When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the louvre museum in paris in 1911

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The discussion highlights the impact of historical art events, such as the theft of the Mona Lisa, which drew more visitors to the empty space than the painting itself. Participants express differing opinions on the evolution of art, with some arguing that it declined when artists shifted focus from sensory pleasure to conveying deeper philosophical truths. The conversation touches on modern art's accessibility and meaning, questioning whether art must be pleasurable or comprehensible to everyone. There is a debate about the value of modern art, with some defending its merit despite its abstract nature, while others criticize it for lacking substance. Ultimately, the dialogue reflects a broader discourse on the criteria that define art and its appreciation.
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When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the louvre museum in paris in 1911, and
was not recovered for two years, more people turned up to stare at the empty
space than had ever come to see the painting.

In 1961 Henri Matisse's painting Le Bateau was hung upside down at new yorks
museum of modern art for 46 days before anyone noticed.

A painter who has the feel for breasts and buttocks is saved (renoir) :devil:

It takes 570 gallons of paint to cover the White house.
 
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In my opinion, the arts went downhill when artists started scoffing the idea that art should be pleasurable to the senses, and mistakenly started believing that, instead, the task of art was to convey the deepest philosophical "truths" about mankind.
 
arildno said:
In my opinion, the arts went downhill when artists started scoffing the idea that art should be pleasurable to the senses, and mistakenly started believing that, instead, the task of art was to convey the deepest philosophical "truths" about mankind.

Quite true, i think Renoir had the right idea.
 
i even heard that vinci's monalisa was copied and there were 12 such paintings and no one knows where is the real one. the one in the musem could be a faulty one!
 
gurkhawarhorse said:
i even heard that vinci's monalisa was copied and there were 12 such paintings and no one knows where is the real one. the one in the musem could be a faulty one!
Yeah! And the pentagon's actually invisible and on an island in the carribean. The one in washington is fake! Infact, there are 12 invisible ones in the carribean and no one knows which one it is either! :eek:
 
Michelangelo's family had pretentions to nobility, and it was for this reason that his father beat the boy when he anounced he wanted to become an artist. At the time artists were considered tradesmen like cobblers, or coopers. This was so ungentlemanly a thing for one of his sons to aspire to when he himself was trying to upgrade the family image that Ludovico Buonarroti felt it was just good parenting to try and beat the idea out of his son, Michelangelo.
 
My favorite artist is Jan Van Eyck, his paintings are amazing.
 
arildno said:
In my opinion, the arts went downhill when artists started scoffing the idea that art should be pleasurable to the senses, and mistakenly started believing that, instead, the task of art was to convey the deepest philosophical "truths" about mankind.


In my opinion, art went downhill when artists came to the conclusion that art needs to be pleasurable to the senses.
 
mattmns said:
My favorite artist is Jan Van Eyck, his paintings are amazing.

Ah, the Flemish masters. Brueghel the Elder happens to be my favorite.
 
  • #10
What do people see in modern art? if a painting can be hung upside down
and no one notices, how can it have meaning?
 
  • #11
wolram said:
What do people see in modern art? if a painting can be hung upside down
and no one notices, how can it have meaning?

Quite a bit. Modern art is wonderful. I fully recommend studying it.

Just because it's not a pretty oil painting of a basketful of puppies with an obvious top and a bottom doesn't mean it can't have a meaning.
 
  • #12
TRCSF said:
In my opinion, art went downhill when artists came to the conclusion that art needs to be pleasurable to the senses.
Well, that's where you are wrong.
 
  • #13
arildno said:
Well, that's where you are wrong.

No, your opinion is wrong.

:-p
 
  • #14
TRCSF said:
No, your opinion is wrong.

:-p
It merely shows how little you know about real art.
You think, I guess, like the idiot highbrows that requirements of appeal to the senses is constraining for artistic expression?
It is not.
It is liberating.
 
  • #15
arildno said:
It merely shows how little you know about real art.
You think, I guess, like the idiot highbrows that requirements of appeal to the senses is constraining for artistic expression?
It is not.
It is liberating.

Requirements for artistic expression are by definition constraints on artistic expression. :confused:

Other than being a regular customer of Thomas Kinkade art boutiques, what do you know about real art?
 
  • #16
mattmns said:
My favorite artist is Jan Van Eyck, his paintings are amazing.
I have a book of Flemish Painters wth two of his paintings, reproduced at fairly large scale fo a book.

The one of the wedding couple is like some early surreal work: the strange, pale, spindly groom wears an enormous mad hatter looking hat, and the couple is visible from the rear in a hemispherical mirror hanging on the wall behind them, suggestive of the later works of M.C. Escher. The rigidity of their formal pose, which partly predicts the flavor of American Gothic is, apparently, adopted by the little dog at their feet, who seems to be holding himself still to have his portrait painted, while actually wanting to run around and bark. The detail everywhere is meticulous.
 
  • #17
TRCSF said:
Requirements for artistic expression are by definition constraints on artistic expression. :confused:
Yes, in the same manner as disciplining your mind to think through issues logically is "constraining" for scientific research.
 
  • #18
arildno said:
Yes, in the same manner as disciplining your mind is "constraining" for scientific research.

Art is intrinsically different than scientific research.
 
  • #19
TRCSF said:
Quite a bit. Modern art is wonderful. I fully recommend studying it.

Just because it's not a pretty oil painting of a basketful of puppies with an obvious top and a bottom doesn't mean it can't have a meaning.

Or even some non human did it, a chimp elephant whatever, or even a pile of bricks, utter tosh, modern art is not.
 
  • #20
TRCSF said:
Art is intrinsically different than scientific research.
"Intrinsical". That's a fancy word.
 
  • #21
wolram said:
Or even some non human did it, a chimp elephant whatever, or even a pile of bricks, utter tosh, modern art is not.

But chimps can't produce modern art. Or elephants. Or toddlers. Any more than they can paint like flemish masters.
 
  • #22
TRCSF said:
Other than being a regular customer of Thomas Kinkade art boutiques, what do you know about real art?

Art can be beautiful without being unsophisticated. Take Dido and Aeneas:

00067201.jpg
 
  • #23
TRCSF said:
But chimps can't produce modern art. Or elephants. Or toddlers. Any more than they can paint like flemish masters.
From what I know, there are modern "artists" who smear fecal matter onto a white board, and pronounces this to be "art".
A chimp could do likewise; at least the smearing bit.
 
  • #24
loseyourname said:
Art can be beautiful without being unsophisticated. Take Dido and Aeneas:

00067201.jpg

And art can be art without being beautiful.

http://college-de-vevey.vd.ch/auteur/Picasso/guernica-init.jpg
 
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  • #25
Look at this brilliant, haunting self-portait Robert Mapplethorpe made:
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_97A_3.html
That's art.
 
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  • #26
You think Guernica isn't beautiful? Use the [ img ] tags.
 
  • #27
arildno said:
Look at this brilliant, haunting self-portait Robert Mapplethorpe made:
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_97A_3.html
That's art.

I agree. Although there's a lot of Mapplethorpe's work that isn't considered "pleasurable to the senses."

Although that's a ridiculous vague term.
 
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  • #28
TRCSF said:
But chimps can't produce modern art. Or elephants. Or toddlers. Any more than they can paint like flemish masters.

So when does it become art, when some one famous puts brush to canvas?
and when is it a mindless mess, i agree some modern art has merrit, but the
rest is taking the public for a ride.
 
  • #29
loseyourname said:
You think Guernica isn't beautiful? Use the [ img ] tags.

No, I think it's ugly as hell. Exactly how it was meant to be.
 
  • #30
TRCSF said:
I agree. Although there's a lot of Mapplethorpe's work that isn't considered "pleasurable to the senses."
That's in the eye of the beholder..:wink:
Although that's a ridiculous vague term.
No more vague than that art is to convey some "deep meaning".
 
  • #31
wolram said:
So when does it become art, when some one famous puts brush to canvas?
and when is it a mindless mess, i agree some modern art has merrit, but the
rest is taking the public for a ride.

It's kind of like pornography. You know it when you see it. An abstract painting is art whether a broke student does it in his studio apartment/studio. Being famous only effects how much you can sell it for.
 
  • #32
TRCSF said:
Ah, the Flemish masters. Brueghel the Elder happens to be my favorite.
My book has his The Parable of the Blind reproduced in it. This looks to be "The Blind Leading The Blind", as opposed to the blind men/elephant story.

It is an extremely well executed, dark souled painting. The colors and modeling of form stand out as particularly individual, within the general Flemish style. He is a better draughtsman than Bosch, who also liked this kind of subject matter, but there is still an interesting, naive kind of stiffness to the figures that tells us the transition from the medieval to the renaissance isn't complete yet. The blind men and their situation is grotesque, and the lesson is heavy handed: one suspects this painting had a specific target.
 
  • #33
TRCSF:
To just give you one type of so-called art that I remain unwilling to call by that name:
Works that are so replete with references to other works, and essentially is completely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't gone to art school and learned about those references earlier.

A work of art, IMO, should be accessible to ANYONE, it should have the power to provide any person, no matter his educational background, with aesthetic experiences.
Whether those aesthetic experiences are those the artist intended, or not, is irrelevant.

The Mapplethorpe self-portrait is, IMO, accessible in this manner:
It has an arresting, disturbing look to it, but how the viewer proceeds from there is wholly individual.

In particular, the image retains full aesthetic power even for someone who doesn't know that Mapplethorpe was terminally ill from his AIDS condition at the time the photograph was made.
 
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  • #34
arildno said:
TRCSF:
To just give you one type of so-called art that I remain unwilling to call by that name:
Works that are so replete with references to other works, and essentially is completely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't gone to art school and learned about those references earlier.

A work of art, IMO, should be accessible to ANYONE, it should have the power to provide any person, no matter his educational background, with aesthetic experiences.
Whether those aesthetic experiences are those the artist intended, or not, is irrelevant.

Alright, I thought by saying "art has to be pleasurably to the sense" you were saying something akin to "movies have to have happy endings."

I'm still not getting what you mean by "references." All art in a sense "refers" to work that came before it.

I disagree that it should appeal to everybody. There have always been philistines who cannot appreciate art. There always will be.
 
  • #35
TRCSF said:
No, I think it's ugly as hell. Exactly how it was meant to be.

Well, I'll have to disagree with you on that. This is an ugly image of war:

napalm_victim_400_bg.jpg
 
  • #36
edited..what I had to say shouldn't be posted under something that disturbing
 
  • #37
TRCSF said:
Alright, I thought by saying "art has to be pleasurably to the sense" you were saying something akin to "movies have to have happy endings."

I'm still not getting what you mean by "references." All art in a sense "refers" to work that came before it.

I disagree that it should appeal to everybody. There have always been philistines who cannot appreciate art. There always will be.
Okay, "practically" anyone then..:wink:
Did you see my edit, BTW?
It answers a bit on one type of references I was talking about (in this case, that knowledge of biographical details of an artist should not be essential for an appreciation of the artwork).

Another type of reference will be if the artwork really is only a commentary on two different traditions in art, say two schools, and unless you know about the two schools, you wouldn't get anything out of the artwork.
 
  • #38
wolram said:
What do people see in modern art? if a painting can be hung upside down
and no one notices, how can it have meaning?
A good, balanced painting should work even if it's upside down, including classical paintings. Witness: the Sistine Chapel. There is nowhere you can stand where all the figures are right side up, yet the ones that are upside down from your inertial frame, don't unbalance or disturb the ceiling as a whole. You ought to be able to hang any painting upside down and, regarding it as an abstract, find it is all balanced in terms of line, form, rhythm and color.

A good abstract painting, being non-figurative, doesn't lose it's integrity for looking as good upside down as right side up, rather, this proves it's integrity. Proves it, that is, if it actually does work in the accepted "right-side-up" position. A different abstract work will look equally bad no matter which way you hang it.
 
  • #39
loseyourname said:
Well, I'll have to disagree with you on that. This is an ugly image of war:

napalm_victim_400_bg.jpg

Yes, that is also an ugly image of war and was exactly the sort of thing Picasso was conveying.
 
  • #40
arildno said:
Okay, "practically" anyone then..:wink:
Did you see my edit, BTW?
It answers a bit on one type of references I was talking about (in this case, that knowledge of biographical details of an artist should not be essential for an appreciation of the artwork).

Another type of reference will be if the artwork really is only a commentary on two different traditions in art, say two schools, and unless you know about the two schools, you wouldn't get anything out of the artwork.

Could you give an example?
 
  • #41
TRCSF said:
Yes, that is also an ugly image of war and was exactly the sort of thing Picasso was conveying.

Sure, but Picasso gave an eye to composition and depth, negative space and balance, making his work more aesthetically appealing. That is the difference between art and documentation.
 
  • #42
TRCSF said:
Could you give an example?
I don't bother to remember stuff I don't care for.
But, you can find plenty of modern composers who with their pling-plongs reputedly makes an "ironic comment" to this or that previous composer.
Read a typical art review column to find explicit statements of why this or that piece of art is great because it combines or comments on some other, totally obscure artworks.:blah-blah.
 
  • #43
Guernica is only about Guernica because Picasso said so. If we came upon the painting without that knowledge all we find is the same unmistakable Picasso composition of line, form, rhythm and color that he used in all his paintings done in that style. He may jut as well have claimed that any of his cubist portraits depicted war-scarred people, or mentally ill people, or whatever. His claims about what they depict and how they are depicted are pretty much confabulation. His art works because he really knew how to paint an interesting line, how to juxtapose colors, and how to compose a visual field.
 
  • #44
loseyourname said:
Sure, but Picasso gave an eye to composition and depth, negative space and balance, making his work more aesthetically appealing. That is the difference between art and documentation.

I think we're using two different definitions of "beautiful". You're using it as "brilliantly, wonderfully done piece of art" and I'll agree Guernica is. I'm using "beautiful" as in eye candy. A buxom blonde with a basketful of bigeyed puppies going over a scenic waterfall.

There's no shortage at all of laypersons who find absolutely nothing aesthetically appealing about Geurnica and I doubt Picasso was ever intending to "pleasure their senses."
 
  • #45
Take the following example of the worthless outpourings of today's so-called artists:
modernart2.jpg
 
  • #46
TRCSF said:
I think we're using two different definitions of "beautiful". You're using it as "brilliantly, wonderfully done piece of art" and I'll agree Guernica is. I'm using "beautiful" as in eye candy.
But that is PRECISELY what's wrong with so-called modern art theory!
A mere twisting of words.

Mozart's music is beautiful, but it is not ear-candy (oops, BAD metaphor.. :redface:).
 
  • #47
I just can't see why anyone would ever want to look at or otherwise sensually experience something that didn't appeal to their senses. There are kinds of appeal more sophisticated than eye candy, but I don't think that makes them any less beautiful. When something is just flat-out ugly, the natural reaction is to not want to look at it (except maybe out of morbid curiosity). Why would one create a work of visual art that causes the viewer to not want to look at it? The idea is to draw people in, and that is only done by appealing to the senses. I am definitely of the opinion that Picasso, and just about every other artist that has ever lived, was very much attempting to draw people in, by appealing to their senses, with every painting and drawing he ever composed.

Just to note, I don't see what's beautiful about a buxom blonde with a basketful of puppies. That's more comical than anything else. To be considered beautiful, shouldn't something at least be interesting to look at?

By the way, this should be in value theory. That forum never sees any action.
 
  • #48
Yeah, you're right, loseyourname:
I've never found any interest in watching buxom women..
 
  • #49
"Real art" to me is the ability to draw or paint something recognizable. That requires skill to do well. The ability to paint or draw a face and make it look alive is "real art". Anything else, to me, are just "designs".
 
  • #50
arildno said:
Take the following example of the worthless outpourings of today's so-called artists:
I'm not sure at all what point you're making, but I like that thing you posted. It has a lot of energy and variety.
 

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