Renoir is considered a good painter because his work is featured in museums, [Max] Geller added. But upon further inspections of his paintings, that line of argument “seems pretty fallacious”....Ms. Renoir's argument — staunchly opposed by Geller — bears an intriguing similarity the old free-speech argument that Oliver Wendell Holmes made back in 1919: "[T]he best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market."
The Renoir Sucks at Painting... Instagram account... has even received the wrath of Genevieve Renoir, who says she is the painter’s great-great-granddaughter.
On one photo, Genevieve commented: “When your great-great-grandfather paints anything worth $78.1m dollars … then you can criticize. In the meantime, it is safe to say that the free market has spoken and Renoir did not suck at painting.”
Geller, who turned her comment into its own post on the account, said: “I think that is one of the most absurd and insane arguments for anything, the idea that we should let the free market dictate quality.”
Would you call that — using Geller's words — "most absurd and insane argument for anything, the idea that we should let the free market dictate quality."
By the way, Genevieve Renoir makes a genetics-based claim to authority, citing the questionable genius Auguste Renoir as her great-great-granddad, so I'm wondering if Max Geller has a claim to the authority of the questionable genius with whom he shares a name: Uri Geller. Uri Geller — most famous for bending spoons with his mind — is still around. Here's an article about him in yesterday's BBC.com:
TV illusionist Uri Geller has unveiled a giant spoon statue as a parting gift to the Berkshire village where he has lived for 35 years.... The red steel statue in the shape of a bent spoon has been placed on a large tree stump in Sonning. Uri Geller said: "It will be photographed a million times." The statue, made by artist-blacksmith Paul Wells, is sited opposite the home of actor George Clooney and his wife Amal, who recently moved to Sonning.Said spoon looks like a big red toilet seat — a big red toilet seat aimed at George Clooney and his wife Amal. Hey, Geller, a spoon with a big hole in its center is the opposite of a spoon.
ADDED: NPR asks Max Geller 4 questions (while for some reason claiming it's only 3 questions):
Do you also hate the other French Impressionists: Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Gustave Caillebotte?
"No, and I resent the question. It's not a misunderstanding of the ethos of Impressionism. I get that it's not representative, but if you look at it you get that it is a beautiful impression of the information that the artist is translating. [Renoir's] is a very bleak, nightmarish one filled with cadavers, pallid skin and chauvinism."
Posts
90 comments:
There is no spoon.
First!
That Saud, you could also assume him involved in Gates of Vienna, or the production of Mission:Impossible (TOS).
"“When your great-great-grandfather paints anything worth $78.1m dollars … then you can criticize"
Effectively eliminating all of Art Criticism.
Glad that's over with.
I am Laslo.
My first reaction to the Red Spoon sculpture is that it is a contemporary echo of Fountain* by Marcel Duchamp.
*i.e., the 'Urinal'.
Now that I see it that way I cannot not see it that way.
I am Laslo.
I kind of think the same thing that lady said when people say "The Beatles suck"
His aim was what? Doesn't it depend on what his aim was before we can figure out if he was a great artist or not?
If he was trying for photo-realism, then sure, he sucks. If he was trying to sell paintings? He was one of the best.
I have had this Renoir over the head of my bed for 35 years. I love it.
Is this person trying to get attention ?
There is always a thought crime...
Renoir became involved with Paris’s circle of wealthy Jewish patrons in 1878 through Charles Ephrussi (1849–1905), the art historian and critic who was the subject of Edmund de Waal’s recent book, The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family’s Century of Art and Loss.[4] Perhaps believing that his best chance at gaining financial, critical, and popular success was in the hands of these new patrons, Renoir dedicated much of 1880 and 1881 to painting portraits of Ephrussi’s friends and family. By the end of 1881, however, the artist fell out with Ephrussi and his circle and renounced them. Shortly thereafter, Renoir suffered his “crisis of Impressionism,” declaring that he had “wrung Impressionism dry” and could no longer “paint nor draw.” The two incidents were linked, and when Renoir mapped a new path for his career in 1883, he did so with his former Jewish patrons in mind, considering their taste, advice, and demands. A close study of Renoir’s portraits of his Jewish patrons, particularly of the Cahen d’Anvers family, will contribute to our understanding of the reasons behind Renoir’s break with Impressionism, as well as the new direction his career took after 1883.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the Jooooooos!
Renoir was an impressionist. And Geller is essentially arguing he sucks because his work is insufficiently representational. Geez.
Geller thinks that qualitative judgments on art should be left to the cognoscenti, who will inform us what is good and what isn't. That's a very progressive viewpoint. But I'm on the same page as Genevieve Renoir. Money talks, bullshit walks.
I've always thought that Van Gogh's stuff was far less interesting - and dare I say it? Clichéd - than Chagall's vibrant colors and whimsical compositions. But I've never, ever tried to say that Van Gogh's stuff should be removed.
That said, there's some genuine criticism - not merely out of blind anger, but aesthetics based critiques - in Geller's posts. They're unfortunately lost in his circus stunt style of communicating, but it's there. I'm thinking any of the pushback he's getting is because he's choosing to be such a diva about Renoir, rather than giving calm, cool, collected critiques.
But it's art. People are supposed to have visceral reactions, right?
De gustibus and all that--can one really say that something "sucks" when it can only be judged as a matter of taste? If only one person likes it but everyone else hates it, does that mean it sucks or just that most people think it sucks?
I don't really see what people have a problem with as to Renoir--his paintings seem pretty great to me.
"His aim was what? Doesn't it depend on what his aim was before we can figure out if he was a great artist or not?"
To repeat Geller's question: Have you looked at the paintings?
Click through to the Instagram account and use your own eyes to look at the paintings that Renoir made, signed, and did not destroy, hilariously bad stuff that hangs in museums while better art is kept in storage.
There's a serious argument that too many things with the Renoir name on them are presented as if they are good when they are not. (There are some good paintings.)
This is also a very funny humor project. If you don't enjoy the humor, you don't have to laugh, but you're missing something if you don't get that other people are enjoying the humor.
I'm no fan of Renoir, but what is the basis of the criticism? Merely that a tree (for example) is depicted as "green squiggles?" Do they object because Renoir is interpretative of the world he sees rather than a human camera, or do they object to any painting that is stylized? Is that that he is sentimental and treacly, essentially a more high-toned Bob Ross, or that he paints in a fashion they find insufficiently "real"-looking?
Newsflash: all paintings, no matter how "realistic" some may be, are mere "squiggles" (of paint), are abstractions and interpretations of the world around us.
Actually...I have to believe this whole thing is a big jape by smart-alecky students. Any why shouldn't they be?
The free market will give you a good idea of what the economic value is, but doesn't really say much about quality.
Me, I like Renoir A LOT. I think his paintings, particularly in person, really have an emotional impact (including, obviously, negative, in some people LOL). The Barnes Foundation in Philly is a great place to see lots of Renoir, really too much to take in at one time (I'm good for about 2 hours in any museum). I guess if you don't like the impressionists, you won't like him.
The response of the audience is an integral part of performance art. Paying $78m for an art work is the sincerest form of appreciation for an artist's work and is part of our estimation of that work.......I'm more ambivalent about the spoon sculpture. By itself it's a big meh. However, one must factor in the fact that it's directly opposite the Clooney residence. If this causes Clooney's house to lose value or even if it causes Clooney just minor annoyance, then this must also be taken into account. Over and beyond its aesthetics as a work of art, one must also consider the ability of the piece to disturb the composure of Clooney. Epater le Clooney is an honorable aim for an art work.
Dear God, I am in complete agreement with Robert Cook. I am going to hang myself.
"My first reaction to the Red Spoon sculpture is that it is a contemporary echo of Fountain* by Marcel Duchamp.
*i.e., the 'Urinal'."
Now I am pondering whether Althouse's reference to the sculpture as a toilet nudged me to bring "Fountain" to mind, or if that connecting of dots would've been there unbidden.
And by "contemporary echo" I realize that it has the feel of an Ikea piece.
I am Laslo.
@Michael K
Just looking at your Renoir on my computer is great. I don't know how anyone could
experience his work in person and not like it, but, of course, YMMV as it always does in these things.
Maybe we should move them to the Storm King Home for Bad Art by the New York Thruway.
I think the world is full of bad art, why pick on Renoir?
http://collection.stormking.org/sculpture-guide/
Scroll through the names, and you will see examples of art that should have a higher value as scrap in a just world.
"I'm no fan of Renoir, but what is the basis of the criticism? Merely that a tree (for example) is depicted as "green squiggles?" Do they object because Renoir is interpretative of the world he sees rather than a human camera, or do they object to any painting that is stylized? Is that that he is sentimental and treacly, essentially a more high-toned Bob Ross, or that he paints in a fashion they find insufficiently "real"-looking?"
See the material added to the post, the answer to basically that question, or some of it. The rest of what you need to know is best understood by going to the Instagram link, seeing the works that are targeted for criticism, and reading some of the text.
Last night, I was looking at a lot of them, and I'd show the images to Meade (who was sitting next to me watching the baseball game as I was on the iPad), and every single one made him laugh at first look. The reaction tends to be: I can't believe that would be hung in a museum.
The great great grandfather stuff is the most absurd argument I've ever heard. The market argument is wrong, but not absurd.
"[T]he best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market."
The market isn't determining truth, it's determining popularity. It isn't determining quality unless you define quality to mean what the market likes. In that case, it's a tautology. Value in art is clearly more tied to the fame of the artist than to the quality of the work. Otherwise, why would care that this or that is a forgery? Why would we care that that napkin doodle is Picasso's napkin doodle?
Renoir paintings make me think they were painted by a girl.
I am Laslo.
"The Barnes Foundation in Philly is a great place to see lots of Renoir, really too much to take in at one time (I'm good for about 2 hours in any museum). I guess if you don't like the impressionists, you won't like him."
I've been to the Barnes Museum three times in its old location. Can't bring myself to go to the new location, the whole situation pisses me off so much.
Most museums would be lucky to have a dozen Impressionist paintings. The Barnes Museum has nearly 300, including 181 by Renoir.
My boss was big into telekinesis in the early 70s so I kept a supply of bent cafeteria spoons in my office.
Poor, blue collar, working class people have been saying this for years, and no one paid attention to it.
Llaslo, your post reminds me of that song American Pie. Basically MaClean writes a line, seeks a rhyme for it, then free associates some new image based on that randomly chosen rhyme, and the song just carries on like that. Listen to it sometime with that thought in mind, and the whole thing makes sense.
BTW, Don MaClean also wrote Starry Starry Night, so this post is on topic...
I'm mostly in agreement with the critiques of Renoir's (sometimes) clumsy representation of the human form. It doesn't seem to serve any purpose, so it looks like the work of a novice. I have no idea whether those examples represent his earlier works or not- if not, I can't imagine why he'd regress.
Still can't tell if this protest is tongue in cheek- I guess it's probably a mixture of actual opinion and satire. Hard to say whether that's effective or not; he got more attention doing it this way but it's hard to take it seriously.
People don't buy or cllect paintings - they collect autographs. It's like diamonds where you can duplicate it and get something just as good but only the original is worth all the money.
With paintings, only those by some favored people are considered the best. It's essenttially arbitrary, or the result of historical accidents, and they are not better than a lot of others, although they may be better than what you collect in a kindergarten.
See http://www.essentialvermeer.com/misc/van_meegeren.html
In order to demonstrate his case, it was arranged that, under police guard before the court, he would paint another "Vermeer,"
One curious thing about prints, if you hang them with pinch sleeves from the wall, is that no matter how pasted or taped, the seasonal expansion and contraction of the paper will cause them to slip out and fall in a couple of years.
This causes the eventual disappearance of some prints behind furniture after you stop caring enough to retrieve them.
There's a VG behind the dresser right now. I think all the Renoirs are up, though.
"I can't believe that would be hung in a museum."
Have you been to a museum of modern art ? Good grief !
I went to the MOMA in London with my daughter a few years ago. It was amazing. One piece was a wood rectangle about 18 by 8 inches with small nails driven into it. String was wound around the nails and it was called "Fish."
There is worse.
All the women in Renoir have the same face, though. This is a little odd once you notice it.
If you want to pick bad artists you could do a lot worse than Renoir.
Art though is purely subjective. One mans Renoir is another mans Bob Ross (who, though you might expect to find his style of paintings in hotels, knew how to paint a tree in seconds flat).
If the argument is ultimately "I don't like Renoir" the counter is, "You have bad taste" And all that's really saying is "I DO love Renoir".
Which artist would this be, if one painted it? I couldn't decide. (click pic to enlarge)
hilariously bad stuff that hangs in museums(?!?!?)
@Althouse, go back to Ann Arbor, return your BFA, and admit that a person whose taste in art is as bad as yours doesn't deserve to have one.
O/T: We totally predicted Gay Doritos.
That being said, modern art really is bad. Not a subjective opinion, but fact.
Forget who did this, but an artist/teacher asked his student to comment on a picture he brought to class. He asked if it was a Jackson Pollock. The people in the class started talking all the jargon that people use to describe the merits of art. He then widened the shot and revealed it was the canvas bag he carries paints in. his point being. Modern art is devoid of the things that make art great. You can still find some works that are interesting, but modern art isn't even going for the things that art before it did. Modern art is deconstruction of art, and it looks like 4 year olds did it. Which might be the point.
Anyway, Renoir doesn't have this problem.
"all paintings, no matter how "realistic" some may be, are mere "squiggles" (of paint), are abstractions and interpretations of the world around us."
Quite a lot of impressionist paintings of nature were "plein air" in which the artist painted very quickly to catch the scene before the light changed, This resulted in less drawing and more "impression." If you don't like it, just like Groucho's principles, there are others.
My daughter's gallery is planning an exhibition of a painter who influenced Van Gogh, whose name I cannot remember. She was researching the collection that had been acquired by the owner. That is what she does. She discovered that one of them was a fake, painted by another painter. He was an art restorer who "touched up" some paintings for original owners who wanted other details. Then he began to paint imitations of some artists. Some of these fakes are now as valuable as the originals.
"[T]he best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market."
Government lawyer spews pure nonsense. Shocking!
Sammy Finkelman said...
It's like diamonds where you can duplicate it and get something just as good but only the original is worth all the money.
Sometimes it's the opposite; Roy Lichtenstein makes copies of other peoples' drawings. The originals are literally "a dime a dozen."
"[T]he best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market."
Would you call that — using Geller's words — "most absurd and insane argument for anything, the idea that we should let the free market dictate quality."
I might not use those exact words, but as for the sentiment, yes, I think that's absurd. That's the best test of conformance to current tastes, not truth.
I have had this Renoir over the head of my bed for 35 years. I love it.
If only you could crop out the kid at the bottom.
Ditto Finkelman. Part of the value of art is not about the quality of the individual item. A Babe Ruth autograph isn't valuable because he had a great writing style. Hence, the mere value of a painting is not indicative of quality. But, the value of the "autograph" is intertwined with the perceived quality of the entire body of work by the artist.
Makes you wonder how much a Van Gogh painting of his cat would be worth.
And you think Frank Lloyd Wright is great?
Ikea sculpture with holes that is not quite a spoon.
I am Laslo.
At the end of the NPR piece:
"There are plenty of dead, white males and their male gaze in museums already."
Ah.
"The market isn't determining truth, it's determining popularity."
The Holmes idea is that it's the closest we can get to truth.
Thomas Jefferson said something similar. (I'll quote it in a minute.)
It isn't that Renoir was a bad painter. It's that Impressionism is no longer in vogue.
I forget, are we supposed to think Norman Rockwell is a bad artist? What's the Party line on him?
I do know that we are supposed to think Thomas Kinkade was bad.
From A BILL FOR ESTABLISHING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM (1786):
"[T]ruth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them."
@Roughcoat
Which side are you on in the Geller vs. Museums controversy?
It is the museums that present themselves as the correct-thinking-authorities telling you what you should value. It is Geller who is saying look at the actual images and judge for yourself.
Hint: back up 100 feet and look at a Renoir from there.
"[T]ruth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them."
He gets the gender right, but not the free argument and debate, which goes back to male.
Compare Nietzsche
Supposing truth to be a woman -- what? is the suspicion not well founded that all philosophers, when they have been dogmatists, have had little understanding of women? that the gruesome earnestness, the clumsy importunity with which they have hitherto been in the habit of approaching truth have been inept and improper means for winning a wench? Certainly she has not let herself be won - and today every kind of dogmatism stands sad and discouraged. If it continues to stand at all!
I think that argument about truth is wrong. However, as there is no reason to think that a government official knows the truth, our freedoms are important so that truth may exist somewhere and have a chance at a hearing.
Socrates didn't agree with Holmes or Jefferson. Most philosophers don't.
The critique of the way Renoir painted eyes is not exactly wrong, IMO, but a bit unfair because I can't think of any impressionist painters who portrayed faces and eyes with much soul at all. The style, when it involved the human figure at all, was much more about light on the skin and clothing- figures like objects in the landscape.
"[T]ruth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error..."
I'm imagining that Jefferson, who spoke French, regarded "truth" as female ("La vérité") for that reason. No other reason makes sense.
"I do know that we are supposed to think Thomas Kinkade was bad."
Kinkade was bad. A latter-day Renoir, if you will...but even more so.
This is not to say Kinkade was an unskilled artist...he had worked in film for animator Ralph Bakshi, and was a perfectly competent commercial artist. He found his way to riches and fame, and he rode it until it killed him at age 54, (after leading a life of somewhat out of control behavior, entirely contrary to the maudlin world he created in his paintings).
" we are supposed to think Thomas Kinkade was bad."
All those houses ablaze? Guy had some weird fetish or something.
Art has served two big functions in history. First, it illuminates reality or life in some way. Idealizing, critiquing, assessing, it can illuminate in a lot of ways. It has its own value, and while these values change in different eras and cultures, it retains a historical perspective on such values like very few other artifacts.
Second, art gives value to the owner. This is a non-aesthetic valuation that is determined by cultural values and competition.
Art prices are driven almost entirely by this second category. Which really is also a way art illuminates, it shows us what we value in our competitions, trusting some perceived experts to give us a sense of value and worth in comparison to other possibilities. This is true in almost every area of culture. Very few people in any field are able to independently weigh and value works in the field. Most people go with the flow of what has been accepted or credentialed. That's why networking is really more important than any other trait in most human endeavors, including art.
I've never liked Renoir. I've found him boring since I was a kid, and I don't recall ever being drawn to one of his paintings in a museum. So looking at the instagram account with something like fresh eyes, I see he produced some paintings that were laughably bad.
I can't imagine that the art establishment would/will react positively toward people simply looking at the images and judging for themselves. Two weeks ago I was in the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid in a room filled with mono-color canvases and there was a young Spanish girl walking around with her father, laughing loudly and derisively. I enjoyed that because she had an opinion and wasn't aware of how seriously she was supposed to take the pieces. The last time I was in the Philly art museum, Cy Twombly was still taking up quite a bit of real estate.
Althouse:
I tried to answer your question but mistakenly deleted the post. Can you restore the deleted post?
Roberto Ibanez has made a splash with his recent series of caricatures of Donald Trump. He uses the dysenteric results of undocumented immigrants as his medium. I find this extremely distasteful, disgusting almost, but Ibanez says that that in itself is the point of the art. I'm not so sure if he is caricaturing modern art or Donald Trump, but people pay good money for these pieces. After a week or so there's hardly any smell, but I'm not so sure of how durable these images are. Perhaps a photographic print would on all counts be the best way of presenting this art, but there would be a sacrifice paid in terms of tactility and spontaneity. It will be interesting to see if these studies retain their resell value over tme.
When one looks at the long and storied history of fine art being tied to government patronage, I would not be so quick to defend it on the basis that 'the free-market' knows what it's doing. Unless Ms. Renoir agrees that Eminem and Bieber are the successors of Beethoven and Mozart...
Or that Michelangelo was a publicly-supported hack...
Which side are you on in the Geller vs. Museums controversy?
Short answer:
I like reading art criticism and such. I pay attention to what the experts (including museums) have to say about art. I can and have learned a lot from them on how to look at art and how to judge its quality and aesthetic worth. That's why I like listening to the self-guided audio tours that Chicago's Art Institute provides for special exhibits. But, bottom line, I like what I like, and I don't always like what's good.
I love Norman Rockwell. He tells stories with his paintings and, being a writer, I'm predisposed to that approach. He's the John Ford of artists.
The reaction tends to be: I can't believe that would be hung in a museum.
I gave up that reaction after Jackson Pollack and Andy Warhol.
"If only you could crop out the kid at the bottom."
No, I like the blue eyes. The blues in the painting are all the same shade. That site offers painted replicas. I'm thinking about it. I've had the print all those years. I wonder if the painting would look better ? I like paintings and have a number of originals. It's an advantage of living near Laguna Beach.
Yay! Steyn is hosting Rush today.
[Renoir's] is a very bleak, nightmarish one filled with cadavers, pallid skin and chauvinism."
Chauvinism?
"[T]ruth is great and will prevail if left to herself
Magna est veritas et prevalibit
Ann Althouse said...
It is the museums that present themselves as the correct-thinking-authorities telling you what you should value. It is Geller who is saying look at the actual images and judge for yourself.
The problem, I think, is that it's not just the elite/authorities vs. the common person's judgment, it's more that the elites mold popular opinion so you've got popular opinion as shaped by elite tastes vs. "independent" individual tastes. I'm willing to be we all agree that one should make one's own aesthetic judgments, but it's hard to escape the influence of curators.
Again I offer the example of Damien Hirst--had he been laughed at by the "serious" people would he ever have gained fame and fortune?
"it's more that the elites mold popular opinion so you've got popular opinion as shaped by elite tastes vs. "independent" individual tastes."
My daughter works in a very high end art gallery in LA. I've been there and didn't like any of the art. Maybe one piece.
The art work there sells for many thousands of dollars up to a million. I think there is a trend in each generation that the elites all want the same thing. Thorsten Veblen understood.
Reminds me of Twain's "Fennimore Cooper's Literary Sins". After reading that, I find it impossible to read Cooper and after this, I may never look at a Renoir again (except as a joke). I have long felt that most modern art is literraly stupid (and I mean literraly, litteraly), but not having been properly trained in "Art Appreciation" I can see the emperor's lack of clothing more easily.
Impressionism isn't my thing (I prefer either abstracts ala Mondrian or the Romantics or Pre-Raphaelites), but to say "Renoir couldn't paint" is ... mind-boggling; just like saying it of Monet.
Tell me Pollock couldn't paint and I'll agree.
You can dislike Renoir (and I won't entirely blame you, in some cases), but you can't say he "couldn't paint"; at the level of skill one simply cannot argue with his abilities, without either self-deception or revealing that one doesn't know what painting is as an activity.
I wouldn't pay millions for a Renoir except maybe as an investment. I wouldn't hang him naked from a wall of fish hooks and laugh at him, either. You know who I would laugh at hanging there? Some fool blathering about the white male gaze.
I write Geller's demo off as a publicity stunt with some elements of truth. Not everything a great artist does is great or every artist in a museum satisfy every person. But Renoir did a lot of wonderful portraits and that's where he excelled, and certainly he could paint. So that's a joke to claim he couldn't. You either like his sweetness and sentimentality or you don't. He also did landscapes and still lives but IMO he had a lot more failures there. The important point here is he's never been known for his trees so it's totally ridiculous to hear him criticized for how he painted trees. Giotto wasn't known for his rocks and trees either but no one would say he couldn't paint.
All painters/artists have lots of work which are "failures," duds, -- but if an artist becomes established as an art history icon due to mysterious cultural and market forces, then all the work becomes valuable. Many museums without huge endowments buy the second tier work so they have an example of that artist's work. Collectors do the same -- they like the artist but can only buy something they can afford. I've often felt that's a questionable practice to show second rate work, but for a teaching museum in a university it's important to have examples of different periods and important artists. In this sense I agree with Geller's argument that you will see some bad paintings in museums and it is frustrating that better artists are not shown because they aren't famous.
buster said...
Socrates didn't agree with Holmes or Jefferson. Most philosophers don't.
And no scientists do. Popularity = truthiness is a silly idea.
"If what they are saying were true, one signature would have been enough."
“Science is not democratic. Very often the one who is correct is in a minority.”
This happens with art all the time; a Jeff Koons' balloon dog recently sold for $55M. Some people think it's a joke. Being popular in the market is not the same thing as having critical acclaim. But lack of critical acclaim doesn't necessarily mean something is "bad." To a certain extent, what is "good" or at least "museum worthy" is the product of agreement between curators and critics and nothing more.
Eustace Chilke said...
I wouldn't pay millions for a Renoir except maybe as an investment.
Might as well buy some stocks and hang them on a wall:
The Bureau of Corporate Allegory"
"[T]he best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market."
The passive voice without a subject ("get itself accepted" by whom?) robs Holmes's assertion of any meaning.
R. Chatt said...
Giotto wasn't known for his rocks and trees either but no one would say he couldn't paint.
If I were to see that painting in a thrift shop I would probably think that some guy had spent a fair amount of time working on it.
Once in a thrift store I came across an original painting by Van Goph. One lousy letter, keeping me from millions.
I am Laslo.
"It is the museums that present themselves as the correct-thinking-authorities telling you what you should value. It is Geller who is saying look at the actual images and judge for yourself."
Sorta of. He also "suggested the museum replace its Renoir collection with work that reflects more diversity rather than “just white males and their white male gaze"
Sounds like Geller is just another SJW.
But I'm all for thinking for yourself. And I think Renoir at his worst is still better than most of Abstract Art which really does "suck".
Although the same may be said of Satan, Renoir will be valued for his works long after everything we here have said, especially, and done is alluded to no longer.
This jealousy is driving the bitterness, with a "humorous" guise for those "in the know" to further their delusions of not being those whom will cling to Marx.
Meta-likewise.
My parents had a Renoir print in the den. Never liked it. My reaction was similar (if not as extreme) to Geller's. I always saw Renoir as the Joey Bishop of the impressionist rat pack. No knock on Renoir or Bishop. You like what you like. Didn't do it for me.
Kind of like Geller's take. He seems to have blown a mild opinion like mine into an internet obsession. Good work if you can get it, I guess.
Another huge problem here is that the people conducting this discussion don't listen to enough sports-talk radio. This kind of discussion ("Who is the most overrated NFL QB of all time.") is a staple. All of the hipster baristas engaged in this discussion have precise parallels in spotty 7-11 clerks who call talk radio. One basic fact: to be over rated, you have to be good. Probably true of Renoir. "Not as good as Monet" is not much of an insult.
El Greco.
Just saying.
CWJ, you're not saying El Greco couldn't paint, are you?
"Come on along; or go alone.
He's come to take his children home."
"Come on along or go alone,
He's come, to take His children home."
Saw Bimbo on Charlie Rose.
Oh boy.
Megyn Kelley is your Next Americanly yet Worldly SuperStar!!!!!
Her compassion shines through all you other people trying to do that, blondely.
"She wishes she, even, had more time with her kids.
She gets time with them during the day, but her problem is her kids are aging."
What the Christ?
Diamondhead, No, just the opposite. Sorry.
I thought I must have been misreading you :)
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