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October 22, 2014

The Bumped "As I was saying.... Pablo Picasso painted this when he was 15 years old"

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I rest my case. -- 13 Things I Found on the Internet Today

Posted by gerardvanderleun at October 22, 2014 4:33 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

Nobody (at least not this nobody) is claiming the guy couldn't paint. It's just that he chose to do all that other stuff for what I suspect were other-than-artistic reasons.

Posted by: Rob De Witt [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 13, 2014 9:53 PM

Aw, c'mon Rob. Just because he was a Nazi sympathizer and had dubious morals and no spiritual alignment other than I-Me-Mine, you can't condemn him for what would be mediocre art held up beside the masters.
If cutting off an ear earned fame he could have cut off his hands. That'd do it. An auto–da–fé is a guaranteed winner too.

Posted by: chasmatic [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 6:21 AM

And shortly there after he rode the tricycle down the basement steps, and the rest is a distorted history committed to assorted paint blobs thrown at cheap canvases from across the room, or something.

Posted by: ghostsniper [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 8:17 AM

My own eye is not to art what my ear is to music, but I will go and assume that great art is like great music, transcendent. Picasso, in Gerard's previous post and to the credit of Picasso, essentially claimed rather to be a graffiti artist for his own age. And who can say we are not living in that age still?

Posted by: james wilson [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 8:42 AM

Some good comments. Some: meh.

I liked it better when Pablo started painting about wahinis. At least he had an idea to share.

Posted by: Casey Klahn [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 8:55 AM

Casey: thank you. You serve as a stellar example of what commenting should be.

Bereft of intelligence and inarticulate as I am, and also unaccustomed to public speaking as is evident in my meager and crass comments, I rely on others that occupy higher ground.

This lifted off the pages of The Washington Rebel some months ago, before it imploded. The sophistry and polemical discussion on that blog site reached critical mass:
I doubt the efficacy of teaching, though it's noble indeed to attempt it. Witness the enormous learning, wit, and insight of so many wonderful bloggers whose voices can now be heard. Still, as entertaining as their efforts are, it seems to me that the effect of their work in defeating the liberal, grifter enemy is marginal. Colonel B. Bunny

Still, I offer comments if for no other reason but that I like the sound of my own voice. Oh, and that of my uncle Letsgo.

Posted by: chasmatic [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 9:56 AM

Hilarious. He paints straight figurative and its irrelevant...he paints nonfigurative and its splashes of paint. You guys...

Posted by: pbird [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 10:17 AM

Yeah his earlier stuff was reasonably good but then he blew a gasket or something and started painting utter trash.

Its not a question of 'representative' and 'non representative' its a question of objective standards of art and beauty and he abandoned them all.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 12:30 PM

Picasso did nothing more that what today's wannabes and up'ncomings do. He went with the flow, bought weird clothes, shaved his head and probably cut one leg of his easel shorter than the other.

He became a die heard pinko revolutionary, all power to the people, "Kill Franco" and must have listened to NPR.

Remember "Guernica" could not go back to Spain until Franco died and his government was gone.

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 1:35 PM

Music, especially jazz, has jokes. Art has them too. If you've had a good instructor, not a DEstructor, you are given tools-- language if you will-- to explore and tinker and play with perspective and dimension, color and line just as much as the good jazz musician jokes around with the bass line or flirts with the scales, reduces or expands a theme.

I don't get every intended pun or riff or, lord help me, a 5/4 beat in music, but it doesn't keep me from enjoying the way it pulls me off-center and jars my perspective. I don't want it as a steady diet in music, nor do I want it to saturate my walls if it's art. But a little revolution is good for the soul.

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 5:33 PM

Joan,

Good point, and well put. Certainly much of great art is revolutionary simply because the artist insists on telling it from her point of view. I guess what I think is that Picasso, and the Cubists in general, seemed self-conscious about how outre they were, which always impresses me as a shuck. Picasso, maybe oddly, redeemed himself to me with things like his line drawings of Don Quixote in the '50s, re-establishing the fact that he knew the point of departure.

I was recently subjected to several hours of a "jazz" saxophonist who played more scales than a fish, and exposed the paucity of his understanding every time he was forced to state the head - which sounded like a junior-high band player attempting to play quarter notes. Gibberish, all technique and no tune, just like "Modern" art.

Posted by: Rob De Witt [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 6:06 PM

Art of any iteration should bring joy to the beholder. Perhaps a piece or two might evoke sorrow or fear or reminiscence but mostly it should have a good "come-from".
Art that is primarily and predominantly negative would be like a thousand picture study of WWII Nazi death camps or a history of arm tattoos of the inmates therein. Oh yes, well executed and with some premeditation (fear, horror, guilt-imposing, who knows?)
Art that is so random as to leave the entire viewing and interpretation to the audience is not art, merely random gestures with no sub-conscious dynamic. Might as well call Burroughs' cut-up method classical literature. An empty canvas might suffice. "Here ya go, Billy, it is what you want it to be" and of course we all want it to be swell.

I don't care for much music and I do not know art. I just know what I don't like. In an evaluation of any work of art one must consider the artist; whether as a part of the artwork or in a studied absence from it.

Posted by: chasmatic [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 14, 2014 10:37 PM

I think Gerard understands that Picasso generates comments, and arguments, and that's why I like this thread.

I don't really like Picasso, either, but I enjoyed his large exhibit in Russia. I went to see the Matisse works last month and caught everything the Hermitage had on display that was French or Modernist. BTW, if you care, I painted a picture of what I saw in the Picasso rooms. Here is the link:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/110408628340190768/

Matisse kicked Picasso's a$$ around France, but rates as number #2 in the canon of Modernist art. My thesis is that is reversing itself, and you ought to be looking at Matisse if you care about visual history.

The musical comparisons here are very astute. If you don't like non-objective art, then I would ask you why you like music without lyrics? Could it be that you need to educate your visually?

Posted by: Casey Klahn [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2014 7:56 AM

"...educate your visually?" Good one. I think I'll keep it like that.

Posted by: Casey Klahn [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2014 8:45 AM

Who? Moi?

Posted by: Van der Leun [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2014 9:16 AM

Casey, Bad analogy. My visually is easily as uneducated as anyone's, but music which is consonant doesn't need words. The question is whether it makes any sense or whether it self-consciously tries not to. Put as simply as possible, traditional Western music sets up tensions which wish for resolution, however complex that form may be. Mozart's sister Nannerl famously would get him out of bed in the mornings by playing, for instance, a G7 chord on a harpsichord and then leaving the room, knowing that Mozart wouldn't be able to rest until he got out of bed and played the necessary C chord to resolve the tension. If somebody plays "Happy Birthday To You," and then stops at "Happy Birthday, Dear Casey," pretty much everybody in the room is going to squawk until she plays the ending "Happy Birthday to you."

Even long before the Baroque, pretty much all (Western) music was built in such a way that you knew when the phrase ended, and a sense of completeness was achieved. Since this same sense of tension and resolution continued even through Stravinsky, et al, it took the use of what seemed to be a conscious frustration of the expectations of the listener to create something "new" with devices like 12-tone scales, etc. The human ear expects things to happen, like the drop-off in intensity which signals the end of a thought in the speech of practically every spoken language. Even worse than the early 20th-century experimenters, though, were the "New Age" dabblers like (ugh) Kenny Jarrett, who are simply unlistenable for an educated ear because they consciously set up a harmonic expectation and then frustrate it, like an annoying little kid who sings a recognizable melody purposely out of tune. Nobody needs to be told that there's something wrong, as it's apparent to anybody who's ever heard Western music that it's not intended to be that way.

Some of that is what Joan referred to as musical "jokes"; it's why most people laughed at Victor Borge's antics-with-strange-musical-results.

To me the Cubists, on the other hand, were self-consciously playing out of tune in a visual way, which is to say that they weren't attempting any real artistic expression so much as they were attempting to draw attention to themselves by frustrating the expectations of their audience - like 10-year-olds, who find it the height of wit and sophistication to send greeting cards that read

"Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
Rutabaga."

Anyhow....I obviously can go on about this for days on end, but experience has taught me that anybody who likes Kenny Jarrett (or G, for that matter) is pretty much impervious to the arguments/explanations of musical coherence, so I mostly arrange my life so I don't have to listen to that crap. I avoid "Modern" art galleries for the same reason.

K?

Posted by: Rob De Witt [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2014 9:28 AM

I once told my masseuse that if she didn't put on some regular music and not that New Agey augmented 7th endless chord I would have to charge HER for the tension it caused. She laughed, but honestly couldn't understand it. A friend of mine plays that crap endlessly along with World Beat thump music. I'd almost rather hear Rap. Almost.

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2014 9:45 AM

Much lucid and cogent commentary. Too much for the likes of me when the explanations and justifications are more tedious than just listening to the music or looking at the art.

My music of choice is Polka music. The perfect music for any time, anywhere. They say music is the language of love. Most of it ain't. Never mind all them violins and crooners and dreamy elevator music, the C&W yodeling about broken hearts. Polkas have brought more love and bliss and happiness to couples all over the world. Young and old, big and little, every race, color and creed. Except queers, who run contrary to the laws of God and man.

That's right, you heard me. The polka has been around for centuries and can be found in classical music, like polkas, mazurkas and waltzes. Many countries of the world venerate polka music; show me people that don't enjoy polkas and I will show you losers.

Never sadness or negativity or dysfunction. No sedition or anarchy or profanity or glorification of crime and drug use. Won't hear no polkas on the boom boxes, uh uh. All in all happy music, happiness being something which we can use more of these days. Experts agree that polka people have divorce rates far below the national norms.

In light classical music, many polkas were composed by both Johann Strauss I and his son Johann Strauss II; a couple of well-known ones were composed by Bedřich Smetana, and Jaromír Vejvoda, the author of "Škoda lásky" ("Roll Out the Barrel").

Any further discourse will invoke the spirit of my dear departed Uncle Letsgo, who once attempted to build his own accordion. It was a failure but he enjoyed it, so hoya hoya.

Posted by: chasmatic [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2014 10:16 AM

Correct, Bob. Great music has no need of lyrics. When great music is written with lyrics it often detracts not at all when the listener does not understand the language, a state which will sometimes represent an improvement.

The twentieth century collapse of creativity in classical music exactly mirrored that of art. What fuels great creativity is inequality, great inequality. The democratic mind is sterile, it's princes and it's proles.

The floor of the Globe was packed with common people to hear the tales of their poets. In German concert halls there were fistfights between fans of Wagner and fans of Brahms. That was a good thing. Now audiences, such as they are, politely applaud rubbish while the orchestras are silently praying they will throw things. I know this first hand.

The primary cause of bad modern classical music is not intent, although there is that, but a pure lack of creative talent. So the writer will follow whatever odd trail which leads him to water. Picasso is an anomaly in that he had the great creative talent and choose to follow the culture down. I don't know if that is praise or criticism. But surely an eighteenth century philosopher, were he able to study Picasso, would predict the future state of man.

Posted by: james wilson [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2014 10:27 AM

Rob, I enjoyed your comment. My analogy is only brief; hardly "bad."

Cubists (and I don't like Cubism, although I do love Modernism) were indeed looking to overthrow a visual status quo. Not with ugliness, though. Just "diferentness." It is what it is.

Here's a ditty @ Pablo I offer to you music heads. I wish there were as astute a taste for fine art as there is for music in our culture. Alas.

The song:
http://youtu.be/IVwAeU-5SAs

Posted by: Casey Klahn [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2014 10:40 AM

Here's another thought. P.P. was in the business to sell his work and make a living. He did it with style, and maybe that's about as good as it gets.

Posted by: pbird [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2014 11:18 AM

Casey,

God, I hope that

http://youtu.be/IVwAeU-5SAs

was intended as irony. That "music" is the pluperfect example of a bunch of art students determined to make a comment on the music scene. I'd bet that (a) their "mission statement" reads like Marxism 101, and that (b) they decided on their costumes and image before any of 'em bought an instrument.

Posted by: Rob De Witt [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 15, 2014 11:32 PM

Chas, one of the kids used to ask to hear a polka song by saying, "Play the happy music."

Me, I love the Blues.

Posted by: browncoat [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 16, 2014 5:35 AM

Rob:

Please accept it as irony. However, I may not know good music, but at least I know what I like.

Weirdly, that is the only song by the Modern Lovers that I like.

Posted by: Casey Klahn [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 16, 2014 10:15 AM

Casey,

Good one.

Further....

mr youse needn't be so spry
concerning questions arty

each has his tastes but as for i
i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man's solid bliss
for youse ideas i'll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues

Posted by: Rob De Witt [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 16, 2014 11:27 AM

The funny thing is, people who rightly point out Picasso's later work as trash do so because they judge his art to be poor.

People who defend it attack those who disagree. For them its personal and a position of superiority, apparently.

So its "Picasso sucks" on one side and "YOU suck" on the other.

Which to me sort of indicates that the pro-Picasso argument isn't really about the art at all, but about a sort of cultural elitism and a feeling of superiority by belonging to a select group.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 18, 2014 11:47 AM

Aw come on Chris, post a link to your work!

Posted by: pbird [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 19, 2014 8:29 AM

Get off your own high horse, Chris. Nobody on this thread has remotely told anyone "YOU suck." Go back and read them all. I did. If anyone has been adamant, it has been you. You've been sullen and disagreeable since the original post. You don't suck, but you sure want to be right. It's okay, though, because those of us who ARE right appreciate and understand the effort you put into it. It's an exhausting business! ;)
.
.
Oh, lighten up, everyone.

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 19, 2014 9:21 AM

the ones that suck are the pompous poufs that sit around telling everyone that they're here on earth to "validate" Art for the 'mupets' who will (they hope) attend openings and buy 'Art'.

If they thought they could get free brie and cheap champagne, they tell the world 'Elvis on Black Velvet' is the newest ting in the art world.

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 19, 2014 1:28 PM

Joan of Argghh! You said what I was thinking. Good job.

Art is pretentious is one message I'm getting. Hmm. Let me ask this question: can you make something old?

Art is about the new. Modernism was about innovation, which I assert was awesome in its intent and in much of its execution. Post Modernism: meh. It was about the death of art. Fortunately, it didn't succeed.

My link: Thanks.
http://thecolorist.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Casey Klahn [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 19, 2014 7:14 PM

Yikes, the fur is flying. Here I been going to art museums and looking at the pictures, some sculpture too, and being pleased or not pleased as it struck me. I never knew that I had to understand the artist's politics or what school his work belonged in. Sigh.

Rule 62: "Don't take yourself so damn seriously"

Posted by: chasmatic [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 19, 2014 11:12 PM

Chas! Mine Gott, we can't take you anywhere!
In a museum or gallery using the word 'pictures' immediately labels one a philistine. Those are paintings, ALL the elite and 'in the know' personages have that item in their vocabulary.

Pictures are what you get back from Wal-Mart taken on your vacation.

No Brie for you! It's Zwieback and Velveeta and the door.

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 20, 2014 8:55 AM

AW, That's cold.
No whine and cheese for me?

Beer and brats will have to suffice. Frankie Yankovic on the box and away we go.

Posted by: chasmatic [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 21, 2014 9:53 AM

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