Why do you think Ansel Adams is better known than William Mortensen?

Vaughn · Feb 3, 2021

Arthurwg said:
I think the whole issue of pictures, then and now, is a subject that needs much further investigation. Pictures seem to address a very deep and profound psychological need that goes much deeper than decoration, celebration or any religious purpose. The only analogy I can think of are the shadows on the wall of Plato's Cave.

If one refined 'religious' purpose into its religion and spiritual components, the spiritual portion could be folded in with the shadows on the wall.

And perhaps the paint, also.

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

There are certain human universals, including the need to visually express oneself and somehow communicate it. If you think the cave painters had a lesser intellect, take a second look. 3D or 2D animals? Still or moving, alive or killed? - look how they factored in all kinds of things in a sophisticated manner. No one-trick-pony clown like Keith Haring would have been qualified to even sweep the ashes out the cave front. They'd have fed him to a cave bear first.

Vaughn · Feb 3, 2021

It is lazy thinking to think that we as a species have actually become more intelligent (wiser?) over the last handful of millennia.

removed account4 · Feb 3, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
<...>If you think the cave painters had a lesser intellect <... >.

No where in anything that I have typed have I made any sort of judgement call about anyone's intelligence or sophistication.

DREW WILEY said:
<...>No one-trick-pony clown like Keith Haring <...>

its too bad once again you have relied on insulting people to make your points...

Arthurwg said:
Thanks for that, Had not come across Sally Price. Extremely interesting.

I'm glad you found it a useful suggestion!

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Why not? Haring's nonsense is an insult to my own eyes.

Arthurwg · Feb 3, 2021

[QUOTE="DREW WILEY, post: 2378676,
No one-trick-pony clown like Keith Haring would have been qualified to even sweep the ashes out the cave front. They'd have fed him to a cave bear first.[/QUOTE]

Got to agree with that. Among other things he plagiarized his style from the art of Cameroon.

removed account4 · Feb 3, 2021

Arthurwg said:
Got to agree with that. Among other things he plagiarized his style from the art of Cameroon.

nothing new under the sun. ...

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Well, you'd have to link me to some kind of evidence that Haring ever did anything substantial, and not just loose micmicry. I look at the early works of Kandinsky, Picasso's truly classic drawings, even deliberately corny Lichtenstein, and see real merit. The splatters of Pollock were applied and felt with as much intensity as the individual brushstrokes of Van Gogh, and he too had notable prior work. The many fakers of these men might find it easy to mimic their respective later styles, but they don't convey an ounce of the real genius behind such works. I'm no expert on Haring; I ignore him. Just nothing there except a stunt mentality. He evidently enjoyed it; it's superficial and obnoxious to me. Even Hirst had an exceptional sense of hue balancing with his polka dot colors and relationship positioning. Pollock wonderfully choreographed the spacing and acitvity of his drip, swirls, and splatters; although he probably needed thirteen cups of coffee first to keep his nerves appropriately buzzed. I just don't see it in this case. More a fad mentality.

Helge · Feb 3, 2021

It’s only plagiarism if you don’t acknowledge it.
Keith’s style was obviously, and verbally acknowledged to be inspired by African art. Which is pretty interesting considering some of the most prolific and progenitive of the original graffiti artists where African Americans, while of course Keith was a thin white guy.

There is and always was a hierarchy of “art”, or perhaps better yet, different strata of art.
That is what confuses most people.

You might get a hint by looking at the etymology of the word itself.
Many languages don’t even have a word for something like the equivalent of art. Instead a more general term for making beautiful things, or having skill or doing crafts takes its place.

Secular art (for lack of better term), separate from applied art or industrial design, has always existed.
But it’s true that it’s was once more scarce, and religious/ritualistic art more in it’s place (the roles have been reversed today).
It’s also true that secular art (at least in the west), became more prevalent from the renaissance up till today. With various isms and schools replacing and overlapping each other at increased rate.

But, the religious substrate or frame was merely replaced by something not that different.
The new religion of mammon took its place.

Having a piece of art first and foremost bestows honor and prestige on the owner. Whether that is in a national gallery or a CEOs living room. The quality of the art matters comparatively less.
It’s Marshall McLuhans The Medium is the Message all over.

Art is the peacock tail of humanity.

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

jnantz - 'Nothing new under the sun". Yep. In my youth, I had long conversations with my late aunt, who had several phD's, and was then teaching Art History at a University in New York, along with fresco technique (more than anyone else in the 20th C, she's credited with keeping fresco alive, and has more murals on the Natl Historic Register than any other painter in US history). But I'd snicker at the latest fad, like when someone recently got museum attention by thumbtacking a dried roadkilled cat to a blank canvas, ala, "if it offends people, it must be art". She smiled, and said that exactly the same stunt had been done before in the 1940's, then before that in the 1920's, and even that pior to WW I. My dad would chime in with "White Cow in a Snowstorm" - a completely blank canvas shown in museums in the 1920's, and repeated periodically thereafter. Seems the obsession with creativity in the Western tradition tends to confuse that with mere novelty, and ends up grasping at straws from time to time.

Helge - such a wonderful "peacock tail" of words! It's nice to thrill us with such obvious insights.

Helge · Feb 3, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Helge - such a wonderful "peacock tail" of words! It's nice to thrill us with such obvious insights.

Well apparently not so obvious to jnantz, who seems to think of art in the binary, monolithic and singular.

Sirius Glass · Feb 3, 2021

jnantz said:
there was no such thing as art before the 1800s ..

And you were there and therefore can testify to that. Or like usual you make your own definitions to weasel word your arguments.

eddie · Feb 3, 2021

Vaughn said:
It is lazy thinking to think that we as a species have actually become more intelligent (wiser?) over the last handful of millennia.

It's not so much that we've become more intelligent. It's that our prehistoric ancestors need for survival was a full time pursuit. Leisure time, and with it aesthetic pursuits, are a more modern luxury.

Helge · Feb 3, 2021

eddie said:
It's not so much that we've become more intelligent. It's that our prehistoric ancestors need for survival was a full time pursuit. Leisure time, and with it aesthetic pursuits, are a more modern luxury.

That just not true. Any archeologist would be able to tell you otherwise.

The parable of Adam and Eve banished from paradise was not completely plucked from the blue. Remember how strange is was when the story begins to talk about other people and tribes beyond the “first” family we were following?

And of course again as with “art” it’s a matter of defining “leisure”.

People, even very poor and pressured people have always been able to find time for “extraneous” activity.

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Precisely the opposite in the case of cave art, eddie. Analogously, a lot of Eskimo carvings exist not for their utilitarian use, but because they were forced "indoors" for so long at a time, and needed something creative to do. The cold climates in each case mandated it. People have far less time for even reading today than in my Grandfather's era, hence the lower literacy rate. Just like the industrial revolution, the tech revolution has made work hours longer, not less as planned. These present pandemic lockdowns are an exception. Most of the ancient upper Paleolithic sites I've studied myself were abundant with artifacts far more beautiful than they needed to be for utilitarian purposes. They were proud of their craftsmanship, and many less than ideal objects were thrown aside. Having all kinds of mega-predators around might have made life risky, but at least they didn't have to worry about crazy lane-splitters on the freeway or gangbangers packing guns.

Here in California the food resources were generally so abundant that men were often lazy. Of course, other than hunting and raiding parties, women did most of the daily work, but even they found time to weave some of the most intricate and now highly collectable basketry the world has ever seen. In the Southwest, it was lovely pottery. The men had plenty of time to sit around flaking beautiful objects, or carving soapstone. Over the mountains, out in the Great Basin and after most of the great Pleistocene lakes dried up, life was difficult indeed among Paiute tribes. But even they found time to travel far on foot to waterless special locations for annual rituals and arranged trading events.

MattKing · Feb 3, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Analogously, a lot of Eskimo carvings exist

They aren't called that any more Drew.
Apparently, "Eskimo" translates as a derogatory term in an Inuit language, so it is quite rude to use it.
Inuit is both more accurate, and appropriate.

Wayne · Feb 3, 2021

eddie said:
It's not so much that we've become more intelligent. It's that our prehistoric ancestors need for survival was a full time pursuit. Leisure time, and with it aesthetic pursuits, are a more modern luxury.

I think there have always been "lazy" artistic types, unwilling to work, who sit around and dally and dawdle, drawing pictures in the sand or on rocks or themselves, whittling sticks, making earrings and nose ornaments and scrounging scraps from the successful hunters and gatherers.

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Gosh, Matt. I'm plenty aware of the implications. Not everybody is familiar with "Inuit". And the real people might not like being lumped under one generic name either way. Want vintage pictures of Denali, better search McKinley instead. My own cousin was married to an Aleut gal. I grew up with "Indians", which is what they generically termed themselves back then even though some tribes still hated one another. My climbing, running, and hiking pals were "Indians". My square dance partner as a kid was an Indian gal. My wife works for a completely different kind of "Indian" - a doctor from actual India. No need to get on a P-correct high horse. That tendency is getting downright nutty around here among certain fanatical segments of society.

BrianShaw · Feb 3, 2021

MattKing said:
They aren't called that any more Drew.
Apparently, "Eskimo" translates as a derogatory term in an Inuit language, so it is quite rude to use it.
Inuit is both more accurate, and appropriate.

In Algonquin. “raw meat eater”. If that’s the case than why isn’t Japanese derogatory since they eat raw fish? LOL

Wayne · Feb 3, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Gosh, Matt. I'm plenty aware of the implications. Not everybody is familiar with "Inuit". .

And you were just doing your part to perpetuate the error, right? Trying to help make them not look ignorant, right?

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Wayne - just the lithic technologies of some of those ancient peoples were so advanced that nobody has been able to duplicate them since. The presence of all kinds of delicate awls, obsidian drill, and burins suggest their dressed quite well too. It would have been essential to their lifestyle. There would have been a division of labor back then too, with women engaged in gathering and grinding seeds and tubers, weaving baskets, ropes, and nets, tanning hides etc. But going out to the meat market wasn't a simple chore either. A hare or deer would have been nice (arctic hares were evidently often netted as a primary food supply in Paleolithic Siberia). But the bow and arrow wasn't invented yet, which meant stalking big game up close and using a high force atlatl dart instead. Given that mammoths were half again bigger than a modern African elepehant, and some ground sloths were nearly as tall as a giraffe but equipped with claws over a foot long, horses and camel knew how to run, but so did giant short-faced bears and several species of cats bigger than any alive today, hunting the same prey as you were - well, either you were a pro involved in real teamwork, or your career would suddenly end. Even the impressions of big communal longhouses roofed and sided with mammoth hides have been discovered. I don't think bums would have been welcome.

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Wayne - your next remark. What you like to call an "error" was once standard terminology, and still is for the majority of the common public, at least in this country. Everyone knows that "Eskimos" dwell in the far north; many laymen have never heard the term "Inuit". The Canadian custom might be different now. It's nice to use correct terminology about specific tribes while poisoning them with tar sand effluent, and turning a blind eye to sea-level rise destroying the lives of others. Want to go climbing Mt Everest? That is how you'd book a guide. Chomolungma might be more correct to one specific local ethnicity, but that's what's still on the maps. Lighten up.

I am old enough to recall bitter exchanges between two old Indians in the same elderly facility who had both grown up prior to White contact, but from lethally opposing tribes. I'm sure they both used terms for one another far worse and derogatory than any I can think of.

Helge · Feb 3, 2021

MattKing said:
They aren't called that any more Drew.
Apparently, "Eskimo" translates as a derogatory term in an Inuit language, so it is quite rude to use it.
Inuit is both more accurate, and appropriate.

No, that's BS. There never was such a connection.
It's either because "they" are looking for something to make a thing. Or because it's what their oppressors/colonizers called them in their own tongue. Or both.
Anyhow, I'll call them whatever they want. Just give me amble warning when they change. One day the racists are going to get to their own names and let inflation loose. That would be a tragedy.

DREW WILEY · Feb 3, 2021

Good call, Helge. I loved dealing with Indians of Paitue extraction because I understood them, having grown up with related tribes. Their own manner of speaking of one another differed dramatically from that of the outside political activists pretending to speak for them in a generic sense. But whenever traveling to the Southwest, I had to be more cautious among the Navajo, for example, to learn their own sensitivities. It takes time to really learn about any specific ethnicity, and even so, times and customs are changing.

MattKing · Feb 3, 2021

It is interesting how Drew takes advice.
Not criticism, advice.

Why do you think Ansel Adams is better known than William Mortensen?

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