I don't get modern art?

Question

A couple of blotchings of paint here and there. Whats the deal?

Answer 1

I find it amusing that this thing you are referring to as modern art is acually the art of about seventy years ago. Most real 'modern' art is not what you describe. Truly modern painting tends to be fairly realistic, caustic in its content. but not really abstract.

The word modern has a funny way of becoming obsolete.

Answer 2

"art" used to be the expression for only the highest or newest level of skill.

"state of the art" became a phrase used to define what work has surpassed previous generations of work.

Photorealism was achieved long ago, and a countless number of people can achieve realism.

Impressionism, and Modern art represent the capturing of a feeling or emotion that cannot be "known" by seeing a photo, or a realistic painting.

Your negativity (and mine) stems from the fact that while Picasso had his "blue boy", there are many people who never gave the due diligence to learn to paint beautifully, yet make money and call themselves "artists".

The "state of the art" for painting was lost some time ago, but may be found again at some point.

Most "modern art" is rubbish.

Answer 3

Modern art is seen in a hundred different "schools" or types of art. That is like saying that you don't get music. The first question anyone would then ask you is: what kind of music? Since the advent of photography there has been less of a technical reliance on literal, or photographic, reproductions. One might say on seeing a landscape painting that took hundreds of hours to paint, why not just take a photograph? It's just as good, if not better, and it's more accurate. So art in general is not so much contained in the object itself but in your reaction to it.

Answer 4

I think what you may mean is "contemporary" art. Like said above, the modern period had definitely passed. But very simply, modern art was mostly about concept and not nessesarily aesthetics. Look at Jackson Pollock or Marcel Du Champ. Their works themselves can be head-scratching. But when you know that Pollock was the first artist to go off the canvas, or that Du Champ's art was actually making fun of the art of his time, it takes on a whole new meaning.

Answer 5

I agree. Anyone can do that with a ruler, a protractor and a pencil. I found it very disillusioning when I was majoring in art. You would probably like Andrew Wyeth's works. I think he's still alive. His paintings are so real and so wonderful. Check out 'Christina's World' and 'Ground Hog Day'. Another artist you might like is Edward Hopper, who did that famous painting of the man and woman sitting in the diner.

Answer 6

Well...the kind of art you are refering to had/has different ideas behind it. Some artist want to experiment with color, line, shape, composition..some visual aspect of painting or drawing.
While others want to convey an idea in a streamlined or non tangible...non realistic way.
Often those who do this type of work are very capable of doing realistic, traditional types of painting and drawing...

and my last explanation...there are those who simply don't know how to draw or paint representationally, but want to draw and paint anyway.
More power to them if they enjoy it...
I take pride in being able to make a hand look like a hand, a glass of water look like a water, etc...
the creativity for me is how I arrange the elements of a painting, and what other symbolic meanings those objects may have.
But I want whatever is there to LOOK like something.

Answer 7

Your question is interesting on a number of levels. Splotches, blotches, dripped, sort of human looking, but not really...

I think what you are referring to is what most term as "non-representational", in that a painting that does mimic something's image. It's not just "modern."

In the mid 19th century a painter by the name of J.H. Turner had an amazing style that captured raw intense emotions, with flaming buildings, roaring trains and ships flailing in stormy seas. Turner wanted his audience to experience the emotional aspect of the scene rather than the visual details.

In paintings long history in western society, the portrait was always considered the lesser of talents. It paid the bills but it didn't raise one to "great" status as an artist. Painters in the 18th and early 19th centuries loved to imagine scenes and place their figures into romantic and classique themes. Cupids, and ethereal maidens with perfect complexions were the desire of many patrons and painters.

The impressionists of France and the Ashcan School in the United States withdrew from this trend, and instead sought out what was seen with the eye and what was felt, focusing not on exact realism, but instead emphasizing the evocation of movement, color and light.

The study of movement, color and light by artists in the 20th century gave way to all sorts of technical, philosophical questions and experiments. Marcel Duchamp's Figure Descending a Staircase" is perhaps one of the greatest works of the 20th century. It is a blocky, blotchy unreal-looking human figure walking down a staircase. It has the quality of a series of stop action photography layered on top of one another. Technology could not do at that time what Duchamp imagined.

Picasso further took this idea of movement in the layered forms of Duchamp and painted his figures to be seen from several angles at once.

Then came the 1940's, and possibility and experimentation reigned in art. The idea of capturing our inner being's expressions in the most abstract forms was embraced. The artists most known for this are Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Pollock focused on movement while Rothko was more interested in color and light. Each used paint in two dimensions to represent the intense focus on something rather singular and somewhat technical. It was this movement that transitioned the center of Visual Arts from Paris to New York City.

Pop Art of the 1960's tended to be intensely representational, almost to photographic quality, and in some ways surpassing it. Artists associated with this era are Warhol, Marisol, and Rosenquist. The work of all is very representational, but instead is symbolic commentary on culture of the period, pointing out commercialism, contradictions and even a certain level of fondness and celebration.

Most contemporary artists (contemporary means that the artist is still alive and producing work), tend to have large range. There are those whose work is a bunch of splotches and blotchings. There are those whose work is amazingly realistic. You may be interested in seeing the photorealistic work of Richard Estes and Chuck Close. Estes' urban landscapes and Close's giant personal portraits are more intense than any large photo.

Art is something that is experienced by the artist while it is being created, and then it is experienced in an entirely new way by the viewer. The viewer's experience has a definite influence on the creator of the artwork. It's a wonderful cycle, and one that perpetuates ideas.

Bottomline: To understand why a spotch a paint on a canvas is a big deal, one has to put into context of its time, and the ideas surrounding it. Ideas afterall change everything.

Answer 8

From my very limited understanding of it, typical works of art inspire through beauty, create something sureal that you get lost in, or something so unique that requires blind admiration.
Modern art however is almost anything, which is edgy, and provokes you. It's to get a stir out of you. If you have to look at something askew, and wonder what the heck you are looking at....then it's probably modern art.

Answer 9

You gotta be a New Yorker and stand in front of a huge canvas painted white and called "White On White," and say, "Isn't that intrestinggg" with a Lower East Side accent to really join the club. By the time you get to Yonkers, understanding is lost completely and some even dare to scoff.

Answer 10

If that is all the 'modren art' you have seen I am not surprised you don't get it. It is not about 'getting it'. It is about liking it and I'm sure there is modern art around you WOULD like..

A few sugestions?
http://www.artilijst.nl/kunstenaars/JanWorst.htm
Yes, these are paintings and yes it IS modern art.