I'm happy to see this video series. Most people will agree with you, but the unfortunate students pushed through today's "Postmodern" education system (see "Frankfurt School") are left to drift in cultural swampland. I feel for them. I went through that system, but luckily I decided to read the complete texts of the Frankfurt School founders. What most college professors don't teach (or don't know) is that "Critical Theory" was designed by its founders to demoralize all of Western culture.
having a long winded pretentious text to go with the artwork is pretty much admitting defeat, by saying the text communicate the ideas better than the art itself.
I feel more emotion looking at a Rothko or a Picasso than looking at a Waterhouse or Turner; however, all four artists played an important role in art history and all of them created fantastically emotional works of art. I would never pit apples against oranges... some people just can't stomach oranges - but this doesn't mean an orange isn't a fruit.
@Oddonan And I repeat, "I would never pit apples against oranges... some people just can't stomach oranges - but this doesn't mean an orange isn't a fruit."
@Oddonan Rothko's philosophy as well as Mondrian's was a very complicated one. Mondrian wrote extensively on it. His ideas had a context of course. It was a time of global change and he responded by simplifying what he deemed to the abstract reality we live in.
As an artist, we get bored sometimes painting purely what we see. Painting free of content and imagery is appealing. To think beautiful art is only what we can understand on first glance is rather narrow and unfair.
I am sure you know the story of the "Emperor with no clothes" and how those two cons have convinced the Emperor, with their words, that the clothes they offering to him is fabulous.
In the end, no matter how convincing or extensively those two cons said to the emperor, he is STILL! has no clothes.
To make people to see red squares is beautiful art is narrow and unfair.
@Oddonan I'm not saying it's the only beautiful thing. But on the same note I want to be more than a person with just skills. I wouldn't trade that training for anything but I just find art as an object with ideas just as beautiful as Sargent. It's not something to get angry over. It's just that some people don't like it. It goes both ways. It can't be articulated. It just doesn't strike everyone and no one said it would. It's not fair to dismiss it though. Nothing should be dismissed.
@Oddonan An illustrator once told me that good art should make you laugh. It's just so good you can't help but giggle. He feels this way about Renoir and Turner but he also feels this way about Rauschenberg and Twombly. He feels that their work is so fantastic that he can't help but smile and laugh. It's almost humorous. I can't convince you to love Jasper Johns or Joan Mitchell but I don't think anyone can convince me that a still life is just as interesting. This is when it gets subjective.
It's all art for art's sake, whether it's a nude or squares. I don't look at them as clashing, just a reflection of the time. I happen to love them both and make them both. For a time, artists wanted to push the limits of their craft. And they did. And just because the product didn't always look like anything doesn't make it any less beautiful. Paint can do wonderful things and we don't always notice when there is a figure or a landscape in focus. It has wonderful texture on it's own. Its simple
I agree with most of what you're saying here, but you take it to an extreme, there is a place in the world for some of these modern works. Sure, probably not in the guggenheim but dismissing Picasso makes you sound like an idiot.
bouguereau's works, as well as the works of some of the other realists you showed here, came off as cold, kitschy, and soulless to me; they seem like there was no emotion or creativity involved in making those paintings and they were just given the task to copy a scene perfectly onto canvas. i dont like them, but then again art is subjective. you may like them, but i dont
As a patron of the NC art museum, I have been sorely disappointed at the glut of craft-less "modern art" that they've procured. Perhaps it's a case of their directors being so far embedded in the high-test art scene they end up buying their own press.
I think the fact that modern art is different from older artwork is the reason squares(etc.) are more popular. One day, art trends will change again. Just like one day, I'll watch all the parts of this ingenious video~
Laying claim to moral superiority has always meant the downfall of any cultural movement. It happened to the 19th cent. academic institutions, and now it's happening to the contemporary postmodernist movement. So my advice to Scott, and to every other classically inspired artist, is to not be temped by it, or it'll mean the end of this new movement as well.
And as a note, though I do not entirely agree with Burdick and feel he is not up to the task for this argument or can convey his point, to those who foolishly criticize him as "whining that people do not appreciate traditional art and their hard work," etc..
.you do not understand art. We are surrounded by images due to technologies.
It requires a TREMENDOUS amount of time, hard work, sacrifice and UNDERSTANDING to do this kind of work.
Only an artist unfortunately can really appreciate it.
I strongly disagree with statements like "modernists painters had the talent to pursue and dominate in a classical style, but chose not to." That's bunk. After many years at work you see how few painters who take on the life long pusuit of classical painting actually reach the pinacle; probably 5% at best. Most fall into the also-ran category and never aquire the great knowledge needed to execute great classical paintings. If you avoid the road altogether you're out of the game from the start.
Moderism is an extended movement in Art; nothing more than that. Even the Impressionist movement which gave birth to so many great artists only lasted 20 years at best. It's actually moderism that is on the attack against classical art. Scott has the right to fight back and he is. I live in a College town where 40 years ago the Modernists burrowed their way into a once thriving art program (called the golden age) and will not let go or let classical art training of any sort back in. It's awful.
This series is a blessing! Thanks for taking the time connecting the dots and putting it together. I faved it and will mail it to some more people ;-)
This was basically a 14 and a half minute snit. I don't disagree with many of Scott's observations, but I do have a problem with the way he structured his discussion with straw arguments and either/or scenarios (while giving lip surface to the interfaces). Much of mid-20th century art is bad. but so was much of the art that preceded it. Time will sort out much. But beware of the cultural bias that is all too evident here.
I can't believe some of these things are shown to the public. To each his own I guess, but a lot of these "works" look to be done by people who have a passion for art but no talent for it. Those three paintings at the start of this video are incredible, and made by someone with immense talent. Those squares belong on the refrigerator of the parents of a fourth grader!
Although some may be totally ridiculous, the narrator forgets to mention that he includes a number of artists in his video who could completely dominate an impressionist style of painting but chose not to.
For a long time now I've been trying to come up with a simple, consistent definition of what differentiates the art I see in galleries and the art I actually like. This video finally did that. Representational or abstract, the works that make the gallery scene are simply never pleasant to look at, that alone is the unifying point.
Unfortunately though, establishing that point does little to address the underlying problem of balancing the currently one-sided fine art world...
What a complete waste of 14 minutes this is. There is just the stating of the obvious: modern art is a monstrous, ridiculous scam. For whomever has not realised that, no explanation will get through, as they have been, quite frankly, brainwashed. What about going deeper into the problem, follow the steps of the crimilnals back to the crime, and try to understand WHO has started this scam and HOW it is maintained? Watch my WAR AGAINST ART video for a brutally honest expose of all that.
I really wanted to watch the whole of this, and I still might, but even after five minutes it's clear the analysis is one sided (no problem) and facile (big problem). Like the representational work didn't include interpretation and personal vision? Come on! I have to conlude this isn't a serious piece and the presenter is either mischief making or otherwise is genuinely an idiot.
The impression is given early that realism and representationalism is the core of art history. While that ties in with the intentions of the piece it is simply factually incorrect. In terms of time and space realism as promoted here (with which I have no problem) is a very small and geographically./temporally limited phenomenon.
Why can't people enjoy the art they like WITHOUT trashing the rest - the more than 90% of the world's art which does NOT fit into this classical tradition. Such a shame
I must be an art snob but I found many of the modern artists, especially picasso to be far more interesting than the realistic paintings. they seemed to have a far greater variety and were more emotionally engaging, to me at least.
'It's like beautiful'- I fully agree to that statement, that painting was gorgeous. I'm sure Picasso was a Genius but without the explanation there whatever it was, his pictures are hideous in my eyes.
We shouldn't be this hard on all the modernist painters, you have to remember that are movements are just reactions on the previous movement. Contemporary art is just the most extreme reaction to date. Personally I see that we are about to go into a movement of SUPER realism where artists refuse to work abstract, this video and the comments are proof of that fact to me. I wont be surprised to find our children's generation bitching about abstract artwork being degraded because of realist artwork
I like most of the paintings, the realistic and the abstract ones. Not all, but most of them are really good. Eh! ok ..as I go further some of the modern art one suck. haha
Agree with some arguments, however, for the most part you sound as though you produce realist art and are realizing that there is no market for a paint by numbers style. Therefore, you are attacking others that take the time to make you think further than a simple portrait. I agree beauty is found in realism and the painters of it are masters, but I have a camera. Without movements art is white noise.
@eeztoronto Realist art is by no means at all a 'paint-by-numbers' style, and neither are portraits simple. A piece of realist art that is done well is not done the same way a camera would take a picture, at all. It's not about the representational value of the object/person they are painting but the artist's own opinions & experience that affect the piece. Why does a portrait of a person in all his/her indescribable character nuances make you think any less than a painting of a blue square?
Most people outside of representational painting don't have a proper understanding of the purpose of representational painting. They don't understand how it works...or how it communicates. It take years of proper study and a long time on the path to finally arrive at certain understandings. Without that journey, the mystery and power of master works will continually remain outside the relm of comprehension by beginners and the uninitiated.
True music is not always beautiful. It can be also an expression of dark feelings, but there is still some inner content put in the form of sounds.
Some can for example see music as colored forms and could paint it on canvas. In my opinion it would be art if this music was an expression of some inner content.
Is there any inner content "incarnated" in to form in modern art, or is it like collecting random objects on the table and arranging them using only your intellect?
What is considered beauty is relative to culture, education,knowledge of philosophy and history, habits and area of living, etc. I personally value imagination while maintaining a certain respect to older art as the most important aspect of art.
There are literally millions of contemporary artists, while some are "bad" (and lack imagination, therefore rely on "shock") a lot of them have something to say and I find the art you dismiss as "ugly" beautiful.
Modern artists "spend more effort crafting the explanation of the work than creating the art" Priceless ! My Wife and i have had a lot of laughs at all the museums she has dragged me to in the last 10 years. I've seen art in which a guy sewed a pair of pants into a steel springed mattress and the placard said it was genius.I've seen paintings of circles. JUST CIRCLES ! and the explanation was that it is genius to paint circles. Beauty is missing.
Mr. Burdick, I'd like to say that this "Banishment of Beauty" Video is excellent. In some blogs and web sites that recommend your video they say there is a transcription available. How can we read it? Thanks a lot.
I hate a lot of modern art, but this dismissal of everything modern is pretty blockheaded.
I think you need to realise that something doesn't HAVE to be representational or technically impressive to be aesthetically pleasing. Why is it so hard to assume people love Picasso's work because it pleases them aesthetically? Picasso's work is NOT purely conceptual.
I hate conceptual art, so I understand what you're trying to say, you just don't do a very good job of it.
This is a good overview and got me thinking. Personally I see something in Picasso's work, and I found Joseph Alber's book to be helpful as far as color theory is concerned. However I do believe many modern artists are hacks who lack technical skill and create boring, uninspiring work.
I respect technical mastery, and find it obligatory to create good visual art. Only someone who masters technique can effectively toy with technique. The problem with modern visual art is that most of it is ineffective. If an artwork is unrefined, I may still appreciate what it conveys- be it meaning, or feeling. I will respect that artwork. But if it can convey nothing, it doesn't matter the intentions of the artist, no matter how intellectual their motivations may be. Because it is lost on me
It reminds of how Judeo-Marxists of the Weimar Republic purposefully vulgarized art, erasing beauty and traditionalism. Unfortunately, their victory in WW2 ensured a continuance of this downward trend.
It's not that the works of the past masters are not considered great, it's that "great", or the striving therefore, is considered old hat. Art reflects the intellectual mores of its time, and the self-referential, anti-intellectual climate of today requires that what is valued artistically be of little or no verifiable content. At its core it is about utter antipathy toward the idea of objective reality.
I wonder if you guys criticizing the part one have actually watched all other parts. Some of them critics are explained by himself later on, like "I'm not saying all art must be beautiful, but that beautiful art deserves its place"
Besides that, there's no mistery in producing something you consider 'beautiful'. It is historically determined, and can be easily learned. A lot harder is to make people question their own way of seeing and their common thinking. That's what some of the arts you criticize tries to do. Of course that, as in everything, there are lots of artworks that takes advantage of this situation - money tends to "talk lowder" than many things in our society afterall...
Wanting visual pleasure is certainly no longer an apropriate expectation when it comes to art. You should check out a commercial movie or something similar if that's what you hope. most people, including teenagers like those you pointed out, certainly would also get fascinated with a 3d or other special effect. This easy and immediate pleasure is only confirmatory - can only be critical in limited ways, if so. It would be bizarre actually if during changes, crises and war, art was about beauty.
The irony? To deride Modernism for hinging on conceptual ideas by presenting a (false, lame) conceptual idea.
To quote Joni Mitchell
My opinionated friend
All you deface, all you defend is just a border line.
Did Music end with Classical Music as well? Dance with Swan Lake? Why no great Chinese Master on your list? Egyptian Art? Or is a 500 year sliver of White European Art all that is of worth in 'your' Human History?
@Dendood What? Then Modernism is any closer to paying homage to chinese and egyptian art? Is Modernism any more representative of Human History? If you look at the images shown in the videos, at least you can see cultures and people and places from all over the world. At least you can see the world.
OK .. I was able to see it again! This is like those 3D pictures.. picture in a picture. The lips of Mona Lisa is the left eye. Mona Lisa's left eye is the nostril of the nose.. her left cheek bone contour is the bridge of the nose. The shadow on Mona Lisa's left cheek is the right eye of this hideous creature. OMG. I gotta go look at the original -- upside down.
7:35 .. I saw a face before I went and googled it to see different angles, where then I saw only the upside down Mona Lisa face. I tabbed back here to look at the angle .. and now I can't see what I originally saw. I only see the upside down Mona Lisa. There IS a face in that - and it is ugly!
Beautiful presentation but.. to be honest what about the digital artists that paint traditionally and digitally for fun or for work? I do not dare to say I know what is exhibited in all major museums but surely some work by concept artists or production artists are exhibited in some museums around the world.. And to be honest, is it such a big deal to have work in a permanent exhibition in an contemporary art museum? And why do you see illustration inferior to fine art painting?
People don't seem to understand the circumstances that led to Modernism in the first place. It wasn't just a random occurence, it was an inevitable rebellion against a stagnating art establishment which sought to control the output and style of artists in exactly the same way the current art extablishment behaves today. So will your rebellion do the same thing? Will you impose your specific standards of 'beauty' and technical craftsmanship onto the art world?
@cheripoffs well, maybe that's the point of the criticism - modernism has become the exact same thing they criticized. I don't fully agree with the video - certainly there's some value to modern works - but I truly don't understand why to deny beauty. And also agree that, if an work needs a theory, it failed as a form of visual communication.
I have my own thoughts on aestethics, or importance towards the viewers rejection or appreciation . music and art can be horrifieng to some, and simply naturally aestethic to some, not unlike classic music does not approach everyone equally. But I agree on the polarized schemes going on. Simple example, some christian close persons really dislike my monstrosities, not technically, but because they cant find beauty in beasts as I do. Just dont fall into it yourself, I suggest. good work .
@lezvarthok My point is when I look at a bouguereau I don't feel anything (maybe a little sick) because I find his paintings emotionally void. They are aesthetically and technically brilliant but if I am not emotianally moved then why is that better than a bad abstract piece. What is the purpose of this obsession with aesthetic and technical beauty in the "realist revival." Is it to provide a platform for judgement of good or bad art such as existed when the Academies were in charge?
@cheripoffs I personally like the movement, because I want to learn and support the preservation and progression of the skill. many schools here do not even know how to teach realism or any skill like that, because they lack knowledge and REFUSE it for the sake of modernism and postwartraumata/rebellion. Bouguereau at least can teach skill :) He also mentioned that beauty can be found even in horrible things.. and that modernism is very focused on money today. (picassosmiley for 2000 dollars..)
@lezvarthokoh don't get me wrong, I certainly value academic teaching (I wouldn't have spent 2 and a half years at an atelier otherwise) and believe that it is a wonderful starting point. However I think there is a reactionary element to the movement which seeks to throw the baby out with the bath water so to speak. Modernism gave artists a freedom which had never existed before and I value that as well. I believe that to ignore and scrub out 100 years of art is a grave error and will hinder us.
@cheripoffs I see your point, makes sense so far. never existed... well I am sure it always existed, it just happened the last 2000 years have been rather awkward periods of times. cheers
@lezvarthok When I said that the "Academies" fell I was referring to the heirarchical structure of the art world prior to Modernism. I did not mean that academic art does not exist, of course it does.
Why does a painting have to be beautiful and realistic to be moving in its own right? What about Redon? or Rembrandt's cruder work? or the brutality and darkness of Goya? In my opinion the Academies had to fall at the end of the 19th century because they had a stranglehold on creativity through the canons of art. No-one has a right to tell people what is good or bad in art. You are as bad as the critics and collectors who form the art establishment.
@cheripoffs he also mentions beauty of death etc. I can paint monstrosities, but when the colours , the emotion and the scheme speaks with the viewer, people will show attention or even affection . maybe you did not witness the entire documentary. the academics did not fall, they are still here and deeply appreciated. Yes, I like crude dark stuff . I feel deem sympathy after reading some art magazines, flaming that some workers trashed some "art" , simply because they thought its REAL trash.
As a figurative artist myself (trained at a realist atelier) I have to disagree with your (and other "contemporary classical" painters) obsession with what you call beauty. Sure a bouguereau (you pronounced his name wrong btw) may be a technical maseterpiece (I would never dispute that) but I personally find his treatment his subjects horrifically shallow and as such visually unappealing. Art isn't just about aesthetics just as it isn't only about concepts.
I think this is beautifully put together, but I disagree in good parts. There is plenty of beauty in modern art. In fact even the irregular monochrome is beautiful to me, granted a different beauty. And I disagree with the theory of first impressions. Music, paintings, all grow in and out of beauty for me. I had to eat 100 olives before I liked them. And I didn't like some thinks before I knew how to look or listen.
You know that a degree or diploma doesn't mean anything concrete , there is good expert and bad expert . I got to admit abstract art is present everywhere but its still art somehow meh . I prefer to look at old master painting though .
There are wonderful points here. Beauty is important. Contemporary Art, though, is diverse and I am not sure it all was made to destroy beauty. No doubt, much of it did, and I laud Burdick for bravely bringing up the topic. There is room for more scholarship.
Isn't art the product of the era in which it is created? Didn't Picasso begin as a classical painter? While one can see the technical perfection and beauty in the execution of 19th century paintings, it's hard to relate to the themes in the 21st century. I heard a man at a gallery who was viewing a somewhat abstracted landscape say, "basically I want a picture of a tree to look exactly like a tree, in fact I'd prefer a photograph." How boring.
picasso was never ever trained as a classical painter, that`s a common misconception, also he never learned to draw or paint in an academic accepted fashion, other than that i like some of his work.
I don't agree. I find great beauty in much "modern" art. I think Burdick confuses the word "beauty" with "pretty." Pretty can be cloying.
Mark Rothko's works, for example, are like looking into the beginning of Time, or looking into the Sun. They are very beautiful and suggest something beyond words, something unfathomable and primal that we don't have words for, but know is there.
Like great music they take you to some undefinable place that you could never explain. You just go.
@ericscam2 I agree about some modern art - I personally would also add Pollack to the list of beautiful art. And there is also beauty in ugliness in a way.
So there are no easy answers. And I think Burdick doesn't try to go the simple way. But he points out that technical skill - and pretty is absent. And there should be room for both in museums.
Modern art is obsessed with all forms of destruction and distortion.
It denies that the appreciation and pursuit of beauty, and the love of nature and the world around us, through their representation , are VITAL to human culture.
It's one thing to want novelty, but what modern art achieved is nearly eradicating 10,000 years of artistic development.
The more you read about it, the less you'll want to support modernism!
My only sadness is the continued struggle and our apparent need to denigrate one form in order to raise another. If you share this thought, check out marymoquin.blogspot.com for what I hope is an unbiased look at both sides.
My only sadness is the continued struggle and our apparent need to denigrate one form in order to raise another. If you share this thought, check out marymoquin.blogspot.com for what I hope is an unbiased look at both sides.
Wow! It's entertaining to read the dueling art critics/history majors. All painting is abstraction? That may be technically correct but realism always requires more skill than a polygon filled with color.
Scott, you definitely struck a nerve! I agree totally with your talk, as depressing as that is. Depressing that beauty is devalued and the fine art establishment has deluded so many people. Finally someone who has the guts to say what most people think when seeing a Picasso "Painting".
What nonsense. There's no battle between abstraction and realism. All painting is abstraction. Yes, taste comes into play, but it does help to understand what a painting is.
@ConnieGoldman No battle? Tell that to the curators who won't give aesthetic figurative painting a place in their galleries, or the lecturers who dismiss representative art as 'illustration'.
Actually, if I turn off the preaching of your voice, I'm treated to some great art placed side by side, "modernism" and "realism". I love that Franz Kline. Thanks!
The first step in your re-education, Scott, should be separating hype from the art itself. Art galleries are speculators. They're banking on the work to make them money, hence the hype. Fretting over how much money is paid for an Ellsworth Kelly does nothing for your appreciation for the art but rather creates suspicion and animosity.
Also, that "been there, done that" part is rather true. And the same will probably happen to abstract art eventually. Beautiful oil paintings of nude women and landscapes were also evolutions of previous artistic movements.
I'm sorry, what? As far as I know, Dada's "anti-art" pieces have been around for nearly a century and I don't think any art dealers have come back crying for a refund because of them. You talk like we're throwing Rembrandts and Vermeers out the window and giving them away at garage sales. I seriously detest a lot of modern day abstract art, but your ignorant whining just might be enough to let me have some respect for them. Times change, art changes.
@magentalane27 That is because Dada is part of the same moernist tradition that has become the previaling orthodocy, obviously. It's still being validated within the artificial, self-sustaining cult that is the modern art establishment. Your parody is not far off, as Academic and Preraphaelite art more or less was left in skips at one point. The same qualities still professedly admired in Renaissance paintings were entirely overlooked or disparaged in these.
Keep up the marvellous work. Your presentation is very elloquent and I concur whole-heartedly. Modernist pretenders have taken over the temples in the UK, too. What the founders of the Royal Academy would make of the reprobates presently putting 'RA' after their names I shudder to think. There was a great exhibition of J. W. Waterhouse there not so long ago, yet anyone painting like that these days (which I aspire to) wouldn't get a look in! It's very disheartening.
The best examination of the state of the art world I have seen so far. "Genius" should only be applied to real geniuses, who have actually honed their sense of craftsmanship to mastery. "Master" and "Genius" and "Art" have been so diluted in their definition in the last century that the words have no real meaning anymore.
The uglier it is, the more "important" it is considered to be. When we have junk shops like the Armory showing neon signs with the word "F*ck", it is definitely time for change
No. Albers work can be summed up in one word: color. He's one of the fathers of modern color theory and deserving of a little more respect than someone who just paints squares..
I am a fan of Scott Burdick's work..but I also appreciate Picasso...When I discovered that Guernica was created because an innocent Spanish town was bombed by the "pre-nazis"... was instantly won over. That it had to be "explained" to me only heightened my experience. Picasso's Guernica is one of the most meaningful paintings of all time. I am surprised that Scott disagrees. It is a big world and there is room in the world for all manner of art.
Name a piece of modern art that "warrants a deeper philosophical representation" without having to read a book to understand what in the world you are supposed to be looking at.? Color field paintings are pointless beyond the pretty colors. They are really a big bore.
"If you don't feel anything when looking at a painting, it is a failure..."
Wow. I am awestruck; do you really, actually believe that things that are aesthetically pleasing in an instant are necessarily better than something that warrants a deeper philosophical representation? You have no clue what modern art is even about. Seriously, go drown yourself in some Rembrandts or something.
@IchorDarkness Stop quote mining this video. You know he said "it is a failure AS A VISUAL ART FORM." Which is true. Modern art is merely a thought-experiment, a piece of pretentious philosophical garbage, who's explanations are interchangeable and not dependent on the piece itself. You could make those same statements about anything in the whole world, a scene, a place, a pile of dog shit. Whether that dog shit is slathered on a canvas or left on the ground is irrelevant. It's a philosophy.
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Wow. Um, your bias is pretty transparent. There's no real argument here, by your use of language you're showing us that you undervalue modernist artworks.
I think you need to study some art history. You claim to be able to set the bar, to say what technical skill entails. Do you understand the positioning of the camera within history, and how it made representation functionally obsolete? You want to boil art down to technical skill which today is necessarily pointless.
@IchorDarkness Hehe, undervalue or evaluate it correctly? Wether you consider art should be made by someone who has talent or skill is inconsequential. Fact of the matter is most modern art is made by people who are a lot less talented with the crafts. What you consider good art is yours. Personally I think art should be more than just a statement, it should reflect a certain talent as well.
lastly, art is about genius and genius can be the genius of craftsmanship or other kinds of genius. our society long ago realized that genius does not necessarily equal hard work or huge amounts of time and skill to execute a work of art. That's one way of looking at and judging visual art but not the only way.
If this were about music would it be saying that only classical music is beautiful while jazz is suspect and rock and hip hop are ugly? 100 years ago nobody would have like rock music yet could a history of music be written without mentioning rock? Museums are about history. There is little new in classical music today and nothing to surpass mozart so why would a museum focus on that now? That's not what is making history. Down with changing tastes and preferences?
@evalescere " 100 years ago nobody would have like rock music yet could a history of music be written without mentioning rock?" 100 years ago nobody liked "art music" and now... oh yeah! nobody gives a shit
@evalescere The difference being that classical music (including modern classical composers like Kark Jenkins) gets its space in record stores, but classical art has been banished from galleries completely. Also rock and jazz etc. still require musical skill to perform, and don't throw out the basics of the musician's craft at the offset.
@dashinvaine i agree it may seem that way but the way the expensive galleries work is that very often the shows or installations on display are not what make up the bulk of the sales. the shows you see are more like mannequins in a store and sort of reassure the client that the gallery is fashionable. most business is conducted in the back rooms with far more conservative work. i have many friends in the decor business. most people are very conservative buying art.
and when you get into less expensive art ($500-10,000) the bulk is unquestionably figurative and landscape. so i don't buy your assertion that "classical" art has been banished from galleries. It is not in museums because it is not "making history" which is what the museums are about. history is made by new ideas and new ways of looking at things. but most museums show figurative work a lot too. its very popular. thanks for your response!
@evalescere This only proves how figurative art has been systematically undervalued. I strongly disagree that the bulk of anti-beauty art is of historical significance, just because represents a cycle of trying to shock and be different. It is not making history, no meaningful new art movement is being forged. 'Modern' art conveys nothing about the age except its trashier side and how the establishment has been duped by bullshit merchants. It is an embarrassment to western civilization.
@dashinvaine well i've read many books on contemporary theory and you are not correct. sorry, it may look like trash to your eyes but if you take time to understand it its not. do you realise that 150 years ago it was pretty much forbidden to paint peasants? because poor people are not good examples and art should only be about religion and the aristocracy who lead glorious lives. contemporary art is about freedom from people telling artists what is right and wrong and society how to think
@evalescere It was't forbidden to paint peasants, Gainsborough painted plenty of peasants (and there were the likes of Breugel before that who did nothing but peasants) whereas Rossetti only did one contemporary scene with a peasant! And it's precisely the point that 'modern' art needs books to validate it, whereas the value of classical art is self evident. I've studied modernism and postmodernism at uni and the idea that it represents freedom for artists is bollocks.
@dashinvaine which is one reason gainsboroough was groundbreaking, made history, and deserves to be in a museum. the freedom thing is one aspect of modernism. there are many other aspects one could point out which are equally interesting or important and which many people find beautiful. it is these multiple layers of meaning that make contemporary art complex but difficult. classical art is about beauty and religion or aristorcrats. not much else. contemporary art is more .
@evalescere Freedom shmeedom. Pictures of peasants had been done for aristocratic patrons since the middle ages. Look up the Tres Riche Heurs du Duc de Berry. There is no excuse for a gallery showing a Gainsborough painting of sentimentalized peasants but neglecting entirely one equally fine by Bouguereau. As for modern art having depth or layers of meaning, that's a joke, especially when you consider all the literary allusions, symbolism and allegory often found in classical paintings.
@dashinvaine well we can't really have this conversation as i don't agree with your assertions that freedom is unimportant in art history, especially modernism. i guess they teach it differently in the uk. your peasant example seems pretty minor, its npt even a painting its a book. anyway best of luck to you, there is a huge market for all kinds of art today, joy = genius = power
@evalescere I wasn't saying freedom is unimportant, I'm saying figurative fine artists are quite obviously not free to pursue their vision and preferred means of expression if they wish to be taken seriously by the modern art establishment. Anything can be called art, it seems, except for the only thing that would have been considered art in a saner age. How mad is that?
The reason beauty is missing from most of modern art is partly political. Some of the early theorists of modernism were Marxists or members of the Frankfurt School. They wanted to destroy all forms, structures and ideas of traditional western culture. Beauty and representational art has always been part of Western Civilization and in their eyes had to be abolished as part of their plan to undermine the culture of the West and usher in a communist utopia.
All paintings are an abstraction of reality... some just more abstracted than others.
Vladdyboy 1 week ago
I'm happy to see this video series. Most people will agree with you, but the unfortunate students pushed through today's "Postmodern" education system (see "Frankfurt School") are left to drift in cultural swampland. I feel for them. I went through that system, but luckily I decided to read the complete texts of the Frankfurt School founders. What most college professors don't teach (or don't know) is that "Critical Theory" was designed by its founders to demoralize all of Western culture.
jsumteri 3 weeks ago
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jsumteri 3 weeks ago
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jsumteri 3 weeks ago
Where do you live, in NC?; I'd like to know because I live there myself... less than a couple of hours away from King.
TheLobstar666 1 month ago in playlist Uploaded videos
beauty is subjective. i , for one, think that willem de kooning's women paintings are truly beautiful. however, most people disagree.
EATshitanddrinkbleac 1 month ago
having a long winded pretentious text to go with the artwork is pretty much admitting defeat, by saying the text communicate the ideas better than the art itself.
D'oh
OmtaThien 2 months ago
I feel more emotion looking at a Rothko or a Picasso than looking at a Waterhouse or Turner; however, all four artists played an important role in art history and all of them created fantastically emotional works of art. I would never pit apples against oranges... some people just can't stomach oranges - but this doesn't mean an orange isn't a fruit.
sketchcalgary 2 months ago 2
@sketchcalgary
You like red squares?
Red squares is better then lady of shalott?
Like what Plato says:
"Crocked souls like to listen crocked music"
But in your case, you like to watch crocked painting.
Oddonan 2 months ago
@Oddonan And I repeat, "I would never pit apples against oranges... some people just can't stomach oranges - but this doesn't mean an orange isn't a fruit."
sketchcalgary 2 months ago
@Oddonan Rothko's philosophy as well as Mondrian's was a very complicated one. Mondrian wrote extensively on it. His ideas had a context of course. It was a time of global change and he responded by simplifying what he deemed to the abstract reality we live in.
As an artist, we get bored sometimes painting purely what we see. Painting free of content and imagery is appealing. To think beautiful art is only what we can understand on first glance is rather narrow and unfair.
Hankleberg 2 months ago
@Hankleberg
I am sure you know the story of the "Emperor with no clothes" and how those two cons have convinced the Emperor, with their words, that the clothes they offering to him is fabulous.
In the end, no matter how convincing or extensively those two cons said to the emperor, he is STILL! has no clothes.
To make people to see red squares is beautiful art is narrow and unfair.
Oddonan 2 months ago
@Oddonan I'm not saying it's the only beautiful thing. But on the same note I want to be more than a person with just skills. I wouldn't trade that training for anything but I just find art as an object with ideas just as beautiful as Sargent. It's not something to get angry over. It's just that some people don't like it. It goes both ways. It can't be articulated. It just doesn't strike everyone and no one said it would. It's not fair to dismiss it though. Nothing should be dismissed.
Hankleberg 2 months ago
@Oddonan An illustrator once told me that good art should make you laugh. It's just so good you can't help but giggle. He feels this way about Renoir and Turner but he also feels this way about Rauschenberg and Twombly. He feels that their work is so fantastic that he can't help but smile and laugh. It's almost humorous. I can't convince you to love Jasper Johns or Joan Mitchell but I don't think anyone can convince me that a still life is just as interesting. This is when it gets subjective.
Hankleberg 2 months ago
It's all art for art's sake, whether it's a nude or squares. I don't look at them as clashing, just a reflection of the time. I happen to love them both and make them both. For a time, artists wanted to push the limits of their craft. And they did. And just because the product didn't always look like anything doesn't make it any less beautiful. Paint can do wonderful things and we don't always notice when there is a figure or a landscape in focus. It has wonderful texture on it's own. Its simple
Hankleberg 2 months ago
Stupidity is doing the same shit for 300 years and expecting a different result.
quexbot 3 months ago
I agree with most of what you're saying here, but you take it to an extreme, there is a place in the world for some of these modern works. Sure, probably not in the guggenheim but dismissing Picasso makes you sound like an idiot.
monkeybizwak 4 months ago in playlist Liked
bouguereau's works, as well as the works of some of the other realists you showed here, came off as cold, kitschy, and soulless to me; they seem like there was no emotion or creativity involved in making those paintings and they were just given the task to copy a scene perfectly onto canvas. i dont like them, but then again art is subjective. you may like them, but i dont
EATshitanddrinkbleac 4 months ago
you're retarded
lastblue9 4 months ago in playlist dujava's favorites
Modern art is to Traditional Art as what Pseudo-Science is to Real Science. I hope this scam is going to blow over soon.
lysol5555 4 months ago in playlist More videos from ScottBurdickArt
As a patron of the NC art museum, I have been sorely disappointed at the glut of craft-less "modern art" that they've procured. Perhaps it's a case of their directors being so far embedded in the high-test art scene they end up buying their own press.
BumperMorgan 5 months ago
Really interesting!
I think the fact that modern art is different from older artwork is the reason squares(etc.) are more popular. One day, art trends will change again. Just like one day, I'll watch all the parts of this ingenious video~
88chimeracrossing 5 months ago
Laying claim to moral superiority has always meant the downfall of any cultural movement. It happened to the 19th cent. academic institutions, and now it's happening to the contemporary postmodernist movement. So my advice to Scott, and to every other classically inspired artist, is to not be temped by it, or it'll mean the end of this new movement as well.
lorenzo271000 6 months ago
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lorenzo271000 6 months ago
/watch?v=5I4cCz_tM5s
CelticAngloPress 7 months ago
Comic book art is the best modern artform.
Rimmer7 7 months ago
And as a note, though I do not entirely agree with Burdick and feel he is not up to the task for this argument or can convey his point, to those who foolishly criticize him as "whining that people do not appreciate traditional art and their hard work," etc..
.you do not understand art. We are surrounded by images due to technologies.
It requires a TREMENDOUS amount of time, hard work, sacrifice and UNDERSTANDING to do this kind of work.
Only an artist unfortunately can really appreciate it.
2manysecrets2 7 months ago
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2manysecrets2 7 months ago
11:40 I can tell you why a group of teenagers liked it: you can see her boobs
pointlesscommentary 7 months ago in playlist Banishment of Beauty
I strongly disagree with statements like "modernists painters had the talent to pursue and dominate in a classical style, but chose not to." That's bunk. After many years at work you see how few painters who take on the life long pusuit of classical painting actually reach the pinacle; probably 5% at best. Most fall into the also-ran category and never aquire the great knowledge needed to execute great classical paintings. If you avoid the road altogether you're out of the game from the start.
brushfour44 7 months ago
Moderism is an extended movement in Art; nothing more than that. Even the Impressionist movement which gave birth to so many great artists only lasted 20 years at best. It's actually moderism that is on the attack against classical art. Scott has the right to fight back and he is. I live in a College town where 40 years ago the Modernists burrowed their way into a once thriving art program (called the golden age) and will not let go or let classical art training of any sort back in. It's awful.
brushfour44 7 months ago
This series is a blessing! Thanks for taking the time connecting the dots and putting it together. I faved it and will mail it to some more people ;-)
DasWaldkind1 7 months ago
How about taking into account that all painting is an abstraction?
Or the fact that some of the most celebrated international artists are realists like Lucian Freud, Jenny Saville, Sophie Jodoin?
14lvl 7 months ago 6
This was basically a 14 and a half minute snit. I don't disagree with many of Scott's observations, but I do have a problem with the way he structured his discussion with straw arguments and either/or scenarios (while giving lip surface to the interfaces). Much of mid-20th century art is bad. but so was much of the art that preceded it. Time will sort out much. But beware of the cultural bias that is all too evident here.
neshobe 7 months ago
I can't believe some of these things are shown to the public. To each his own I guess, but a lot of these "works" look to be done by people who have a passion for art but no talent for it. Those three paintings at the start of this video are incredible, and made by someone with immense talent. Those squares belong on the refrigerator of the parents of a fourth grader!
Mission7608x2 8 months ago
Although some may be totally ridiculous, the narrator forgets to mention that he includes a number of artists in his video who could completely dominate an impressionist style of painting but chose not to.
Honideath 8 months ago 2
Beautiful video exposing these pieces if shit charlatans. Love this!
browneyerosebud 8 months ago
For a long time now I've been trying to come up with a simple, consistent definition of what differentiates the art I see in galleries and the art I actually like. This video finally did that. Representational or abstract, the works that make the gallery scene are simply never pleasant to look at, that alone is the unifying point.
Unfortunately though, establishing that point does little to address the underlying problem of balancing the currently one-sided fine art world...
Alloveck 8 months ago
All I can hear is "I don't like modern art". Why the need for a whole video to say that?
jonobrow 8 months ago
that painting at around 1:07 (angel) who's the artist? (how do i write his name)
DQ15 8 months ago
What a complete waste of 14 minutes this is. There is just the stating of the obvious: modern art is a monstrous, ridiculous scam. For whomever has not realised that, no explanation will get through, as they have been, quite frankly, brainwashed. What about going deeper into the problem, follow the steps of the crimilnals back to the crime, and try to understand WHO has started this scam and HOW it is maintained? Watch my WAR AGAINST ART video for a brutally honest expose of all that.
thegreatfearblog 9 months ago
OK, after 15 minutes I have to conclude that he genuinely is an idiot
cheekymonkeyali 9 months ago
I really wanted to watch the whole of this, and I still might, but even after five minutes it's clear the analysis is one sided (no problem) and facile (big problem). Like the representational work didn't include interpretation and personal vision? Come on! I have to conlude this isn't a serious piece and the presenter is either mischief making or otherwise is genuinely an idiot.
cheekymonkeyali 9 months ago
The impression is given early that realism and representationalism is the core of art history. While that ties in with the intentions of the piece it is simply factually incorrect. In terms of time and space realism as promoted here (with which I have no problem) is a very small and geographically./temporally limited phenomenon.
Why can't people enjoy the art they like WITHOUT trashing the rest - the more than 90% of the world's art which does NOT fit into this classical tradition. Such a shame
cheekymonkeyali 9 months ago
Could someone tell me the name of the painting at 01:08?
UrbyKris 9 months ago
Papyrus font sure is banishment of the beauty in itself.
Was the choice ironic?
vetromaster 10 months ago in playlist Banishment of Beauty
I can't thank you enough for such an excellent presentation!
Compliments from the Angel Academy of Art, Florence.
AAAAngelAcademyOfArt 10 months ago
I must be an art snob but I found many of the modern artists, especially picasso to be far more interesting than the realistic paintings. they seemed to have a far greater variety and were more emotionally engaging, to me at least.
anubis3235 10 months ago 2
'It's like beautiful'- I fully agree to that statement, that painting was gorgeous. I'm sure Picasso was a Genius but without the explanation there whatever it was, his pictures are hideous in my eyes.
LeoDeGrand 10 months ago
We shouldn't be this hard on all the modernist painters, you have to remember that are movements are just reactions on the previous movement. Contemporary art is just the most extreme reaction to date. Personally I see that we are about to go into a movement of SUPER realism where artists refuse to work abstract, this video and the comments are proof of that fact to me. I wont be surprised to find our children's generation bitching about abstract artwork being degraded because of realist artwork
ijacobs9 10 months ago 2
I like most of the paintings, the realistic and the abstract ones. Not all, but most of them are really good. Eh! ok ..as I go further some of the modern art one suck. haha
goldenlarry 11 months ago
I like most of the paintings, the realistic and the abstract ones. Not all, but most of them are really good. Eh!
goldenlarry 11 months ago
Agree with some arguments, however, for the most part you sound as though you produce realist art and are realizing that there is no market for a paint by numbers style. Therefore, you are attacking others that take the time to make you think further than a simple portrait. I agree beauty is found in realism and the painters of it are masters, but I have a camera. Without movements art is white noise.
eeztoronto 11 months ago
@eeztoronto Realist art is by no means at all a 'paint-by-numbers' style, and neither are portraits simple. A piece of realist art that is done well is not done the same way a camera would take a picture, at all. It's not about the representational value of the object/person they are painting but the artist's own opinions & experience that affect the piece. Why does a portrait of a person in all his/her indescribable character nuances make you think any less than a painting of a blue square?
xynree 11 months ago
Most people outside of representational painting don't have a proper understanding of the purpose of representational painting. They don't understand how it works...or how it communicates. It take years of proper study and a long time on the path to finally arrive at certain understandings. Without that journey, the mystery and power of master works will continually remain outside the relm of comprehension by beginners and the uninitiated.
brushfour44 11 months ago
True music is not always beautiful. It can be also an expression of dark feelings, but there is still some inner content put in the form of sounds.
Some can for example see music as colored forms and could paint it on canvas. In my opinion it would be art if this music was an expression of some inner content.
Is there any inner content "incarnated" in to form in modern art, or is it like collecting random objects on the table and arranging them using only your intellect?
Sorry my English.
Taaplari 11 months ago
What is considered beauty is relative to culture, education,knowledge of philosophy and history, habits and area of living, etc. I personally value imagination while maintaining a certain respect to older art as the most important aspect of art.
There are literally millions of contemporary artists, while some are "bad" (and lack imagination, therefore rely on "shock") a lot of them have something to say and I find the art you dismiss as "ugly" beautiful.
MatrixSaturation 1 year ago
@MatrixSaturatioI meant "some of" the art you dismiss as ugly, not all.
MatrixSaturation 1 year ago
This is a great video. I look forward to part 2.
Modern artists "spend more effort crafting the explanation of the work than creating the art" Priceless ! My Wife and i have had a lot of laughs at all the museums she has dragged me to in the last 10 years. I've seen art in which a guy sewed a pair of pants into a steel springed mattress and the placard said it was genius.I've seen paintings of circles. JUST CIRCLES ! and the explanation was that it is genius to paint circles. Beauty is missing.
Greg763 1 year ago
Mr. Burdick, I'd like to say that this "Banishment of Beauty" Video is excellent. In some blogs and web sites that recommend your video they say there is a transcription available. How can we read it? Thanks a lot.
florzinha1983 1 year ago
I hate a lot of modern art, but this dismissal of everything modern is pretty blockheaded.
I think you need to realise that something doesn't HAVE to be representational or technically impressive to be aesthetically pleasing. Why is it so hard to assume people love Picasso's work because it pleases them aesthetically? Picasso's work is NOT purely conceptual.
I hate conceptual art, so I understand what you're trying to say, you just don't do a very good job of it.
kingboobs20 1 year ago
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kingboobs20 1 year ago
This is a good overview and got me thinking. Personally I see something in Picasso's work, and I found Joseph Alber's book to be helpful as far as color theory is concerned. However I do believe many modern artists are hacks who lack technical skill and create boring, uninspiring work.
Ccs1989 1 year ago
No just no, all the things you say are terribly narrow minded
And I always considered you an inspiration before this?
Concept is more important now
We are in the age of ideas
Whats the use if 20 artist train in classical paiting technique if they all end up being copies of each other?
And modern artists are children playing geniuses at best
The world has yet to see someone come and push the envelope
chavochavo22 1 year ago
I respect technical mastery, and find it obligatory to create good visual art. Only someone who masters technique can effectively toy with technique. The problem with modern visual art is that most of it is ineffective. If an artwork is unrefined, I may still appreciate what it conveys- be it meaning, or feeling. I will respect that artwork. But if it can convey nothing, it doesn't matter the intentions of the artist, no matter how intellectual their motivations may be. Because it is lost on me
Yamikaiba123 1 year ago
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Yamikaiba123 1 year ago
It reminds of how Judeo-Marxists of the Weimar Republic purposefully vulgarized art, erasing beauty and traditionalism. Unfortunately, their victory in WW2 ensured a continuance of this downward trend.
/watch?v=mALbFREo-bk
LibertaerUeberAlles 1 year ago
It's not that the works of the past masters are not considered great, it's that "great", or the striving therefore, is considered old hat. Art reflects the intellectual mores of its time, and the self-referential, anti-intellectual climate of today requires that what is valued artistically be of little or no verifiable content. At its core it is about utter antipathy toward the idea of objective reality.
thespacialone 1 year ago
Modern art is trash..
Castaril 1 year ago
@Castaril I agree!!
unrooolie 1 year ago
I wonder if you guys criticizing the part one have actually watched all other parts. Some of them critics are explained by himself later on, like "I'm not saying all art must be beautiful, but that beautiful art deserves its place"
henrique88t 1 year ago 8
(continuing...) But that's not a problem exclusive to art, right?
...
sorry my bad english...
Lucasjs 1 year ago
Besides that, there's no mistery in producing something you consider 'beautiful'. It is historically determined, and can be easily learned. A lot harder is to make people question their own way of seeing and their common thinking. That's what some of the arts you criticize tries to do. Of course that, as in everything, there are lots of artworks that takes advantage of this situation - money tends to "talk lowder" than many things in our society afterall...
Lucasjs 1 year ago
Wanting visual pleasure is certainly no longer an apropriate expectation when it comes to art. You should check out a commercial movie or something similar if that's what you hope. most people, including teenagers like those you pointed out, certainly would also get fascinated with a 3d or other special effect. This easy and immediate pleasure is only confirmatory - can only be critical in limited ways, if so. It would be bizarre actually if during changes, crises and war, art was about beauty.
Lucasjs 1 year ago
What a small and petty mind.
The irony? To deride Modernism for hinging on conceptual ideas by presenting a (false, lame) conceptual idea.
To quote Joni Mitchell
My opinionated friend
All you deface, all you defend is just a border line.
Did Music end with Classical Music as well? Dance with Swan Lake? Why no great Chinese Master on your list? Egyptian Art? Or is a 500 year sliver of White European Art all that is of worth in 'your' Human History?
Good or bad, you think you know. -As if.
Dendood 1 year ago
@Dendood What? Then Modernism is any closer to paying homage to chinese and egyptian art? Is Modernism any more representative of Human History? If you look at the images shown in the videos, at least you can see cultures and people and places from all over the world. At least you can see the world.
henrique88t 1 year ago
@Dendood You put your inverted commas in the wrong place
thespacialone 1 year ago
@Dendood in reality with blinding truth this has struck your nerve,
RedHawk8th 6 months ago
OK .. I was able to see it again! This is like those 3D pictures.. picture in a picture. The lips of Mona Lisa is the left eye. Mona Lisa's left eye is the nostril of the nose.. her left cheek bone contour is the bridge of the nose. The shadow on Mona Lisa's left cheek is the right eye of this hideous creature. OMG. I gotta go look at the original -- upside down.
lykopis2 1 year ago
7:35 .. I saw a face before I went and googled it to see different angles, where then I saw only the upside down Mona Lisa face. I tabbed back here to look at the angle .. and now I can't see what I originally saw. I only see the upside down Mona Lisa. There IS a face in that - and it is ugly!
lykopis2 1 year ago
Beautiful presentation but.. to be honest what about the digital artists that paint traditionally and digitally for fun or for work? I do not dare to say I know what is exhibited in all major museums but surely some work by concept artists or production artists are exhibited in some museums around the world.. And to be honest, is it such a big deal to have work in a permanent exhibition in an contemporary art museum? And why do you see illustration inferior to fine art painting?
alienapestar 1 year ago
YEAHHHHHHH!!!! thanks for putting this up. i am definitely sharing this to all my friends.
taleofsixstrings 1 year ago
This documentary is pertinent in its simplicity and groundedness. It should be promoted everywhere and for everyone.
ElysiumFilms 1 year ago 6
@ElysiumFilms not.
Lucasjs 1 year ago
People don't seem to understand the circumstances that led to Modernism in the first place. It wasn't just a random occurence, it was an inevitable rebellion against a stagnating art establishment which sought to control the output and style of artists in exactly the same way the current art extablishment behaves today. So will your rebellion do the same thing? Will you impose your specific standards of 'beauty' and technical craftsmanship onto the art world?
cheripoffs 1 year ago
@cheripoffs well, maybe that's the point of the criticism - modernism has become the exact same thing they criticized. I don't fully agree with the video - certainly there's some value to modern works - but I truly don't understand why to deny beauty. And also agree that, if an work needs a theory, it failed as a form of visual communication.
marilm0 1 year ago
I have my own thoughts on aestethics, or importance towards the viewers rejection or appreciation . music and art can be horrifieng to some, and simply naturally aestethic to some, not unlike classic music does not approach everyone equally. But I agree on the polarized schemes going on. Simple example, some christian close persons really dislike my monstrosities, not technically, but because they cant find beauty in beasts as I do. Just dont fall into it yourself, I suggest. good work .
lezvarthok 1 year ago
@lezvarthok My point is when I look at a bouguereau I don't feel anything (maybe a little sick) because I find his paintings emotionally void. They are aesthetically and technically brilliant but if I am not emotianally moved then why is that better than a bad abstract piece. What is the purpose of this obsession with aesthetic and technical beauty in the "realist revival." Is it to provide a platform for judgement of good or bad art such as existed when the Academies were in charge?
cheripoffs 1 year ago
@cheripoffs I personally like the movement, because I want to learn and support the preservation and progression of the skill. many schools here do not even know how to teach realism or any skill like that, because they lack knowledge and REFUSE it for the sake of modernism and postwartraumata/rebellion. Bouguereau at least can teach skill :) He also mentioned that beauty can be found even in horrible things.. and that modernism is very focused on money today. (picassosmiley for 2000 dollars..)
lezvarthok 1 year ago
@lezvarthokoh don't get me wrong, I certainly value academic teaching (I wouldn't have spent 2 and a half years at an atelier otherwise) and believe that it is a wonderful starting point. However I think there is a reactionary element to the movement which seeks to throw the baby out with the bath water so to speak. Modernism gave artists a freedom which had never existed before and I value that as well. I believe that to ignore and scrub out 100 years of art is a grave error and will hinder us.
cheripoffs 1 year ago
@cheripoffs I see your point, makes sense so far. never existed... well I am sure it always existed, it just happened the last 2000 years have been rather awkward periods of times. cheers
lezvarthok 1 year ago
@lezvarthok When I said that the "Academies" fell I was referring to the heirarchical structure of the art world prior to Modernism. I did not mean that academic art does not exist, of course it does.
cheripoffs 1 year ago
thank you
Metactyl 1 year ago
Is there any chance you could fix the title?
AIexKidd 1 year ago
Oooooooh Bouguereau <3
EnglishRose719 1 year ago
@EnglishRose719 :) he is a great inspiration for my generation . may he still be for the children to come.
lezvarthok 1 year ago
B.S.ism, I love it!
EnglishRose719 1 year ago
Why does a painting have to be beautiful and realistic to be moving in its own right? What about Redon? or Rembrandt's cruder work? or the brutality and darkness of Goya? In my opinion the Academies had to fall at the end of the 19th century because they had a stranglehold on creativity through the canons of art. No-one has a right to tell people what is good or bad in art. You are as bad as the critics and collectors who form the art establishment.
cheripoffs 1 year ago
@cheripoffs he also mentions beauty of death etc. I can paint monstrosities, but when the colours , the emotion and the scheme speaks with the viewer, people will show attention or even affection . maybe you did not witness the entire documentary. the academics did not fall, they are still here and deeply appreciated. Yes, I like crude dark stuff . I feel deem sympathy after reading some art magazines, flaming that some workers trashed some "art" , simply because they thought its REAL trash.
lezvarthok 1 year ago
As a figurative artist myself (trained at a realist atelier) I have to disagree with your (and other "contemporary classical" painters) obsession with what you call beauty. Sure a bouguereau (you pronounced his name wrong btw) may be a technical maseterpiece (I would never dispute that) but I personally find his treatment his subjects horrifically shallow and as such visually unappealing. Art isn't just about aesthetics just as it isn't only about concepts.
cheripoffs 1 year ago
I think this is beautifully put together, but I disagree in good parts. There is plenty of beauty in modern art. In fact even the irregular monochrome is beautiful to me, granted a different beauty. And I disagree with the theory of first impressions. Music, paintings, all grow in and out of beauty for me. I had to eat 100 olives before I liked them. And I didn't like some thinks before I knew how to look or listen.
socrates856 1 year ago 2
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I watched the whole series. Absolutely excellent.
jbailey514 1 year ago
You know that a degree or diploma doesn't mean anything concrete , there is good expert and bad expert . I got to admit abstract art is present everywhere but its still art somehow meh . I prefer to look at old master painting though .
captainparady 1 year ago
Bouguereau...a hard "G" as in get.
There are wonderful points here. Beauty is important. Contemporary Art, though, is diverse and I am not sure it all was made to destroy beauty. No doubt, much of it did, and I laud Burdick for bravely bringing up the topic. There is room for more scholarship.
thestealthcurator 1 year ago
Isn't art the product of the era in which it is created? Didn't Picasso begin as a classical painter? While one can see the technical perfection and beauty in the execution of 19th century paintings, it's hard to relate to the themes in the 21st century. I heard a man at a gallery who was viewing a somewhat abstracted landscape say, "basically I want a picture of a tree to look exactly like a tree, in fact I'd prefer a photograph." How boring.
tiashae00 1 year ago
picasso was never ever trained as a classical painter, that`s a common misconception, also he never learned to draw or paint in an academic accepted fashion, other than that i like some of his work.
trinitaterion 1 year ago
I don't agree. I find great beauty in much "modern" art. I think Burdick confuses the word "beauty" with "pretty." Pretty can be cloying.
Mark Rothko's works, for example, are like looking into the beginning of Time, or looking into the Sun. They are very beautiful and suggest something beyond words, something unfathomable and primal that we don't have words for, but know is there.
Like great music they take you to some undefinable place that you could never explain. You just go.
ericscam2 1 year ago
@ericscam2 I agree about some modern art - I personally would also add Pollack to the list of beautiful art. And there is also beauty in ugliness in a way.
So there are no easy answers. And I think Burdick doesn't try to go the simple way. But he points out that technical skill - and pretty is absent. And there should be room for both in museums.
oxpal 1 year ago
Modern art is obsessed with all forms of destruction and distortion.
It denies that the appreciation and pursuit of beauty, and the love of nature and the world around us, through their representation , are VITAL to human culture.
It's one thing to want novelty, but what modern art achieved is nearly eradicating 10,000 years of artistic development.
The more you read about it, the less you'll want to support modernism!
muffinsforthesoul 1 year ago 17
Every time I hear the words Modern Art, I think of this insult by Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket:
You're so ugly you can be a modern art master piece!
combaja 1 year ago 3
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My only sadness is the continued struggle and our apparent need to denigrate one form in order to raise another. If you share this thought, check out marymoquin.blogspot.com for what I hope is an unbiased look at both sides.
marymoquin 1 year ago
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My only sadness is the continued struggle and our apparent need to denigrate one form in order to raise another. If you share this thought, check out marymoquin.blogspot.com for what I hope is an unbiased look at both sides.
marymoquin 1 year ago
Plato said: if you have a disordered mind, you will like disordered music.
thegreatfearblog 1 year ago
De quienes son las pinturas que salen a los 09:33 minutos y 13:07 por favor
dasr77 1 year ago
"...summed up with one word: squares."
brilliant.
Copperbat 1 year ago
Wow! It's entertaining to read the dueling art critics/history majors. All painting is abstraction? That may be technically correct but realism always requires more skill than a polygon filled with color.
Scott, you definitely struck a nerve! I agree totally with your talk, as depressing as that is. Depressing that beauty is devalued and the fine art establishment has deluded so many people. Finally someone who has the guts to say what most people think when seeing a Picasso "Painting".
vapsman88 1 year ago 2
What nonsense. There's no battle between abstraction and realism. All painting is abstraction. Yes, taste comes into play, but it does help to understand what a painting is.
ConnieGoldman 1 year ago
@ConnieGoldman No battle? Tell that to the curators who won't give aesthetic figurative painting a place in their galleries, or the lecturers who dismiss representative art as 'illustration'.
dashinvaine 1 year ago
Actually, if I turn off the preaching of your voice, I'm treated to some great art placed side by side, "modernism" and "realism". I love that Franz Kline. Thanks!
durgaman 1 year ago 2
The first step in your re-education, Scott, should be separating hype from the art itself. Art galleries are speculators. They're banking on the work to make them money, hence the hype. Fretting over how much money is paid for an Ellsworth Kelly does nothing for your appreciation for the art but rather creates suspicion and animosity.
durgaman 1 year ago 2
Also, that "been there, done that" part is rather true. And the same will probably happen to abstract art eventually. Beautiful oil paintings of nude women and landscapes were also evolutions of previous artistic movements.
magentalane27 1 year ago
I'm sorry, what? As far as I know, Dada's "anti-art" pieces have been around for nearly a century and I don't think any art dealers have come back crying for a refund because of them. You talk like we're throwing Rembrandts and Vermeers out the window and giving them away at garage sales. I seriously detest a lot of modern day abstract art, but your ignorant whining just might be enough to let me have some respect for them. Times change, art changes.
magentalane27 1 year ago
@magentalane27 That is because Dada is part of the same moernist tradition that has become the previaling orthodocy, obviously. It's still being validated within the artificial, self-sustaining cult that is the modern art establishment. Your parody is not far off, as Academic and Preraphaelite art more or less was left in skips at one point. The same qualities still professedly admired in Renaissance paintings were entirely overlooked or disparaged in these.
dashinvaine 1 year ago
Keep up the marvellous work. Your presentation is very elloquent and I concur whole-heartedly. Modernist pretenders have taken over the temples in the UK, too. What the founders of the Royal Academy would make of the reprobates presently putting 'RA' after their names I shudder to think. There was a great exhibition of J. W. Waterhouse there not so long ago, yet anyone painting like that these days (which I aspire to) wouldn't get a look in! It's very disheartening.
dashinvaine 1 year ago 2
Awesome!
ArtNoiseLA 1 year ago
The best examination of the state of the art world I have seen so far. "Genius" should only be applied to real geniuses, who have actually honed their sense of craftsmanship to mastery. "Master" and "Genius" and "Art" have been so diluted in their definition in the last century that the words have no real meaning anymore.
The uglier it is, the more "important" it is considered to be. When we have junk shops like the Armory showing neon signs with the word "F*ck", it is definitely time for change
Thorshammer9 1 year ago 20
No. Albers work can be summed up in one word: color. He's one of the fathers of modern color theory and deserving of a little more respect than someone who just paints squares..
dontsave 1 year ago
Awesome Scott! You've expressed how I felt for a long time.
CGArtSuccess 1 year ago
I am a fan of Scott Burdick's work..but I also appreciate Picasso...When I discovered that Guernica was created because an innocent Spanish town was bombed by the "pre-nazis"... was instantly won over. That it had to be "explained" to me only heightened my experience. Picasso's Guernica is one of the most meaningful paintings of all time. I am surprised that Scott disagrees. It is a big world and there is room in the world for all manner of art.
englishpuzzle 1 year ago
Name a piece of modern art that "warrants a deeper philosophical representation" without having to read a book to understand what in the world you are supposed to be looking at.? Color field paintings are pointless beyond the pretty colors. They are really a big bore.
33girard 1 year ago
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"If you don't feel anything when looking at a painting, it is a failure..."
Wow. I am awestruck; do you really, actually believe that things that are aesthetically pleasing in an instant are necessarily better than something that warrants a deeper philosophical representation? You have no clue what modern art is even about. Seriously, go drown yourself in some Rembrandts or something.
IchorDarkness 1 year ago
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@IchorDarkness god you're stupid.
MrDoriefs 1 year ago
@IchorDarkness Stop quote mining this video. You know he said "it is a failure AS A VISUAL ART FORM." Which is true. Modern art is merely a thought-experiment, a piece of pretentious philosophical garbage, who's explanations are interchangeable and not dependent on the piece itself. You could make those same statements about anything in the whole world, a scene, a place, a pile of dog shit. Whether that dog shit is slathered on a canvas or left on the ground is irrelevant. It's a philosophy.
Dooality 1 year ago 2
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Wow. Um, your bias is pretty transparent. There's no real argument here, by your use of language you're showing us that you undervalue modernist artworks.
I think you need to study some art history. You claim to be able to set the bar, to say what technical skill entails. Do you understand the positioning of the camera within history, and how it made representation functionally obsolete? You want to boil art down to technical skill which today is necessarily pointless.
IchorDarkness 1 year ago
@IchorDarkness Hehe, undervalue or evaluate it correctly? Wether you consider art should be made by someone who has talent or skill is inconsequential. Fact of the matter is most modern art is made by people who are a lot less talented with the crafts. What you consider good art is yours. Personally I think art should be more than just a statement, it should reflect a certain talent as well.
goodflo911 1 year ago
lastly, art is about genius and genius can be the genius of craftsmanship or other kinds of genius. our society long ago realized that genius does not necessarily equal hard work or huge amounts of time and skill to execute a work of art. That's one way of looking at and judging visual art but not the only way.
evalescere 1 year ago
and thanks for a thought provoking video. good luck!
evalescere 1 year ago
If this were about music would it be saying that only classical music is beautiful while jazz is suspect and rock and hip hop are ugly? 100 years ago nobody would have like rock music yet could a history of music be written without mentioning rock? Museums are about history. There is little new in classical music today and nothing to surpass mozart so why would a museum focus on that now? That's not what is making history. Down with changing tastes and preferences?
evalescere 1 year ago
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@evalescere " 100 years ago nobody would have like rock music yet could a history of music be written without mentioning rock?" 100 years ago nobody liked "art music" and now... oh yeah! nobody gives a shit
georgezimmer 1 year ago
@evalescere The difference being that classical music (including modern classical composers like Kark Jenkins) gets its space in record stores, but classical art has been banished from galleries completely. Also rock and jazz etc. still require musical skill to perform, and don't throw out the basics of the musician's craft at the offset.
dashinvaine 1 year ago
@dashinvaine i agree it may seem that way but the way the expensive galleries work is that very often the shows or installations on display are not what make up the bulk of the sales. the shows you see are more like mannequins in a store and sort of reassure the client that the gallery is fashionable. most business is conducted in the back rooms with far more conservative work. i have many friends in the decor business. most people are very conservative buying art.
evalescere 1 year ago
and when you get into less expensive art ($500-10,000) the bulk is unquestionably figurative and landscape. so i don't buy your assertion that "classical" art has been banished from galleries. It is not in museums because it is not "making history" which is what the museums are about. history is made by new ideas and new ways of looking at things. but most museums show figurative work a lot too. its very popular. thanks for your response!
evalescere 1 year ago
@evalescere This only proves how figurative art has been systematically undervalued. I strongly disagree that the bulk of anti-beauty art is of historical significance, just because represents a cycle of trying to shock and be different. It is not making history, no meaningful new art movement is being forged. 'Modern' art conveys nothing about the age except its trashier side and how the establishment has been duped by bullshit merchants. It is an embarrassment to western civilization.
dashinvaine 1 year ago 30
@dashinvaine well i've read many books on contemporary theory and you are not correct. sorry, it may look like trash to your eyes but if you take time to understand it its not. do you realise that 150 years ago it was pretty much forbidden to paint peasants? because poor people are not good examples and art should only be about religion and the aristocracy who lead glorious lives. contemporary art is about freedom from people telling artists what is right and wrong and society how to think
evalescere 1 year ago
@evalescere It was't forbidden to paint peasants, Gainsborough painted plenty of peasants (and there were the likes of Breugel before that who did nothing but peasants) whereas Rossetti only did one contemporary scene with a peasant! And it's precisely the point that 'modern' art needs books to validate it, whereas the value of classical art is self evident. I've studied modernism and postmodernism at uni and the idea that it represents freedom for artists is bollocks.
dashinvaine 1 year ago
@dashinvaine which is one reason gainsboroough was groundbreaking, made history, and deserves to be in a museum. the freedom thing is one aspect of modernism. there are many other aspects one could point out which are equally interesting or important and which many people find beautiful. it is these multiple layers of meaning that make contemporary art complex but difficult. classical art is about beauty and religion or aristorcrats. not much else. contemporary art is more .
evalescere 1 year ago
@evalescere Freedom shmeedom. Pictures of peasants had been done for aristocratic patrons since the middle ages. Look up the Tres Riche Heurs du Duc de Berry. There is no excuse for a gallery showing a Gainsborough painting of sentimentalized peasants but neglecting entirely one equally fine by Bouguereau. As for modern art having depth or layers of meaning, that's a joke, especially when you consider all the literary allusions, symbolism and allegory often found in classical paintings.
dashinvaine 1 year ago 2
@dashinvaine well we can't really have this conversation as i don't agree with your assertions that freedom is unimportant in art history, especially modernism. i guess they teach it differently in the uk. your peasant example seems pretty minor, its npt even a painting its a book. anyway best of luck to you, there is a huge market for all kinds of art today, joy = genius = power
:o)
evalescere 1 year ago
@evalescere I wasn't saying freedom is unimportant, I'm saying figurative fine artists are quite obviously not free to pursue their vision and preferred means of expression if they wish to be taken seriously by the modern art establishment. Anything can be called art, it seems, except for the only thing that would have been considered art in a saner age. How mad is that?
dashinvaine 1 year ago 3
@dashinvaine Well said, but, as we both know, it has nothing to do with Western civilization.
thespacialone 1 year ago
Best argument for beauty that I ever heard. Thanks Scott for doing this.
evanasse 1 year ago
The reason beauty is missing from most of modern art is partly political. Some of the early theorists of modernism were Marxists or members of the Frankfurt School. They wanted to destroy all forms, structures and ideas of traditional western culture. Beauty and representational art has always been part of Western Civilization and in their eyes had to be abolished as part of their plan to undermine the culture of the West and usher in a communist utopia.
33girard 1 year ago 2
Great video! I can't wait to see the rest.
iENJOYpaintingSTUFF 1 year ago