I just finished watching a BBC documentary about the ten highest valued pieces of art ever sold at auction, The top 3 are works by Picasso, going for well over 100 million dollars.
Here’s one of them, La Reve.
It means The Dream, not The Six Fingered Girl. (What’s with the 6 fingers?)
This painting was bought by an ordinary couple in 1941, 9 years after it was painted. Victor and Sally Ganz, of NYC, bought it for 7 grand.
To settle a tax bill thrust upon them when Sally Ganz died, the children had to sell their art collection. It sold for 48.4 million.
(Steve Wynn, the hotel casino owner, bought the painting from the first buyer and promptly put his elbow through the painting by accident, killing his deal to sell it for 139 million.)
The only master on the list is this Peter Paul Rubens painting-
The rest are impressionist or modern art.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monet
Rothko
Bacon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The video that played after the BBC doc was by an artist, speaking on behalf of Prager U, who questioned how we got from Rubens to today.
He was willing to stipulate that some of the stops along the way, like the impressionists, have merit. Modern art, however, he has no use for it.
Now hang with me here, this is where I’m struggling to tie two concepts together – modern art and socialism.
Michelle’s Big Beaver sent me a story about how almost half of today’s millennials would prefer to live in a socialist country rather than a capitalist country, and he asked me what I thought.
In the story the author says there is a huge disconnect between the millennials’ understanding of what socialism really is and their desire to live under it.
Somehow, I cannot shake the feeling that the journey from Rubens to this-
-is part of the same journey that got us from being the most powerful economic nation the earth has ever seen, to half of its young citizens looking to change to a system that has failed over and over and over again.
Is there a connection between accepting crap as wonderful accomplishment and wanting an economic system that promises to provide a life for the most uninspired and untalented among us?
Why do I hate modern art more than ever?
I have the “dogs playing poker” art work. I like art work that looks like what is supposed to be.
I don’t like cubist? or crap like that.
The use of worthless garbage art is a means of laundering or transferring (essentially giving) gigantic sums of money to one another as a bribe or payoff. “You do this for me and I’ll buy that piece of shit from you, name your price”. It’s the same concept as paying off politicians with 10 million dollar book deals that sell 1,500 copies.
It’s all a lie. Steve Wynn would have had the guy executed and dumped overboard if he actually lost 139 million dollar painting by a boob that put his arm through it. The painting was worthless and he got what he paid/bribed for in some other form.
Best I can do is about tree fiddy.
The world has nothing to stop the useless from procreating anymore… breeding more useless people. So talentless people that refuse to believe they are not special have to see crappy art as wonderful because it is art they could create, in their mind they are geniuses so their art is also genius. A life dedicated to an art form makes you a master. These talentless people couldn’t create master art even if they spent a lifetime practicing because they are talentless. Civilization desperately needs something to kill off about 2/3rds of the weakest part of the population…. we can call it the great reset.
It seems like an easy step really. Degrade art to a point where anyone can be an artist. This in turn allows those whom have no actual skill set to roam free and do as they please, claiming it is advancing culture. Now, as we all know, the term “Starving Artist” was an actual thing. Those who couldn’t produce/sell their services actually starved and some died.
Now, add this to the collages and you start spamming out useless dolts who can’t make a living (because nobody buys crap art) and you now you have a bunch of folks who must rely on the government for assistance. Oh my, well it just so happens that a vast majority of unskilled and barely educated starving homeless kids love the idea of mom and dad (socialism/government) just handing out “allowance money”.
Rinse and repeat every year for 40 years and now we have this “undead army” who believe that all art is the same, everyone gets a trophy and any kind of meritocracy is a horrid fate worse than death… or assuming personal accountability, both are the same to them.
Well, I’m not sure I answered the question posed, so, I can’t damage this popsicle stand any more than it is so… yeah
If you love women then you love Rubens…..I don’t get Picasso, but my favorites ( that which draws my eye) are Albrect Durer, Vermeer, Toulouse and Edgar Degas…. Modern art is mostly marketing….
Michelle’s Big Beaver is a man?
I have about 6 Thomas Kinkades, I’ll sell em for half that much.
“Tim’s Vermeer” is available on Amazon. Great movie.
Modern art comes from nothingness, means nothing, goes back to nothingness.
Hmmmm, no.
I have a couple original bigfurhat’s. In a couple years I’ll get in touch Sotheby’s and set myself up with some retirement money. 10 to 20 million would be fine, I’m not greedy.
joe6pak
Sadly artists need to die first before their art is worth anything. LOL
BFH is lucky 20 million dollars doesn’t mean that much to me.
LOL, BFH, no more art. It’s not worth it.
Who stole my canvas I was spray painting a box on?
GO TO the actual study linked at the link you provide.
Then GO TO PAGE 5 of the report.
The “definitions” are CR*P!
G.I.G.O.
I don’t put much weight in that study.
###
Regarding “art” today, I thought this was a pretty good explanation:
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/Philosophy/ArtScam/artscam.php
Steve Cohen bought the Le Reve for MORE than the original $139 million.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaBzlDZbwTk
Picasso was a good artist and a great marketer; I admire both skills.
I also admire forgers of any ‘great’ artists because they have a true and anonymous skill and make fools of dealers and curators –whose job it is to make fools of collectors.
Beauty is true. The current and arbitrary value of the currently popular art is …silly.
I’m pretty simple when it comes to art. My favorite is a bronze of “End Of The Trail” my wife got me for a birthday present.
From page 5 of the study
(*Commonly accepted definitions adapted from Wikipedia…
…that says it all…)
COMMUNISM: Socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social
classes, money and the state
SOCIALISM: Economic and social systems characterized by social ownership and state control of the means of production, as well as the political theories, and movements associated with them
FASCISM: Form of radical authoritarian nationalism, haracterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and
control of industry and commerce
CAPITALISM: Economic system based on free markets and the rule of law with legal protections for private ownership
Years ago I had turned down a chance to buy an original Bev Doolittle. It was relatively inexpensive and I could have afforded it. She really did some cool work. It might have been a mistake on my part.
joe6pak
Yea but she ain’t dead yet. Hard to believe some California girl paints that art. Very impressive.
PS… Yes, modern art is good in the same way that modern virtues are good: no standards, all feeling and interpretation.
Not a fan of grants and subsidized art; the Medici and the marketplace left a better legacy than the NEA will.
I am fascinated by sculptures of people, mostly women, in full veils, so that the fabric folds are sculpted but you can still see the facial features beneath the veil.
As here, http://www.marble-sculpture.com/products/veiled-lady
My ex wife got all the art work…and the fridge it was stuck to in the divorce. The artist is 37 years old now, I call him son, he calls me dad.
To answer the question of the connection between “modern” art and socialism, for my money it’s indolence. Only a lazy idiot would think it a good idea.
Modern art makes me angry. The world it exists in is very much like the Swamp. It’s not whether you are talented, it’s who you know and marketing. Every fine artist I’ve ever met who couldn’t draw or paint-but could “express” themselves- were egotistical messed up people. Or it was an act because that the artist stereotype they had to match.
Working artists have deadlines and bills to pay. They don’t have time for that kind of BS.
How about a big Kmart K?
Manet was always my favorite.
La Reve actually contains a lot of symbolism. Most people think I’m a degenerate when I explain this to them, but here goes:
The dream. It would be fair to say that dreams originate in our mind, in our head. Look closely at her head, especially the very top “half”. If that’s not a penis I don’t know what is. Another take is that she is kissing another person. The six fingers? That indicates motion. She is on a solo flight, dreaming about a man’s, and quite possibly a woman’s, touch. Look at the upper face closely, it looks female. Also, the necklace changes color, indicating two, one for each woman. Just my interpretation.
As art, however, I still think it sucks.
@Buster Brown: You must have taken the same art appreciation course as my daughter did in college, because she can go on and on explaining an item like that, and at the end of it she will have you convinced that what you thought was a public urinal ripped off the wall and signed by an artist with a fake name (Google “Marcel Duchamp”) is actually a revolutionary and priceless objet d’art.
I’ve often told her that if she loses her day job she can always go to work for an art gallery, selling this stuff to the suck- uh, I mean, – customers who are willing to pay big bucks for it. She’s that good at it.
Anyway, what it boils down to is this: If you like something that you think is art enough to spend the money (and you can afford it), buy it. Or you can save your money. Doesn’t matter, because 50 or 60 years from now (or less) both the artwork and the money will belong to someone else.
Hartman didn’t say, “You’re so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece” for nothin’. 😉
Read Tom Wolfe’s _The Painted Word_. Same idea as 2+2=5. Rand had the same thing with her ministers of taste with the funny names.
The purpose of promoting these lies is to debase and humiliate.
Go along with the lie; it’s easy!
True art needs no explanation.
If archaeologists from a future time discovered Modern art stored nearby the works of Ruben, Raphael, Monet, Titian, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, they would assume the other stuff was construction materials left behind from the builders and toss them in the trash.
Back when I was in college, art was defined as a representation of real life, reduced to canvas and pigments.
I’ve always felt that anything I cannot look at and tell what it’s representing is not art.
Some ‘art’ looks more like the drop cloth under the painting.
Ayn Rand does a pretty good job of making this same argument in The Fountainhead. The gist of it is in the critics (art, theater, architecture, etc.) give horrible reviews to the good things and glowing ones to the garbage, so that eventually the normal people lose the ability to tell the difference for themselves. Once there, they can be told that socialism is just great, and go along with it.
Nihilism, destruction, decay and disorder attract certain personality types. We will see them in the streets today.
You mean like this guy? He doesn’t even paint his own work. I went to one of his “shows” in Beverly Hills many many years ago, and I thought he was a joke. I guess he still is.
https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/09/20/1125462/0/en/Iconic-American-Artist-Mark-Kostabi-to-showcase-new-original-paintings-exclusively-at-Martin-Lawrence-Galleries-in-San-Francisco-and-Costa-Mesa-California.html
That kind of looks like a penis flopped over on her face.
She’s just jerking herself off in an armchair. End of story.
The Frankfurt school applied to art
That Rothco is upside-down.
I like Stobart: http://www.prints.com/prints.php?artist_id=6744&print_id=48380&RF=30&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6Zapt62l1wIVxluGCh0hoQi1EAYYAiABEgKvcPD_BwE
If Joe the plumber thinks he could do better, it’s not art.
Modern art is about equality of outcomes. Any moron is capable of doing it. When your typical socialist loser looks at fine art done by a master, they can only feel the pain of envy inside – the same envy they feel toward a successful capitalist.
There’s no pain of envy when one is surrounded by trash modern art. When one sees such art, they inevitably say themselves, “heh, even I could do that!” It is a world without class distinction, without social hierarchy, without shame. Paradise for a loser who didn’t want to spend their life doing deliberate, useful work.
Rothko? Hey, I’ve got a Rothko electric razor too.
I think it’s kind of simple. For decades now the treasuries of the world have been printing money and pushing money into circulation (either through the actual printing or accounting tricks like quanitative easing that pushed bank deposits and other investers out of treasuries and into looking for other things to invest in) Most of the paintngs have something interesting about them and most of the buyers have huge amounts of cash from one government underpinned boondoggle or another so it’s a match made in heaven. The bottom of the whole market falls out when one person tries to sell one of these painting for what he/she paid for it and there is no interest what so ever.
Just proves that one can be rich AND stupid.
That whole “art” schtick is a scam. The art dealers “create” the markets for the dreck to suck in the ignorant rich into parting with their money. But, as Prof. Bickle said: “After Michaelangelo, Rubens, and Titian – whachu gonna do? You can’t do BETTER so you have to do DIFFERENT.”
izlamo delenda est …
The communists are behind it, like most of what is wrong with America now. The Frankfurt School members decided that the way to destroy capitalism was by conning us into beleiving that nothing matters. Destroy the family, destroy our traditions, destroy anything beautiful. If a scrawl of paint is worth millions, then why bother with beauty?