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RomanticRealism

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Everything posted by RomanticRealism

  1. Okay, now you are going to really hate me! You posted earlier about what I call attributes - colour, texture, lighting (includes shadow) and implied how important they are to you and art. I posted why and how I believed they were important to visual art and how they can add clarity. These 2 paintings are a good example of how poorly colour, texture and lighting is represented in a painting.
  2. Do you mean abstract the same way I mean it? ie that the representational painting (or sculpture) conveys a broader meaning?
  3. I don't know in what form that communication would take without concretes. Concretes are what we need to understand reality therefore providing meaning in communication.
  4. I thought I explained this in my earlier posts. Abstract art is not art because not just me but no one can understand it. If I fill a canvas with blue paint because I like blue, blue makes me feel good, it also reminds me of the sea and of course the sky which is beautiful, it also reminds me of a holiday I once had.... Abstract art is decoration, not art as I have described it. I do not denigrate decoration - I love many forms of decoration including many design disciplines.
  5. Clearly the latter! Sargent was very deliberate about what he wanted to convey. That is why when an artist includes something (such as lighting, shadow) it is as if the artist is emphasizing its importance simply by including it.
  6. I will also add; the large vases were added for a reason. The girl indifferent to the "visitor" leaning on the expensive vase is probably an act of defiance, she probably isn't allowed to be leaning on it. New Buddha, this piece is obviously important to you for you to choose it. What are your thoughts on the girls?
  7. Realistic painting does reach man's emotions directly (or very quickly) because the artist has done all the work. The viewer can pick up on extra details, implications, subtleties, etc, but the main idea is portrayed quite instantly because, if produce well, the sum of the related entities (including their attributes) convey and idea (theme). The cognitive process of painting, literature, dance are different. Painting and sculpture are the same. Non recognisable painting (which I call decoration), if called fine art causes this problem; you would have to say that the cognitive process of representational art is completely different to non-representational art thus creating a whole new art form. Is that what you propose? - painting has 2 categories simply because you wish to include decoration?
  8. I would still like for you to expound further on the above comment. You have asked me this because I mentioned LIGHTING. See my previous post on attributes. However I will answer your question. The man's posture, his demeanor and his being placed in the shadow, the colour of his clothes are similar to the background which makes the darkness of his face standout. He is recessed into the background except for a bit of light on his face to suggest he is present.
  9. I did, very clearly in a previous post: Alpha asked " Can shapes, colours, textures, arrangements etc. communicate something without representing any concretes? - you can read my previous post but I will have to reword it and see if I can be clearer. All of the above (minus brushwork) are ATTRIBUTES of entities. They are NOTHING without the objects they are part of. Light can not be portrayed without it falling upon an object, your chosen subject. What makes light and shade (shadow) possible are the forms that the object possess. I never said to you the above attributes are not capable of conveying information. When you talk about certain attributes in your above post you link them back to objects (willow, oak tree). I said to Alpha those attributes are not capable of conveying information without the entities they are associated with. Alpha mentions "arrangements"- arrangements of want? Clearly defined objects? What I object to is taking those attributes and making them float, by detaching them from what makes them possible in the first place - the subject. So I would reword your statement by saying: ATTRIBUTES of entities in painting are SO IMPORTANT because it is what make those objects REAL.
  10. "Painting is not music" is an argument because understanding the visual arts as I had explained in my previous posts is clear-cut - that painting is conceptual because of the relationship between recognisable concretes, but the problem with music is no one has the knowledge so far to explain the exact cognitive process. I have only attempted to explain it earlier in the sense of it being like a movie, or being placed within a movie - by introspection only. In a Kandinsky painting there are no recognisable concretes, only attributes to concretes. If you could explain the conceptual relationships within a Kandinsky painting (similar to my explanation of the Sargent painting) I will call you a genius. Now if a Kandinsky painting makes you feel good while viewing it, that's great - it is a very good form of decoration.
  11. Three of the girls are attentive towards the viewer. The girl facing away is not interested except with her interaction with the girl in front of her before she was interrupted by the viewer (visitor). Prior to the visitor the two older girls in the background were interacting and the two in the foreground were playing together, but the girl on the left is the least relaxed, she has moved away and stood at attention. The visitor is neither friendly nor threatening. I don't know anything about this painting - have I missed anything?
  12. I agree Sargent was a master at capturing and conveying character especially the woman - the man looks a bit ominous, but that could be because of the lighting.
  13. The type of stylization I prefer is when you have detail within areas of less detail like you mentioned but the less detail consists of gradations of form and colour, not smears. The fabric in Dali's work shows areas of intricate detail combined with areas of very little detail made up of subtle gradations of colours and form - and with the way the light is captured, the result is a sharp visual clarity.
  14. Do you think it was Renoir's intention to make all the females and males identical (or very similar) to each other? - especially the woman in "Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette". Just an observation.
  15. It looks like I need to clarify my view on the Moderns as being nihilists (which includes the Post Moderns). I can understand a revolt again Classicism because of their stupid restrictive rules, while the modern examples given above were the earlier works and have much merit but show a definite decline in clarity of style. Modernists generally range from Monet to Kandinsky, but my main point is that the philosophy behind Modernism has destroyed art to the degree of its unintelligibility which relates to its style, or if intelligible portrays the worst subject imaginable (which I call "axe through head" art) just walk into most art galleries and see for yourself.
  16. Very nice piece of music! What music evokes is a very broad sense, a general feeling. The concretes that you associate with those feelings will differ for each person. So you will have to answer that question yourself. An example is how a director chooses music to enhance a movie because of how the general sense of the music relates to the specifics he believes are being shown and in most cases the viewer will relate as well. What makes music special is that it seems to take you from the general to the specific, where as painting starts with concretes. People who try to justify non-representational painting believe the process is the same as it is in music ie start with some general feelings and then relate it back somehow to concretes. Painting is not music.
  17. I don't believe they can, because they are attributes of concretes. On their own they can't communicate anything broad. Texture would be at the perceptual level and no more than that. You simply recognise it as texture. And I'll take it a step further, a single concrete that is representational can't communicate anything broad (theme). You need 2 or more concretes - concretes that relate to each other.
  18. No, I don't think everyone needs to be an artist, but I do believe everyone should have at lest some art in their lives in whichever form it is in - some people prefer music or literature or painting or sculpture - or if like me all of it.
  19. Firstly, I did conclude that you didn't endorse the motives of the Modernists. Secondly, you are right I did find that painfully boring. I do agree on the importance of history but I don't believe that you necessarily need subject your self to every detail unless you want to of course - you just need a broad understanding of the movements and simply observe the art to know what philosophical ideas were behind it. It is clear to me why Ayn Rand formed Objectivism (specifically the Romantic Manefesto), she simply observed the dominant type of art that was being produced and concluded it was anti-man and anti-mind. I don't believe it is that complicated.
  20. I like Capuletti as well - my favourite is Dali (but only selected works).
  21. I could not agree that the modern movement was born out of "a "reaction" by Modernists to the Beau Art's insistence on the portrayal of overtly literary themes and subjects, such as biblical scenes". Modernists are out to destroy art. They are nihilists - to take fine art that conveys meaning and replace it with the intelligible. For me, in the visual arts it is the most obvious - unless you take literature and jumble the words randomly, it would achieve the same thing.
  22. Both art forms are completely different especially how they are created. However, the way we respond to both are similar. ie If I listen to Rachmaninoff's Scherzo it definitely takes me places which is quite visual - more like a scene from an epic movie that a painting, but very uplifting.
  23. I do believe visual art does rely on the representation of concretes to convey something - that is the nature of sight. And the sum of the concretes add up to a visual theme. Just image for a moment that an artist created a modern non-representational "painting" prior to the 20th century, it would be regarded as a joke - at best regarded as decoration. That this decoration is now regarded as fine art they have suddenly become advanced? - what has changed, have they suddenly become visually aware? I have nothing against decoration and it has it's place, but to call it fine art is to negate the basic nature of fine art. I don't think using music, a totally different form of art, as a comparison to the visual arts. Even with my limited knowledge on music I would not dismiss it as non-representational.
  24. An artist can definitely learn and get inspired by the non-representational things, but I find that the focus is mainly on those very concrete and specific aspects or attributes of those things ie form, colour, light. Utilitarian things such as those you mentioned and any good design do show visual themes, but those themes are not representational and are mostly in a form of decoration and can not project broad philosophical themes. Fine art is a lot more than that and is made up of a number of realistic elements that create a general theme. What makes art great potentially is that it is thematic. That is not to say architecture or any design discipline is not amazing, because it is - but it is simply different.
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