What the Hell Was Modernism? • Hacker News Board

Re: What the Hell Was Modernism?

#41

Post by Qwertystop » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #21

deogeo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really regret not having more openness and ability to grasp these things before. Ironic - modern art has such a lack of this same openness, that the classic techniques it despises were nearly lost. It was not enough for modern art to be accepted - classical art had to be driven out from contemporary galleries: The Slade school in London used to be world-famous for turning out fine British draftsmen. A distinguish…

As somebody who's done a lot of life drawing, and a lot of classical stuff in general, I see the reason why it's no longer central to the curriculum. Ultimately, drawing is just another tool, just like stonecarving, crochet, or dance, and life-drawing is a practice that is good training for a specific use of that tool - portraiture - that was the economic lifeblood of art until daguerreotypes came on the scene. So re…

> life-drawing is a practice that is good training for a specific use of that tool - portraiture

> The question is, why did they continue for so long?

Well, as said in the original quote, it's apparently also good for internalizing a sense of weight for animation. So presumably they continued at least in part because it's good for things that aren't as obsolete as portraiture -- animation isn't the only way to make money in art these days, but it's not exactly in low demand.

I'd wonder why they dropped it, but at a guess, it's some combination of low demand (first they make it non-required, then students who don't realize the broader applicability stop taking it) and higher cost (you need to hire one or more models).

Re: What the Hell Was Modernism?

#42

Post by mannykannot » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

valiant55 wrote: post #40

yason wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For architecture, this exploration is fine but they mostly shouldn't have been allowed to use existing city centres as the playground for their explorations and in doing so ruin the social and architectural fabric that had been breathing life into these cities for generations and centuries. Take your modernist glass-steel-concrete geometry art piece, build it in the perimeter of the city in a park, woods, or plains w…

I'm not sure I agree that modern architecture ruined social and architectural fabric of cities. Holding up vernacular architecture as some sort of beacon because it's been in cities "for generations and centuries" is equivalent to not performing a change in say software, "because that's the we've always done it." Besides a few notable examples of poor execution (20 Fenchurch Street in London, Richards Medical Researc…

You have drifted off-point here, which is the destruction of what is good for something mediocre or worse, as in the functionally and aesthetically disastrous destruction of Penn station in NYC (there are software analogies to be made here, if you think they are useful - e.g. Windows Vista.)

I think there is a lot of value in bold new design, and it is worth taking risks, but it encourages two sorts of copycats: the developer who wants to make a statement on the cheap, which allegedly gave us the back side of the New York By Gehry, and the second-rate architect who wants to express himself rather than serve the community, which results in a rash of undistinguished architectural misdemeanors, rather than high-profile cases.

Now that the high tide of dogmatic modernism seems to have passed, its excesses offers sites that can be redeveloped without losing anything of value.

Re: What the Hell Was Modernism?

#43

Post by thedaemon » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #19

hestipod wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but I know with age and I hope "maturity" I appreciate many more forms of art. Things I didn't have the life experience or emotional depth to grasp when I was younger can deeply impact me now. An example would be Mark Rothko's paintings. I would have said "pfft anyone can do that...just some stripes or blocks" when I was a kid, and probably did, but have recently rediscover…

I never really understood modern art until I a) saw it in person, and b) saw it in the context of its time. I was at the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg. I'd done museum tour after museum tour in both Moscow and Petersburg. Nearly all of this art was classical/neo-classical or romantic, rococo, etc. By the end of your 1000th neo-classical painting, you get exhausted of the sameness of the realistic style. The theme…

I don't think the size of any painting can make it better. Especially if it's something a 2 year old can and will paint. As an artist myself, I've always disliked and never understood why people like modernist artworks. Picasso's best work was his early work, before he gave up on painting life. That some people think they get this crap artwork is just hilarious and just goes to show you can hock anything if you pretend it's high minded.

And your statement "Anyone can technically paint like Matisse. But they didn't." That's probably because noone wants to paint like a child and wants to be considered a good artist not a joke.

Believe me, in 1000 years no one will care about Modernist artwork.

Re: What the Hell Was Modernism?

#44

Post by michaelscott » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

goto11 wrote: post #37

michaelscott wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The move toward a flatter perspective was deliberate and religiously motivated, in order to remove art from the potential for idolatry. It's why illuminated manuscript is such a big deal artistically and why there are so few sculptural works from the period as well. There are parallels in Islamic art as well, where the artistic focus is on calligraphy and architecture as opposed to the more regular forms seen in the…

How did a flatter perspective remove the potential for idolatry? You are still depicting religious figures.

The idea was basically more perspective == more realistic and therefore closer to a temptation to worship (not all figures depicted in the period were necessarily religious). It's not a particularly compelling argument but there's a lot from the thinking in that period that wasn't very logical.

Re: What the Hell Was Modernism?

#45

Post by tabtab » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

michaelscott wrote: post #44

goto11 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did a flatter perspective remove the potential for idolatry? You are still depicting religious figures.

The idea was basically more perspective == more realistic and therefore closer to a temptation to worship (not all figures depicted in the period were necessarily religious). It's not a particularly compelling argument but there's a lot from the thinking in that period that wasn't very logical.

Maybe Heaven is 2D. Practice on a flat harp (not flat notes).

Re: What the Hell Was Modernism?

#46

Post by graemeo » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

thedaemon wrote: post #43

puranjay wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never really understood modern art until I a) saw it in person, and b) saw it in the context of its time. I was at the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg. I'd done museum tour after museum tour in both Moscow and Petersburg. Nearly all of this art was classical/neo-classical or romantic, rococo, etc. By the end of your 1000th neo-classical painting, you get exhausted of the sameness of the realistic style. The theme…

I don't think the size of any painting can make it better. Especially if it's something a 2 year old can and will paint. As an artist myself, I've always disliked and never understood why people like modernist artworks. Picasso's best work was his early work, before he gave up on painting life. That some people think they get this crap artwork is just hilarious and just goes to show you can hock anything if you prete…

What a sad and myopic take on art, especially coming from a self-proclaimed artist. Obviously you're entitled to your opinion, but why make such bitter sounding absolutist statements about what other people create or enjoy? There's enough negativity in this world already.

Additionally, the fact that you're judging the relative worth of a piece of art based on it lasting for 1000 years is pretty sad, in my opinion. What is wrong with art being created for a specific time and place? Life is ephemeral, and there is beauty in that.

Re: What the Hell Was Modernism?

#47

Post by smileypete » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 5:14 PM UTC

Not a big fan of modern art, but I've a soft spot for Gilbert and George, one of the first to create art that literally was shit, or at least incorporated it. :)

Plus they lived in an area of London that was pretty rough back in the day, long before it was trendy.

These days their work has been swamped by a tidal wave (including sharks, and other creatures in formaldehyde...) but they were among the pioneers.

Re: What the Hell Was Modernism?

#48

Post by pasabagi » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

Qwertystop wrote: post #41

pasabagi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who's done a lot of life drawing, and a lot of classical stuff in general, I see the reason why it's no longer central to the curriculum. Ultimately, drawing is just another tool, just like stonecarving, crochet, or dance, and life-drawing is a practice that is good training for a specific use of that tool - portraiture - that was the economic lifeblood of art until daguerreotypes came on the scene. So re…

> life-drawing is a practice that is good training for a specific use of that tool - portraiture > The question is, why did they continue for so long? Well, as said in the original quote, it's apparently also good for internalizing a sense of weight for animation. So presumably they continued at least in part because it's good for things that aren't as obsolete as portraiture -- animation isn't the only way to make m…

Well, the Slade is a fine art school - so animation is sort of the 'bad end', where you give up on being a 'real artist' and get a job. But yeah, definitely a lot of the animation/cgi stuff tends to lean a lot heavier on the classic sculpture/draughtsman skillset. That's actually one of the things I really enjoy about it.

I think the arts are in a weird situation because they're sort of like an ascended craft. Basically, when the bread-and-butter of portraiture died, art had enough social clout to be able to survive without it, doing just art, without any particular service attached. That rapidly unpinned art from any particular set of skills - so now you get artists who do dance, or cut holes in buildings, or send postcards.

So while some of the traditional craft side of art has value to other industries, it's not really that important to what art has become.

Re: What the Hell Was Modernism?

#49

Post by puranjay » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

thedaemon wrote: post #43

puranjay wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never really understood modern art until I a) saw it in person, and b) saw it in the context of its time. I was at the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg. I'd done museum tour after museum tour in both Moscow and Petersburg. Nearly all of this art was classical/neo-classical or romantic, rococo, etc. By the end of your 1000th neo-classical painting, you get exhausted of the sameness of the realistic style. The theme…

I don't think the size of any painting can make it better. Especially if it's something a 2 year old can and will paint. As an artist myself, I've always disliked and never understood why people like modernist artworks. Picasso's best work was his early work, before he gave up on painting life. That some people think they get this crap artwork is just hilarious and just goes to show you can hock anything if you prete…

Imagine you're a wealthy man in late 19th century Europe. You own a nice neo gothic home in the fancy part of the city.

Like other wealthy men, you too dabble in collecting some art. You own a few romantic pieces with exceptional craftsmanship. You proudly display them in your living room amid all your fancy, ornate furniture.

But something is amiss. All your artwork starts looking the same. And why wouldn't it - all these artists have honed their craft at similar art schools. They look good but they've started looking a little repetitive. Like something out of a factory.

You have to see artists like Matisse in this context. Try placing yourself in the shoes of someone from their period. Realistic art was dead because there can't truly be any further innovation in it (and the camera would make it obsolete anyway). The themes, the styles, even the figures had been all tried and put on canvas over the last several centuries.

A Matisse in this context is very new, very exciting, and very full of life. It's bright blue in dimly lit 19th century homes. It's a yellow dancing figure in a room that has only see scenes from the Bible and Greek myths painted.

This is the reason why its art.

"Looking pretty" is just craftsmanship. If it makes you feel something - even acute hatred - its art.

Re: What the Hell Was Modernism?

#50

Post by puranjay » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

graemeo wrote: post #46

thedaemon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the size of any painting can make it better. Especially if it's something a 2 year old can and will paint. As an artist myself, I've always disliked and never understood why people like modernist artworks. Picasso's best work was his early work, before he gave up on painting life. That some people think they get this crap artwork is just hilarious and just goes to show you can hock anything if you prete…

What a sad and myopic take on art, especially coming from a self-proclaimed artist. Obviously you're entitled to your opinion, but why make such bitter sounding absolutist statements about what other people create or enjoy? There's enough negativity in this world already. Additionally, the fact that you're judging the relative worth of a piece of art based on it lasting for 1000 years is pretty sad, in my opinion. Wh…

The irony is that the 1000 year old 10th century art we do care about today looks like it was drawn by a child.