art in photography is what john does
I'll admit, I was terse, I meant that [In-my-opinion]
1) Art should move people, I used a simple, concrete example, pardon me.
2) Art needs time to be assessed.
And thank you for your generous assessment of my opinions. Apparently they are all BS.
But I now know, from your obviously superior wisdom that:
1) $$$ = Art, if it sells enough, It is Art.
2) Individual opinions matter not, only statistical aggregates. If enough of the 'right' people say so, it is Art.
I again, apologize for having and expressing opinions, and shall henceforth compose sonnets and hymns to your name, forevermore.
Since September, I've posted 31 threads. How many consititute a "spate of controversial threads attempting to bait members"? Perhaps it's just people of your ilk.He may not be a troll but his recent spate of controversial threads suggests an attempt to bait members into debate.
So, my point is, if you're trying to approach art like you would science, economics, or math, with rigid precision and dependable formulation, you will fail to understand it. You will only truly begin to understand art, what it is, and what makes it valuable, once you immerse yourself in it. And that process may take you a lifetime or longer. Art is the most difficult thing to understand that humanity has invented, and impossible to master. If you want a challenge, become a theoretical physicist. If you want a guarantee at failure where success can be crippling and humiliation can be liberating, become an artist.
I agree with almost all of that. However I differ on whether there are any great masters of art in the photography realm, and do so by your own criteria. Of the top ten prices paid for photographs at auction, which range from $2,929,000 to $4,338,500, only one was based on its historical value as a photograph. The rest were fine art gallery pieces take in recent decades that used the photographic medium. So while their greatness hasn't match painting financially, the price of a single photograph is capable of attaining a value of well over $4m without any photographic context, which puts it into a valuation comparable with other serious artistic pieces. Whether those photographs are subjectively successful as photographs, is of course irrelevant.Art is whatever you say it is. You can't define art. Any attempt to do so is an admission of your own lack of vision and creativity. Art isn't math or science. There's no checklist you can use to define it. There's no proof you can apply to qualify it. There's no test you can run to value it.
Now, just because something is art, doesn't mean it's good. And just because something is good, doesn't mean it's art. And just because something is good art, doesn't mean it's going to be recognized by the art community as such. In fact, most of the best art was widely panned during it's introduction, and only through time has it's importance and value been accepted. This is both liberating and debilitating to artists. Great artists don't always find recognition in their lifetime. Great artists don't always find recognition ever. And sometimes bad artists find recognition during their lifetime, and only to be eventually forgotten (Thomas Kinkade anyone?). So this allows anyone wanting to be an artist a valid reason to continue to pursue their vision even under the crushing weight of constant failure, and serves as a cautionary tale to any artist who may believe they have found success.
So, my point is, if you're trying to approach art like you would science, economics, or math, with rigid precision and dependable formulation, you will fail to understand it. You will only truly begin to understand art, what it is, and what makes it valuable, once you immerse yourself in it. And that process may take you a lifetime or longer. Art is the most difficult thing to understand that humanity has invented, and impossible to master. If you want a challenge, become a theoretical physicist. If you want a guarantee at failure where success can be crippling and humiliation can be liberating, become an artist.
Also, photography is a bad place to approach art from. There are no, and never have been, any great masters of art in the photography realm. There is no photographic equivalent to Van Gogh, Picasso, Michelangelo, etc. There have been some great photographers over the century plus that photography has been around, but there has yet to emerge a true master artist in the field. It's just too new of an art form. And I've found that approaching art is easiest through the masters. They're kind of the key that opens the door to that world.
Since September, I've posted 31 threads. How many consititute a "spate of controversial threads attempting to bait members"? Perhaps it's just people of your ilk.
Regards, Art
I never listed price as a part of my criteria for greatness. Money is what investors judge art by. It's not how fellow artists and art historians judge art. Would Beethoven's Ninth Symphony be poor art if it were played on the radio for free?I agree with almost all of that. However I differ on whether there are any great masters of art in the photography realm, and do so by your own criteria. Of the top ten prices paid for photographs at auction, which range from $2,929,000 to $4,338,500, only one was based on its historical value as a photograph. The rest were fine art gallery pieces take in recent decades that used the photographic medium. So while their greatness hasn't match painting financially, the price of a single photograph is capable of attaining a value of well over $4m without any photographic context, which puts it into a valuation comparable with other serious artistic pieces. Whether those photographs are subjectively successful as photographs, is of course irrelevant.
Fellow artists are mostly broke and art historians deal in the retrospective, which only leaves market value as an arbiter of living artists. As I pointed out, the highest values are not for historically important photographs but contemporary ones. This means photography is seen as a viable, living, creative medium, not just traded on rarity value.I never listed price as a part of my criteria for greatness. Money is what investors judge art by. It's not how fellow artists and art historians judge art. Would Beethoven's Ninth Symphony be poor art if it were played on the radio for free?
In any case, I'm just saying that there is no photographic equivalent to the masters from other realms. As great as Ansel Adams, HCB, Robert Capa, Edward Weston, and all of them were, they just don't have the cultural impact of Van Gogh, Picasso, Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, Dante, Michelangelo, Rodin, etc.
Art should probably put that phrase into quotes. It came from another of his threads, where that and some other extremely virulent posts were directed at him because he linked to a story that he agreed with that featured Nikon and some short sighted choices in product promotion.People of my ilk? And just what may that be?
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