What Makes a Great Work of Art?

[warren]

Naked woman? Doing things with a cigar? Can't imagine such a thing. Oh, wait a minute. I guess that is art imitating life, right?

 

[bullet08]

Naked woman? Doing things with a cigar? Can't imagine such a thing. Oh, wait a minute. I guess that is art imitating life, right?

Slick Willie will say so.

 

[Hillcrest]

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I really dig the works of Johnson Tsang, but I wouldn't put it on my walls.
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And, like favorite songs, they come and go. I might be totally bored with this work in a year or so, and have a whole set of different favs.

That second one is how I felt when I smoked Balkan Supreme the first time so I guess that spoke to me !

 

[Hillcrest]

A couple of years ago while my wife and I were in Paris we visited the Pompidou Centre. The Pompidou Centre houses the largest modern art museum in Europe. As my wife and I strolled through the museum we came across this piece of art.
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It's a hammer nailed to a board.

The artist is Günther Uecker and the piece is "Do It Yourself" 1969.
I thought, oh brother it's a hammer nailed to piece of wood...big deal, I could do that.

I later discovered that Günther Uecker is a German artist and member of the ZERO movement best known for his signature use of nails arranged into tactile, sculptural paintings. Some of his sculptures using nails are pretty cool.

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So, one day I see a hammer nailed to a piece of wood. Now, I get it. It's art.

I may be wrong, but that seems to be a Masonry Hammer and wouldn't be appropriate for nails so that art doesn't speak to me because the irony isn't correct ... just my opinion though ...

 

[Briar Lee]

A few weeks ago we had a great discussion about who was better Dali or Picasso. I think it got closed, but using the assertions that many were making, lets have some fun with that.

First, I will state that artists are never in competition with each other. Sure, artists can hate each other, but the way visual art works is evoking a personal or thoughtful connection between the artist and the viewer with the artwork as the modicum. What is going on between other artists and the viewing world has almost no impact on what can happen between your art and the viewer.

So, I pose the question, What makes a work of art great? for you. What do you judge a work of art based upon? Or, some variance of that question.

Have fun with that, and remember the number one killer of creativity is being too serious.

Are you a, I judge art by how real it looks? Or, I judge art by how much it makes me think? Or, something else entirely?
Post pictures, pie charts, or diagrams to better make your cases.

My old friend Jack and I had the opportunity to visit the Gilcrease museum in Tulsa Oklahoma.

They have the original Fredrick Remington painting of a cowboy with the herd stampeding there.



Geezus, when you are close and look at Stampede you can almost feel the rain, hear the thunder of hooves, and smell the cows and and the ozone in the air.

If I was one of those B billionaires I’d hoard fine paintings like I do Lees.

Fine art is beyond definition.

Art is or isn’t.

If it’s truly great you don’t need to be an expert to know.