Flower power - embarras de richesse

Proton Soup

i'm not a big fan of art as message/politics. beauty is universal. the poorer the art, the more message it needs to sell.

turbo

Astute observation. The concept that "the artist was trying to convey this" is often pushed by critics. I can look at Van Gogh's "Starry Night" or "Sunflowers" without trying to ascribe some motive to them apart from the artist's joy in the creative process. Lots of art was subsidized by wealthy patrons centuries ago, but much of the stuff that captures our imaginations was avante-garde, stuff done for the love of it. Vincent was floored when he found out that he was making a living (just barely!) because his brother Theo was quietly buying his paintings and stacking them under his bed.

Proton Soup

lol, that's another sign of a great artist. no one appreciates you until you're dead!

actually, i think a lot of it is simply art dealers conning buyers.

misgfool

I can't see beauty in a static 2D picture, when I have seen and felt the real thing. You would have to have really unique and special (new) object for a picture to have any value. So you really need the message. Or maybe beauty isn't universal after all.

Proton Soup

not all art is of real things. is there really no art that pleases you?

misgfool

Of course there is. I love an intellectually stimulating story, message or beauty with novelty.

Proton Soup

i should've clarified. visual arts, not prose and poetry.

misgfool

When I was in school, we were taught that a picture says more than a thousand words. Visual art is as much of an story as is a written one. It is just an alternative way of expression.

Loren Booda

How does photography compare to other visual arts - i.e., an image made with the click of a shutter, vs. a painting created over years of scrupulous work?

turbo

Photography can be done with a "click" as in automated snap-shots at a family picnic, or it can be done with careful composition, lighting, selection of aperture, shutter-speed, etc. I can guarantee you that if you started contracting yourself to do wedding photography, you'd gain a real appreciation for the artistry required and the ability to adapt on-the-fly to changing conditions. If the output is not superior, you don't get references, and you don't get work. I did wedding photography when digital was not even remotely an option, so there was the added restriction of being locked into the ISO of whatever film was loaded in the camera at the time.

Google "Ansel Adams" and see if you can justify down-grading his work (compared to painting) based on the fact that he used cameras, glass plates, processing, and printing techniques. His work is high art.

Loren Booda

Not to mention Matthew Brady, in his own "light." Then there are the common "Brownie" cameras that challenge(d) anew photographers to the primitive box.

I was considering, in part, the prolific rise in images nowadays versus the rare appreciation by pioneers like Ansel Adams. (Personally, I can name a dozen excellent painters since the advent of photography, but perhaps no outstanding photographers beyond those two aforementioned.) It seems that the products of cameras outnumber greatly drawings and paintings - quantity vs. quality?.

Of recent, news photographers seem to get more recognition than others. For cinematography, nature themes have amazingly improved continuously since "Wild Kingdom." But truly, I cannot say that as a rule the best photographers have the artistry which the (other) best visual artists possess. One has to be in the right place at the right time.

Borek

There is some truth to it, no doubt about it. However, if you will browse the pictures submitted to our own (PF) contests you will see that there are larkspur pictures and pictures of the rest of the crowd. I don't think Andre or Turbo are technically weaker than larkspur (and if i have not mentioned others that's only because I have never discussed technicalities with those others, so I have no idea what their level of knowledge is), but her pictures are from completely different world.

I think it was Hypatia who once wrote "I wan't to live in the world as larkspur sees it". That's it

Marzena

I don't vote for any pics present in this thread too