[Closed] Art is it too highbrow for me ?

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I went to an art gallery for the first time this year (I'm 45). It was the Saatchi gallery in that there London. I have to admit that 70% left me cold but the other 30% was mind blowing.

If you like it, that's what counts.

I went to an art gallery for the first time this year (I'm 45).

This make me sad.

Go and see stuff like this in the flesh;
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[img] http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/N/N01/N01902_9.jp g" target="_blank">http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/N/N01/N01902_9.jp g"/> [/img]

Nothing compares.

I'm always baffled by art that has to be explained. Why? If you look at it and get the message, or derive some pleasure, understanding or insight from a piece, then well done to the Artist. Whether it's abstract, a portrait, some landscape thing, or a sculpture, whatever, it doesn't matter. If you need to have someone tell you what you have just experienced, then maybe they didn't do a very good job.

I am perfectly content just looking at things and seeing if they're good to look at, and if they are, looking at them a bit more. I'm assured I'm missing out.

Whistlejacket stopped me dead- it's just amazing, it has more horseness than an actual horse.

Just got back from The Play That Goes Wrong, now that's art that anyone can get enjoyment from - proper lol for two hours.

If you need to have someone tell you what you have just experienced, then maybe they didn't do a very good job.

I kind of get what you are saying, although I much prefer watching the likes of Planet Earth with Attenborough explaining what's happening. So it's not as though having something explained ruins the experience by default.
Sometimes it can help the appreciation along greatly.

They did well getting that horse to pose like that for a few hours.

I think it was probably copied from a photograph 😉

It is a very strange thing.
I didn't know what to expect, but the exhibit I found most incredible was a whole room with the floor covered in oil.
It sounds ridiculous (and my wife would agree) but the whole floor was the blackest black and so shiny it reflected every other wall and the ceiling, which skewed your whole perspective on it.
I know it sounds rubbish, but I would never have thought an exhibit would effect me so much.
It's definitely made me want to go back there which must be a good thing?

I'm always baffled by art that has to be explained. Why? If you look at it and get the message, or derive some pleasure, understanding or insight from a piece, then well done to the Artist. Whether it's abstract, a portrait, some landscape thing, or a sculpture, whatever, it doesn't matter. If you need to have someone tell you what you have just experienced, then maybe they didn't do a very good job.

This in spades. Its also amazing how the view of a piece of work changes if people are asked to comment before they know who did it.

nealglover - Member

I think it was probably copied from a photograph

I'm pretty sure Flashy posted a photo of the painting. Horseception!

why does the like of Vetriano get such a hard time from critics

He tends to demand that just because his work sells easily that it should also be critically acclaimed. But popular and 'great' aren't the same thing.

Theres different markets for art - making and selling and buying 'real' art is an infinitesimally small market. Its reckoned about 1.6% of the population are the sort of people who would buy and actual, real piece of art. Not necessarily rich people but their people with a passion and drive that other people don't have and they might channel it into collecting art or into collecting exotic hifi or into fancy handmade bicycles or something. So art buyers are a small fraction of that 1.6% bunch of weirdos and serious art collectors are amongst that fraction of a fraction who can afford to buy any of it.. And as I say - they're not all rich they just have this innate drive. The first art collector I met was a school teacher and probably holds the biggest collection (public or private) of a certain mid-century scottish artist. He bought the first painting with his student grant.

The second market is people who buy things [i]about[/i] art - they might buy really nice books about art or quality reproductions and prints or whatever. There are far, far more of these people and a lot of them will have pretty much the same tastes as the first market buy might spend £50 on a good book about a great artist but won't have any actual paintings on their walls . The difference is there are many, many more people like this so theres much more money in this secondary market.

Vetriano's work plays really well this market and a third market - the kind of people who bought Athena posters when that was thing - which is an even bigger market sector still - they'd pay a £5 for a set of Vetriano placemats.

Basically Vetriano does really well out of affordable reproductions of his work. He sells his original work too but really he's selling to fans from this second market who happen to be able to afford it. A bit like pop music fans paying for authentic memorabilia, they've already got the album but they like it so much they'll bid for the scrap of paper the lyrics were written on. But as much as there might be a big price tag on these authentic scraps the really money is in the album sales.

It raises an interesting comparison though as to whether an artist who can sell a million reproductions of a painting for £1 each (like David Sheppard's [url= ]painting of an elephant[/url] which you could buy for a £1 and is reputed to have sold at least a million copies) is of greater or lesser merit to an artist who can sell one painting to one person for £1million.

I think it was probably copied from a photograph

Its a rubbing

... why does the like of Vetriano get such a hard time from critics

My understanding of the Jack Vettriano thing is that his work is accused of being closer to illustration than art. Now that is a very, very fuzzy line, if people like it for what it is then it's a success and I don't think it's a thing that anyone should get too sniffy about.

I didn't know what to expect, but the exhibit I found most incredible was a whole room with the floor covered in oil.

That'll be Richard Wilson [url=

that one)[/url] - seems to be an artist who makes no real concession to popularity - bit of a difficult pitch really 'its a room full of oil'. But his work always seems to be received really well by the broader public, seemingly exactly because he makes no real concession.

I have the good fortune to be near an amazing modern (and old) art museum who have just taken over for a festival through the city. Some of the art does need at the very least context - subtly different to explanation. Something about the concepts that the artist is conveying and when/where they were when they created it.
A very moving piece
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http://www.smh.com.au/national/a-leather-chair-a-laptop-of-death-a-vexed-decision-20110117-19u17.html

Its also amazing how the view of a piece of work changes if people are asked to comment before they know who did it.

If your coming at this from an emperors new clothes point of view then 100% agree but sometimes knowing a little about the artist or the type of work they've produced in the past and what lead them to the point of creating the thing that you're looking at helps you to understand what they might have been trying to convey.

Used to have a girlfriend that liked Mark Rothko - really could not see how this was art. Caravaggio and his like, now that was quite spectacular, especially in the flesh.

If your coming at this from an emperors new clothes point of view then 100% agree but sometimes knowing a little about the artist or the type of work they've produced in the past and what lead them to the point of creating the thing that you're looking at helps you to understand what they might have been trying to convey.

Look at it from another point of view - if we're talking about art made by the most esteemed artists and consumed by the keenest and most passionate patrons, curators and critics then thats work made for and consumed within a pretty rarified atmosphere. If you're not from within that sphere then some aspects of it are going to seem a little alien and might need a bit of context or explanation. The good thing about it though you can often experience that same art as those elite consumer for free and if reading a little bit of context is the only price you have to pay for 'admission' that seems pretty good value.

Think about in the same terms of the tastes in bicycles someone would have if they spend most of their employers time talking about bikes with strangers on the internet - those people would have an appreciation of the nuances that they feel makes a certain bike 10 or even 100 times more valuable than the ones most people buy even if they don't or can't buy bikes that cost that much. When a bunch of Pace's square-tubed bikes were exhibited in the Millennium Dome back in the day, displayed to a large, non-cycling audience - the needed to be accompanied by a little bit of explanation to understand why they were special and not just 'some bikes'.

painting of an elephant

I must be exhausted - I read that as eggplant and wondered what the hell you were on about. Then clicked the link and got more confused 😆 😆

I read that as eggplant and wondered what the hell you were on about

You're thinking of the St Helens Egg and Sausage Artist. He sometimes branched out into other food stuffs - he was big on Toast when I lived there - and saucy suggestive titles quite unbecoming of the Christian Bookshop window he used to exhibit in.

If I want to see a horse in the flesh, I'll visit a farm stables. 😉

I either like a painting or I'm not fussed about it. There is no explanation or analysis.

2 of those bits of art above don't do it for me. The other is alright.

But popular and 'great' aren't the same thing

(Questuon asked from a non-arty point of view, like Vettriano but no reproductions owned)

and move it beyond painting
this is one that is very moving due to it's setting and set up
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if you can find an exhibit by this artist it is well worth it
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https://wimdelvoye.be/work/art-farm/tattooed-pigs-1/
https://wimdelvoye.be/

Some of this relies heavily on context and an explanation of what it is

Used to have a girlfriend that liked Mark Rothko - really could not see how this was art

I never got it, until I stood in front of one. It was an uncanny feeling, really uncomfortable actually and that feeling stayed with me for days.

I saw a load of work by Frantisek Kupka in the very museum you were in and it blew me away. A lot of that was the explanation of it though and the evolution of the work. Seeing his paintings as a series of experiments was great. I'd love to go back.

I went to the Tate modern a good few years ago to a Lucien Freud exhibition knowing nothing about him or his work except that it was well respected and he'd painted a lot of famous people.

Couldn't figure out how or why on both counts. He had obviously developed a style but no-one had thought to tell him it was cr@p. I know that makes me a philistine but it was almost all awful - except for this one portrait he'd done as a young man which was pretty damn good and showed that it was all affectation.

It's rarely the same on screen. Whistlejacket is just ridiculous in the "flesh", it explodes off the canvas, never seen anything else quite like it. None of his other work that I've seen has any of that feeling and power. On screen it's just a horse. (it's ridiculously massive, that's a big part of it- 3 metres square, and beautifully presented in the gallery too- you get an incredible view of it from distance) Trying to recreate that on a computer screen is like trying to recreate riding with a photo.

... I know that makes me a philistine but it was almost all awful

It might just make you someone that doesn't like the work or at least that period of Lucien Freud. The list of artists that I don't like is probably longer than the list of artists that I do.

Just to poke my oar in one last time - I do a bit of am-dram with two companies, one with a very amateur, happy-go-lucky company, one with a company that puts on a proper job. I wouldn't be without either, what the amateur company puts on is great for the audience, it might have a few blurred edges but that's part and parcel. The more professional company operates at a level above my simple thinking - they have an attention to detail that utterly passes me by unless pointed out, but once pointed out, my appreciation of the art improves. So I think explanations have a part to play but there's nothing wrong in figuring itself out yourself.

If you need to have someone tell you what you have just experienced, then maybe they didn't do a very good job.

There was a program on the telly last night about JMW Turner's interpretation of science, as it evolved, in many of his paintings. That went way beyond what the casual viewer could gain from just looking at them.

So whilst I agree with what you're saying to a degree, it's also fascinating to learn about the layers of story telling in an item of artwork. And that requires a more detailed interpretation and description provided by others who have taken the time to look at the ideas that inform the art.

I often find that I don't enjoy it until I know more about it. For that reason I like the exhibitions that have those headphones with the running commentary. My viewpoint is that if you can't be arsed, fair enough, but if you're interested then crack on- it is definitely a subject that rewards study. If you can call loafing around listening to headphones when looking at stuff study 😉

There is too much Art around to actually see.

One of my main bugbares with the industry is it reliance on "old masters". The NPT for instance is stuffed to the gills with a vast selection of "brown" portraits, uninspired pictorial splotches of stuffed human vanity. It's been that way for centuries. The old master collections of thier early works (Caravaggio for instance) are spectacular, from the simplest pencil stroke to the inspired brush line take your breath away.. then you turn a corner and back to "brown".

And there are floors and corridors around the UK full of "brown"

Thank God for modern art.

Very few old masters inspire, those few pics CFH posted are on the edge of being inspirational but sadly it's just mainstream view, traditional view and I think jaded view. Plenty of impoverished artists have passed away with no recognition, pieces forgotten or burned or stuffed away somewhere. It's a well known fact that there isn't enough space to hang Art in this country, so all that's seen is a restricted view of traditional accepted forms. One day, (like never) it would be good for the NPT to open it vaults and let the public rummage around the stock, have a look at the forgotten works, those that have never been hung.. that would be interesting. London (bless it) does lead the way with galleries, but Leeds (rather its immediate neighbours) has two of the recent centuries greatest sculptors, can you name them ? Or the people that were/have been inspired by them ?

But, some stuff people like, some stuff people don't like.

Bit like bikes innit.

I always loved looking at pictures, listening to music and touching sculptures. Plays too. And cinema. Some you like, some you don't. I began making art at school, but not in earnest until in my 30s. Some art you understand easily, some you won't. Some art will inspire you, and some will fill you with revulsion. Worse still - boredom. Art doesn't 'require' explanation, and a fine piece of music or a painting etc will arguably 'stand on it's own', yet without some kind of backstory or assistance you are more often missing out.

I first saw a famous pre-raphaelite painting of a labourer 'asleep' in a quarry. Pretty picture, a bit boring for me. The subject of the scene has obviously been breaking stones with his rock-hammer. The sun is setting low and the autumn leaves are strewn amidst freshly broken rocks. You may or may not think the prone man must be cold in the evening, or maybe overheated from exhaustion. Really I just saw a man asleep after his hard day's graft, and so moved on to the next painting in the gallery.

Fast forward ten years and I'm halfway through a painting course before I meet the stonebreaker once more. This time on a postcard (one of hundreds of art gallery/museum cards collected by the tutor for reference). We study it for a while and I learn about the weasel in the picture. And I am now filled with different emotions about it all. I made special trip to see that same painting once again in the flesh, and it was a life-changing experience. Like biting into an onion rather than simply looking at the skin

.. cont'd

'Highbrow'? Some art you will like, some you won't. That's all. If you want to enjoy art then go for it! Only thing I dislike on the subject more than 'art-snobs' are 'anti-art (inverted) snobs'. In both cases it is snobbery, and likewise all about the snob, misusing art to draw attention to him/herself.

Skills course

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-to-look-at-and-understand-great-art.html

Nothing is too highbrow for anyone. You either enjoy looking at, watching, reading something or you don't.

Saying that, decent art galleries are worth going to for everyone so they can at least find out what they like and it may get them to appreciate something they hadn't really even considered before.

I always come away getting enjoyment out of pictures that I never thought I would. The same pictures I have seen online images of online and thought nothing of them. It is sometimes the scale, the detail, the painting technique etc,.

but does it mean that a piece of art can't be both?

Of course it can be both. The Mona Lisa is a classic example - Its a celebrity artwork. Its a work by a great artist (all be it one that hardly ever finished anything) but the work is also a extraordinarily popular. One of the most recognised images in the world.

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The Mona Lisa signing autographs earier

The story of why the painting so popular is quite interesting. It was a largely ignored painting, other than being one by an important painter, for centuries. Then, one day, it got stolen. It was stolen just at the point that newspapers started to have pictures in - not photographs, it was before that. But french newspapers published engravings of the painting as part of the story of the theft. It meant that it was the first artwork that a member of the public would recognise and know the name of without actually having seen it in the flesh - so it was 'famous'. The people who flock to see the painting don't really know thats the reason they are doings so. I expect the imagine that by going to see the most famous painting they are going to see the best painting ever painted and often go away from the experience commenting 'Its a bit small'.

A bit like people then- some are great, some are famous, some are famous and great.

Why do so many people want to "enjoy" art? How about being appalled, saddened, confused, scared or guilty? As with so many other things, people so often prefer to blame their ignorances, shallowness or vacuousness on the artist. I don't deny that there are some relatively poor expressions that have made it to exhibition, but if one says 'I don't get art', it really is essentially a confession of a monumental absence of sympathy, or at the very least absence of expressive vocabulary. And yet people state it with such pride! They can't express how something makes them feel, so will just get mad at the artist or at other people who can.

Fast forward ten years and I'm halfway through a painting course before I meet the stonebreaker once more. This time on a postcard (one of hundreds of art gallery/museum cards collected by the tutor for reference). We study it for a while and I learn about the weasel in the picture. And I am now filled with different emotions about it all. I made special trip to see that same painting once again in the flesh, and it was a life-changing experience. Like biting into an onion rather than simply looking at the skin

I used to work with a museum art collection that was largely a drawn from 2 or 3 large private collections that had been gifted about a century earlier. Some really good stuff, some fairly middling stuff. One of the challenges was that having been privately collected there was little or no documentation that accompanied any of if. Some paintings were or better known artists or subjects and over that century a body of factual and interpretive material had been built up. But there were a few paintings that never really came out of the store because we could literally say nothing about them - no name of the painter, no idea of who or what the subject is, when or where in the world they were made even. I did consider an exhibition called 'We don't know who they are but we know who the look like' because we had a painting that looked like Harold Bishop and one of a woman who looked like Marty Feldman.

To get some of these painting on view I invited a local amateur writing club into the store - got them to choose one of the unidentified pictures and write a paragraph about it - That way we could put a dozen of these paintings out on the walls and they'd each have a label.

One writer chose a pretty run of the mill looking, small, 19th Century landscape scene. There was a little house in it and glimpse of some figures - fields and trees, distant hills and a bit of a story, dark cloud on the horizon. Pretty ordinary and pretty boring really - in that there are hundreds of paintings exactly like it in every small town museum,

The writer simply observed that amongst the figures around the house there were only women and children.

We did this project in 1999. So she relocated the painting from 19th Century britain to 20th Century Kosovo an in a paragraph wrote about the men having being taken and the cloud on the horizon being the next town of fire and the conflict now coming towards them.

It suddenly became absolutely riveting you'd look again at these little figures in the field that you'd thought were playing and think - maybe they're searching - maybe they're running.

Theres no one way to receive a piece of art - you're not being tricked or 'not getting it' if you're reaction isn't the same as someone else's or if you're reading of the work doesn't match the writing on the label. But what those labels should do (if they're good and sometimes they're not) is give you some little nudges and pointers to see and feel something that might have escaped your notice otherwise.

But the enjoyment of art is like an enjoyment of anything - you bring your own baggage to it. A piece of music will effect you differently to everyone one else if it was the first dance at your wedding or was played as you saw the coffin go through the curtain. I think wine tastes better if I've cycled passed the vineyard even though my doing that hasn't changed the taste for anyone else who drinks it.

One of my first jobs was transporting art - so I met artists and collectors all around the country. Dream job as a recent graduate - meeting and greeting all your influcenes. But now that means I enjoy a particular piece of art more if the artist once made me a cup of tea 🙂

But now that means I enjoy a particular piece of art more if the artist once made me a cup of tea

I particularly enjoy browsing on Binners website whilst simultaneously firing a steak bake into my baw face.

I feel that I'm really connecting with the artist. I can almost taste the pastry-fuelled rage contained within his work.

It's a profoundly moving experience.

Why do so many people want to "enjoy" art? How about being appalled, saddened, confused, scared or guilty?

Is it just me, or is it really quite obvious why people would prefer a positive emotion, rather than a load of negative ones ?

Is it just me, or is it really quite obvious why people would prefer a positive emotion, rather than a load of negative ones ?

People can enjoy having empathy with all sorts of emotions. Popular songs can be about heartbreak and anger, I don't know if you've noticed but a lot of books, films and plays are about murder. With visual art theres a bit of a confusion though as sometimes people group art and adornment together - in that theres art that you might go to a museum or gallery to experience and art that you'd adorn your home with to make it prettier or cheerier. People might have books about murder in their bookshelf but they wouldn't decorate their living room with pictures of crime scenes.

But one of the most enjoyable exhibitions I've been to see in recent years was an exhibition of [url= http://www.le-bal.fr/en/publications/images-conviction ]photographs of crime scenes[/url]. Wouldn't really want any of the pictures on my wall, but the book is on my shelf.