Rothko then the usual discussion on science versus other stuff

[mc ukrneal]

Earlier today in another thread the artist Mark Rothko came up and I indicated that I was not really a big fan. I was asked to expand a bit and so here is that discussion.

In general, I love art. And I actually feel I am more open to modern art than modern classical music. But there is one style that really ticks me off. I am not really sure what it is called, but I might call it geometric art or something like that.  Examples might include this:
or

The second is a Mark Rothko at the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in NY.  It's actually one of the nicer types of this style. But I don't see why it hangs in the MOMA. There is nothing special about it. It doesn't inspire deep thought. Heck, I could paint this. And that is what irritates me. I could not write Beethoven's 5th, write Ulysses, paint the Sistine Chapel, sculpt like Bernini, etc., but I could paint these types of paintings. So could a five year old. And these painting sit in museums and people pay millions of dollars to own them. I am at a loss. (Incidentally, while I don't remember these particular paintings, I have been to the many museums that show these types of paintings in the US and Europe, so I don't make these comments without having seen them - I have).

Rothko does earlier paintings that I find interesting, for example:


Here's one I don't identify with in the slightest:


There are other modern styles that I rather like, and so I am not trying to condemn all modern art. So though I'm skeptical I will ever love this particular type of art, I am willing to at least try to understand what others see in it and appreciate it more (and right now I don't).  Hope everyone will be open to new art and ideas as well.

[Philoctetes]

The second is a Mark Rothko at the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in NY.  It's actually one of the nicer types of this style. But I don't see why it hangs in the MOMA. There is nothing special about it. It doesn't inspire deep thought.

First, no you couldn't. I love how that is like the fallback line for the unintelligent. Not only are the pieces structurally complex, there is considerable technique behind it, not even adding in the major conceptual elements that are key to these types of composition.

Second, it does inspire thought.

[karlhenning]

It isn't always easy to say why a given individual does not connect with the art, even when the art has become 'canonized'.

[bhodges]

Philo: language, please.  0:)  Thank you.

--Bruce

[DavidW]

I wonder the same thing because I don't know anything about modern art.  If someone could just post a link to a crash course in appreciation that would be awesome.

[Scarpia]

Well, I suppose I know what I am supposed to appreciate about those Rothko's, something about texture and relationships between different combinations of color, etc.  I've seen a few of them in person (there's at least one at MoMA, no?)  but I haven't found them interesting so far.

[mc ukrneal]

First, no you couldn't. I love how that is like the fallback line for the unintelligent. Not only are the pieces structurally complex, there is considerable technique behind it, not even adding in the major conceptual elements that are key to these types of composition.

Second, it does inspire thought.

This is what I feared - this should not be an opportunity to insult or criticize people, but an open exchange of ideas. We will all bring some biases to the topic, and I am sure I have mine, but none are directed at anyone personally. If someone loves art I detest, well this is ok. I can always move on to the next painting.

I didn't think I had written anything offensive and sorry if it seemed that way. What exactly makes this structurally complex? The top half is dark gray/black. The bottom half is a slightly textured mix of black and white. That is structurally simple if I compare it to painting of something that depicts objects or people. And I don't see any conceptual elements. If there is something you see that is there, I would appreciate if you shared - maybe I will start to see something. Does it inspire imagination? For those who like it, what goes through your mind? What do YOU see?

EDIT: I am not trained in any way as an artist (and don't really know as much about 20th/21st century art compared to previous generations), so it is out of personal interest that I pursue art at all. Liking and disliking something are irrelevent compared to understanding. And that is what I am seeking - greater understanding.

[bhodges]

Not sure where you are located, urkneal, but if you can, I highly recommend going to a museum or gallery where you can see some of these types of paintings in person.  More than many other types of art, abstract expressionism doesn't fare very well in reproductions.  One of the reasons is scale: many of these paintings are huge.  (Consider, for example, the difference between seeing a movie on a giant screen, vs. on an iPhone.)

Also, one of the concerns of many of these artists is the quality of paint and color in themselves.  For example, seen in person, Jackson Pollock's drip paintings are actually very three-dimensional, with the bubbly texture of the paint very visible.  They communicate more of the activity required to do them (i.e., the arm motions involved) that way as well.

Here's a piece by Ad Reinhardt, a great example of something that doesn't transmit well here: the painting is about 4' x 4', and made up of nine black squares that are very, very subtly gradated.  The first time I saw it, I sat in front of it for a few minutes until my eyes could make out the squares, and that very process almost felt like a small transcendent experience, as the painting "revealed itself."

--Bruce

[mc ukrneal]

Not sure where you are located, urkneal, but if you can, I highly recommend going to a museum or gallery where you can see some of these types of paintings in person.  More than many other types of art, abstract expressionism doesn't fare very well in reproductions.  One of the reasons is scale: many of these paintings are huge.  (Consider, for example, the difference between seeing a movie on a giant screen, vs. on an iPhone.)

Also, one of the concerns of many of these artists is the quality of paint and color in themselves.  For example, seen in person, Jackson Pollock's drip paintings are actually very three-dimensional, with the bubbly texture of the paint very visible.  They communicate more of the activity required to do them (i.e., the arm motions involved) that way as well.

Here's a piece by Ad Reinhardt, a great example of something that doesn't transmit well here: the painting is about 4' x 4', and made up of nine black squares that are very, very subtly gradated.  The first time I saw it, I sat in front of it for a few minutes until my eyes could make out the squares, and that very process almost felt like a small transcendent experience, as the painting "revealed itself."

--Bruce

You are right, seeing them in person is a huge difference (and I encourage people to go to museums anyway). I have seen Pollack and I like him, and agree with what you say. And I have seen lots of paintings that are as big as you say  and look like the paintings we both posted. So I appreciate your sharing your experience, which may surprise you (or not!), but I do find it revealing and helpful. Especially your emphasis on process. Perhaps I don;t give them long enough.

[bhodges]

Yes, many of these painters were concerned with the "act of applying paint on canvas," or letting the beauty of sheer color and texture show themselves.  This is very different from painters whose goals were to represent objects in nature, or produce portraits of human beings. 

And your good comment, "Perhaps I don't give them long enough," reminds me of one of my pet peeves about some museums: not enough places to SIT.  Just walking past a bunch of paintings is different from sitting down in front of one and contemplating it for say, a quarter of an hour, or longer.  It took me a good 15 minutes, staring at that Reinhardt, for its subtleties to materialize.

--Bruce

[drogulus]

     I don't think anyone is supposed to like any type of art, whether it's considered modern or traditional. I see all art as serving the artist and communicating to an audience. There's no default position of appreciation or reverence for any such works. Therefore the criticism of people for not "getting it" is in my view mistaken. I might volunteer to try to get it but it isn't a failure if I don't. Nor is it a failure of the art. It might have some validity to criticize someone for claiming knowledge of art they don't appear to have. But I don't think not appreciating a particular style or movement in art demonstrates that.

     These judgments are rendered more difficult when art is divorced from traditional notions of craft, so that each work stands on its own without reference to stable criteria. This is the condition of modernism generally, and because of that it makes no more sense to judge the viewer by a mythical standard than it does to judge the painting by it.

     Art acquires its value only from the audience that appreciates it over time. There is no great art that no one values. It's greatness consists in that valuation and there's no external reservoir of merit other than the history of past valuations. When you stop praying to the god you cease to worry about "where" it went.  For the most part there is continuity about music and painting and films. However, once the social force of our present valuation of past valuations is gone there will be no appeal.

     It looks to me like a good proportion of art produced by modernists over the last century will continue to retain value. The modernists seem to be doing pretty well in music and painting. The audience is small for serious works but that is due as much to new art forms as it is to new styles in the older ones, though I think these factors may be related.

[vandermolen]

I love the room in the Tate Gallery in London with the Rothko paintings - I find them to be very moving and deeply  spiritual works.  The monolithic chords at the very end of Vaughan Williams' 9th Symphony invariably make me think of those Rothko paintings:

[drogulus]

     That looks like late Rothko.

     

[Josquin des Prez]

Rothko is a fraud, always was, always will be. It is however amusing to witness the myriad of convulsions and double think insanity all the rabid apologists go through when this fact is brought up.

Our age is the one which "no longer has a single great artist, a single great philosopher, the age of the least originality and the biggest hunt for originality".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtMc55ZR7PM

How much does a Rothko cost? 5 millions? 10? 50?

[Josquin des Prez]

Therefore the criticism of people for not "getting it" is in my view mistaken. I might volunteer to try to get it but it isn't a failure if I don't.

It is a failure if you can't understand why (for instance) Michelangelo was a genius, while Raphael was not. Much like it is failure if you don't understand what makes Beethoven greater then Mendelssohn, or Liszt. In this instance, its either you get it, or you don't.

[Scarpia]

I love the room in the Tate Gallery in London with the Rothko paintings - I find them to be very moving and deeply  spiritual works.  The monolithic chords at the very end of Vaughan Williams' 9th Symphony invariably make me think of those Rothko paintings:

To hear them described as deeply spiritual truly surprises me.  I find them generally attractive, and the combinations of color are interesting, but not more intrinsically complex or subtle than the colors chosen for a T-shirt sold by J Crew, for instance.

[DavidW]

Bruce I like that painting.  It reminds me of a photograph I saw when I visited the Fogg Art Museum.  It was a picture of the sea taken right at dawn.  When you first look at it you see absolutely nothing but black.  But as you look more carefully you start to make out detail until you see the horizon.  And then you continue to look and you make out waves and crests and as you keep looking the whole thing slowly emerges out of what initially looked completely black.

Now how did that photographer do that!?  What an amazing ingenious photo.

[greg]

Umm... I think I like early Rothko a million times better. But... at least he found a style for himself, since that "early Rothko" looks like an imitation of Kandinsky.

[mc ukrneal]

     I don't think anyone is supposed to like any type of art, whether it's considered modern or traditional. I see all art as serving the artist and communicating to an audience. There's no default position of appreciation or reverence for any such works. Therefore the criticism of people for not "getting it" is in my view mistaken. I might volunteer to try to get it but it isn't a failure if I don't. Nor is it a failure of the art. It might have some validity to criticize someone for claiming knowledge of art they don't appear to have. But I don't think not appreciating a particular style or movement in art demonstrates that.

     These judgments are rendered more difficult when art is divorced from traditional notions of craft, so that each work stands on its own without reference to stable criteria. This is the condition of modernism generally, and because of that it makes no more sense to judge the viewer by a mythical standard than it does to judge the painting by it.

     Art acquires its value only from the audience that appreciates it over time. There is no great art that no one values. It's greatness consists in that valuation and there's no external reservoir of merit other than the history of past valuations. When you stop praying to the god you cease to worry about "where" it went.  For the most part there is continuity about music and painting and films. However, once the social force of our present valuation of past valuations is gone there will be no appeal.

     It looks to me like a good proportion of art produced by modernists over the last century will continue to retain value. The modernists seem to be doing pretty well in music and painting. The audience is small for serious works but that is due as much to new art forms as it is to new styles in the older ones, though I think these factors may be related.

An interesting perspective that will take me some time to absorb...

[drogulus]

It is a failure if you can't understand why (for instance) Michelangelo was a genius, while Raphael was not. Much like it is failure if you don't understand what makes Beethoven greater then Mendelssohn, or Liszt. In this instance, its either you get it, or you don't.

     No one understands what makes these judgments seem so much like facts to you and so much like values to me. Your way of not being able to explain it is to say you either get it or not. Apparently it doesn't occur to you that this admission of ignorance undercuts just a little your status as expert in these distinctions. But don't feel bad, there aren't any experts. All there is is agreement about the effects artists have, and to this extent we know who the great ones are. Nor is there any mystery about how I manage to agree with the consensus so often. I'm similar to everyone else, so I react the same way.