Unpopular Opinions about Art - movements, individuals, styles, and more

[John Furrman]

I'm sure many of you already know about how much I don't like non-representational modern and post-modern art.

For example

however, I do like impressionist inspired modern art such as

Anyway, I'm curious as to what the rest of you think.

 

[Disappointment]

I like brutalist architecture. Where I live, there are a few notable buildings in that style and they're widely reviled for being "ugly and soulless".



I wonder if it's unpopularity is due to the name. Brutalism got its name from the French term for raw concrete (Béton brut), and its association with post-WWII and USSR construction probably didn't help.

 

[Kikomi]

I like brutalist architecture. Where I live, there are a few notable buildings in that style and they're widely reviled for being "ugly and soulless".

View attachment 187803

I wonder if it's unpopularity is due to the name. Brutalism got its name from the French term for raw concrete (Béton brut), and its association with post-WWII and USSR construction probably didn't help.

i like it too! it's a really interesting concept that can work if done right. in terms of worldbuilding, brutalist(is that even a word) buildings could work for a militarized dystopia or even an abandoned city.

architecture is really neat and can definitely be considered an art form. i think a lot of people tend to forget about it when talking about art.

 

[Hui]

I
LOVE
PASTEL COLORS (current year)

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I'm sure many of you already know about how much I don't like non-representational modern and post-modern art.

I remember an art history class where the teacher warned the students ahead of time that they might have issues with modern art -- as in "how is a bunch of colored squares even art?"

 

[Positron]

I don't understand or like Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud.

 

[[Insert Meme Here]]

I'm not a fan of the Mona Lisa. Don't get me wrong, it is a very well done portrait. I'm sure when it was fresh and not faded by age it was even lovelier. Even now we can see that a truly masterful hand created it. I'm not saying it's poorly done. But at the end of the day it is a generic fucking portrait of some woman. It's not revolutionary. If it didn't have Da Vinci's name attached, no one would give a fuck about it. It's not interesting or unique. I've seen the damn thing in person. It's relatively small and unimpressive.

MC Escher is one of the greatest artists of all time. Most people think of him as a novelty (like how some people think of Picasso even though Picasso had technical skills for days), but he is genuinely the artist I admire most.

All art should be viewed at a reasonable distance. If you're nitpicking a tiny brush stroke 2 inches from your eyeball, you're not looking at the fucking picture. An image is ultimately the sum of its parts, for better or worse.

I'd rather display a $10 painting/drawing riddled with flaws by some unknown artist I've never met who will never become famous than a print of something by someone famous. Artists need support and I don't require other people to like the things I like for me to display something in my own home. Not every piece of art needs to be mind-bendingly awe-inspiring to be worth a purchase. I also don't need your condescending approval regarding the quality of the art I collect. /peeve

Functional form is artistic. A handgun is beautiful because of its absolute simplicity in design and function. A steam locomotive in motion, with the wheels turning in perfect sync, is artistic. Your vagina just hanging out there is not artistic on its own. Just because something has been drawn/painted doesn't make it artistic, it just makes it rendered in art. Anyone can draw a stick person, doesn't make it artistic.

 

[AnOminous]

Functional form is artistic. A handgun is beautiful because of its absolute simplicity in design and function. A steam locomotive in motion, with the wheels turning in perfect sync, is artistic.

That's essentially the Bauhaus school perspective.

 

[[Insert Meme Here]]

That's essentially the Bauhaus school perspective.

Neat. My knowledge of artistic movements themselves if pretty weak. That paragraph was more about how just getting naked isn't art, though. If the point of your piece is supposed to be some sort of statement, but it amounts to this, NSFW but not eye-searing:

Spoiler

I don't like it (though that's honestly not a great example of what I'm trying to point out). There's plenty of people who eat that shit up, though. I mean, look at half of the things people make in the Shitty Etsy thread.

 

[Abortions4All]

I hate impressionist art. If that's how the world looked to those guys, they needed a good optometrist.

 

[nice]

I'm a fan of tumblr-style noses.
(For those of you who don't know what that is, it's the act of making the nose red in a drawing, usually done by artists on tumblr. Some other features that tumblr likes to make blush are the ears, the elbows, and the kneecaps, to name a few.)

Don't see them so much nowadays, though.
Here's an example of what I mean:

I think that they make the drawing look much more cutesy; it's appealing to me.

I'm only a little ashamed.

 

[Positron]

Functional form is artistic. A handgun is beautiful because of its absolute simplicity in design and function. A steam locomotive in motion, with the wheels turning in perfect sync, is artistic.

That's essentially the Bauhaus school perspective.

The celebration of speed and the aesthetics of the machine is more of a Futurist credo, while the correlation between function and aesthetic is indeed more associated with Bauhaus. However, outside architecture, it is tricky to talk about a "Bauhaus aesthetics" because the school was not terribly consistent in its artistic vision, and in the latter part of its short existence it was pretty much overrun by De Stjil.

 

[AnOminous]

The celebration of speed and the aesthetics of the machine is more of a Futurist credo, while the correlation between function and aesthetic is indeed more associated with Bauhaus. However, outside architecture, it is tricky to talk about a "Bauhaus aesthetics" because the school was not terribly consistent in its artistic vision, and in the latter part of its short existence it was pretty much overrun by De Stjil.

There's also furniture, which was very Bauhaus-influenced. I'm not an expert on the issue, but to the extent I understand and agree with it, the general philosophy is that when an object is meant to be functional, any design element that interferes with functionality detracts from functionality, and is in fact ugly for that reason. Anything that contributes to functionality is, inherently, aesthetic. I generally agree with that. Bauhaus is less machines than objects in physical space, although the same general aesthetic of form and function being congruent can be applied to anything.

Outside of the functional, though, where art is actually useless, beauty should be the only concern.

This may seem contradictory, but it really isn't, since it's about two entirely different realms of art.

 

[Reynard]

Honestly, I'm pretty sick of fanworks in general, be it fanart, fanfiction, fangames, etc. I don't hate it, and it's fine to make, but I just find it annoying to see all this fanart get a ton of praise while original works get less love. Perhaps I'm just salty that I don't have a following, but I personally do get sick of seeing just fanworks all the time. Not saying fanworks are bad in general, but I feel that the internet is over-saturated with it.

 

[Lackadaisy]

I hate that other people expect me to just stare at art in museums. If it doesn't catch me, it doesn't catch me, and I don't know enough about construction/technique to be interested. I'd always be that one kid who would go through an art museum in 10 minutes.

 

[John Furrman]

Honestly, I'm pretty sick of fanworks in general, be it fanart, fanfiction, fangames, etc. I don't hate it, and it's fine to make, but I just find it annoying to see all this fanart get a ton of praise while original works get less love. Perhaps I'm just salty that I don't have a following, but I personally do get sick of seeing just fanworks all the time. Not saying fanworks are bad in general, but I feel that the internet is over-saturated with it.

Agreed, mostly, but consider the following:

On the side of effort, it's a lot easier to draw something somebody else conceived than to be original. Albeit I think that most artists draw fan art purely because they really like the subject of whatever they are making fan art of. The reason it gets so much attention is because viewers can immediately identify with it if it is fan art of something they like. On the marketing side, making fan art can be a great way to draw people in to consider one's other works.

 

[Reynard]

Agreed, mostly, but consider the following:

On the side of effort, it's a lot easier to draw something somebody else conceived than to be original. Albeit I think that most artists draw fan art purely because they really like the subject of whatever they are making fan art of. The reason it gets so much attention is because viewers can immediately identify with it if it is fan art of something they like. On the marketing side, making fan art can be a great way to draw people in to consider one's other works.

Yeah, I know all of that. Hence why I don't hate fan art, I'm just a bit sick of it.

 

[Positron]

Well if you can attach some hip political statement to your "fanart" you can earn the right to call yourself a "true artist" and have museums buy your shit:

"I Like Olympia in Black Face" by Larry Rivers.

"Matisse Installation" by Nichole Eisenman

Although I'm at a loss to tell whether these are "fan-art" or "hate-art" -- or whether these are "art" at all.

 

[John Furrman]

Well if you can attach some hip political statement to your "fanart" you can earn the right to call yourself a "true artist" and have museums buy your shit:

That is everything wrong with modern and postmodern art. It replaces substance with "statements". And it displaces the responsibility of comprehending the art onto the viewer. And if you don't get postmodern art, well you're the uncultured Philistine because you can't comprehend the significance of... whatever the fuck this is

Postmodernists are doing to art what social justice warriors are doing to social justice. As with gender identity bullshit, if you proclaim you are an artist, well you're an artist according to postmodernist philosophy. This is the late stages of what happens when you tell a couple generations of people art is entirely subjective. That's a nihilistic and disgusting statement. Art is not subjective, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Good art can be quantified and measured, the following cant:

This museum paid 10 million dollars for a fucking rock. Just a god damn rock. This doesn't even have a statement, or if it does it is a sick prank on all the idiots who wander by it and think it is art.

 

[NIGGO KILLA]

Art is only good in my eye when it caters to my interest. So when I see a hot anime girl with big tits piloting a Gundam its a master piece. And if its some bitch just screaming then its degenerate shit