Let's have an Art History thread

I loathe formalism.

Kitschfags ACTUALLY BELIEVE that the right is a better work of art than the left

Americans can't into art.

so you like postmodernism?

No, see

they just took it to its logical conclusion. you know that abstract expressionism, in formalist theory, is a continuation of cubism and futurism?

...

>abstract expressionism, in formalist theory, is a continuation of cubism and futurism?
So?

so they just took it to its logical conclusion. they can into art, to a more complete degree than anyone else had into art

...

If your definition of "complete degree" means "avant-garde," which is basically Whig history applied to art.

>muh logic
ok senpai

Father Seraphim Rose is right, formalism started with worship and accentuation of the flesh, and ended up as an expression of violence against the human form, a kind of mutilation of the human to make it subhuman, almost demonic.

formalism is theoretically about composition, but in reality, is fucking ugly to display almost anywhere but a corridor filled with other formalist pieces

I've seen like, half a dozen examples of tasteful displays of formalist art, ever

also, formalist film is a minimalist expression of a medium whose primary flaw is that it already lacks depth, so yes, formalist film is awful

The 19th century is the pinnacle of Western art. Right as it was dying.

1789 - 1914 basically.

>anything other than romantic
Bierstadt/Aivazovsky 2016

I'm a fan of De Stijl and cubism for some reason, though I'd never say they were the most beautiful. My go-to is always Botticelli.

cubism and futurism are avant-garde, yes

And they are valued *solely* because of that, Otherwise they wouldn't have had such brief lifespans.

well that generally was where formalist works were displayed before formalism fell out of favour. we say they're ugly now because the specific historical moment when it was the most theoretically advanced art has long since passed

>stagnant
"no"

yes baroque art has a lot of complexity which is probably too much for your feeble mind but calling it stagnant makes no sense. There is so much movement and flow in Baroque art compared to anything before. It's one of the defining features, pleb.

the 19th century was the death of western art. it set the precedent for meaningless display art since that's what people who had no knowledge of art wanted on the market. the 16th century is probably the 'pinnacle'

i'm not sure i get what you're arguing

>romantic
how's middle school?

in terms of movement and flow, what makes the baroque better than rococo? i think the (italian) baroque is defined more by dynamism than flow.

I'm saying the only judge of their quality is how current year they are. There is no other metric to say they have quality.

>There is no other metric to say they have quality.
Welcome to art.

what about their success at realising theory, as in the case of all western art since the renaissance? it's not like cubist originals cost $50 to buy. they're 100 years old and aren't really current year at all, especially considering most of contemporary art owes more to duchamp than it does picasso

>extremely modernist conceptions of artistic quality compromises "artistic quality" in an absolute sense
"No"

They are recognized for being avant-garde in their time. No contemporary cubist piece would be highly respected

*comprises

>artistic quality
"No"

yeah because like i said, contemporary art owes more to duchamp than picasso. a contemporary conceptual work (for the sake of convenience i will say duchamp is conceptual and not proto-conceptual) is advanced both 'in its time' 100 years ago and today

that's because the theory is relevant and its by the intellectual aspects of a work that we judge its quality rather than the optical, because optical works (such as those prevalent in the 19th century) are the television of the art world

If you're talking about formalism, I must concur

The prizing of the avant-garde as the only important quality predates either of them, it was gaining a lot of strength by the late 19th Century, it just didn't become predominant until the 20th.

>The prizing of the avant-garde as the only important quality

i've just been talking about how that isn't the only important quality. for example, retromodernism and remodernism aren't concerned with being the most avant-garde; they're interested in re-exploring aspects of earlier modernism maybe because they see the theory still has relevant applications in the contemporary market and isn't exhausted as if 'avant-garde' wasn't the only quality

or why, as another example, would technically-proficient photography be as popular as it is on the art market if the contemporary art world was only concerned with being new? or how about the artists who view the 'avant-garde' movement as a thing of the past and seek to reconcile or develop it?

I'm not entirely sure formalism was ever the most advanced.

and formalist work being inherently undisplayable outside of fucking already ugly art deco and postmodern architechture kind of makes it fucking ugly

in fact, modern architecture has eliminated the need for internal display art, for better or worse, because it's constructed out of a desire for beauty out of inherently ugly materials such as rebar and steel suspension ropes

I can't figure out if singapore changi is uglier, and singaporean design in general because of how inhuman it is, or whether crowded urban spaces which at least are forced to maximize space in a human fashion, such as tokyo malls are uglier. because both of these are natural extensions of formalist principles, trying to build beauty from unhuman blocks of design.

formalism is a fucking unending curse upon humanity

baroque is too over the top. it's unliveable. its purpose is to be sequestered away. classical architecture is better, it conveys a universal spirit, it leaves room for striving and spirit without flowers. the same applies to art.

this same thing is witnessed in east asian art/architechture. spaces lose traction as areas for facilitatng social purpose and the intent of their creators begins to completely usurp and overwhelm individuals. baroque is just another form of brutalism.

Like I said it was dying, but it that's when it produced its greatest works.

Why cant an artwork be both 'optical' (retarded term desu) and conceptual?

>(No shit after 1960)
Why not? The sticky has the 25 year rule, but even pushing the envelope a bit the YBAs and the Stuckist reaction for example is very much dead and historical.

they can. renaissance works and academic history painting (pre-19th-century) fall under this category

i really wish every art thread didnt devolve into idiots who've at most glanced at a history of art book arguing certain periods are better or all 'modern' art is shit or whatever

maybe post a painting/sculpture/whatever and describe what you actually like about it? whether it's the technique/context/concept or anything else you think of

>The 19th century is the pinnacle of Western art. Right as it was dying.
How fucking pleb can you get. The 19th century was absolute shit. The complete rotten and degenerate nadir of western art. The pinnacle of western art was the Dutch Golden Age.

rococo is just bourgeois family portraits and rich people shit.

Not because I dislike it but because art pieces after that time period have always been privileged over older art due to their chronological advantage and relation to our times.

If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it

Say lads, what is some top tier historical art I can decorate my apartment with?

I think that's tacky unless you bought an original. This is my extreme and stupid opinion.

B-but I'll never be able to afford the original..

Paint your own then you dick

...

...

...

>

I like ching chong ping pong zhing zhong art.

...

...

...

...

Check out some local or small-time artists that paint in a style you like.

How did anyone ever think this looks good

Utamaro is probably one of my favourite artists.

>baroque
>not gothic
baroque to gothic is what postmodernism is to modernism

...

...

...

based romanticism

...

...

It just seems so kitsch these days.

Youre just dead inside fampai

Well I think that's a little strong.

Well at least youre not romantic then.

...

What was the psychoanalysis point on surrealism again? Did they really misunderstand everything?

What's in that pipe on the right?

Some bomb ass opium.

...

>would technically-proficient photography be as popular as it is on the art market if the contemporary art world was only concerned with being new?
Photography is a lot cheaper to buy, it's more comparable to cinema than painting.

surrealism valued the unconscious as much as they valued the conscious (or even more so). the point of surrealism was to reconcile the two distinct realities by letting the unconscious bleed into the waking conscious to create a 'true reality' or a 'super reality'. initially this was done through 'automatism' or working yourself into a kind of trance to tell stories and eventually this was applied to the visual arts as well a few years after the release of the first surrealist manifesto. it was supposed to be a revolutionary idea and one of liberation.

dali also contributed the paranoiac-critical method and bataille had something to do with the idea of 'form' but i'm not so clear on these

and people buy it because it's accessible. it hasn't got a lot to do with how avant-garde it is. there is also avant-garde photography

Welp, I just fell in love with a painting. :/

its just that the guy posted some of CDFs worst paintings, IMHO

is it popular? yes. will people who dk shit about art gobble it up? yes.

but that doesnt make him a bad painter, or kitsch.

a porcellain angel, now thats kitsch.

And if photography consumption were limited by very high prices, the buyers would be much more selective, and stick mainly to the avant-garde artwork.

rococo is beauty

Orientalism was a mistake

no they'd buy something that is guaranteed to have value, which is why there is very little avant-garde film, music, or television.

>tfw ernst fuchs is the pinnacle of western visual art