Picasso & Modern Art

[Michael Fournier]

Modern art, or a return to primitive art? Let's take a look at this based on terms.

First let's take the term,

[Peter Garrett]

Michael,

Your point about "art" being subjective, and the impossibility of convincing anyone else to agree, is valid enough. I suppose if we change, we do it ourselves, just as students ultimately must teach themselves.

A forum like this does give everyone a chance to consider the preferences of others. Ultimately that kind of stimulus can lead to small or large changes in what moves us.

I remember years ago I didn't much like listening to Bartok or Stravinsky. Now I like both. In between I was exposed to people who loved their music, and that was part of what changed me.

I'm not suggesting any particular "style" or "movement" is better or worse than another. Every art has its virtuosi, its journeymen and its geniuses.

Virtuosity by itself, though, strikes me as sterile. I'd rather hear a technically flawed performance with musicality, and I'd rather look at a less than brilliant painting that shows commitment and expression, whether old or recent.

[Mike McCarty]

I can't stand it, I just have to pass this on. While waiting to have my rotors turned yesterday (the ones on my car) I was flipping through the "Travel and Leisure" magazine. In a section about Mexico City and its art scene, it showed a painting that was recently loaned to the new "Modern Art" museum of Mexico City. The painting consisted of large yellow block letters painted on an orange background. The letters spelled the word "****". In case that was edited, it was a four letter word beginning with "s" and ending with "it".

[Lon Haverly]

I watched the movie, "The Millionaire Motel" starring Mel Gibson last night, and there was an interesting comment made by the art dealer character. He said something like, "There is a thin line between art and rubbish. The creator of the work is just the painter, and we (the critics and dealers) are the artists who determine which it will be."

[Timothy C. Tyler]

Sharlene,

You can still get and use lead white and many traditional schools advise it today.

Your ideas about museums is a good point. They exhibit movements from the past, like "modern art." Kind of a silly, shortsighted term they came up with wasn't it?

[Sharlene Laughton]

Thanks. Tim.

I know that white lead is being sold under the name of "Flake White", but I don't use it anymore because of the fear of lead poisening.

By the same token, I no longer use the original formulation of "Naple's Yellow", which is also lead based and head and shoulders above the imitations available.

On the other hand, I've yet to abandon my cadmiums even though I hear the new alternatives may be better. It's just not easy to adjust!

Picasso once stated:

"Most people can today no longer expect to receive consolation from art. The refined, the rich, the professional do-nothings, the distillers of quintessence (art critics) desire only the peculiar, the sensational, the eccentric, the scandalous in today's art. And I myself, since the advent of cubism, have fed these fellows what they wanted, and satisfied these critics with all the ridiculous ideas that have passed through my head.

The less they understood them, the more they admired me. Through amusing myself with all these absurd farces, I became celebrated. But when I am alone, I do not have the effrontery to consider myself an artist at all, not in the grand old meaning of the word; Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt and Goya, they were great painters. I am only a public clown. I have understood my time and have exploited the imbecility, the vanity, the greed of my contemporaries. It is a bitter confession of mine, more painful than it may seem. But at least and at last it does have the merit of being honest."

Pablo Picasso's confession to Giovanni Papini. Nov. 1951,"New Gogs Diary" similar comments repeated in 1952.

[Peter Jochems]

The quote is from a fantasy interview which never took place in reality...

I found this piece of information on this web-site: http://www.goodart.org/picconf.htm

[Timothy C. Tyler]

I have read that quote for 25 years in dozens of prints...he said "montebank" (sic?) not clown, I think. How is it now a fantasy interview? I'd like to see the proof that he did not say that. The man talked more than he painted.

That he said the things on the Yoder site doesn't mean he did not say the famous selfless and honest things does it? I've never read any solid denials.

[Peter Garrett]

Hmm, what he SAID doesn't matter a hoot. What he MADE is there to see, and to criticize. How many artists have made statements about their own work which are irrelevant in the light of what they painted? Artists are not critics, and what matters is our response to their work, be it positive or negative.