Mark Landis - gotta love this guy

[rogerpbackinMidEastUS]

I didn't say I enjoyed them, I think I referred to them as pictures that a 4 year old could paint.

And as if one Scream was not enough, there are 4 version of it.
Those mentioned (IMO) + the likes of Van Gogh are not talented.
I've been to La Louvre and El Prado and admired some of the paintings.
Michael and Angelo, Turner, Hopper, Rembrandt etc are fantastic.

Michael and Angelo??? Van Gogh not talented???

April fool?

Michael and Angelo did the Sistine Chapel

Van Gogh, you're right, he's a genius.
Question is, did he paint this or my next door neighbours cat.

Did he paint this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VanGogh-starry_night_ballance1.jpg
or this one
http://ivan.deviantart.com/art/Starry-Night-Copy-1999692
or this one
http://davepuls.deviantart.com/art/Starry-Night-in-Oil-Pastels-372598368
or this one
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/starry-starry-night-copy-sarah-huttu.html
or this one
http://www.sacks.cc/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Copy-of-Starry-Night-Oil-46x56cm.jpg
or this one
http://www.amazon.com/Gogh-STARRY-NIGHT-Paint-Number/dp/B004PUIF12

Which one is the most valuable, now hanging in a museum in New York  ?

[rogerpbackinMidEastUS]

I think Tom Keating is the Londoner to whom you refer, Roger.
An interesting bloke (now dead) who produced reasonably expert 'Sexton Blakes', as he called them, with subtle clues to indicate that they were fakes, in order to expose the kind of pretentious flummery that you mention. He fooled loads of 'experts' and annoyed the establishment so much that he was eventually prosecuted, although I think it was called off due to his ill-health.

Sturgeon had it right when he said that 90% of everything is crap (although I think the percentage has increased in this Age of Bullsh!t) - but that doesn't mean we should overlook the 10%.

Yes it was Tom Keating, genius

[Craven Mad]

I didn't say I enjoyed them, I think I referred to them as pictures that a 4 year old could paint.

And as if one Scream was not enough, there are 4 version of it.
Those mentioned (IMO) + the likes of Van Gogh are not talented.
I've been to La Louvre and El Prado and admired some of the paintings.
Michael and Angelo, Turner, Hopper, Rembrandt etc are fantastic.

Michael and Angelo??? Van Gogh not talented???

April fool?

Michael and Angelo did the Sistine Chapel

Van Gogh, you're right, he's a genius.
Question is, did he paint this or my next door neighbours cat.

Did he paint this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VanGogh-starry_night_ballance1.jpg
or this one
http://ivan.deviantart.com/art/Starry-Night-Copy-1999692
or this one
http://davepuls.deviantart.com/art/Starry-Night-in-Oil-Pastels-372598368
or this one
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/starry-starry-night-copy-sarah-huttu.html
or this one
http://www.sacks.cc/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Copy-of-Starry-Night-Oil-46x56cm.jpg
or this one
http://www.amazon.com/Gogh-STARRY-NIGHT-Paint-Number/dp/B004PUIF12

Which one is the most valuable, now hanging in a museum in New York  ?

*Michelangelo

[rogerpbackinMidEastUS]

I didn't say I enjoyed them, I think I referred to them as pictures that a 4 year old could paint.

And as if one Scream was not enough, there are 4 version of it.
Those mentioned (IMO) + the likes of Van Gogh are not talented.
I've been to La Louvre and El Prado and admired some of the paintings.
Michael and Angelo, Turner, Hopper, Rembrandt etc are fantastic.

Michael and Angelo??? Van Gogh not talented???

April fool?

Michael and Angelo did the Sistine Chapel

Van Gogh, you're right, he's a genius.
Question is, did he paint this or my next door neighbours cat.

Did he paint this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VanGogh-starry_night_ballance1.jpg
or this one
http://ivan.deviantart.com/art/Starry-Night-Copy-1999692
or this one
http://davepuls.deviantart.com/art/Starry-Night-in-Oil-Pastels-372598368
or this one
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/starry-starry-night-copy-sarah-huttu.html
or this one
http://www.sacks.cc/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Copy-of-Starry-Night-Oil-46x56cm.jpg
or this one
http://www.amazon.com/Gogh-STARRY-NIGHT-Paint-Number/dp/B004PUIF12

Which one is the most valuable, now hanging in a museum in New York  ?

*Michelangelo

Really ?

[VicHalomsLovechild]

What's wrong with Art galleries?? You may think it's obscene to pay millions for an unmade bed or a picture of some soup, but I'm sure many others would think it's more obscene to pay millions for a football player's contract - to each their own...

I agree that the huge amounts of money paid for players is ridiculous and so are their wages.
But someone like Messi, Ronaldo, Bale etc do entertain millions of people around the world, and so with PS football.
I also agree that everyone should have access to the arts however that is not what I'm having a dig at.
Most working class people who see a Warhol box would see it for what it is, it's the snobs who go to the fund-raising cocktail parties who I don't like.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) Art Museums, Opera and Ballet etc do not have mass appeal, football does,  and consequently it is generally the upper classes who support the arts although some things are leaning towards the working classes, an example is how The Last Night of the Proms now appeals to and is watched by huge crowds and TV audiences (I play clips from it once a year over here) from all walks of life.
A large % of people who visit Paris would go to La Louvre to see the Mona Lisa purely out of interest.
I did and stood there thinking "what's all the fuss about" ?

If anyone can justify someone paying $120 million for "Scream" to maybe put in their basement just because they can,  I'm amazed with that mentality

There's a degree of snobbery in most things and we like nothing better than to see those guilty of snobbery exposed. I'm not sure I'd agree with you about galleries not having mass appeal. Have you been to the Tate or National recently?
Painting and sculpture are a really solid link to the past. Primitive art through to pictures of prince's and princes used as an early form of online dating to unite powerful dynasties. The invention of cheap paint in tubes that allowed Artists to break away from a studio and paint outdoors. Which then lead to social commentary, paintings of normal people going about their daily lives.
Because of the portability of art we get to see works from private and national collections brought together at exhibitions.
Whilst Landis may have exposed the greed and vanity of a few galleries and their boards fakery in any form doesn't ultimately help anyone.

[b+w geezer]

Thank you VicHalom's LoveChild. Despite protestations to the contrary when I first responded to the OP, it turned out he did want to knock down straw men (fakes and snobs; hands up who's a fan of them, eh?) and peddle stereotypes. If you want to give football given an easy ride despite its acknowledged financial excesses, but have high art fingered by a perceived association with phonies at cocktail parties (hands up who's attended one of them?), then I guess a football messageboard is the place to do that. As for football's mass appeal, total attendances at matches, viewing figures on TV and subscriptions for Sky Sports are not quite as 'mass' as media coverage might lead one to think. Distinguish between people who actually watch and care about football and those with pre-packaged, second-hand views based purely on what they've heard or read, and you'll surely find that phoney-dom extends to all necks of the woods.

[Southcoastffc]

"Michael and Angelo, Turner, Hopper, Rembrandt etc are fantastic" 
So, for you to look at and enjoy them is ok but to buy a piece by one of them is not ok if it costs a lot of money?   Not sure I follow that line either.

[rogerpbackinMidEastUS]

"Michael and Angelo, Turner, Hopper, Rembrandt etc are fantastic"  
So, for you to look at and enjoy them is ok but to buy a piece by one of them is not ok if it costs a lot of money?   Not sure I follow that line either.

That's an irrelevant argument,
Looking at something and enjoying or admiring it is entirely different from buying or condoning someone else for buying said item for vast amounts of money just because they can.

The artists I mentioned plus numerous others have actual talent.
Someone like Van Gogh using simple brush strokes.
Jason Pollock dripping paint on a canvas


I can't see how they can justify  ridiculous sums.


Anyone have any opinions on this fetching $86 million

What on earth does this mean ?
Question: Is it upside down or note ?

Rothko said of himself that he was 'no colorist,' and he seems to have regarded color as a tool of conventional composition, and to that extent distrusted it. However, his devotion to enriching the color effects in his work shows
that it was important to him. In particular, he seems to have learned from the techniques of the Old Masters. Titian realized, in the 16th century, that modulating the use of color – in particular, using tones both darker and
lighter than the dominant hue – could deepen and enrich the appearance of the hue. This insight seems to have motivated the layering of color in Rothko's work.

Rothko wanted to lend his pictures what he called an "inner light," a quality of luminosity that suggested vivid depths – one might also compare the experience of contemplating one of his works to staring tinto a fire. This, he
hoped, would encourage an experience for the viewer not unlike that of an encounter with another human being. Although the proper context for this idea is Abstract Expressionism, it is thought that Rothko may have borrowed the
phrase from a contemporary book on the techniques of the Old Masters. Just as Titian may have labored over his colors in order to produce particular qualities of beauty that would complement his often religious subject matter, so
Rothko did the same to lend a spiritual quality to works that had no ostensible subject matter at all.

This Picasso is another favorite of mine

[Craven Mad]

Have you ever seen a Rothko is real life?

The picture you've embedded in your response does the work no justice; his pictures are enormous entities that really command a room - they're vital to actually see.

If I had the money for a Rothko, I'd buy ten.


Not liking a picture is fine, but criticising others for liking something - particularly when you don't seem to even understand why it's liked - is a far more snobbish thing to do than what the art "snobs" do when showing appreciation for copies of classic works. 

[rogerpbackinMidEastUS]

 I "sort of" respect your opinion and no I haven't seen one in real life.
In all honesty, if 100 people from a cross section of people irrespective of Race, Sex, Colour, Religion (including atheists) National origin, Disability (including eyesight), Veteran status, Marital status, Sexual orientation, Gender Identity. Citizenship, Pregnancy or Maternity were to stand in front of that painting (or any of his others) what percentage would say:
a/. That's awesome/inspiring
b/. That's shite
c/.  Undecided or confused
Are you telling me that if you had $800 million you would spend all it on 10 of his pictures,
leaving nothing for utilities and the supermarket  ?
My wife would be furious.

I hope you're not still "sulking" from my 1st April "Michael and Angelo" thingy   :016:

[Holders]

Just out of interest - and not meaning to infer any other point at all - can these people who do these clever minimalist sketches draw "properly" as well, or is that all they can do? I'm not having a dig, just curious.

[b+w geezer]

Back to the association of football with mass appeal / working-class appeal etc.. versus snobby old art.

No secret that I love football and attend it regularly, but the likes of me and  -- and certainly the OP -- should not kid ourselves that's it has *all* that mass appeal.

Total average weekly attendances for the four football divisions, 3.13 million. Biggest ever Sky viewing figure for a TV game, 4.41 million for a broadcast peak,  3.436 million for a broadcast average. BBC match of the day viewing figures nowadays: 4 million regularly, in the 5 millions sometimes.

The total population of England is approx 54 million. So we're in the ballpark of 10% or so taking active spectator interest. Make it 15% if you want to really milk those stats. 20% requires exceptional massage of them. That means popular all right, but less overwhelmingly so than coverage in some of the media would tend to suggest.

Meanwhile...

"A growing proportion of the population of England attends museums. 45.8% of adults attended a museum, gallery or archive at least once in 2009, up from 43% in 2006."  www.museumsassociation.org:
(Higher figures for school-children, but they generally have no choice).

One can go for both -- I do and, from these figures, nearly half of those reading this. A minute sliver of a sliver of a percentage of us will have dabbled in the upper reaches of the art market or football transfer negotiations. Most of us aren't implicated in either. 

At 45.8% we are the people, as also at 10-20%. Let not clunky talk divide us.

[VicHalomsLovechild]

Just out of interest - and not meaning to infer any other point at all - can these people who do these clever minimalist sketches draw "properly" as well, or is that all they can do? I'm not having a dig, just curious.

Picasso could. His early work was figurative and very good. Once in Paris though mixing with other artists and owning a camera he decided to move on to something that carried a message was more symbolic. His line pictures of faces and animals like the horse picture previous are child like but a child has no fear and isn't out to impress anyone. It's something we all lose too early in life. Give it a go. Get an old newspaper a thick felt tip and without taking pen from paper draw someone's profile full size. Doesn't have to be perfect just full size and quick.

[Berserker]

Those same people will swoon over a bottle of Two Buck Chuck if you put a French label on it.


:plus one:

Just out of interest - and not meaning to infer any other point at all - can these people who do these clever minimalist sketches draw "properly" as well, or is that all they can do? I'm not having a dig, just curious.

I love art, all forms including modern art and did art history at college a couple of years ago. I believe most modern artist you see exhibited studied art and can paint 'properly' as well but obviously each artist chooses the style the want to follow.
Before photography the wealthy/religious commisioned artists to paint the 'scenes' they wanted to capture.  Even then art was used to create an impression the patron wanted rather than reality, and it was generally full of symbolism.
After the invention of the camera art has had to invlove in a different way, and I believe this is where impressionism became so popular, a way an artist can express him/herself, show a meaning about something again in art.
Everybody is going to have styles/ artists they love and loath. Also I think seeing art for real makes a hugh difference to seeing a photograph of the piece. For example a Bottatelli is amazing in real life because of it's pinks, blues and golds, and the Crowning of Napoleon is amazing in the Louvre as it is so immense.
But there is amazing modern art, not so much because of the time it took but the idea and the meaning, eg Tracy Eminem's bed, she put so much thought into that before hand as it is a snap shot of her life, she put it in such away that it brought in aspects of things that actual said something and had meaning to her.
I think my life would be a sad place if I couldn't appreciate art, the same if I couldn't listen to music

[bog]

Both my wife and I really enjoy the art gallerys. When you see a Rembrant, Turner, Constable and their ilk up close it is quite spell binding. However some of the nonsense that passes as art and wins top prizes is mind numbing. Tom Keating showed up the art world's so called top critics and experts  to be stuck somewhere personal with his copies of the true greats. He got away with it for years, now he was a brilliant artist who spent his time taking the proverbial. I cant even paint a door properly.

092.gif     

[epsomraver]

Remember Ester Ranzan getting some 8 and 9 year olds to paint some pictures and then they hired a gallery to "exhibit them" all the so called experts spouting on about the brush work etc, it just shows that if you stick a big price on people think it has to be good. IE the injured bubble we bought!

[cmg]

Just out of interest - and not meaning to infer any other point at all - can these people who do these clever minimalist sketches draw "properly" as well, or is that all they can do? I'm not having a dig, just curious.

Picasso could. His early work was figurative and very good. Once in Paris though mixing with other artists and owning a camera he decided to move on to something that carried a message was more symbolic. His line pictures of faces and animals like the horse picture previous are child like but a child has no fear and isn't out to impress anyone. It's something we all lose too early in life. Give it a go. Get an old newspaper a thick felt tip and without taking pen from paper draw someone's profile full size. Doesn't have to be perfect just full size and quick.

Yes. First off his stuff was clearly influenced by the Spanish masters, Goya, Velazquez, Xavi.

In fact he said, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child."
How successful he was, and how keen he was on the midfield diamond, may be seen in his lithograph 'Football' of 1961.

   

[Berserker]

I'm a big fan of Goya

[VicHalomsLovechild]

Just out of interest - and not meaning to infer any other point at all - can these people who do these clever minimalist sketches draw "properly" as well, or is that all they can do? I'm not having a dig, just curious.

Picasso could. His early work was figurative and very good. Once in Paris though mixing with other artists and owning a camera he decided to move on to something that carried a message was more symbolic. His line pictures of faces and animals like the horse picture previous are child like but a child has no fear and isn't out to impress anyone. It's something we all lose too early in life. Give it a go. Get an old newspaper a thick felt tip and without taking pen from paper draw someone's profile full size. Doesn't have to be perfect just full size and quick.

Yes. First off his stuff was clearly influenced by the Spanish masters, Goya, Velazquez, Xavi.

In fact he said, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child."
How successful he was, and how keen he was on the midfield diamond, may be seen in his lithograph 'Football' of 1961.

   

I wonder if Kits using Pablo's stuff to illustrate his team talks. Would explain all the confusion!

[Craven Mad]

Just out of interest - and not meaning to infer any other point at all - can these people who do these clever minimalist sketches draw "properly" as well, or is that all they can do? I'm not having a dig, just curious.

Picasso could. His early work was figurative and very good. Once in Paris though mixing with other artists and owning a camera he decided to move on to something that carried a message was more symbolic. His line pictures of faces and animals like the horse picture previous are child like but a child has no fear and isn't out to impress anyone. It's something we all lose too early in life. Give it a go. Get an old newspaper a thick felt tip and without taking pen from paper draw someone's profile full size. Doesn't have to be perfect just full size and quick.

Yes. First off his stuff was clearly influenced by the Spanish masters, Goya, Velazquez, Xavi.

In fact he said, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child."
How successful he was, and how keen he was on the midfield diamond, may be seen in his lithograph 'Football' of 1961.

   

I wonder if Kits using Pablo's stuff to illustrate his team talks. Would explain all the confusion!

Yeah, Picasso's pitch has more grass than half the teams in this league...