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comment by atheistcomic
atheistcomic  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Can I get some no nonsense honest critique of some art?

It's not art. It's a drawing. Art makes you feel something. It's something risky... it exposes your own vulnerabilities. This drawing is skilled enough for a doodle, but it's not art. If you want to do art, you should focus carefully on what hurts in your life, or what makes you pine for some existence or possibility... some longing hart-felt comfort or strife or unresolved mistake.

You've got to live. You've got to put yourself out there in the world and experience things. This kind of practice in drawing set-dressing like a dresser with items on it is good but it's not going to improve your ability to do art. Doing art means you're going to fucking own something and get way outside your comfort.

Here's a good place to start:





mk  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'd argue that art needn't make you feel something. In fact, the point might be not to make you feel something. Of course, art that resonates with people in such a way is more likely to be popular, and has a different merit and quality, but art is largely in the eye of the beholder. Many people prefer art that challenges them, or inspires them, but I don't think it's correct to call that which doesn't something else.

atheistcomic  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    art is largely in the eye of the beholder

Beauty is, not art... and the video explains that when beauty was rare, art was about beauty but when everyone has access to beauty, art becomes about rare emotions, rare skill and rare ugliness.

Inspiration is a feeling; if you feel inspired art has moved you. I could hardly be inspired by a wall unit of items that I had no connection to.

rezzeJ  ·  3398 days ago  ·  link  ·  

mk didn't even say anything about beauty, he stated that art is mostly a subjective experience.

Ignoring this, you might do well to avoid talking about something as contentious as 'what is art?' so absolutely. Even if we agree that art is no longer about beauty but instead the qualities you mentioned, they are all still subjective. A piece might make me feel a 'rare emotion' whilst to you it communicated nothing. What is it then?

Whilst not specifically art, I experienced an example of this duality yesterday. On the way home from the shop I passed a bit of blood orange on the floor. Now to most this would probably be seen as litter, surely nothing of meaning. But for me it brought back a memory of when an old friend from university and I dropped a blood orange from the top of stairwell and it caused a terrible mess. I had completely forgotten about this. I felt nostalgia, amusement, and happiness. So what is one person's litter may be another's catalyst for an emotional experience.

Furthermore, what even constitutes as rare in regard to these things? I may feel happiness regularly but someone suffering from depression may rarely, if ever, experience it. You may be involved in large circle of highly skilled practitioners whilst I may have no inner benchmark of what 'rare skill' is. What is rare ugliness to one person may be an everyday occurrence for another.

There is no objective marker of these things and one cannot talk absolutely, or for everyone, about what they are and are not. As a result, as mk said,"art is largely in the eye of the beholder." One person cannot definitively say what is art and what is not.