Quote - Just saw this on the BBC News....we should ALL be millionaires LOL!!

I don't think that the prices are out of line considering the overall prices in the art market these days. Have you seen how much 19th and 18th century masters are going for at auction?

Quote - " Mark Rothko's painting was sold by philanthropist David Rockefeller

**The auction record for post-war art has been smashed twice in one night.**Francis Bacon's portrait Study from Innocent X fetched $52.6m (£26.5m) at Sotheby's in New York - almost double the previous high for a Bacon work.

That was followed by a price of $72.8m (£36.7m) for US abstract artist Mark Rothko's 1950 work White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose). "

I need to find the buyer so I can sell them the Brooklyn Bridge, LOL.

I like it.  One reason for the high prices for major works of art is that there just is very little movement of it, and many of the sales are private, between multi-billionaires. For example, there has been exactly one Vermeer which has come on the open market in 80 years.

http://www.productionmyarts.com/arts-et-marche/100-oeuvres-fr.htm
gives a list (up through the end of 2006) for the most expensive paintings sold.

Quote - I'm surprized noone brought up the painting cats yet!
http://www.monpa.com/wcp/

It wasn't until about 2/3 of the way through the book that my wife and I figured out which of the following was true:
a.) This was a hoax
b.) Cats actually paint
c.) The authors are deluded
d.) It was a joke.

It was only a footnote which enabled us to decide exactly which of the above was true.

The sequal (Why Cat's Dance) was more obviously intended as humor, but it was still unclear whether or not the humans who dance with the casts were real (albeit mostly nutjobs) or if the whole thing was a put-on.

Quote - I think that the blue square is just not very interesting.

Wah! I've been trolled! My feelings are hurt! My inalienable right to unconditional praise for my artwork has been violated! I feel unclean! Somebody fetch a moderator before I run out of exclamation marks!!! :lol: Well, to be fair, I suppose it was a bit plagiaristic.

AnArdvark, you or anybody else including a chimp (no offense mean) could paint those colored squares.....

Quote - > Quote - I think that the blue square is just not very interesting.

Wah! I've been trolled! My feelings are hurt! My inalienable right to unconditional praise for my artwork has been violated! I feel unclean! Somebody fetch a moderator before I run out of exclamation marks!!! :lol: Well, to be fair, I suppose it was a bit plagiaristic.

I was actually referring to the one on sale at Sotheby's. I will admit, however, that a fair amount of modern art doesn't come across very well in reproductions. When you are in the same room with a Malevich, Duchamp, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Miro, Calder, or Motherwell it usually comes of more interesting than when you see it in reproduction. Also, many of the very minimalist paintings are much more effective when seen in person due to the scale. I've seen similar Rothko's to the one recently sold at auction, and they are massive works, typically over six feet tall, almost sculptural in their presence.

And its not as if the artists made the big bucks on this stuff. (With the possible exceptions of people like Warhol and Dali who's public, and eccentric, personalities probably influenced the price.)  At the time of his death in 1970, the average price of a Rothko was $10,000.

Quote - > Quote - I'm surprized noone brought up the painting cats yet!

http://www.monpa.com/wcp/

 

It wasn't until about 2/3 of the way through the book that my wife and I figured out which of the following was true:
a.) This was a hoax
b.) Cats actually paint
c.) The authors are deluded
d.) It was a joke.

It was only a footnote which enabled us to decide exactly which of the above was true.

The sequal (Why Cat's Dance) was more obviously intended as humor, but it was still unclear whether or not the humans who dance with the casts were real (albeit mostly nutjobs) or if the whole thing was a put-on.

LOL, yeah, the dancing one was pretty funny!
As for the painting cats, I have tried to make my kitty paint, and it was quite easy, a piece of paper, food coloring, and a laser pointer for her to chase around the paper. This was long before the book, but when i was a kid.  Got in trouble for making a big mess in the house.

Quote - AnArdvark, you or anybody else including a chimp (no offense mean) could paint those colored squares.....

That's why I think those squares aren't very interesting. On the otherhand, I don't think that I could paint one of Barnett Newman's large canvases. There is too much in the texture, the composition, and the transmission of idea to paint. For example, I was really impressed by the "Notes" series, even though they're basically just vertical lines (black on grey or white). Being in a room with several of them at MOMA was almost a visceral experience (perhaps because I'm musically trained.)  Are they worth the millions of dollars which they would probably fetch at auction? Propbably not. I think that abstract expressionist paintings are perhaps overpriced. But are they aesthetically interesting. To me they are.

I think that abstract expressionism is interesting because there are a lot of people who think that they can do it, and even a fair number of people who can create an abstract impressionist work on a lark, or as part of a school assignment, or to prove a point. I'm not really sure why one persons paintings "catch on" and another's don't, except maybe its like actors, or musicians. You have to be in the right place, at the right time, and have that certain something, and have practiced the basics (representational art, and basic techniques) sufficiently to hone your powers of observation, and you have to be able to produce enough of an ouvre for people to notice you. You have to be able to have a show, just like a musician (or group) has to have enough work to play a concert.

In a way, there are musical analogues. I like Robert Frip, and Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth). Both of them do strange things with guitars. However they both can play the guitar normally (but choose, usually, not to), and it is this difference that distinguishes their strange noises on a guitar from my strange noises on a guitar. Plus the fact that they can make interesting strange noises for over an hour at a time, and mine ceases to be interesting after about thirty seconds.

I think that art can be used to make a statement, aesthetic or otherwise. How much one wants to pay for that expression is another issue.

I've posted a quote from a review of an exhibition by a realist painter which is, I think, very appropriate for use Poser users as well.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2697669

One of the biggest thrills of my life was getting to see: Tolouse Letrecs (spelling?) Moulin Rouge at the Chicago Art Museum, the Tiffany Glass exhibit as well as Van Gogh and other Impressionists at the Toledo Ohio Art musem - everything is so different when you see the real thing - and Salvadore Dali's Last Supper in Washingting DC. Especially the Impressionists. Prints do not do them justice - still, squares of paint????? The sad thing is most of those artists died in poverty. One of my greatest heartaches was being in Paris on the day the part of the Louvre was closed that had Van Gogh's stuff. I always wanted to see the real "Starry Night".

It's interesting to note that the "world's oldest woman", Jeanne Calment-- who had known Vincent van Gogh personally when she was a teenager -- didn't like him.

In 1985, Calment moved into a nursing home, having lived on her own until age 110. However, she did not gain international fame until 1988, when the centenary of Vincent van Gogh's visit to Arles provided an occasion to meet reporters. She said that at age 14, she met van Gogh in her father's shop, later describing him as "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

It's a lot easier to like someone who you never actually knew.  I suspect that van Gogh himself wouldn't have been a pleasure to be around.

I wouldn't bne surprized if he was disliked personally, he suffered of mental illness, especially in the latter days. 
Most of mental illness conditions are not very pleasing to be around.
here's some more interesting info on Van Gogh: http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/later.html

That's true.........

I know I'm probably stating the obvious, and someone should say it, so I will... can anyone say "forum flame bait"?
 
I mean, come on, someone with a "Joined Date" of April 16, 2000 is only now, seven years later, asking if he can post a "beginner" image? So, what exactly, have you been doing in those 7 years and 567 posts to this site?

Maybe it's a learning curve thing..........

maybe they  are just really selective. I 'prune' my gallery from time to time, or it'd be 567 posts too..;)
Picasso had a 'blue period', but that's as close to a 'blue square' as I know about..;)

it takes time to learn the software, hoag. then once ya learn the current version - BANG!!! they put out a new version and ya gotta start all over agin :lol: but I believe the part about the old lady not liking Vinnie. if he were as mad as an hatter, I probly woulda run in the opposite direction too.

Maybe you've heard the old 70's song -- the one that was a tribute to Vincent van Gogh.

"I could have told you Vincent,
that this world was never meant for anyone as beautiful as you"

Or something like that.

Well -- I'm not so sure that it was true.  Instead, he might have just been a self-focused, dysfunctional man with emotional problems.  Who happened to have a talent.  Sort of like a lot of Hollywood-type celebrities are today.  Not people who deserve to be admired -- just looked at.

If people were to actually meet many of their favorite celebrities (who they so admire) in real life: the experience would probably prove to be an extremely upsetting one.  At least if the cameras weren't turned on at the time.

I joined when I started with Bryce but never posted anything. I only started with Poser 2 years ago, so the join date means nothing. Vincent was supposed addicted to Absynthe, which makes you crazy, I read.

Quote - I joined when I started with Bryce but never posted anything. I only started with Poser 2 years ago, so the join date means nothing. Vincent was supposed addicted to Absynthe, which makes you crazy, I read.

Yes, Absinthe does. Apparently it's not the wormwood though, but the acetone (or whatever) which they used to use to extract it.

Maybe he's been using another program during that time and not bothering to post anywhere.

Maybe he joined to view the galleries way back when and until now didn't start using any programs.

I joined in 2003 but I didn't get Poser until 2004, so I had 1 year as a member here before I started posting.

don't quote me on this, but acetone is an anthetic if inhaled AFAIK. it causes the nerve coatings to expand or something, the opposite of a neuroleptic. I dunno about absinthe. most of those guys who used it also had tuberculosis and syphilis. can one say that here? I daresay it's O.T.

Hi miss nancy, how is that relate to the topic: ) Anyway nice to see you

Anyway, the point was that a lot of those artists made no money and now some idiots are making tons of money off their art, after the artist is dead. Lends new meaning to the saying, "LIfe sucks, and then you're dead."

http://arted.osu.edu/160/07_Manzoni.php
"Genuine Artist's Shit."

Quote - Pollock was actually good at creating esthetically interesting works using this technique. He started off as a post-impressionist (I think this is the correct term), ala middle-period picasso, and started using a looser and looser brush stroke. Even his early abstract splatter paintings are representationalI and even figurative. In fact, most of his "abstracts" are really representational, but not figurative.

To be honest, Pollock has been an artist that I've often used as an example of bad art that has value in the art world. When I look at Pollock's work, all I see are splashes of paint that do little to move me. I haven't seen a detailed analysis of one of his paintings, but have heard other others waxing If the artist has concocted some significant, meaningful backstory, to explain the work, it usually comes across as an artist who put more thought into what he meant to do than the actual painting. It goes back to "The Emperor's New Clothes" where con artists' convinced the emperor that only one of fine intellect and station could recognize the incredible beauty of the outfit they created while all dunces and fools would see nothing at all. Art critics have elevated many works, that are otherwise nothing, into valued art. It's hard for me to take the art world seriously when a vertical canvas of a single uniform color can fetch over $900,000--which is what the painting sold for.

If abstract work moves a person emotionally, that's okay. Art is something that is in the eye of the beholder. Overall, I'd expect most Poser users to tend to realistic art or they wouldn't be using Poser very much. 

The funny thing about art auctions is that they are not simply about buying art, but also represent a gamemanship aspect where setting new records for forms of art elevate the valuation of all art of that type. After all, what other means is there to value one-of-a-kind artistic works? The "crazy" person, who paid just under a million dollars for the blue painting, increased the value of all that artist's work as well as similar works, and probably increased the value of his personal collection significantly more than the premium paid for this painting. Similarly, if such works didn't sell for their expected pricing, similar works would begin to lose such valuations.

So, did he/she post anything yet or did you all scare him off? :)

Quote - > Quote - Pollock was actually good at creating esthetically interesting works using this technique. He started off as a post-impressionist (I think this is the correct term), ala middle-period picasso, and started using a looser and looser brush stroke. Even his early abstract splatter paintings are representationalI and even figurative. In fact, most of his "abstracts" are really representational, but not figurative.

 

To be honest, Pollock has been an artist that I've often used as an example of bad art that has value in the art world. When I look at Pollock's work, all I see are splashes of paint that do little to move me. I haven't seen a detailed analysis of one of his paintings, but have heard other others waxing If the artist has concocted some significant, meaningful backstory, to explain the work, it usually comes across as an artist who put more thought into what he meant to do than the actual painting. It goes back to "The Emperor's New Clothes" where con artists' convinced the emperor that only one of fine intellect and station could recognize the incredible beauty of the outfit they created while all dunces and fools would see nothing at all. Art critics have elevated many works, that are otherwise nothing, into valued art. It's hard for me to take the art world seriously when a vertical canvas of a single uniform color can fetch over $900,000--which is what the painting sold for.

Yeah, the blue canvass didn't do a thing for me, and I am a big fan of abstract art. I don't think that backstory is required for art, in fact it often gets in the way, and I usually like to look at a piece of non-representational art for a while before looking at the title. I find myself that a piece of abstract art either grows on me after I look at it for a few minutes, or I remain unmoved. I think in the case of Pollock it takes me a few minutes to get the feel of the work. Perhaps one reason why I like abstract expressionism (aside from the fact that I like most schools of modern art) is that it is rather reminiscent to me of music. (IIRC, Kandinsky was very influenced by musical notions). As to the "Emperor's new clothes" sort of art, one of the biggest perpertrators of that was Duchamp. However, he, as well as other dadaists, were not really making art qua art, but rather statements about art. I find his work intellectually interesting, but aesthetically boring. I find Jean Arp, and his obsession with "navels" (small wooden spheres) just boring.

Just as art can be a tool for illustration, it can also be a tool for commentary (albeit sometimes a blunt tool). Sometimes the commentary is political, and the art is representational (or not, eg. Guernica). Othertimes the commentary is about aesthetics, or the politics of art, such as most of Duchamp's work. Sometimes it is purely abstract, with a drive away from the figurative  such as Kazimir Malevich's "Suprematist" paintings (Suprematism is a doctrine which holds the depiction of pure feeling as paramount and is described by Malevich in a pamplet translated into English and available at http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/malevich.html

Quote - If abstract work moves a person emotionally, that's okay. Art is something that is in the eye of the beholder. Overall, I'd expect most Poser users to tend to realistic art or they wouldn't be using Poser very much..

Probably true for most of us. I'm probably an exception, since my main interest in Poser is to create illustrations for a variety of gaming projects. However, given that I want them to be reasonably good aesthetically. My personal artistic preferences, howver, tend toward the less literal, but, with the exception of some mock album covers I'm thinking about nothing I'm likely to do will be based on that. I also find that its fun to capture the feel of various other graphic arts within Poser, in particular late 18th-mid 19th century figurative painting, surealism, and photorealism. (Photorealism in the painting sense, not in the usual Poser sense of looking like a photograph.) I guess I just like everything. (For example, I like pretty much all periods of Western Classical music, from Gregorian chant to the atonal.)

Quote - The funny thing about art auctions is that they are not simply about buying art, but also represent a gamemanship aspect where setting new records for forms of art elevate the valuation of all art of that type. After all, what other means is there to value one-of-a-kind artistic works? The "crazy" person, who paid just under a million dollars for the blue painting, increased the value of all that artist's work as well as similar works, and probably increased the value of his personal collection significantly more than the premium paid for this painting. Similarly, if such works didn't sell for their expected pricing, similar works would begin to lose such valuations.

Exactly. It's a fairly irrational market driven by ego and scarcity, and it is one which, unfortunately, museums are increasingly priced out of. Incidentally, one interesting fact about Rothko is that he refused to take private commisions if the work wasn't going to be displayed in a public space, and refused to hand over a commisioned work to Seagrams when he found they were going to put it in a boardroom instead of a lobby; he gave it to the Tate gallery instead.

Quote - However, he, as well as other dadaists, were not really making art qua art, but rather statements about art.

It's arrogant enough to say, "This is art."  Putting your turds in a can and saying, "This is a STATEMENT about art" - well, that's big brass balls, especially if people ooh and ahh over it.  Bunch of nonsense, In My Ever So Humble O-Pin-I-On.

Quote - > Quote - However, he, as well as other dadaists, were not really making art qua art, but rather statements about art.

 

It's arrogant enough to say, "This is art."  Putting your turds in a can and saying, "This is a STATEMENT about art" - well, that's big brass balls, especially if people ooh and ahh over it.  Bunch of nonsense, In My Ever So Humble O-Pin-I-On.

I think that, to a large extent, the dadaists served the same role within high art as the punks served in pop music -- puncturing pretensions and delivering a much needed emetic.  And what's wrong about having brass balls when poking fun at the status quo. We tend to forget that many of the more outrageous of the avante garde never thought that they would be venerated, or become part of the collections of major museums. They displayed in shows at the NYC Armory, or galeries in Paris, and tweaked the nose of the art establishment. To borrow the emperor's new clothes analogy, they often were the ones who were having fun at the emperor's expense (in one way or another). 

So what is art? What, for that matter is music? Does attractiveness have a role in it? (Does it have to be attractive/aesthetically pleasing to be art? Does it have to be pleasant to listen to, to be harmonius to be music?) For myself, "modern art" often speaks to me in a very different way than 18th century art does, just as modern music speaks to me differently than older music.

Quote - http://arted.osu.edu/160/07_Manzoni.php
"Genuine Artist's Shit."

I read the essays associated with this artist. The sad thing was that he did have an aesthetic idea, but it seemed pretty purile to me. (And I like conceptual art.) I kind of liked his art (the signing of people, the plinths on which you could become a piece of art by standing upon them, the art sealed into cylinders) when I thought they were jokes. 

One of my personal favorites is **Giorgio de Chirico. ** He is considered to be the father of surrealism.
 
But he had a huge falling-out with the surrealists, and he did not want to be considered as being associated with them.

He must have truly hated the later dadaists.

I hated 'em too. like that bozo who posted an urinal in an art gallery as "found art". those guys were truly awful IMVHO. :lol: or the time when that guy drew a moustache on la gioconda and called it LHOOQ. :lol: