amount of time I spent googling for a link to Botticelli's The Birth of Venus that showed a picture of the painting that was not tiny, pixellated or discolored and gave at least an inkling on why I liked it.
And I didn't even to bother post any pics of any Kees van Dongen paintings because they all looked horrible and uninteresting as small pics on the screen, whereas the three or four original paintings I've seen by him all blew me away.

I also remember falling in love with a Braque painting I'd come across on the internet. I tried to find a place to buy a print - and it turned out that the real colors of the painting were nothing like the ones I saw online. Had I seen it in a museum, I wouldn't have looked at it twice, simply because the (wrong) colors were what had drawn me to the picture in the first place.

Here's what I'm wondering, however. How much are tools like Google image search impacting the ways people, especially young, digitally minded people, perceiving works of art, especially painting? Some of my students have had problems understanding the impact of particularly large or small pieces, mostly because everything is the same size on a 14 to 20 inch screen. Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" becomes the same size as Seurat's "A Sunday at La Grande Jatte." How does that change your perspective as it comes to appreciating the impact of a painting?


I seem to remember much the same questions and discussion surrounding postcard reproductions of works in the pre-internet age.

Well, speaking from personal experience, tools like Google have enabled me to gain a "feel" for art that I might not have been able to without it. I grew up in a suburban community, and as you know their cultural facilities are generally limited, which meant that I had little experience with the fine arts until I was able to start learning about them on the Internet.

Google enabled me to really discover the history and styles of art, from which I then began to develop my interest. By the time I was capable of visiting galleries regularly, I had accrued enough knowledge and exposure to the art to really begin appreciating it.

Things like Google, in my opinion, serve as a very helpful "trainer" to introduce you to artwork that you might never have seen at all without it. In fact, I would also credit things like Wikipedia for having a similar effect; by democratizing art, they provide a jump start for more people to get in to it.

I know the question wasn't directed at me, but: In this thread, you can assume that almost any question I raise is directed to anyone who wants to answer it. I'm looking for as much opinion as I can get here.

I see it just the way they have said before: you do not get "the piece of art" by that google image, but only a representation thereof. Meaning that your question here is slightly 'misguided' as you *don't* experience the piece of art when you look at its google representation in the first place, but only, well, the representation.

Want yet another shaky analogy? Consider the situation where you might ask whether modern travel diaries and documentaries etc. changed our perception of travel experiences to foreign countries, and someone had answered "Nah, seeing how those don't give you "travel experiences to foreign countries" but only a sort of representation thereof, so it doesn't change shit for the perception of an actual, own travel". Saying "Why yes, but what if the travel docus would be the only way you can perceive own travel?" wouldn't be a legitimate answer (question?) to that, then, because, well, you haven't yet perceived any 'own travel' if you only watched travel docus.

Am I makign any sense at all to you?

You are, and you bring up an interesting point. We may not get an idea of the experience from a travel brochure, but that brochure can certainly color the way we experience our trip. The digital image can cause us to get an unrealistic idea of what the piece of art actually looks like, because it doesn't provide the context that seeing it in person provides.

But what if that's the only way you can experience it?

I know the question wasn't directed at me, but:

I see it just the way they have said before: you do not get "the piece of art" by that google image, but only a representation thereof. Meaning that your question here is slightly 'misguided' as you *don't* experience the piece of art when you look at its google representation in the first place, but only, well, the representation.

Want yet another shaky analogy? Consider the situation where you might ask whether modern travel diaries and documentaries etc. changed our perception of travel experiences to foreign countries, and someone had answered "Nah, seeing how those don't give you "travel experiences to foreign countries" but only a sort of representation thereof, so it doesn't change shit for the perception of an actual, own travel". Saying "Why yes, but what if the travel docus would be the only way you can perceive own travel?" wouldn't be a legitimate answer (question?) to that, then, because, well, you haven't yet perceived any 'own travel' if you only watched travel docus.

Am I makign any sense at all to you?

I seem to remember much the same questions and discussion surrounding postcard reproductions of works in the pre-internet age.

Berger doesn't address that directly, but he does mention reproductions of famous pieces on coffee mugs, posters and the like. I'm just thinking that what the internet has done is take that ubiquity, that commonality to unimagined levels.

I don't know if Google image search would have any more impact on perceptions of art any more than seeing them only in a book would, though. Take any painting and Google it, and you'll see a wide variety of colors represented on the same image -- it's no different with books (how true was the color in the reproduction to the original painting, how old is the book, how much has the color faded)

i dont see the difference between seeing a painting in a book, on a screen, or projected onto the classroom wall.
Apart from the size factor (even a book can often give you a bigger image of the painting than the computer screen) that's definitely true.

I do think that size is a pretty important factor, though - I recently started taking photographs again and it's frustrating how much worse a mere reduction in size (in this case from full screen size to maybe quarter screen size) can make a photo look.

But yeah, it's not like you really have the chance to see all paintings "for real". Or, rather, even if we have, we usually don't use it. I certainly haven't gone to all that many museums in my city even though there are many.

Is it possible,[..] that any effect that the ubiquity of images might have on their special nature is counterbalanced by the idea that people who really care enough [..] won't be satisfied with a digital reproduction in the first place?
I might not use 'counterbalance' here - IMO, for those people who actually care, the internet/ggogle representation of art doesn't have any impact beyond the one WYTYG mentioned, that one can use it as a form of readily accessible catalogue for referencing needs.

In a sense, the googlization of visual artwork is democratizing[..]but the flipside of that is that appreciation of visual art has never been what one might consider a popular pursuit.
Again, I somewhat disagree with 'flipside', as it implies anything had changed/been worsened. For "the people who care" your 'marginalites', nothing has changed whatsoever (except for maybe one or two of them who have been lured into real arts and their appreciation by googled art). As you already said, 'real', 'knowledgeable', 'see-it-in-the-original' kind of appreciation hasn't been a majority thing before, and now still isn't. The only thing that changed is that now random non-art-intellectuals like me have a rough idea of what kind of painting we're talking about with a handful or two more paintings than I might had I not been able to acces them conveniently on the web.

I remember looking at the Mona Lisa in art books and thinking, "so?" Then, a few years ago I went to the National Museum where it happened to be on loan. There was a world of difference. You could get close to it and see details that were never evident in the books. This was the same year that I saw the Viet Nam Veterans' Memorial - being in the presence of the actual piece has such a different impact, more profound, than seeing pictures, or even good reproductions where much is lost.

When something is reduced to a digital image or pixels on a page, it really isn't the same as the reality.

I think that scale between paintings is lost to the same degree when they are reproduced in books.

Because of this, I dont think that looking at art on a computer screen is really revolutionary - the media is different but the scale is the same.

I dont think there is any substitute for seeing the paintings themselves in person, which has always been a more gratifying and enlightening experience for me.

I remember looking at the Mona Lisa in art books and thinking, "so?" Then, a few years ago I went to the National Museum where it happened to be on loan. There was a world of difference. You could get close to it and see details that were never evident in the books. This was the same year that I saw the Viet Nam Veterans' Memorial - being in the presence of the actual piece has such a different impact, more profound, than seeing pictures, or even good reproductions where much is lost.

When something is reduced to a digital image or pixels on a page, it really isn't the same as the reality.

*nods* like the difference between looking at a postcard of the Grand Canyon and actually standing on a ledge looking out at that same scenery.

Berger doesn't address that directly, but he does mention reproductions of famous pieces on coffee mugs, posters and the like. I'm just thinking that what the internet has done is take that ubiquity, that commonality to unimagined levels.

On the other hand, that ease of access to those images is also coupled with unparalleled information about the image -- you can readily read the history of a work, read about the artist, read historical criticisms of the work, and compare it to other works by the same artist, or compare with other artists working in the same medium/time period/subject matter/et al. In that regard, I think the act of looking up an image online could be arguably more powerful than simply seeing it in the context of a museum wall, where the only supplementary information about the work is what's on the wall next to it, what the docent tells you about it, or anything you bring to it yourself.




I do think that size is a pretty important factor, though - I recently started taking photographs again and it's frustrating how much worse a mere reduction in size (in this case from full screen size to maybe quarter screen size) can make a photo look.


I know I've been in museums to see a famous painting and been underwhelmed to see it really wasn't as impressive at I thought it would be, or felt like I could fall into a work that I'd never cared about, having been impacted by the sheer scale of it.

But what if that's the only way you can experience it?

Then I would suggest experiencing visual art that was designed to be seen on a computer screen.

EDIT:
http://www.canadacouncil.ca/NR/rdonlyres/6250E782-6CE7-4D5E-A0A3-09070A4CD8AC/0/Wong_2.jpg

But what if that's the only way you can experience it?

you don't have a Art Gallery/Museum in your area?

In this thread, you can assume that almost any question I raise is directed to anyone who wants to answer it. I'm looking for as much opinion as I can get here.
I know, I'm familiar with the Nazzian kind of threads; I just wanted to make sure :]

We may not get an idea of the experience from a travel brochure, but that brochure can certainly color the way we experience our trip. The digital image can cause us to get an unrealistic idea of what the piece of art actually looks like, because it doesn't provide the context that seeing it in person provides.

Yes, that's what I meant, basically. Both the aspect of "not seeing everything there is to see" and of "not getting that own experience factor".

And the analogy even holds water when you stretch it to the point of these representations sparking your interest: I think both the travel report and the 'democratized' images have done wonders to common interest in the respective subject represented, but both can only go so far in conveying the actual thing, and can, in the end, not even slightly substitute the real thing.

And there's nothing bad about 'consuming' those representations, and/or liking to do so, or maybe even preferring it - as long as one doesn't claim to 'get the same out of it, essentially' as one does from the original, as some people are prone to do. I happily 'consume' a couple of catalogue/book/internet pictures of art every once in a while and get a rough idea of them, and that is all I want and need - I'm terribly bored by galleries etc. And while I myself am more the travelling than the docu watching kind, I can understand the person who just likes to read a new book about some other new country every month, but wouldn't acre for actually travelling.

It's funny -- go into a museum and so many people seem to stand a "respectful" distance from the artwork. Me...I'm getting up as close as I can and standing way back and walking all around the gallery.

edited: sorry for repeating what had already been said!

A lot of art needs to be seen from a distance. You can't see the larger composition, if you're focusing on the brush strokes.

And that makes me think that looking at visual art via computer is just as valid as looking at it in person. One does get to see the elements that make the composition, rather than being overwhelmed by details.

Then I would suggest experiencing visual art that was designed to be seen on a computer screen.

EDIT:
http://www.canadacouncil.ca/NR/rdonlyres/6250E782-6CE7-4D5E-A0A3-09070A4CD8AC/0/Wong_2.jpg

That's very helpful, but it also raises another issue. In the digital world, copies are identical to the originals, and in the world of painting, part of the value of a piece--for better or worse--is in the fact that it is an original from which copies can be made. So how do digital artists deal with that question of the value of an original piece?

A lot of art needs to be seen from a distance. You can't see the larger composition, if you're focusing on the brush strokes.

And that makes me think that looking at visual art via computer is just as valid as looking at it in person. One does get to see the elements that make the composition, rather than being overwhelmed by details.

I agree with the first part of that, but it seems to me that what you lose in the digital medium is the ability to go back and forth, because it's unusual to see a digital representation of a painting that doesn't pixilate badly when you try to zoom in on it. Things like texture are completely lost in the translation from the physical to digital medium.

you don't have a Art Gallery/Museum in your area?There are a couple of them down here, but they're less than impressive. But I was talking more along the lines of say, a poor kid in Estonia who wants to see "La Grande Jatte." He may never have the money to go to Chicago, and who knows if the piece will ever make it to even a bordering country, much less his town, and if he'd have the money to see it if it did.

I agree with the first part of that, but it seems to me that what you lose in the digital medium is the ability to go back and forth, because it's unusual to see a digital representation of a painting that doesn't pixilate badly when you try to zoom in on it. Things like texture are completely lost in the translation from the physical to digital medium.

When I go to a gallery, I do hang back. I squint to see the work in terms of light and dark. I don't have the urge to see the craftsmanship, if you will, that the artist put into each brush stroke. I don't know that appreciating art requires looking at it with a magnifying glass.

The squinting part is especially true if I'm trying to make a sketch of something. That's usually not a painting or a sculpture, but a feature on a building or a machine.

True, but so many people walk into a gallery, walk around in the order the paintings hang on the wall, stay 8 feet away and never vary their perspective with the works they are viewing. All I'm saying is that getting up close to see how thick or thin the paint has been applied can be meaningful, as can seeing a group of paintings arranged on the wall. I've never worked in a museum, but I'd think that there's some rhyme and reason to displaying works in a certain fashion. Taking all that in can bring meaning to any one work, as well.

I'd never suggest that one representation is more valid than the other, but I would argue for considering any work of art, from paintings to literature, from a variety of perspectives.
I think there are a lot of people that just walk through galleries. I find a greater need to get up close to sculpture than I do to drawings and paintings.

*Is this the first snob post in this thread?*

A lot of art needs to be seen from a distance. You can't see the larger composition, if you're focusing on the brush strokes.

And that makes me think that looking at visual art via computer is just as valid as looking at it in person. One does get to see the elements that make the composition, rather than being overwhelmed by details.

True, but so many people walk into a gallery, walk around in the order the paintings hang on the wall, stay 8 feet away and never vary their perspective with the works they are viewing. All I'm saying is that getting up close to see how thick or thin the paint has been applied can be meaningful, as can seeing a group of paintings arranged on the wall. I've never worked in a museum, but I'd think that there's some rhyme and reason to displaying works in a certain fashion. Taking all that in can bring meaning to any one work, as well.

I'd never suggest that one representation is more valid than the other, but I would argue for considering any work of art, from paintings to literature, from a variety of perspectives.

I think there are a lot of people that just walk through galleries. I find a greater need to get up close to sculpture than I do to drawings and paintings.

*Is this the first snob post in this thread?*One might argue that the entire thread is a snob thread, and so every post in it is a snob post. :D

When I go to a gallery, I do hang back. I squint to see the work in terms of light and dark. I don't have the urge to see the craftsmanship, if you will, that the artist put into each brush stroke. I don't know that appreciating art requires looking at it with a magnifying glass.

The squinting part is especially true if I'm trying to make a sketch of something. That's usually not a painting or a sculpture, but a feature on a building or a machine.

I think there are a lot of people that just walk through galleries. I find a greater need to get up close to sculpture than I do to drawings and paintings.

*Is this the first snob post in this thread?*

Are you an engineer? I think that if you are, or something along those lines, that you'd be more examining of 3D art than a painting.

I look at it as being very similar to reading a book or poem.

When I read a book or poem, I (like most people) start at the beginning, and go through to the end, sometimes re-reading a short passage, sometimes taking a break, usually underlining striking words, phrases, passages, and scenes. An example of this is White Noise by Delillo. I read it several years ago for fun.

I'm now reading White Noise again for a class on contemporary American lit. Now, I'm going back and reading a short passage dozens of times, hearing several different readings and interpretations, looking at it from numerous new angles.

With a poem, you can rearrange the lines, change the breaks, and make it look like prose...for example, look at Brooks' "We Real Cool". When it is usually published, it looks like this:
We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

but, I can easily type it like this:
We real cool. We left school. We lurk late. We strike straight. We sing sin. We thin gin. We jazz June. We die soon.
and the impact is somewhat different. It gives a new perspective on the same material.

I look at a painting much the same way. Digital, photographic, and print versions show the same material in a different way. The ideal way to judge a painting is in its original form, however, it is not detrimental (and, I'd even argue it is very beneficial) to see it in a different way.

You mentioned Pollock...when you see the paintings live, you see the texture, the little bumps and minute details that just can't be captured any other way. You see the shadows of where something once had been, and he painted over, you see the layers and shadows. Then you see the same painting printed. Suddenly, you see the same painting, but get a very different view of it...the forms become more noticeable, while the texture is all but lost.

Viewing things in the manner they were originally intended is important, but viewing it in many different ways is sometimes even more vital.

There are a couple of them down here, but they're less than impressive. But I was talking more along the lines of say, a poor kid in Estonia who wants to see "La Grande Jatte." He may never have the money to go to Chicago, and who knows if the piece will ever make it to even a bordering country, much less his town, and if he'd have the money to see it if it did.

Ahh... Got it. ;)

Are you an engineer? I think that if you are, or something along those lines, that you'd be more examining of 3D art than a painting.
I've carved a piece, or two. Mostly wood, but I've tried my hand at casting. So I guess it is natural for me to be biased more toward the how-to of sculpturing than to 2-D works.

Bump

since you bumped...

did the guy have something more to say than that copies of art arent as good as seeing the real thing?

who has the time, money and inclination to see in person all the important art of the world? it would take such dedication that i dont see how you could do much else in life than go from museum to gallery to corporate office.

since you bumped...

did the guy have something more to say than that copies of art arent as good as seeing the real thing?

who has the time, money and inclination to see in person all the important art of the world? it would take such dedication that i dont see how you could do much else in life than go from museum to gallery to corporate office.

Actually, what he argues is that there's a tradeoff. On the plus side, art is available to people who wouldn't have access to it otherwise, and he looks at that as a good, even if the quality of that art is compromised a bit. He's a Marxist, so he's looking at this from the point of view of the masses, and he wants to break down the institutional power that stands between the common person and the world of art. He sees reproduction as that tool. But he recognizes that there is something lost in the meantime.

Actually, what he argues is that there's a tradeoff. On the plus side, art is available to people who wouldn't have access to it otherwise, and he looks at that as a good, even if the quality of that art is compromised a bit. He's a Marxist, so he's looking at this from the point of view of the masses, and he wants to break down the institutional power that stands between the common person and the world of art. He sees reproduction as that tool. But he recognizes that there is something lost in the meantime.

hmmmm

is there are marxist stance on the production of art?

it seems to me that if one removed the profit motive from the whole museum/gallery business, then art becomes much more of a "i know it when i see it" thing. without art critics being paid to create art stars, there might be a whole democritization of art appreciation.

hmmmm

is there are marxist stance on the production of art?

it seems to me that if one removed the profit motive from the whole museum/gallery business, then art becomes much more of a "i know it when i see it" thing. without art critics being paid to create art stars, there might be a whole democritization of art appreciation.
I'm getting a bit out of my depth here, but one point that he makes is that it's a bit ridiculous to put a price tag on art, and that the thing we seem to value is that a painting is original and old, as opposed to what it communicates to the viewer.

I'm getting a bit out of my depth here, but one point that he makes is that it's a bit ridiculous to put a price tag on art, and that the thing we seem to value is that a painting is original and old, as opposed to what it communicates to the viewer.

thats true and not true eh?

there isnt much expensive art that is not in some way great.

yeah theres a lot of crap that gets touted by art experts for various reasons but the stuff that lasts speaks to someone.

i think its ridiculous not to put a price tag on art. im not a marxist. i dunno, if it is my job to produce art, its a very limited suppply and has to be distributed on some basis. money indicates relative desire.

thats true and not true eh?

there isnt much expensive art that is not in some way great.

yeah theres a lot of crap that gets touted by art experts for various reasons but the stuff that lasts speaks to someone.

i think its ridiculous not to put a price tag on art. im not a marxist. i dunno, if it is my job to produce art, its a very limited suppply and has to be distributed on some basis. money indicates relative desire.

I'm not a Marxist either, and I think that Berger is talking about an ideal situation that will never actually occur--it certainly hasn't panned out like he'd hoped it would at least.

Meh. I turned my back on the so-called "Fine Arts" years ago, when I realized that technique & workmanship would never get me anywhere so long as I refused to submit to buggery at the hands of would-be "patrons". At least in commercial art, you're fairly compensated (prior to slowly dying of cadmium poisoning) and you don't have to actually fellate moneyed admirers to establish yourself.

Meh. I turned my back on the so-called "Fine Arts" years ago, when I realized that technique & workmanship would never get me anywhere so long as I refused to submit to buggery at the hands of would-be "patrons". At least in commercial art, you're fairly compensated (prior to slowly dying of cadmium poisoning) and you don't have to actually fellate moneyed admirers to establish yourself.
I can understand that. The liberating thing about writing poetry is that there's never even the illusion of being able to support yourself on your creative work, so it's liberating in a way. The only time that the pressure builds is when you're trying to get one of those horribly rare creative writing teaching jobs--then the oral sex begins, and it generally involves a little backdoor action as well.

I can totally understand where you're coming from Nazz.
Having spent most of my life in a backwaters town in the middle of nowhere in NZ, my chance to see artworks by famous people had been very limited. Mostly just from TV, book or computer. Problem with this is that all 3 mediums distort the artwork into a flat 2-dimensional uniform sized rectangle.

Two years ago they showed Picasso's largest artwork here in HK, "The Parade" (10.5 metres by 16.2m). Until you see it in person, you have no idea as to the enormity of it. A pc screen will do it no justice at all. Though you will have to wait 20 years to have the chance, as they only display once every couple of decades.

Recently here in HK, they had a showing of some contempary art from the Centre Pompidou, Paris. One particular piece sticks vividly in my mind. I can't name it off-hand but it was very much in the Jackson Pollock style of paint splatters. The sort that many people dismiss as, 'a child could do it'. It was a big piece, easily over 6 foot tall.
Personally I've always liked these sorts of paintings but I've never had the opportunity to see one up close. These paintings are extremely tactile pieces. You have to yourself from running your fingers over them (well, I did).
From different angles, the light plays across the paint half-forming images.

Coolest thing that happened while I was admiring it was some teenagers who came up next to me. They were staring at it when suddenly one of them literally shrieked and started pointing excitedly at one part of the painting. What she was saying I've no idea (as it was in Cantonese) and I've no idea what it was she saw there (from the looks on her friends' faces, neither could they!), but it drove home the beauty of these pieces: What you see in it is entirely up to you and your imagination.
She suddenly found some sort of sense or order from those apparent random and meaningless paint splatters, even if no-one else around could.

A photo of that painting in a book or on a computer screen will never have the same effect on that girls' imagination.

There was also a fantastic sculpture on display which I could have spent a day staring at from different angles and not got bored with. Again, a picture on the screen wouldn't enthrall me so.

But what if that's the only way you can experience it?

Since fine art is pretty much distributed all over the world, it's fairly obvious that you can't see most of it unless it happens to be on loan in a local gallery or museum. But, most areas have museums and galleries within driving distance. Perhaps you could assign your students to visit a gallery or museum (or have a field trip to the place, if your school can manage it), choose a picture and write the essay on something they have actually seen in the origiinal. If you don't do it as a field trip, you could probably arrange it with the facility to have the students sign in and be issued evidence of actually having visited.