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[Superb Joe]

Does anyone know why abstract art, which looks like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/No._5%2C_1948.jpg  

earns a lot more money than something that actually takes time and skill, like this?  
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aQMUlI5qImM/TM2ACTQWB-I/AAAAAAAADqI/TPmreQb4N3s/s1600/Halo+Wars+Concept+Art.jpg

It's just a splatter of paint!

Oh yeah, and here's my piece of abstract art, it's $10,000 if you want it.  And that's cheap.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13907487/Photos/THEMIX.png

hahahahaha

[DavidCaruso]

If you're interested, you might want to read up on Photographic Theory. Painters didn't just shift over, they fought with hands, claws and teeth in all directions to stop Photography. Even today, you'll find quite serious scientific texts that claim Photography could never be art and why traditional paintings would be so much better.

Oh, I didn't mean that the painters themselves just rapidly shifted over. I meant that the people with the most potential were, from the start, becoming more interested in photography/film than in painting, which is why those fields grew in size and blossomed until eventually they became much more relevant and prominent than painting. The same shift is happening today, from film to videogames. I also see a greater number of talented people interested in digital and pixel art than interested in painting (though many are interested in both, as they probably should be, because digital art draws on many of the same skills and techniques that painting does).

Well because it is abstract, it once again shows us something we can't obtain or experience, because it is per definition abstract. So we now crave the abstract until someone finds a way to enable us to experience it, which we can't, once again, per definition.

So we can't experience Pollock's Galaxy, but we can experience Rembrandt's Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee? Or any of those "kitsch" paintings with angels in them? =P

hahahahaha

Don't tell me you're an abstract art junkie, Superb Joe.

[s0]

Re: abstract art being a scam: You do realize that only like the top .5% of abstract artists actually make any decent money from their work, right? That's assuming you're using "abstract art" as a stand-in for all modern and postmodern art, of course.

If you're looking for a safe way to earn a living as an artist, doing "realistic" concept and illustration work for hire like the Halo picture in the OP is probably the better choice.

It's also pretty ironic that the OP has a lo-res pixel art avatar.

[BattleBeard]

hai gus i mad arrt

buy for 100 dllar!!1111!!!

[Hangedman]

Don't tell me you're an abstract art junkie, Superb Joe.

Junkie 
'Why is halo not art but art i don't understand is art'

Art is always open to interpretation
Modern artists create art that is all interpretation

If you don't want to try to interpret it you don't have to
Many people don't even care to try, but it just makes them seem closed-minded, not noble defenders of 'real art'

[dEnamed]

Oh, I didn't mean that the painters themselves just rapidly shifted over. I meant that the people with the most potential were, from the start, becoming more interested in photography/film than in painting, which is why those fields grew in size and blossomed until eventually they became much more relevant and prominent than painting.

Ah, okay, misunderstood you there. Ye, that's correct. On a to me quite interesting sidenote, in some religious countries, it's forbidden to take photos. But there are still photographs and pictures all over, what they do is take a photo and then paint over it to give it a painted look. Now is that a photo or a painting or a phainting?

So we can't experience Pollock's Galaxy, but we can experience Rembrandt's Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee? Or any of those "kitsch" paintings with angels in them? =P

Well, some people firmly believe to have been visited by angels. Also large amounts of the christian religious society, well all religion is based upon the assumption that people have been visited by otherworldly or divine beings. It's not as much a question of "really experience" it. There are people and its quite a few of them, that think those "kitsch images" could be real now, ages ago or in the future. Now don't give me Giger or Royo because dear lord purple snowbunny, that would be hard to explain

[Brother Android]

it also have permadeath, which is suck.

except when you're playing in god mode, but it's currently unknown how to get it. (Jesus mode is also cool, but the respawn time is terrible)

I love you right now.

Anyway, my 2 cents: I'm a fan of abstract art that's well done (of course, that's in the eye of the beholder, which is part of the point of abstract art, but we're talking about MY eye right now). Don't look up pictures of Pollack paintings; really go see them in real life. They're huge. The paint is layered a quarter of an inch thick on the canvas. It's a violent torrent of color, the visual equivalent of noise music (which I realize isn't high praise to some people but I like noise music). Pollack's view of his paintings, if I remember correctly, was that they were supposed to be static representations of motion - his painting process was kind of like a dance or something. And if you don't like that, people who have analyzed his paintings in more recent years have found all kinds of fractal patterns and stuff like that. So there is clearly something of interest going on, even if it doesn't seem valuable to you, and even if no one really quite understands it (I dunno, maybe someone does).

I'm with C. A. Sinclair on this one - art is mainly significant in how it differs from reality. Now, I love a good landscape, as my PixelJoint profile attests, but the reason I enjoy landscape paintings/drawings/whatever is that they selectively omit and enhance details in order to draw out the thing that strikes you as beautiful in a real-life landscape. I think a photograph can do this too; angle, aperture size, exposure length, and all that other stuff I know nothing about is a way of selecting details for inclusion. Heck, even just choosing subject matter is a question of selecting which part of reality you want to represent - a beautiful one? One that's beautiful in an odd way? One that's so ugly as to confront the viewer? So it's not really the "realism" that is valuable in a realistic painting. But I digress.

If nothing else, perhaps abstract art is useful in that it brings about interesting conversation as to what makes something art in the first place.

EDIT: another note on realism in painting - still lives used to be regarded as exercises of no real artistic value. Think about it.

[DavidCaruso]

Junkie  

Okay maybe I should have said "fan" instead.

'Why is halo not art but art i don't understand is art'

Art is always open to interpretation
Modern artists create art that is all interpretation

If you don't want to try to interpret it you don't have to
Many people don't even care to try, but it just makes them seem closed-minded, not noble defenders of 'real art'

If I have to "interpret" or find "meaning" in a piece of art in order to squeeze any pleasure or fun out of looking at it then it's a bad piece of art. You don't have to "interpret" a painting by Rembrandt or Michelangelo or Waterhouse (or even Dali or Rivera) to enjoy it, because they already look good enough to easily immerse the viewer if he has eyes. "Interpretation" is a bonus, not the entire point (for example, I don't have to think about what George Orwell was "trying to say" with 1984 to see that it's an amazing novel), and saying that a work of art is good because it's "open to interpretation" is the equivalent of saying "man you just don't get it."

Re: abstract art being a scam: You do realize that only like the top .5% of abstract artists actually make any decent money from their work, right? That's assuming you're using "abstract art" as a stand-in for all modern and postmodern art, of course.

Scam isn't in the money as much as the elevation of minimalism, formlessness, etc. (aka: what's easier to do over what's harder to do) Going back to an earlier example I used, Andrew Wyeth was (and continues to be by some people) dismissed and ridiculed because he dared to be a "classical realist" in an era of postmodernism.

I think a photograph can do this too; angle, aperture size, exposure length, and all that other stuff I know nothing about is a way of selecting details for inclusion. Heck, even just choosing subject matter is a question of selecting which part of reality you want to represent - a beautiful one? One that's beautiful in an odd way? One that's so ugly as to confront the viewer? So it's not really the "realism" that is valuable in a realistic painting. But I digress.

Not to mention the post-processing and editing that happens with digital photographs. The point of modern photography and classical "realist" paintings aren't just to replicate reality, it's to make reality look boring.

[s0]

I'm with C. A. Sinclair on this one - art is mainly significant in how it differs from reality. Now, I love a good landscape, as my PixelJoint profile attests, but the reason I enjoy landscape paintings/drawings/whatever is that they selectively omit and enhance details in order to draw out the thing that strikes you as beautiful in a real-life landscape. I think a photograph can do this too; angle, aperture size, exposure length, and all that other stuff I know nothing about is a way of selecting details for inclusion. Heck, even just choosing subject matter is a question of selecting which part of reality you want to represent - a beautiful one? One that's beautiful in an odd way? One that's so ugly as to confront the viewer? So it's not really the "realism" that is valuable in a realistic painting. But I digress.

Yeah, even with realist painting, the draw (for me) is seeing someone's subjective interpretation of reality, not its "objective" depiction. Looking at a good portrait or landscape is like taking a peek into the artist's mind. Photography can do that as well, but IMO not to the same extent.

[Hangedman]

If I have to "interpret" or find "meaning" in a piece of art in order to squeeze any pleasure or fun out of looking at it then it's a bad piece of art. You don't have to "interpret" a painting by Rembrandt or Michelangelo or Waterhouse (or even Dali or Rivera) to enjoy it, because they already look good enough to easily immerse the viewer if he has eyes. "Interpretation" is a bonus, not the entire point (for example, I don't have to think about what George Orwell was "trying to say" with 1984 to see that it's an amazing novel), and saying that a work of art is good because it's "open to interpretation" is the equivalent of saying "man you just don't get it."

I didn't say it was good because it was open to interpretation
I just said it provokes interpretation and sometimes interpretation is necessary to enjoy it

[Theophilus]

I find that people who say this are not appreciating art to the fullest degree- not putting themselves into the picture. I think abstract art can be appreciated more than traditional halo paintings, because it makes you think.

Imagine this...


You hear a sound, and you know what it is, where it's coming from.

This would be halo art. You know what is going on and there is no mystery, yet you can still appreciate it for what it is.


You hear a sound, yet you cannot recognize it and don't know where it's coming from

This example is abstract art. You know there is a sound, yet it is unknown what is making it. You have to think about what it could be, and where it could be coming from. While different, it can still be appreciated as a beautiful or interesting sound.


I do remember reading somewhere that these works of art also have a lot of mathematic brush strokes and such.

[s0]

"Interpretation" is a bonus, not the entire point (for example, I don't have to think about what George Orwell was "trying to say" with 1984 to see that it's an amazing novel), and saying that a work of art is good because it's "open to interpretation" is the equivalent of saying "man you just don't get it."

I like to think of formalist work as "theoretical," i.e. instead of (or in addition to) writing a paper about art theory, someone decided to make a piece of art purely to illustrate a certain concept. The art of Duchamp, the music of John Cage, Iannis Xenakis (well, in part) etc. all work like that. That stuff isn't meant to be "immersive" or enjoyed on its own merits. It's mainly aimed at other artists and people who are interested in art theory, not "consumers." That's right, art can be made with other aims than being "immersive" or "beautiful" or w/e. Criticizing Mondrian for not being "immersive" is about as dumb as complaining that motorcycles don't have 4 wheels.

TL;DR: You just don't get it, man. 

[Hangedman]

Conventional art is evocative, bringing to mind something specific
Modern art is provocative, inviting you to bring something to mind yourself

'modern' is a really bad term, so is 'contemporary' but whatever

[Chromanoid]

Visual art can be full of symbols, feelings and mysteries. This is true for all forms of visual art.
This traditional painting transports hidden meaning/feelings as well as this abstract painting transports hidden meaning/feelings.

[DavidCaruso]

I like to think of formalist work as "theoretical," i.e. instead of (or in addition to) writing a paper about art theory, someone decided to make a piece of art purely to illustrate a certain concept. The art of Duchamp, the music of John Cage, Iannis Xenakis (well, in part) etc. all work like that. That stuff isn't meant to be "immersive" or enjoyed on its own merits. It's mainly aimed at other artists and people who are interested in art theory, not "consumers." That's right, art can be made with other aims than being "immersive" or "beautiful" or w/e. Criticizing Mondrian for not being "immersive" is about as dumb as criticizing motorcycles for not having 4 wheels.

There's nothing wrong with people making experimental works, only when experiments are claimed to be more than what they actually are (this is where "interpretation" comes in). Cage's 4'33" is an interesting and funny (to me, at least) experiment, but imagine if it sparked a huge movement within the musical community of composers creating "environmental music," and critics lauded this new style of music as superior to all the old classical styles, and eventually it was taught in schools that environmental music was the movement that injected personality, life, and meaning into the boring and lifeless classical works. That's similar to what I see with abstract art. (Yes I know noise music exists, but I don't think it's had nearly as huge an impact on music as abstract art and postmodernism had on painting.)

[Inane]

and eventually it was taught in schools that environmental music was the movement that injected personality, life, and meaning into the boring and lifeless classical works. That's similar to what I see with abstract art

That sounds more like Impressionism. Or even Baroque.

[gimymblert]

music is abstract and nobody force interpretation into him ... nobody flinch!

abstract can ebe evocative, not all abstract art are dreary intellectual construction like malevitch

And david caruso confuse a lot of things, the art market is a scam, but most notable abstract artist 1. was skilled enough aside from abstraction, 2. end up being reject and poor, so it was not for the scam 3. there is a huge number of abstract flavour.

And yes with the introduction of abstract art art KNOWLEDGE had a huge leap in understanding art, not that it invalidate the achievement of old artist. And yes most classical artist (not the notable one obviously) where just a bunch of lazy bunch focus on applying brainless convention, I did, i lost not only my brain but emotion. You can't evoke the same emotion over and over and over without tiring a muscle or two.

achievement unlock: caruso predict it

[gimymblert]

and eventually it was taught in schools that environmental music was the movement that injected personality, life, and meaning into the boring and lifeless classical works. That's similar to what I see with abstract art

That sounds more like Impressionism. Or even Baroque.

No wait it was "art nouveau"

[s0]

Noise music I'd compare to existentialist art. Existentialist art is about breaking the boundaries of an art form.

Abstract art I'd compare to synthetic/electronic music. ie, music not produced by a tangible instrument, but from synthesized waveforms.

Kind of a bad analogy because most noise music IS electronic and isn't really "innovative" or anything. Noise just reiterates concepts people like Cage, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Pierre Henry etc. already explored as far back as the 40s. The main difference is that Noise is fixated on extreme volume, is "popular" music, i.e. not academic or "classical" and has its roots in the punk movement of the late 70s. It's generally not very "artfaggy," most noise musicians openly admit that their music is extremely simplistic trash and that they're just doing it for fun or shock value or w/e.

There are a few exceptions, like

,

or Russell Haswell, who try to bring some level of sophistication to the genre, but the vast majority of it is pretty disposable.

O and btw while we're on the subject of "immersion," Merzbow's style of Noise is some of the of the most immersive music I know. At the right volume and with the right playback equipment, it blocks your senses to all other stimuli.
 

Oh yeah and as Gilbert said, music is an artform that is by its very nature abstract.

[Brother Android]

O and btw while we're on the subject of "immersion," Merzbow's style of Noise is some of the of the most immersive music I know. At the right volume and with the right playback equipment, it blocks your senses to all other stimuli.

And that is beautiful.