One of the eye-wateringly valuable Mark Rothko paintings in the Seagram bequest now at the Tate Modern has been scrawled on by a Polish exhibitionist.
Naturally I deplore such behaviour but I really dislike those paintings and can't understand why they are worth 50 million quid each allegedly.
I reckon the Seagram company couldn't stand them after commissioning them and passed them on to a grateful Tate. They used to be in a room of their own in the proper Tate where one could go in and bathe in their ambience. They are so damn gloomy and overbearing that I used to feel like committing suicide after five minutes there, as indeed the unfortunate artist did eventually.
Damn! Wrong forum. Sorry moderators, please move.
|
>> Damn! Wrong forum. Sorry moderators, please move.
Moved already to non-motoring?
A bit of emulsion on those paintings would improve them
EDIT: The thread is in motoring too I see. :-)
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 11 Oct 12 at 00:19
|
>> EDIT: The thread is in motoring too I see. :-)
Not any more it isn't.
|
|
The buyers must be really gullible or I'm a Philistine. Gimme a nice Constable,Turner etc. I can see the beauty in those.
|
I like Impressionist and Art Nouveau painting styles, myself and I am really attracted to good Art Deco building design and decoration.
Art Deco pottery, in particular Clarice Cliff (of which we have a small collection) is another area of interest, but "modern" art such as Dali & Picasso, I find to be pretentious nonsense.
|
>> I like Impressionist and Art Nouveau painting styles, myself and I am really attracted to
>> good Art Deco building design and decoration.
>> Art Deco pottery, in particular Clarice Cliff (of which we have a small collection) is
>> another area of interest, but "modern" art such as Dali & Picasso, I find to
>> be pretentious nonsense.
O Dear, Roger and I share a basis of delight, in that I love Art Deco (the only reason I bought my current house is that it still has the original Art Deco bakelite door handles)
Fortunately, I have sufficient taste to appreciate Picasso and Dali, tho the Rothkos are muck - pure and simple.
|
"Fortunately, I have sufficient taste to appreciate Picasso and Dali, tho the Rothkos are muck - pure and simple."
Zero
Looking at the black paintings is like that moment of wobbly uncertainty when you enter a dark room and can’t make out where anything is. All Rothko’s pictures constantly keep the eye in a disorientated state and play with a familiar symbolism of light. Centuries of myths and metaphors have told us that death is a void and, last century, God, who was an old man with a beard in the 16th century and a sublime wild landscape in the 19th century, became a vague, ethereal, light-emanating force — of which Rothko’s floating foggy lozenges of colour are a portrait.
These pictures don’t work simply because of a formal aesthetic of textures (delicious as Rothko’s surfaces are) nor because they impart a mystical experience, which is beyond words. Instead the pictures create primal optical experiences, which have symbolic meanings we are all familiar with.
Ben Lewis London Evening Standrd
|
I rather like Dali and will tilt my hat at Hieronymus Bosch - Picasso I don't get, nothing to do with taste - his pre-Guernica work I rather admisre but after that I just don' like it. My belief is he became well known and people snaffled his work up - prices went up and he then just turned out doodles. The paintings/prints on my walls are all recognisable landscapes - I don't believe in liking stuff for the sake of it and because other people tell me that I have to ! (apart from Apple products)
Reminds me of aposh party I went to a long time ago - talking to the hostess - I pointed to a Lowry on her wall and told her that I had the same one at home. She said that she didn't think so as it was an original.
Last edited by: R.P. on Thu 11 Oct 12 at 09:42
|
>> I pointed to a Lowry on her wall and told her that I had the same one at home. She said that she didn't think so as it was an original.
Rich friends!
|
>> Reminds me of aposh party I went to a long time ago - talking to
>> the hostess - I pointed to a Lowry on her wall and told her that
>> I had the same one at home. She said that she didn't think so as
>> it was an original.
Possible, Lowry dashed off very similar scenes for friends and in leu of favours. He had a kind of generic picture that he used.
|
>> "Fortunately, I have sufficient taste to appreciate Picasso and Dali, tho the Rothkos are muck
>> - pure and simple."
>>
>> Zero
>>
>> Looking at the black paintings is like that moment of wobbly uncertainty when you enter
>> a dark room and can’t make out where anything is. All Rothko’s pictures constantly keep
>> the eye in a disorientated state and play with a familiar symbolism of light. Centuries
>> of myths and metaphors have told us that death is a void and, last century,
>> God, who was an old man with a beard in the 16th century and a
>> sublime wild landscape in the 19th century, became a vague, ethereal, light-emanating force — of
>> which Rothko’s floating foggy lozenges of colour are a portrait.
>>
>> These pictures don’t work simply because of a formal aesthetic of textures (delicious as Rothko’s
>> surfaces are) nor because they impart a mystical experience, which is beyond words. Instead the
>> pictures create primal optical experiences, which have symbolic meanings we are all familiar with.
>>
>> Ben Lewis London Evening Standrd
What a load of old trash, meaningless words carelessly used in a desperate attempt to appear to be to "have got it"
The paintings are talentless, uninspired, colourless, meaningless splurges of paint, remarkable only for the hype they have managed to develop, perpetrated by the greedy or the ignorant.
|
I don't agree that the Rothkos are 'talentless'. A lot of work went into them, and a lifetime as a gloomy introspective painter until that time. If you look at them closely the paint is laid on and scraped off in many layers and the surfaces are indeed rather special (one of the critics quoted here said as much).
What they are though, to me, is oppressively gloomy and overbearing. Perhaps I'm missing something, but then I'm not an art critic so I'm allowed to.
|
Some of his early 'stuff' looks a tad interesting, but as for his later works, I'd rather have the £50 mil.
www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/early3.shtm
|
>> Some of his early 'stuff' looks a tad interesting, but as for his later works,
>> I'd rather have the £50 mil.
>>
>> www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/early3.shtm
>>
Are those pigs? Look like it.
Would I like it beside the Renoir?
No..
|
www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/early3.shtm
"Would I like it beside the Renoir?"
Albert Wolf the art critic said:
"Try to explain to the artist that a woman's torso is not a mass of decomposing flesh. "
Oh hang on he wasn't talking about a Rothko he talking about a Renoir "Nudes in the Sun" in 1874!
|
>> Are those pigs? Look like it.
>>
>> Would I like it beside the Renoir?
>>
>> No..
>>
I don't fancy yours Mad !....Mind you, I don't fancy mine either....where's BBD when you need him ?
Ted
|
|
Interested by the comments on here I viewed Simon Schama's program on Mark Rothko available on You Tube. Very interesting and helps you understand his work. Recommended
|
>> Interested by the comments on here I viewed Simon Schama's program on Mark Rothko available
>> on You Tube. Very interesting and helps you understand his work. Recommended
>>
I don't really want to have to understand paintings, just enjoy them. So modern art's a bit of a non-starter for me. Unless it just looks pleasing to my eye. There is a tremendous amount of bowlocks spoken about paintings, sculpture and the like, imho.
|
>>I don't really want to have to understand paintings, just enjoy them<<
Same here, although I'm rather fond of Turner / Manet / Monet / and money.
:-))
|
I like some of Turners work. The Fighting Temeraire for example is full of symbolism - the sun setting on the last of the sailing ships of the line, the serene beauty of the ship itself cast against the black dirty modern ugliness of the steam tug, the calmness of the scene - a ship to rest in peace, the colour, the mistiness.
Some of his other stuff is just pure washed out nothingness.
|
One man's washed out nothingness is another man's masterpiece.
Here is his complete works: www.william-turner.org/Richmond-Hill.html
|
Richmond hill is good
This is rubbish
www.william-turner.org/Snow-Storm--Steam-Boat-off-a-Harbour's-Mouth-c.-1842.html
he was a prolific painter, there is bound to be dross
|
|
Same with Ratko, he produced some fine paintings, as well as the dross.
|
>> Same with Ratko, he produced some fine paintings, as well as the dross.
Exactly, so why cant art critics be honest and say, "These have been vandalised, but its no matter they were dross examples"
Instead they try and conceptualise them, or invent stuff to try and excuse the dross.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 11 Oct 12 at 19:57
|
|
I'm not familiar with Rothko, in fact I'd never heard of him before this week, but looking at some of his paintings I wonder if he had mental health issues.
|
|
They are all, mostly, completely the same. Three rough boxes of colour. Sort of. Utterly pointless.
|
This was my introduction to art at age 16:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights_by_Bosch_High_Resolution.jpg
It was on the album cover of Deep Purple's first LP, which I now have on CD.
|
|
A scene from the London riots, maybe: www.hieronymus-bosch.org/Hell-2.html
|
>> Interested by the comments on here I viewed Simon Schama's program on Mark Rothko available
>> on You Tube. Very interesting and helps you understand his work. Recommended
Just more trash spoken in an attempt to justify ones position as an art critic. As soon as you have to zoom into a picture with dramatic spooky music, you just know it does not stand up on its own.
|
|
Well I found it interesting but obviously I don't have your critical faculties.
|
>> Well I found it interesting but obviously I don't have your critical faculties.
Heh heh... exactly.
Some people can't tell the difference between something they don't like or understand and something that is valueless and contemptible. If they don't like something it's gotta be dross. Stands to reason.
And of course it stands to reason that a professional art critic whose job it is to understand or explain even baffling and unpleasant works, and who may often be somewhat at a loss for words, is always just pretending and spouting invented blather.
Not so, actually, in either case. But some people just won't look or listen. They know in their bones or their low-slung trousers or something.
|
One of the funniest pieces on silly art I ever read was by Boris Johnson when he was editor of The Spectator.
The occasion was the awarding of the inaugral Spectator Prize for Conceptual Art (a rather nice pen as I recall).
The piece that won consisted of a glass of water on a plain, white shelf, called "The Oak Tree". Apparently it's the act of putting the water in the glass that invokes the concept of an oak tree. Go and work that one out if you can.
The reason it won was that it was shipped to Australia for an exhibition. Oz customs looked at the box, saw that it said "The Oak Tree" on the outside under "contents" and sent it back, as it's not permitted to import unlicensed vegetable matter into Australia.
Thus, managing to invoke the concept of an Oak Tree in the minds of hard-nosed Aussie customs officers without them even taking it out of the box made it an obvious winner.
Last edited by: TeeCee on Thu 11 Oct 12 at 16:17
|
|
I rather expect that the glass of water no longer contained any water once it had been flown to Australia and back.
|
Of course - could have been replicated on site by a visit to Dollarstrecher and an Aussie BQ for a fraction of the cost.
By chance BBC have put this on their site today.
www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/pablo-picasso
|
>> I rather expect that the glass of water no longer contained any water once it had been flown to Australia and back.
One of my children did a thesis on Yoko Ono (against my advice, but no one listens to me). She got away with it anyway. The point is that Ono, whom I once met when she was first in London (briefly, in an art gallery) is quite amusing. One of her works is a pile of iron six-inch nails and a glass hammer.
|
IIRC that's how she and John Lennon met.
He was looking at an exhibition of her work in New York and one of the pieces consisted of a piece of wood, some nails and a hammer.
Lennon sought her out and spent some time badgering her to let him bang some of the nails into the wood.
Now there's a man who should have been an art critic.
|
|
He must have left his specs at home, or been wearing beer goggles, 'cos she's a real minger (and always was, even in her "prime".)
Last edited by: Roger on Fri 12 Oct 12 at 12:51
|
Praps he never looked at the mantelpiece, Dodger.
:-))
|
Rothko vandalism - rtj70
