Modern Art Is Rubbish

I was flicking through an art History book (because I am a self confessed art nerd and not ashamed of it...very much).
And it starts off with the caveman cave drawings, just kind of figurative, then onto Egyptian and Aegean styles, which is like figurative, and all the bodies are like, side on and straight.
And then you jump to medieval religious stuff, on to Gothic, and then you get Hans Holbein and my personal favourite period, the whole amazing stretch of Reneisance. Then along come Italian artists, and Baroque, Neoclassism, romantissism, Impressionism (I hate impressionism. Edgar Degas was the only one who pulled it off and he professed to hate impressionism and didnt even count himself as an impressionist).
And then we enter the 20th centuary and into the DOWNWARD SPIRAL. Gustav Klimt was a master, combining actual artistic skill with rebellion and conceptual stuff, and Salvador Dahli, who was amazing, if a little up his own arse. Also L.S Lowry, who I like quite alot. But you get to Warhol, who was okay-ish, and Lichtenstein, who wasnt revolutionary or anything, but is famous because he was POPULAR (POP art). And then it just kind of ENDS for actual art.
We get people painting wonky faces and splodges. I have evidence. Google Joan Mitchel, sunflowers, and ask yourself; DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A SUNFLOWER? Or just random splodges? SPLODGES. And we get people painting BOXES and LINES and claiming it to be art. WHAT? Am I missing something?
Lucian Freud is good. I have respect for him. But seriously? Blow away all this 'mind blowing modern art showing conceptual figuratism' trash. Its NOT ART. Its just people fobbing off doodles as msterpieces. I could paint a box. ANYONE could paint a box. It's not HARD. Someone sold a BLANK CANVAS for a ton load of money. Someone won an art award for RECREATING THEIR BED.
What the hell? What is going on? How can you call modern artists ARTISTS at all? You don't even need to be able to draw. Its just tosh. I actually think that Ancient Egyptian paintings have more artistic prowess than Albert frickin Herbert.

I like this but I'm going to give you my argument before critiquing it.

Basically you can call anything that truly expresses someone's feelings art. Be that a box, be that whatever. The difference nowadays is that these artists express themselves without the study of technique like the Renaissance masters before them.

Consider for a moment a child's painting. It could be scribbles, splodgers, whatever. Moreover, a child's painting can be considered art, purely because of the fact that it was done out of expression and nothing else. Children, in my opinion, are always the best painters, dancers, singers, everything, because they are thinking about nothing but pure expression. If a modern artist is being honest with him/herself, and expressing themselves, it's art, and good art.

Now the difference between the great artists that you love is their study of technique. The da Vincis, Hans Holbeins and Claude Monets (sorry but I like Impressionism, and Monet was a genius in my view) of this world spent their lives studying technique, form, perspective, all that, and combined this with their expression. Works that are considered masterpieces are generally ones that combined studied, classical technique with expression.

But that does not mean a honest modern artist can't create true art without technique.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you about pop art and that absurdity. But I do believe there is true modern art out there.

God that was a long argument.... I'll critique some other time XD

But can't they find a more impressive way of expressing themselves? Sure, its conceptual, but seriously, create a conceptual masterpiece. A splodge requires no skill at all, AT ALL. It's like having an olympic swimmer who can't swim- but instead sits on the diving board and thinks about it.

I know what you mean! >.<
My art teacher gave me an art book with 20th century atwork n shit, bloomin' hell I found the work rubbish!
I love Italian-type art, and the only kind of art I liked was from Mimmo Rotella because of the meaning and a bit of optical illusion 'cus when I do them it's like making a puzzle. Monet did amazing stuff, though, I'm not going to lie, even if he is a global favourite.
I don't like modern "art" the way you hate it too. I don't see the point in my talented friends who have great original ideas while some crap sod assembles rubbish to make a pretty little shadow out of it.

...And I'm not even joking. An "artist" has done that.

Yeah, the blank canvas thing sounds like the guy missed his deadline, I don't think many people could show up to work and be considered great for not actually doing work. It seems Like I heard of a pianist who actually "Composed" a song that had no music. he just sat in front of the piano. lol, I agree though, Alot of it is crap. the sunflowers painting looks like my cousins emptied their chewing tobacco cups on a canvase and did the hokey pokey on it. I guess that was the sunflower painting. and the field of flowers, I've actually created more complicated art on MSPaint. Maybe even an etch-a-sketch. I think that the dumbing down trend art has taken is a slap in the face of the actual greats. I mean give me a yard of snow and let me have to take a leak and I can get creative but that doesn't make it art. But hey, that's my opinion. Thanks for giving me something to think about.

Raimunda wrote:But can't they find a more impressive way of expressing themselves? Sure, its conceptual, but seriously, create a conceptual masterpiece. A splodge requires no skill at all, AT ALL. It's like having an olympic swimmer who can't swim- but instead sits on the diving board and thinks about it.

Like I said, I agree about the splodge and the other examples you gave. But to be honest I don't think all modern artists are that bad, the ones you've seen are probably just very extreme examples.

I think that you're right to some degree. A lot of the art these days is meaningless drivel. But some of it is stimulating and thought provoking. For instance, I googled Joan Mitchel's Sunflowers and viewed a few of her paintings and I thought that they were quite good, despite their chaotic simplicity.

Sometimes, as a culture, we need to go back to the basics to transcend the boundaries we've set for ourselves, to break through the molds.

-Kylan

Art is subjective and arguing about it is useless. One person will like something and another person will not.

Of course, if you don't agree with me, you're wrong.

Prokaryote

Ohmigosh - AMEN. I agree with you 100%, hands down, period, etck etck etck. I suppose my hatred of it also spawns from the fact that I have symbolophobia... (look it up on Wikipedia if you must, but I think you can guess the nature of it).

Anyway - I went to a modern art museum in London, right, and it was about martians so I figured it would be all lovely and child friendly and stuff.

And then I go inside.

And you know what I see? A VIDEO OF A MAN CUTTING HIMSELF WITH A RAZOR. He was slicing himself up furiously, and squirting shaving cream all over the walls. There was blood spurting everywhere and then he started slitting his wrists and his arms and... ARGH... and it was suppose to be "a mockery of tradition" or something STUPID like that.

Well, seeing as I am both incredibly squeamish and symbolophobic, I did the world's most almighty "OH MY [INSERT FOUL MOUTHED LANGUAGE HERE!!]" and ran screaming down the steps and into the reception. Art? Hmm.

My favourite example; I walked into yet another exhibition with my mum (which had so many symbols and hidden meanings that I dissolved into a nervous wreck and was escorted out by my little brother), and we decided to start at the top floor and work downwards. So we walk into the room... and find a washing line, with clothes hanging over the top of it. In a corner is a lady with eyelashes attached to her knees, and she's 'playing' them like a harp. The artist's husband had recently died - the eyelashes were her trying to make something postitive out of her sorrow, whilst the clothes line was, uhm, his life being "suspended" or something... whatever. It creeped me out.

My MOTHER puts clothes over a washing line daily. Nothing was done to make it look more presentable, or to explain the concept, or anything. It was just a random clothes line.

Yeah sure - there's meaning and symbolism (*shudders*) behind it all... but where's the effort?! The "ta-da" factor?? When little kids make hand-print paintings and wonky vases for their parents, you have to admit that they work really hard at getting it "just right", right?

"Oops, I just dropped some paint onto my paper! But you know what? I'm bored and I wanna go play on The Carpet, so I'm gonna put this to dry and call it modern art." You'd never, ever hear a six year old say something like that, man. xD

And y'all, don't diss John Cage's 4:33 (the piece with no music). It's actually very peaceful if you happen to "listen" to it beside the sea. *giggles* It was created to make people focus on the sounds around them, and get rid of the notion that music was created purely by a piano, a violin etck (a similar rebellion can be found in the Britpop movement, which spawned artists like Oasis *laughs*). John Cage also created the prepared piano, which is wicked - it sounds like drums rather than a keyboard.

Anyway! Enough ranting. It's eleven... I should be getting to bed soon.
(Nah.)

First off, ouch. Don't put words in all caps. If you need to all-cap words, then you're not truly making a good point.

Second, art is subjective. Personal. You'd be better off arguing with a wall than trying to make a point that all modern art is useless, because some people adore modern art to the core of their very being. Like me, for example. I adore modern art, and I see exactly how it is art because a fat love of art exists inside my bones. But let's not talk about that. Let's focus on the weakness of your point.

But you get to Warhol, who was okay-ish

Why was he okay-ish? He's modern art. He's one of the people who gave birth to modern art and weened it with a bottle. So saying he is "okay-ish" does not help your argument. You need to give reasons to your points, and I don't understand why Warhol - Campbell soup can Warhol, is not included in the supposed travesty that is modern art.

And most importantly, Pop Art does not mean the artist is popular, which is what you say with Lichtenstein. Pop Art means that the art is based off themes, items and material found in popular culture, usually popular American culture. Your definition of Pop Art is horribly, horribly wrong. If you're going to try to make an argument, you need to get your facts right.

Read a book on modern art, and then try this again.

~ Clo

Hahah
I'm no artistic genius but I agree most definetly. I feel the same way about books too, how good they were back in the 1800's compared with today's monstrosity

"Why was he okay-ish? He's modern art. He's one of the people who gave birth to modern art and weened it with a bottle. So saying he is "okay-ish" does not help your argument. You need to give reasons to your points, and I don't understand why Warhol - Campbell soup can Warhol, is not included in the supposed travesty that is modern art."

Because my main problem with modern art is how its just random rubbish! I didn't go into detail, and yes, I do think that painting a can of soup was of a rip off. But he did portraits, and they were good portraits which were well coloured. And saying he was okay-ish doesn't mean I think he was brilliant. It basically means he was borderline tolerable. He was first and formost a comercial artist. I reckon that although what he did was cool, it wasn't amazing. And it wasn't as if the man couldn't draw; he could have just done something better.


"And most importantly, Pop Art does not mean the artist is popular, which is what you say with Lichtenstein. Pop Art means that the art is based off themes, items and material found in popular culture, usually popular American culture. Your definition of Pop Art is horribly, horribly wrong. If you're going to try to make an argument, you need to get your facts right."

Pop is short for popular. "art is based off themes, items and material found in popular culture" basically means they painted things that were popular. This is bogus. And England had Pop art first. And Roy Lichtenstein WAS popular. Because he painted POPULAR THINGS; he was basically just ripping off comic books.

"Read a book on modern art, and then try this again."

Read a book on ACTUAL art! Caneletto, Carravagio, Rembrandt, Bernini (Apollo and Daphne is AMAZING; even more so in real life) are people who are much more talented than modern day artists, and they made their own paints.

Just because you don't think it's art, does not in any way mean it is in fact not art. Again, subjective. I might as well be yelling at a wall, but my love for modern art and my desire to avoid going to work makes me write this.

Popular art paints things that are popular? Yes, you can infer that, but the truest definition is its portrayal of popular culture. They keyword is culture in this definition. What Lichtenstein and Warhol did were portrayals of the popular American cultural as people knew it - yes, it was commercial art, but it was a stylistic portrayal of that which we surround ourselves with in our modern American lives. In a way, it's almost a critique of contemporary culture - brilliant. Marilyn Monroe is the Daphne of the modern age - making it truly art. But, since you say his portraits are good, then there's always the point to be made that they were not original portraits. He only printed his own versions of the portrait. His interpretation. The very fact that it's an interpretation though makes it art.

Research Marcel Duchamp, who states that, "Art is what an artists makes." If you are within all of your being an artist, then what you do is art. He's amazing, and well worth the read.

The main issue with your critique, darling. This is non-fiction. You're trying to make a point. "It's rubbish because I don't like it and it doesn't mean anything" is not the basis of a good argument. Most of all because art is subjective.

Just critiquing the argument.

~ Clo

Marilyn Monroe is the Daphne of the modern age? Are you comparing Warhol to Bernini? What? Thats like comparing the power of Gordon Brown to the power of my maths teacher. THERE IS NO COMPARISON.

And if we actually go back to my original argument, the only thing I was really getting at is how art today isnt even art. Warhol and Lichtenstien were like one sentence of my argument. And I still think Warhol could have progressed further than he did. Painting popular culture doesn't make you a brilliant artist. It makes you someone who is trying to please the general public by painting what they want to see.

I just don't understand how someone can love modern art. Its beyond me. There doesn't need to be skill involved, there doesn't need to be any actual thing to look at. Fine art is something that is dying, and the reason is that people will insist on buying blank canvases for millions of pounds off some artist who is, hem hem, popular.

You don't give proper evidence to your points, considering this is a piece of writing.

Since these comments are really a debate and not a critique, if you wish to discuss this further please enter the debate forum and go to a topic I had previously made months ago there, entitled "Art, and its Limits" topic33342.html

It would be a more appropriate forum.