Guess who's the new Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Art

[Tarka the Duck]

Here is an example of the manipulation of the consciousness of society...a blatant dumbing down.

Let's play a guessing game -
which two of the following drawings do you think were done by the newly appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Art in London?

12227
12228
12229
12230
12231

[777]

Haha. I'm guessing 2 and 5.......you know.......the primitive ones bereft of any tangible skill?

[Mare]

On the contrary, I would argue there is wonderful skill in 2 and 5. Evidence of an artist who observes and thinks about the subject. Primitive eh?

[Arrowwind]

Well, 2 and 5 can be produced by most any moran.. the others, no.
If I were to study art, and I have studied art, I would want an instructor who knows anatomy
and the application skills of the medium he works with. I see no indication that the creator of 2 and 5 has any such skill.

Now, if that person can do it either way, then fine... let them instruct.

The thing that made Picasso so great was that he had a deep knowledge of fine art technique. Thats what made is abstracts so exceptional.

[Kristin]

All of them.
Wormhole

[modwiz]

Two and five. They are crude at every angle of approach. They reek of contempt for art and are a thinly veiled attempt to hide under the banner of 'art as a form of expression'. The statement made here is blatant, IMO.

[Zampano]

I think the guy is the new Professor...just a thought

[Unified Serenity]

In today's world and it's contempt for anything traditional, art is whatever someone says it is. It's worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. If the controllers want to push an agenda they will lift one up, herald them as a genius and that person will become the new norm. Ever wonder how we lost the amazing information and items we love to find in hidden archeology? They were suppressed and other things were brought forward.

on a side note:

I had to take art at my university because if was renowned for it's fine arts despite my being a business major. I took two courses in theatre lighting which I loved, and two courses in watercolor and one in drawing. Our artist in residence was Mun S. Quan, and he was a master. He'd stop by my work and in five strokes of his brush he'd turn my ho hum water color into art that was not only beautiful to see, but tolerable at five inches away. I do not have the art gene for painting. Sculpting is my pleasure and metal working.

Two of my beloved professors works:

http://www.boggybottom.com/sitebuilder/images/MUN_QUAN12-690x505.jpg


http://www.boggybottom.com/sitebuilder/images/MUN_QUAN22-690x519.jpg

I loved his landscapes. I hope this is not viewed as derailment. It's just my view of beautiful art in a very tough medium. My guess is #2 and 5 were the right answers to the OP questions. Those look like crude beginning points some find of famous artists works before they actually draw or paint something worthwhile. My attitude is if I can do it with a paint brush it's probably not art.

[Midnight Rambler]

I think the guy is the new Professor...just a thought
Actually the "gall" is the new professor. I'm sorry I had to Google it.

I wouldn't hang this art in my living room, but art and skill are not the same thing IMO. The original thought behind art is often more thought provoking than a very skillfully made portrait.

[cloud9]

OMG! Nowadays people call art any mamarracho! (Sorry, a two years old would do it better). I think it's pornography and the work of a dark perverted mind. I am a painter.

[Tarka the Duck]

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone!
And most of you got it right, which is telling. You all recognised how we are being manipulated, confused and confounded!

Drawings 2 and 5 are by Tracey Emin, who is well known here in the UK as a controversial "wild child" artist, whose - often sexually explicit work - has been adopted by the rich and famous. Her stage-managed rise to fame and fortune has been interesting to watch, and she is now recognised as a key (and very wealthy!) member of the establishment.

The other drawings are by young contemporary artists who feel a need to learn the tools of their trade at schools such as the Florence Academy of Art or the London Atelier of Representational Art (both privately owned art schools) following the atelier system: they concentrate on the teaching the 'craft' of painting and say that "Art" is what students do with their skills after they leave the school.

Here in the UK, there are no mainstream universities or art colleges that teach these traditional drawing techniques any more. The skills have gone.

Whatever your thoughts about contemporary versus traditional art, it's a fact that in the UK, students now have no choice when applying to study art at degree level. They can't choose to follow a more classical programme even if they wanted to - which apparently, many of them are now asking for.

What is the situation in other countries?

It's all very suspicious. It keeps the public confused - so many people are embarrassed and fearful of expressing any views when discussing their taste in art because nothing they are bring told by the so-called critics and art establishment makes any sense to them.
It's the Emperor's New Clothes...

[avid]

Thank goodness I've retired - the honesty and naivety in the young has long been creatively 'wrung out' of them in the earlier school years. As a lecturer in graphic design we encouraged total freedom of thought for illustrative/graphic purposes, yet temporing of ideas to target groups. We won many many awards with our students, some of whom are top designers today, yet there was none of this urge to excess - a 'stamping of controversial feet' in which such artists as Damien Hurst and Tracy Emin excel. Yes - it IS THE KINGS NEW CLOTHES!!! If it looks like an unmade bed - it IS an unmade bed..! Could well be yours.... So why pander to it and it's innuendos.... Look at your own 'unmade bed'.....
'Whomsoever' takes over has a lot to learn, and has a lot of humble pie to eat as there were so many much more brilliant than thou dear lass, and your messy boudoir is so boring compared to many more talented 'messy boudoirs' of centuries past... Our students of today are being 'pornified', as is the culture of the MSM (TV/music/cinema/press) WHY???? Even the 'pat-downs' of the TSA are moving towards an even worse and ghastly culture. Who is driving this? The paedophiles of the great handshaking clubs? No doubt they are instrumental in this and of course there is the Club of Rome..... I feel sickened by this whole charade:flame:

[Unified Serenity]

Wonderful poetic slam avid! Nice piece and true.

[TelosianEmbrace]

This topic reminds me of two other blatant attempts at dumbing down in the arts. Remember the big popularity of 'Pop Art'? A few years ago we had a pop art exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. It was planned to desensitise people to the uplifting aspects of art. The other is the increased (Cultivated) popularity of atonal music, music without a 'clear tonal centre'. Give me Beethoven any day.

[Lancelot]

It seems this dumbing down goes on in every aspect of todays education, archaeology, architecture, music and art. In fact anywhere that creativity and freedom of thought can be expressed in works of immense beauty and inspiration or discovery can be forwarded by lateral thinking.

Lets face it...they won't allow that will they- people will be inspired to start thinking for themselves then where will the institutions be! Their job is seemingly to surpress freedom of thought and discourage creativity, to stem all right brained thinking.

The institutions can only control those who subscribe to them so choose not to subscribe, to create, inspire and be inspired. :dance:

[buckminster fuller]

Here in the UK, there are no mainstream universities or art colleges that teach these traditional drawing techniques any more. The skills have gone.

Whatever your thoughts about contemporary versus traditional art, it's a fact that in the UK, students now have no choice when applying to study art at degree level. They can't choose to follow a more classical programme even if they wanted to - which apparently, many of them are now asking for.

What is the situation in other countries?



Technicality in arts is an ever evolving process. Recipes that form the core of what is now academic drawing schools remain open to new findings, processes.. It is the very definition of artistry that wants this.
I know a guy at the Royal College of Art that gives drawing courses who has a great awareness of those "traditional" drawing techniques. PM me if you want details.
I think any art student should be taught techniques from the past, so that they can use that in their art. Yet, I see no artistic point in the desire to be able to copy what has been done, both aesthetically and technically. Art becomes a hobby if you think there IS any kind of "art tradition". There is none. It's called academism and should serve the conservation of art works, not their production.

[wolf_rt]

even if those two drawings were done on an etch-a-sketch.... they still suck.....

the only think the evoke, is the lack of skill in the artist....

i have seen better 'art' done in crayon on lounge room walls. what a joke...

3+4 are incredible...if not particularly 'artsy' at least someone has skill.

[Mare]

To put this into context what we see here are two sketches by one artist sandwiched between 3 finished pieces by other artists. You are then asked to decide which are the sketches drawn by the new drawing tutor at the RCA. A bit of a visual joke really isn't it? A bit of a cheat. Of course anyone with a sense of irony will point to the sketches and bemoan the state of the world! Pornographic and crude? I don't believe so. Could be done on an etch-a-sketch? Try it.

Personally, the other drawings while displaying an abundance of craft and skill, say nothing. They have been done a thousand times before. No one will ever go into debate about those. If that is what you want from your art then there is plenty there for you.

[grapevine]

Here is an example of the manipulation of the consciousness of society...a blatant dumbing

Let's play a guessing game -
which two of the following drawings do you think were done by the newly appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Art in London?

12227
12228
12229
12230
12231



Is the Professor a monkey? The reason I ask is that even an elephant can draw better than that! :)
Cy9kKxJJpugdown.

[Laura Elina]

I've gone through so called academic training in aesthetics/fine art... What I took away from it was that I am grateful for being able to draw different shapes quite fast and if I dare say... At times quite accurately, lol. I was into realism and photorealism in drawing (and painting), I wasn't anything special though when it came to that. My talent is geared towards expression, I can make drawings look exciting, but yet again, they are technically inferior to.. I suppose quite a lot of people/artists. Not to even mention the "great masters" that have been canonized in the western culture. Then I met my significant other.

My significant other received no academic training in drawing and painting... He just drew and painted ever since he was a kid, he even made his own oil paints from scratch (which is crazy, lol).

When I saw his work... I hung my head and was so embarrassed of my own skills that seemed so lacking now. His "technique" was far ahead of mine (if you're thinking in terms of photo realism), and it's something I eventually became very jealous of, and then I became very competitive, hell bent to outdo him. That was my goal from that point on. I was driven out of jealousy, anger and that's where I betrayed myself.

So I abandoned my budding artistic identity I had begun working on, I wanted to become a technical monster, a machine in other words. So what I was producing was something that a photo copy machine could have produced, just to show that I can. Kind of a stupid reason to do it I guess. My significant other saw that and... He asked: "What's the point?" And I got so mad at him, I thought he was saying I had inferior artistic skill. That I pretty much sucked as an artist. I took offense.

What he then went onto say that he enjoyed my free handed ink drawings much more, because they were original, authentic, that's where he could see my fingerprint ...When I "drew like that", I found a zone that made my works come alive, I was free to produce what I pleased without worrying about who I'm gonna please with my lines and who's gonna dismiss those drawings as lacking in skill and understanding of what art is. Well, I quit drawing for quite a while, because I was so pissed for not conquering the beast in my opinion. It was a touchy subject. I guess I kind of lost it in a way. I'm slowly getting back to it.

You can fine tune a realistic drawing till the end of time, that's what it's really about... Fine tuning, once you "nail the basic forms", or more like the ability to identify the basic forms in the "things" you draw ...And you're able to construct, well let's say a human figure by using "just" circles, squares, maybe you even get to the point where you do a bit of shading with lines to point out muscle groups, then you got it. That's without references. Now that's good job and well done, it takes some mad skill to be able to do that. I've tried many a time and failed a good bit of those times.

And good luck with spending the rest of your life making those forms look like the actual subjects they're supposed to depict.

I like uber realistic drawings, I do, I mean.. I respect passion for having the patience to do it, and having developed the skills as well, it's a lot of work. And it's one way of showing your "artistic credentials", a way of "paying your respect to the tradition", I mean... We're human, we wanna know if you got "mad skills" or not, lol. And I'm talking just western tradition here.

I also like art that is not reminiscent of "renaissance", like some graffiti. I appreciate a bit of a laugh every now and then. I'm sure the owner of that wall doesn't most of the time.

What I look for in a work of art that I find myself drawn to, is balance, a balance of technique and artistic expression. It becomes a matter of aesthetic judgement, and the jury's out on that, we don't have an answer. High brow, low brow, you be the judge, but I'm glad that I get to make that choice what I like with so much art out there. I don't have to like everything, I don't, but I can't deny someone else's liking to it. Honestly... After going through the academic meat grinder, I'm not sure I "know" any more than a 5 year old. Honestly.

So... Suppose my point is, if the students of that academy are receiving lesser education now, because they're being mentored by someone, who has lesser skills (and this is a question of comparison as well, lesser skills compared to whom? Raphael? He was pretty darn good... I hear, lol, suppose he was able to ace the perfect circle with a free hand), well... They can choose to pick their pencils up and go to a place, where they can study for example statues of antiquity, or they can study the drawings by "the great masters", if that's "denied" from them, which I doubt. Young people can be a smart bunch, if they don't find, they seek. Besides, it's good to seek outside the boundaries of the golden canon. Or at times academia.

[Mark]

Another one that is considered by some to have no skills:

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/rahkyt/basquiat1.jpg

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/rahkyt/basquiat2.jpg

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/rahkyt/basquiat3.jpg

collaboration between Basquiat and Warhol:
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/rahkyt/basquiat4.jpg

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/rahkyt/basquiat5.jpg

[mind-scape]

"I think any art student should be taught techniques from the past, so that they can use that in their art. Yet, I see no artistic point in the desire to be able to copy what has been done, both aesthetically and technically...."

Thank you.

In my opinion... expression is the essence... and heartbeat... within any creation.
It's the ability to create things passionately, and with soul, that defines how beautiful and empatheic human beings (and elephants and otherwise ;) ) truly are.

[Arrowwind]

One really has to learn how to be a good student of their study, what ever that may be, in order to learn what possibilities reside out there in the world.

I am sad to hear that the classic arts are not studied in the UK any longer... but perhaps this is a long due rebellion against the popus attitudes that have resided there for so long in their higher institutions of learning. If I were an art student there I would be heading for greener pastures... and I doubt one could do any better than in France

There is a huge amount to learn just in the technical applications of different media that could be mastered that can give a whole new opportunity to the artist, whether they prefer realism or surrealism, impressionism or whatever type of art...

How many painters have started in painting only to find their passion in something quite different , like sculpture or phtotography? Each requriing signficant skill and knowledge of materials and their applications.


In the USA an art student can explore in many many directions. If they are inclinded to study though a classical approach it certainly is still there without any problems finding it. They should study according to their inclinations... but exploring areas that are outside of ones instinctual inclinations may open for them doors they did not know that they had. Most art students do a variety of things before all is said and done and they find their niche.

It is not a life sentence to study one perspective or another, it is an exploration. Most instructors in the US I think would agree that one must free up their mind and their hand to find that artistic expression, but experience in a multitude of media and perspectives will only broaden ones horizon.

[Arrowwind]

[QUOTE=Tarka the Duck;389880]

I think any art student should be taught techniques from the past, so that they can use that in their art. Yet, I see no artistic point in the desire to be able to copy what has been done, both aesthetically and technically. Art becomes a hobby if you think there IS any kind of "art tradition". There is none. It's called academism and should serve the conservation of art works, not their production.


Van Gogh spent considerable time copying the masters before he found his niche in color and perspective. He could paint the classics as well as the classic artists did... it was all a part of his training that he imposed upon himself... to find himself. The only sad part about his work is that nobody appreciated it until after his suicide. I think he painted himself to death and left great beauty that was inside his soul for us to contemplate.

[Tarka the Duck]

Mare wrote:



To put this into context what we see here are two sketches by one artist sandwiched between 3 finished pieces by other artists. You are then asked to decide which are the sketches drawn by the new drawing tutor at the RCA. A bit of a visual joke really isn't it? A bit of a cheat.

The problem I had with selecting these images was finding a drawing by Tracey Emin that had been taken further than a spontaneous sketch...do you know if she has ever produced a more worked-up drawing? That was why I couldn't compare like with like.

The concern I have is that students are no longer being offered choice in their studies, here in the UK. The balance has tipped completely in the direction of concepts such as “expressionism”, “creativity” “passion” etc. I am wondering what the reason for this is – and for me, what Avid has written (post 12) is very close to the mark.

As Arrowind says, professors of drawing should be able to work in a whole range of styles – I haven't managed to find any evidence to show that Tracey Emin can. I would love to see some more of her work to show that my opinion is wrong.

As I tried to explain, my reason for starting this thread was to ask why people thought this was happening. To enter into a discussion about the superior or inferior nature of a particular art form is probably pointless: we all have our own views and I can't think that anyone would say anything here that would change my thoughts! To argue about the relative values of spontaneous creativity as opposed to studied complexity would take us around in circles – they each have their place.

What I am wondering is, is there something more sinister going on? Why has the art education establishment in the UK moved so far away from what people in the street would love to hang on their walls?

Kathie

[Aurvandil]

The problem I had with selecting these images was finding a drawing by Tracey Emin that had been taken further than a spontaneous sketch...do you know if she has ever produced a more worked-up drawing? That was why I couldn't compare like with like.

As Arrowind says, professors of drawing should be able to work in a whole range of styles – I haven't managed to find any evidence to show that Tracey Emin can. I would love to see some more of her work to show that my opinion is wrong.


I agree with you about this, a professor should have knowledge of the history and techniques that has come before him/her. I too have an education in art and can tell that our teachers thought that the most important lessons were those of croquis, ie sketch a live model to learn anatomy.

I too have in vain looked for something more elaborated by Tracey Emin. Many, many artists has first studied the "old masters" to learn the techniques and then found their own style. Study for example the works of Piet Mondrian and his quite realistic paintings of trees and compare them to his later cubistic motifs.

There is a change in the art world, or more correct, the art world is always changing. I work in a museum in Sweden which also has a big art collection. We also often exhibit art work from other museums. Some of this is modern art and quite impossible for the general visitor to understand because it is very introverted. You have to have the artists own explanation to the art to understand it. A lot of it is also plain tasteless... Some examples from the Swedish art scene:
- Adult men eating poo and beating each other
- Digital travels inside the intestines
- The art student who faked a suicide so she could get into the mental institution and then make art of it.
- The worst I have seen is the "artist" Nathalia Edenmont who makes art out of dead animals which she herself illegally kills. She now uses toilet paper and tampons... (Please look her up on google - you will be chocked.)
- In Denmark we have Marco Evaristti who put goldfishes into mixers and provoked the visitor to start mixing...

The list is long. These artists are raised to the skies as "real" and "skilled". But, for example, how can killing animals be art? To me, it is obvious that many of these persons, obviously also Tracey Emin, has deep personal problems and perhaps should get some help. I really feel sorry for them as they somehow has taken the art of the "suffering" artist a step to far, or at least so it seems. I feel they are only seeking attention.

This is no art you can appreciate directly and when this is discussed you get the standard answer - "art should stir up your emotions". My question is why? I also get the answer that "you are too conservative! You should embrace the new art!" Pardon me, but I prefer to look at art I like, it doesn´t mean that´s inferior. However, the taste of art is difficult to discuss as it is so personal.

[buckminster fuller]

As I tried to explain, my reason for starting this thread was to ask why people thought this was happening. To enter into a discussion about the superior or inferior nature of a particular art form is probably pointless: we all have our own views and I can't think that anyone would say anything here that would change my thoughts! To argue about the relative values of spontaneous creativity as opposed to studied complexity would take us around in circles – they each have their place.

What I am wondering is, is there something more sinister going on? Why has the art education establishment in the UK moved so far away from what people in the street would love to hang on their walls?

Kathie

Photography happened.. People can take them themselves, print them now...

I don't think people in the street are longing for realistic pencil drawings.. It seems you're willing to put elitism and traditionalism in opposition. Different types of art pieces should adress different audiences.. There is no generality in tastes, only cultural dominance.

[Little Ishta]

In my opinion #2 and #5 makes me think of someone sexually frustrated and more of doodling. The others are truly art. Seems art is losing the beauty.

[ulli]

There is a change in the art world, or more correct, the art world is always changing. I work in a museum in Sweden which also has a big art collection. We also often exhibit art work from other museums. Some of this is modern art and quite impossible for the general visitor to understand because it is very introverted. You have to have the artists own explanation to the art to understand it. A lot of it is also plain tasteless... Some examples from the Swedish art scene:
- Adult men eating poo and beating each other
- Digital travels inside the intestines
- The art student who faked a suicide so she could get into the mental institution and then make art of it.
- The worst I have seen is the "artist" Nathalia Edenmont who makes art out of dead animals which she herself illegally kills. She now uses toilet paper and tampons... (Please look her up on google - you will be chocked.)
- In Denmark we have Marco Evaristti who put goldfishes into mixers and provoked the visitor to start mixing...

The list is long. These artists are raised to the skies as "real" and "skilled". But, for example, how can killing animals be art? To me, it is obvious that many of these persons, obviously also Tracey Emin, has deep personal problems and perhaps should get some help. I really feel sorry for them as they somehow has taken the art of the "suffering" artist a step to far, or at least so it seems. I feel they are only seeking attention.

This is no art you can appreciate directly and when this is discussed you get the standard answer - "art should stir up your emotions". My question is why? I also get the answer that "you are too conservative! You should embrace the new art!" Pardon me, but I prefer to look at art I like, it doesn´t mean that´s inferior. However, the taste of art is difficult to discuss as it is so personal.


It's more about the mentality of journalists who are mostly jaded alcoholics and bored, and who work for editors who are even more jaded and bored. They are the ones who decide what is art, just like they decide that someone as nasty as Alexander MacQueen is to become the greatest fashion designer because he splattered his models with blood and stuck a fake knife through their throats before sending them on to the cat walk, and before finally ending his own desperate life.
It's all about the main stream media and who controls them.

They are not allowed to cover astrology conferences, nor UFO conferences, nor anything that provides the world with real answers and gives people hope.
It is the clearest indicator that something went wrong with the world's leadership.
Which in turn means something is going right because the worse they become the more people will be shocked at what's happening and hopefully start looking outside the MSM for answers.

[Tony]

Can you not see the manipulation going on?

Art has become elitists, created by the 'elite'. It is meant to confuse and divide the public.
This has been going on for years.... calling an old mattress ART.

As in any field of endeavour an artist spends years refining their skills.
Anyone can make 'spontaneous' marks on a page and “call it art” but that is not what this thread is about.

The 'elite' are just messing with peoples minds, in all subject.
The very same thing is happening in the spiritual arena.
Everyone is being encouraged to 'DO THEIR OWN THING' and ignore past knowledge!

Why do you think that is happening?

At an art school I taught at, we had to leave a sign out on the sculpture exhibits.... for the garbage collectors... “PLEASE DO NOT TAKE AWAY>>>THIS IS ART!”

[Fred259]

[QUOTE=pie'n'eal;391185]The 'elite' are just messing with peoples minds, in all subject.

The very same thing is happening in the spiritual arena.
Everyone is being encouraged to 'DO THEIR OWN THING' and ignore past knowledge!

Why do you think that is happening?
QUOTE]

Tony....we need to have a serious thread and discussion on this......dont we..!

[ulli]

Here is another angle: I was thinking of art expressing the level of consciousness of the artists. Gurdjieff used to differentiate between subjective art and objective art. Here is a summary by Osho, which is pretty close to Gurdjieff's own words.

Osho on Gurdjieff Descripition of Art

Osho - Gurdjieff has divided art into two categories. The modern art he calls subjective art. The ancient art -- the real art -- the people who made the pyramids, the people who made the Taj Mahal, the people who made the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, they were of a totally different kind. He calls that art objective art. Subjective art is like vomiting. You are feeling sick, nauseous; a good vomit helps you to feel good. The poison is thrown out, you feel relieved. It is good for you, but not good for others. Now, in the name of modern painting, you are hanging vomited, nauseous, sickening things in your rooms. In the name of modern music you are simply getting into crazier spaces within you. It is subjective art.

Objective art means something that helps you to become centered, that helps you to become healthy and whole. Watching the Taj Mahal in the full moon, you will fall into a very meditative space. Looking at the statue of Buddha, just sitting silently with the statue of the Buddha, something in you will become silent, something in you will become still, something in you will become buddhalike. It is objective art, it has tremendous significance. But objective art has disappeared from the world because mystics have disappeared from the world. Objective art is possible only when somebody has attained to a higher plane of being; it is created by those who have reached the peak.

They can see the peak and they can see the valley both. They can see the height of humanity, the beauty of humanity, and the sickness and the ugliness of humanity too. They can see deep down in the dark valleys where people are crawling and they can see the sunlit peaks. They can manage to create some devices which will help the people who are crawling in the darkness to reach to the sunlit peaks. Their art will be just a device for your inner growth, for maturity. Modern art is childish -- not childlike, remember, childish; not innocent but stupid, insane, pathological. We have to get rid of this trend. We have to create a new kind of art, a new kind of creativity. We have to bring to the world again what Gurdjieff calls objective art.

[Fred259]

[QUOTE=pie'n'eal;391185]The 'elite' are just messing with peoples minds, in all subject.

[QUOTE] The very same thing is happening in the spiritual arena.
Everyone is being encouraged to 'DO THEIR OWN THING' and ignore past knowledge!

Why do you think that is happening?
QUOTE]
Tony....we need to have a serious thread and discussion on this......dont we..!

[Tarka the Duck]

Photography happened.. People can take them themselves, print them now...



Yes, , huge number of inventions have affected the direction art has taken: photography was of course, one of these, and allowed artists much more freedom of choice in what they painted, as they were freed from commissions to represent buildings, rich people and events.

But, with respect, as I have tried to explain, that's not what I started this thread to discuss!

There was, until fairly recently, still an underlying recognition of the value of developing a skill in drawing. Basic mastery, in the way that musicians still recognise the need to practise scales and arpeggios to develop a technique that is second nature - then they can chose to use this technique as and how they want.

Why has that been so utterly removed from the world of visual art education?

Does it not seem strange to you that a person who, for many "ordinary people" here in the UK, is a figure of fun and derision - and that is what Tracey Emin is - has been appointed to such a high profile position as Professor of Drawing? It's confusing to say the least, and unfortunately perpetuates the fear that a lot of people have about expressing any kind of opinion about art.

Here are just a few of the letters written to the Guardian newspaper (one of the major broadsheets in the UK): to be fair, there were a few letters supporting her appointment, but the vast majority were scathing.


She has no craft - so she's covers this up with bad pictures which are called expressionist

just feel sorry for all those students who have already been conned out of £9000 a year in tuition fees, and then have her as a professor. Shouldn't you have a range of abilities to teach something rather than her portfolio of self indulgence?

Most of the sensible objections here are to her being made Professor of Drawing - which, in the minds of most of the artists I know (because they've been bleedin' well emailing me), does not seem to sit with her artistic strengths.
I cannot speak for the other posters here, but I am not bitter, nor green-eyed, nor full of bile. I am just critical of this particular appointment.

In any anonymous blind trial of Emin’s work she would be very lucky to be given a drawing age of 15yrs, that’s how bad it is. Da Vinci once pronounced, “Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.” This will become the easiest of goals from now on at the Royal Academy.

The RA isn't radical, its orthodoxy gone mad. It tried so desperately to become hip and contemporary and now hip has become the new orthodoxy.

If I asked a Professor of Mathematics for advice with a maths problem, I'd expect them to know the answer and demonstrate the working out. Their knowledge would be deep and wide and they'd know a lot more than me. That's why they're a Professor.
If I asked Ms Emin for advice with a problem on drawing, I doubt she'd be any help at all.

If the only thing she's capable of drawing are scratchy doodles, even if they are somehow 'emotionally truthful', she's not a Professor of Drawing, she's a Professor of Scratchy
Emotional Doodles.




I'd love to hear why do you think the opinions of so many "ordinary people" have been disregarded?
Because of confusing decisions like this one, art has unfortunately become one of the topics of discussion that is unacceptable around a polite dinner table, along with politics and religion...

Kathie

¤=[Post Update]=¤


Here is another angle: I was thinking of art expressing the level of consciousness of the artists. Gurdjieff used to differentiate between subjective art and objective art. Here is a summary by Osho, which is pretty close to Gurdjieff's own words.

Osho on Gurdjieff Descripition of Art

Osho - Gurdjieff has divided art into two categories. The modern art he calls subjective art. The ancient art -- the real art -- the people who made the pyramids, the people who made the Taj Mahal, the people who made the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, they were of a totally different kind. He calls that art objective art. Subjective art is like vomiting. You are feeling sick, nauseous; a good vomit helps you to feel good. The poison is thrown out, you feel relieved. It is good for you, but not good for others. Now, in the name of modern painting, you are hanging vomited, nauseous, sickening things in your rooms. In the name of modern music you are simply getting into crazier spaces within you. It is subjective art.

Objective art means something that helps you to become centered, that helps you to become healthy and whole. Watching the Taj Mahal in the full moon, you will fall into a very meditative space. Looking at the statue of Buddha, just sitting silently with the statue of the Buddha, something in you will become silent, something in you will become still, something in you will become buddhalike. It is objective art, it has tremendous significance. But objective art has disappeared from the world because mystics have disappeared from the world. Objective art is possible only when somebody has attained to a higher plane of being; it is created by those who have reached the peak.

They can see the peak and they can see the valley both. They can see the height of humanity, the beauty of humanity, and the sickness and the ugliness of humanity too. They can see deep down in the dark valleys where people are crawling and they can see the sunlit peaks. They can manage to create some devices which will help the people who are crawling in the darkness to reach to the sunlit peaks. Their art will be just a device for your inner growth, for maturity. Modern art is childish -- not childlike, remember, childish; not innocent but stupid, insane, pathological. We have to get rid of this trend. We have to create a new kind of art, a new kind of creativity. We have to bring to the world again what Gurdjieff calls objective art.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Ulli! I felt such a feeling of YESSSSSSS! when I read this...

Kathie

[TWINCANS]

Here is another angle: I was thinking of art expressing the level of consciousness of the artists. Gurdjieff used to differentiate between subjective art and objective art. Here is a summary by Osho, which is pretty close to Gurdjieff's own words.

Osho on Gurdjieff Descripition of Art

Osho - Gurdjieff has divided art into two categories. The modern art he calls subjective art. The ancient art -- the real art -- the people who made the pyramids, the people who made the Taj Mahal, the people who made the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, they were of a totally different kind. He calls that art objective art. Subjective art is like vomiting. You are feeling sick, nauseous; a good vomit helps you to feel good. The poison is thrown out, you feel relieved. It is good for you, but not good for others. Now, in the name of modern painting, you are hanging vomited, nauseous, sickening things in your rooms. In the name of modern music you are simply getting into crazier spaces within you. It is subjective art.

Objective art means something that helps you to become centered, that helps you to become healthy and whole. Watching the Taj Mahal in the full moon, you will fall into a very meditative space. Looking at the statue of Buddha, just sitting silently with the statue of the Buddha, something in you will become silent, something in you will become still, something in you will become buddhalike. It is objective art, it has tremendous significance. But objective art has disappeared from the world because mystics have disappeared from the world. Objective art is possible only when somebody has attained to a higher plane of being; it is created by those who have reached the peak.

They can see the peak and they can see the valley both. They can see the height of humanity, the beauty of humanity, and the sickness and the ugliness of humanity too. They can see deep down in the dark valleys where people are crawling and they can see the sunlit peaks. They can manage to create some devices which will help the people who are crawling in the darkness to reach to the sunlit peaks. Their art will be just a device for your inner growth, for maturity. Modern art is childish -- not childlike, remember, childish; not innocent but stupid, insane, pathological. We have to get rid of this trend. We have to create a new kind of art, a new kind of creativity. We have to bring to the world again what Gurdjieff calls objective art.


Got it in one. Thanks ulli.

[ulli]

Here is the original text that I had wanted to share...art as the transmission of a higher consciousness.


"Do such works of objective art exist at the present day?" I asked.

"Of course they exist," answered G (G. I. Gurdjieff). "The great Sphinx in Egypt is such work of art, as well as some historically known works of architecture, certain statues of gods, and many other things. There are figures of gods and of various mythological beings that can be read like books, only not with the mind but with the emotions, provided they are sufficiently developed. In the course of our travels in Central Asia we found, in the desert at the foot of the Hindu Kush, a strange figure which we thought at first was some ancient god or devil. At first it produced upon us simply the impression of being a curiosity. But after a while we began to feel that this figure contained many things, a big, complete, and complex system of cosmology. And slowly, step by step, we began to decipher this system. It was in the body of the figure, in its legs, in its arms, in its head, its eyes, in its ears; everywhere. In the whole statue there was nothing accidental, nothing without meaning. And gradually we understood the aim of the people who built this statue. We began to feel their thoughts, their feelings. Some of us thought that we saw their faces, heard their voices. At all events, we grasped the meaning of what they wanted to convey to us across thousands of years, and not only the meaning, but all the feelings and the emotions connected with it as well. That indeed was art!”

1. In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching,
Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London, 1950

[Tarka the Duck]

[QUOTE=pie'n'eal;391185]The 'elite' are just messing with peoples minds, in all subject.

[QUOTE] The very same thing is happening in the spiritual arena.
Everyone is being encouraged to 'DO THEIR OWN THING' and ignore past knowledge!

Why do you think that is happening?
QUOTE]
Tony....we need to have a serious thread and discussion on this......dont we..!

Agreed!!!

[ulli]

Another one that is considered by some to have no skills:

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/rahkyt/basquiat1.jpg

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/rahkyt/basquiat2.jpg

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/rahkyt/basquiat3.jpg

collaboration between Basquiat and Warhol:
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/rahkyt/basquiat4.jpg

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd30/rahkyt/basquiat5.jpg

Rahkyt...that is a different issue entirely from the one under debate here.
When bringing Basquiat's art to the attention of the world Warhol was just trying to give himself a comeback, with Basquiat as his mascot.
Had Basquiat withstood those manipulations who knows what GREATER heights he could have reached.
Haitian artists are by no means unskilled and I believe in the future these artists will put Haiti on the map as the planet's arts center.
http://www.expressionsgaleriedart.com/josephguyj12.jpg

[Mark]

Rahkyt...that is a different issue entirely from the one under debate here.

Is it? It's really about personal interpretation. Art, that is. For some, as stated by some earlier, those crass and simplistic looking images that began the conversation said something very specific to some people. The same with Basquiat's art. To others, it was simplistic scribbling with no meaning. As an artist myself I understand both sides of the coin and refuse to judge either way, as art is in the eye of the beholder.



When bringing Basquiat's art to the attention of the world Warhol was just trying to give himself a comeback, with Basquiat as his mascot.
Had Basquiat withstood those manipulations who knows what GREATER heights he could have reached.

Basquiat was more than Warhol. His work was quite meaningful. If you interpreted my post to mean that I personally think that Basquiat sucked you are sorely mistaken. As you quoted me to say:


Another one that is considered by some to have no skills

But thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss the theme further.


Haitian artists are by no means unskilled and I believe in the future these artists will put Haiti on the map as the planet's arts center.

I'm always down for the recognition of indigenous people and their intrinsic creativity, no matter where they are located around the world.

[Tony]

[QUOTE=pie'n'eal;391185]The 'elite' are just messing with peoples minds, in all subject.

[QUOTE] The very same thing is happening in the spiritual arena.
Everyone is being encouraged to 'DO THEIR OWN THING' and ignore past knowledge!

Why do you think that is happening?
QUOTE]
Tony....we need to have a serious thread and discussion on this......dont we..!

Fred, you are so right! But I do not know if this is the right forum to discuss it ...---...!

[Jeffrey]

The problem I had with selecting these images was finding a drawing by Tracey Emin that had been taken further than a spontaneous sketch...do you know if she has ever produced a more worked-up drawing? That was why I couldn't compare like with like.

The concern I have is that students are no longer being offered choice in their studies, here in the UK. The balance has tipped completely in the direction of concepts such as “expressionism”, “creativity” “passion” etc. I am wondering what the reason for this is – and for me, what Avid has written (post 12) is very close to the mark.

As Arrowind says, professors of drawing should be able to work in a whole range of styles – I haven't managed to find any evidence to show that Tracey Emin can. I would love to see some more of her work to show that my opinion is wrong.

As I tried to explain, my reason for starting this thread was to ask why people thought this was happening. To enter into a discussion about the superior or inferior nature of a particular art form is probably pointless: we all have our own views and I can't think that anyone would say anything here that would change my thoughts! To argue about the relative values of spontaneous creativity as opposed to studied complexity would take us around in circles – they each have their place.

What I am wondering is, is there something more sinister going on? Why has the art education establishment in the UK moved so far away from what people in the street would love to hang on their walls?

Kathie

Emin has done oil on board (completed), mixed media installations, and photography as well. Here's a link...
WARNING: Some of the content in the link is vulgar and sexual in nature. http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/tracey_emin.htm

I can see some skill in there, but it is convoluted with lust and darkness. The bile of ignorance. I really liked what Ulli said here:


Here is another angle: I was thinking of art expressing the level of consciousness of the artists. Gurdjieff used to differentiate between subjective art and objective art. Here is a summary by Osho, which is pretty close to Gurdjieff's own words.

Osho on Gurdjieff Descripition of Art

Osho - Gurdjieff has divided art into two categories. The modern art he calls subjective art. The ancient art -- the real art -- the people who made the pyramids, the people who made the Taj Mahal, the people who made the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, they were of a totally different kind. He calls that art objective art. Subjective art is like vomiting. You are feeling sick, nauseous; a good vomit helps you to feel good. The poison is thrown out, you feel relieved. It is good for you, but not good for others. Now, in the name of modern painting, you are hanging vomited, nauseous, sickening things in your rooms. In the name of modern music you are simply getting into crazier spaces within you. It is subjective art.

Objective art means something that helps you to become centered, that helps you to become healthy and whole. Watching the Taj Mahal in the full moon, you will fall into a very meditative space. Looking at the statue of Buddha, just sitting silently with the statue of the Buddha, something in you will become silent, something in you will become still, something in you will become buddhalike. It is objective art, it has tremendous significance. But objective art has disappeared from the world because mystics have disappeared from the world. Objective art is possible only when somebody has attained to a higher plane of being; it is created by those who have reached the peak.

They can see the peak and they can see the valley both. They can see the height of humanity, the beauty of humanity, and the sickness and the ugliness of humanity too. They can see deep down in the dark valleys where people are crawling and they can see the sunlit peaks. They can manage to create some devices which will help the people who are crawling in the darkness to reach to the sunlit peaks. Their art will be just a device for your inner growth, for maturity. Modern art is childish -- not childlike, remember, childish; not innocent but stupid, insane, pathological. We have to get rid of this trend. We have to create a new kind of art, a new kind of creativity. We have to bring to the world again what Gurdjieff calls objective art.

Excellent.

She's purging. Garbage in, garbage out. It's like somebody ate something bad that gave them a pain in their gut. Then they had a bowel movement, felt better, and decided to share their crap with the world. That sounds like harsh critique, but I felt like Osho was on the mark. Sorry Emin, but your art wouldn't be hangin' in my halls.

ADD/EDIT: Come to think of it, I have some poetry that I wrote when I was down and had "a pain in my gut." I realize now that it's all ****.

[Tarka the Duck]

Thanks for that link, Vivek.

As I said, I can't find any pieces of her work that illustrate the sophisticated technical skills that I would
have thought a Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Art in London would need as a prerequisite for the job...;)

Kathie

[Mark]

It's more about the mentality of journalists who are mostly jaded alcoholics and bored, and who work for editors who are even more jaded and bored. They are the ones who decide what is art, just like they decide that someone as nasty as Alexander MacQueen is to become the greatest fashion designer because he splattered his models with blood and stuck a fake knife through their throats before sending them on to the cat walk, and before finally ending his own desperate life.
It's all about the main stream media and who controls them.

This is of course entirely on point. I do agree that the type of art that seems to get the most critical acclaim reflects the perspectives of quite the jaded segment of society. But as with all societies since the beginning of civilization, this is no less true nowadays than it ever has been. The crass nature of this appointment and the art that this person chooses to create reflects the state of society as a whole, a society that we help to co-create even with our non-participation and censure. This foot has been against the neck of the collective for quite the long time. To see a reflective, true art that reflects the spiritual aspirations of what seem to be a majority of people and conceptions of beauty more in line with classic principles is, perhaps, wishing for a new world. The one we are currently in seems to be all about dissection and in-your-face violence, be it physical, mental or spiritual.

[Tarka the Duck]

It's really about personal interpretation.


Hello Rahkyt - that is point...why is the opinion of the majority of the population of the UK, based on their personal interpretations, being ignored?

Kathie

[ulli]

Rahkyt...that is a different issue entirely from the one under debate here.

Is it? It's really about personal interpretation. Art, that is. For some, as stated by some earlier, those crass and simplistic looking images that began the conversation said something very specific to some people. The same with Basquiat's art. To others, it was simplistic scribbling with no meaning. As an artist myself I understand both sides of the coin and refuse to judge either way, as art is in the eye of the beholder.



When bringing Basquiat's art to the attention of the world Warhol was just trying to give himself a comeback, with Basquiat as his mascot.
Had Basquiat withstood those manipulations who knows what GREATER heights he could have reached.

Basquiat was more than Warhol. His work was quite meaningful. If you interpreted my post to mean that I personally think that Basquiat sucked you are sorely mistaken. As you quoted me to say:


Another one that is considered by some to have no skills

But thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss the theme further.


Haitian artists are by no means unskilled and I believe in the future these artists will put Haiti on the map as the planet's arts center.

I'm always down for the recognition of indigenous people and their intrinsic creativity, no matter where they are located around the world.

I'm responding to your statement in red letters:
Not at all. I didn't think that for a moment.
I was thinking more about the discussion being WHO is qualified and has sufficient skills to teach at the Royal Academy....
while you zoomed in on skill only, or rather people's interpretation of skill. That is what I had wanted to distinguish.
Anyway, what I said there reads a bit different now from how I intended it to sound.
There was no attack nor criticism in my intent, just opening the discussion up to include Basquiat, but in a more general context than just as art professor.
Haiti's "primitive" art does stand out from many other indigenous areas, in my view, just because of the sheer volume that has been produced there. Others may be carvers, others are musicians. I see Haitians as painters.

[Tony]

This is the person herself.
45LIwKlNQ0g

[Cartomancer]

Traditionally artists including musicians have been used to control the zeitgeist of the public just like TV does today. It wasn't until the late nineteenth century that art became to be seen as a vehicle for simple pleasure and appreciation. In the past this was the preferred medium for the controlling of your mind. All kinds of art may impact you in ways you do not understand or define right away. Like a subliminal commercial it may plant a seed or idea in your mind that is advantageous to those who created or commissioned a given piece of art.

IMO this is the reason fine art has always been a pursuit of the rich and powerful people of the world. Look at all the possible occult overtones of pop music today. This is the same way art was used in the past. Architecture is one of the most overlooked forms of the use of art to control people. Controlling the world of art is seen as very important to the elite ruling class of the world.

[Jeffrey]

This is the person herself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45LIwKlNQ0g

A role model for young women? Pshh, give me a break! Yea, she's a no more a role model than Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, and Snooki! Wow, if anything this thread makes me disheartened thinking about the generations being raised under the guidance of these "role models" in today's pop culture.

Excuse me, I have to go pray.

[Jenci]

It's really about personal interpretation.


Hello Rahkyt - that is point...why is the opinion of the majority of the population of the UK, based on their personal interpretations, being ignored?

Kathie

Hi Kathie
They don't care about our opinions....and they don't care about art.

Emin is in place to push forward "their" agenda. Like her celebrity friends, who also have risen to the top of their professions, I would guess that she has been involved in a very dark side away from the public eye in return for her fame and fortune. Mind control may also be a factor.
Emin may also be a victim herself in all of this.

Nothing is ever quite what it appears.
Jeanette

[Arrowwind]

Traditionally artists including musicians have been used to control the zeitgeist of the public just like TV does today. It wasn't until the late nineteenth century that art became to be seen as a vehicle for simple pleasure and appreciation. In the past this was the preferred medium for the controlling of your mind. All kinds of art may impact you in ways you do not understand or define right away. Like a subliminal commercial it may plant a seed or idea in your mind that is advantageous to those who created or commissioned a given piece of art.

IMO this is the reason fine art has always been a pursuit of the rich and powerful people of the world. Look at all the possible occult overtones of pop music today. This is the same way art was used in the past. Architecture is one of the most overlooked forms of the use of art to control people. Controlling the world of art is seen as very important to the elite ruling class of the world.

But you have to consider what the Medici did in Italy. They freed the artist to paint their inspiration... this was the beginning of the break of art from the Church in Europe. Yet, the techinques were still classic but in the Medici model it was the partonage of the rich which gave the poor and talented the time and opportunity to explore their work. It was through the Medici that the first art schools were formed where students could gain understanding of even what we consider simple things by todays standard, like perspective in line and horizon. .. as well as the freedom to paint the nude.... as well as various other subject matters not previously explored and likely considered taboo.

I dont think the elite are in control anymore, except within their own circle. More common people purchase art or art replications. And although there is still the high priced stuff that goes to auction and commands millions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars of art is sold every year from what just the common man purchases for a few hundred dollars ( or even less) instead of a few million and more, and more local artists and "unknowns" either supplement or make their living at it.

Due to our much easier lifestyle these days many lessor known, and highly skillled artists as well as lessor skilled, lessor appreciated artists flourish in thier work. You see it at art fairs and galleries all across American and in Mexio. I cant speak for Europe as I have not been there. But art is alive and well in this nation and most anyone can afford a decent painiting to medatiate upon if they are inclined to have one.

[Mark]

There was no attack nor criticism in my intent, just opening the discussion up to include Basquiat, but in a more general context than just as art professor. Haiti's "primitive" art does stand out from many other indigenous areas, in my view, just because of the sheer volume that has been produced there. Others may be carvers, others are musicians. I see Haitians as painters.

:hug: In that sense, it did take Warhol to draw attention to Basquiat's talent most probably. I think for many cultures art does not necessarily play the role that it does in the West, as Cartomancer describes:


Traditionally artists including musicians have been used to control the zeitgeist of the public just like TV does today. It wasn't until the late nineteenth century that art became to be seen as a vehicle for simple pleasure and appreciation. In the past this was the preferred medium for the controlling of your mind. All kinds of art may impact you in ways you do not understand or define right away. Like a subliminal commercial it may plant a seed or idea in your mind that is advantageous to those who created or commissioned a given piece of art.

IMO this is the reason fine art has always been a pursuit of the rich and powerful people of the world. Look at all the possible occult overtones of pop music today. This is the same way art was used in the past. Architecture is one of the most overlooked forms of the use of art to control people. Controlling the world of art is seen as very important to the elite ruling class of the world.

Excellent point and so true.


Hello Rahkyt - that is point...why is the opinion of the majority of the population of the UK, based on their personal interpretations, being ignored?

I think Cartomancer hit the nail exactly on the head. This woman exemplifies the message about Art that the PTW want to send.

[Tony]

Leonardo said, "Being original, is looking at the source of inspiration....life." Draw from life!

s2sSm7EP3Wo

[Tony]

Spontaneous, skilfull, alive, fresh.....and .....and accurate!!! Even....conscious.

84s3I-1SZHo

[ulli]

I think this discussion is reaching the consensus that the PTB are directing the art world, just as they are directing other areas.
So what is their point?

Why is there so much emphasis on showing intimate space?
An invitation to be more invasive?
To get rid of taboos?
Personally I have no hang-ups about this, so I neither need other people's dirty linen in my face in order to "see" normalness...
nor do I think our society will improve as a result of making private parts public.
But maybe I'm wrong?
Perhaps they think it WILL have a positive effect, in the long term, in that it helps people give up their sacred cows.

[Arrowwind]

What ever message TPTB are trying to send those messages are not being heard by the masses of middle class in the United states who now have what is called "disposable" income to purchase art. Everyone one I know has art upon their walls and tables, even some really poor folks who find it in them to purchase posters and prints.

You guys in Europe must be controlled! It's a shame. Perhaps we have more open art access and opportunity in the United states becasue the Federal government has supported the arts for quite a while now?

Me, as mere commoner, of lower income status while growing up, use to visit New York City, the artists in Greenwich village, the hippie craftsmen, the museums, all of it. The open air showings in Central park, and the palisades. We all had art in our bedrooms as highschool students, art that appealed to our own sensibilitites, not what the King and Queen approved of nor the Royal academy approved of.

If you are not free in your art in Europe I might suggest that its your own fault for not rebelling and taking your own appreciation of art and creation of art into your own hands...

You must ask...

Why have you allowed yourself to be dictated to in such personal matters such of the choice of art?
the training you submit yourself to as developing artists?
Are you all sheeple?
no mind and discernment of your own?

If you dont like what your being taught then pick up and dam well go somewhere else.
That will teach em.

[Tarka the Duck]

[COLOR=#9932cc]If you dont like what your being taught then pick up and dam well go somewhere else.
That will teach em.

Hello Arrowwind

There is a kickback happening in Europe - people are redressing the balance. Unfortunately, for the moment, as far as I know, you have to pay large sums of money to study under the atelier system (mind you, it's the same in the US I think) in a private school.

We did "go somewhere else", as you suggest, and spent a year studying drawing at the Florence Academy of Art. One of the best years of my life...such an honour to have been taught under that system. Students from there have returned to their home countries and started schools there - there is a huge thirst among young people for this type of study - yet another reason why the decision made by the RCA is so dubious.

A new art school has opened in London - LARA (London Atelier of Representational Art)
http://www.drawpaintsculpt.com/

So things are happening...and I'm sure there is a lot more than I know about.

Kathie

[Mark]

I think this discussion is reaching the consensus that the PTB are directing the art world, just as they are directing other areas.
So what is their point?

Nothing is sacred. As below, so above. If your private parts are depicted crassly as scribbled holes and jagged lines as the rest of you is rendered meaningless then your conceptions of privacy are also rendered meaningless, the parts of you that you might have been taught to consider to be priceless are more important than your head, your mind, your hands, your abilities. In one sense, it is a revelation of openness, but done in a manner that highlights a lack of depth, a lack of attention to detail, thereby assigning importance to those qualities.


Why is there so much emphasis on showing intimate space?
An invitation to be more invasive?
To get rid of taboos?

Both, I think. I also think it is kind of an attempt to corrupt the zeitgeist of openness and truth. The feeling of oneness and unity, the coming together of people the world across and the revelation of secrets. In that sense it can be trumpeted and championed, 'I am for the liberation of women, the liberation of the body, the liberation of sexual tyranny by men'. Nobody would argue against that without being eviscerated by every art critic in the MSM. It encompasses physicality and materialism, true, but deadens spirituality and beauty.



Perhaps they think it WILL have a positive effect, in the long term, in that it helps people give up their sacred cows.

They would indeed like to deaden people's sense of sacred chaos. Unfortunately for them, they cannot be successful in the long-run, imho. They've had long enough and it hasn't worked yet.

[Tarka the Duck]

Leonardo said, "Being original, is looking at the source of inspiration....life." Draw from life!

s2sSm7EP3Wo

Wow.

I wonder whether he'd like a job as Professor of Drawing at the RCA? ;)

[Arrowwind]

We did "go somewhere else", as you suggest, and spent a year studying drawing at the Florence Academy of Art. One of the best years of my life...such an honour to have been taught under that system. Students from there have returned to their home countries and started schools there - there is a huge thirst among young people for this type of study - yet another reason why the decision made by the RCA is so dubious.

A new art school has opened in London - LARA (London Atelier of Representational Art)
http://www.drawpaintsculpt.com/

So things are happening...and I'm sure there is a lot more than I know about.

Kathie

any true student of art will thirst for knowledge. When one draws fat stick figures instead of the Mona Lisa and one is true to internal truth one knows that they need more education... and if their instuctor is not capable of anything but stick figures it must be hugely depressing.

My art teacher could not draw really well when I was in highschool but at least he had the good sense to direct us in sound instruction in media and to show us through the eyes and hands of other artists what it was all about. He encouraged a number of students into private lessons which I didn't do for we had no money and just keeping tha pastels and paper flowing was hard enough. He was a good instructor... for I advanced under his guidance and it got me into a fine art school.

Well, in the USA private schools are a mixed bag. When I was of college age some of the very best and finest were within the Sate School system,, especially in New York State and that still stands true today, I think.

Although I chose a private art school that held good classical fine art instruction, The Fashion Institute of Technology as my interest at the time was commercial art, I spent many an hour at other schools sitting in on art classes, both in private and public state shcools , like Pace College and Stony Brook University, a leading state school. The training in Arts has always been incredibly important to the people of New York State, but I cant say how it is now for sure with the budget crunches going on. State schools I dont think have the lure of satisfying the elite, but rather support for good classical ground work and economic developement and sustainability through innovation in what ever area they are involved in.

If one keeps buying into the game that the elite schools rule, with their elite patronage, then they will. Great art teachers can be found most anywhere... but one must have the ability to recognize them when they see them and of course a succession of instructors is always good.

My next place of study will be in San Miguel Allende, Mexico. Some incredibly fine teachers, both Mexican and anglo have flocked there... and the cost is a pitance. I am renewing my art endeavors after a long hiatus with family responsibilities. etc. I would say that it is developing into a mini Florence, if I should dare to venture such grandure for a little classical Mexican city. Of course, it will never be what Florence was or is... but none the less, great training is available there and readily available to those with limited finacnial resources. I met a several Europeans there studying.

You did well to go to Florence... what a dream come true!

and people like you can and will reawaken those that are asleep... but it does take a proactive artist and supporters to politically shake things up. Artists of course need money but creating art that the middle class can afford is of essence.. even if it comes through readily accessible prints or giclee. The middle and lower economic classes NEED art in their homes.

Ultimately you just need to keep doing what you are doing. Prolifercy is the key.

[Arrowwind]

[]

Nothing is sacred. As below, so above. If your private parts are depicted crassly as scribbled holes and jagged lines as the rest of you is rendered meaningless then your conceptions of privacy are also rendered meaningless, the parts of you that you might have been taught to consider to be priceless are more important than your head, your mind, your hands, your abilities. In one sense, it is a revelation of openness, but done in a manner that highlights a lack of depth, a lack of attention to detail, thereby assigning importance to those qualities.


Why is there so much emphasis on showing intimate space?
An invitation to be more invasive?
To get rid of taboos?

Both, I think. I also think it is kind of an attempt to corrupt the zeitgeist of openness and truth. The feeling of oneness and unity, the coming together of people the world across and the revelation of secrets. In that sense it can be trumpeted and championed, 'I am for the liberation of women, the liberation of the body, the liberation of sexual tyranny by men'. Nobody would argue against that without being eviscerated by every art critic in the MSM. It encompasses physicality and materialism, true, but deadens spirituality and beauty.



Perhaps they think it WILL have a positive effect, in the long term, in that it helps people give up their sacred cows.

They would indeed like to deaden people's sense of sacred chaos. Unfortunately for them, they cannot be successful in the long-run, imho. They've had long enough and it hasn't worked yet.

I just dont know what to say to this post, but I'm going to have at it anyway.

One must remember that ultimately, unless an artist has been co-opted that art is first and foremost for the artist that creates it.
It is the artist's avenue to what resides within... if other people realate to it then thats how it goes.

All things are sacred... our repressionas well as our expansion. Our repressions signpost to us our areas for growth, our expansion signpost to us our unlimited capacity.

A sacred cow is just one stopping point along the path of self exploration.
Not all artists are spiriutally advanced, nor are their patrons or fans.
People are drawn to what needs work within themselves.

If degraded expression that is of low spritual quality makes money you must assume that the purchasers in some way are of like mind. Not everyone is evolved. The evolved purchase what will inspire them to new realms that they have yet to master. The same is true for the unevolved. They will purchase and appreciate that which will unlock their personal doors of darkenss to the light. Without shining a light on a topic or a state of being it can never be revealed and it will never be healed and transformed.

If one is into crass drawings of body parts then certainly that is a reflection of growth not yet realized and yet to be determined. .. and some people get stuck in that arena for a long time... perhaps many lifetimes before they work it out... obviously there are quite a few people who are dealing with these issues... this should have no bearing on those who are capable and ready to move forward into other avenues of explorations that carry higher vibrations.

[shamanseeker]

The 'elite' are just messing with peoples minds, in all subject.
The very same thing is happening in the spiritual arena.
Everyone is being encouraged to 'DO THEIR OWN THING' and ignore past knowledge!

Why do you think that is happening?



Hello Pie'n'eal. You've hit the nail right on the head here. They want us dumbed down and they want us to ignore past knowledge because they want a new world order. They want us totally under their control. They want us to go into a new world with no remembrance of the past. Just as they did a few thousand years ago. They don't want us getting any wiser: if we do, they cannot control us.


Hello Kathie,
This is a very interesting and pertinent thread. Thank you.

When I went to Florence one hot day, I was delighted to see what I’m sure must have been the art students of the local academy sitting outside painting along the tourist routes: I’m sure they were serious students of art, firstly because I paint myself and secondly because their work was much superior to what you see done in the streets of Milan where I lived then. Their work was excellent and worthy of any renaissance student in my opinion – quite mind-boggling in fact.

A serious painter will learn the traditional techniques first and as my old art teacher used to say they need to be apprentices first as well and just watch the experts. Have you noticed how governments tend to push children to go to university now despite the fact that a lot of these students will not find work and that a lot of students don’t even want to stay at school as long as they have to and are more disposed toward technical or artisan work where they would earn more and where there is a high demand such as plumbing or cobbling for example. When the artist has learnt to “walk” s/he will be ready to venture into more abstract activities. Picasso was producing work at 13 years old that was worthy of any renaissance painter and that is why his abstract work was so striking. In his last years though something strange happened to his painting and there is a lot of puzzlement concerning it. I saw these last paintings at an exhibition in Milan and found them quite unsettling – Osho said he had huge psychological problems (he also said the same of Dalì) but I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist so cannot judge here.
Michelangelo in his later years started to paint and sculpt in a more abstract way in the Mannerist style.

It is true that the élite are trying to dumb us down. I would be interested to know the lineage of this painter.

When I was working at the American School in Milan (I didn’t teach there but worked in the office) was surprised when well-qualifiied teachers would come into my office and ask me questions such as: “Where is Pakistan?” Once they discovered I knew the answers, they would often come (individually when no-one was around) and ask me ‘general knowledge’ questions, things I was taught when I was a young girl. They were taught how to teach but were given very little ‘knowledge’. They were taught how to instil ‘responsibility’ into little ones, how to instil ‘cooperation’, etc. They were taught, in my opinion, how to make them good little, obedient citizens.

I personally believe that they started this ‘experiment’ in the U.S. and then tried it in Britain with what I call the ‘infiltration’ of Tony Blair into the Labour party. (For our American friends, Tony Blair was not a conservative though I have read that over in the U.S. it was assumed that he was. He was elected as leader of the Labour party but as we have all realized by now I hope, was in fact a neo-conservative infiltrator or in other words a New World Order man).

Here in Italy, they have always had very high standards of education of which the Italian people are, quite rightly, very proud. They are still very proud of their Renaissance roots and the great Italians of history: the great painters and architects, too many to name, but examples are Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarrotti, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Bellini, Giotto, Donatello, Bramante, Brunelleschi, Alberti, Caravaggio - the list is endless. Their great writers: Virgil, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Dante, etc. Their great scientists: Galileo, Marconi, etc. Their great philosophers: Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Giordano Bruno, Thomas Aquinas, etc. Their great composers: Monteverdi, Paganini, Rossini, Vivaldi, Puccini, etc. Their great film directors: Fellini, Rossellini, Bertolucci, Begnini, Sergio Leone, Pasolini, Visconti, De Sica, Antonioni, Zeffirelli and the lists could go on and on.

I used to think that they would never be able to dumb down the Italians. Well, I’ve come to the conclusion after teaching English to a lot of Italian students that they are attempting to dumb the Italians down in a very subtle and sly way. What they do, in my opinion, is to give the students too much work. They are overloading them and they are putting so much pressure on them that they don’t know what to do any more. They come to me to sort their English out. They are drowning under the immense amount of work they have to cover in their curriculum and this is having a detrimental effect on their school work and lives. The government has been pressurising teachers to fail students and put them back a year. This is causing a lot of angst and despair to the point where some students have committed suicide because they haven’t been able to cope with the situation.

We need to be very aware of this policy of present-day governments. They will do anything in their power to dumb us down, especially, in my opinion, young people who nowadays are not watching TV in great numbers (at least this is my experience in Italy). TV has become the pastime of older generations and students are more drawn to the internet.

[Tarka the Duck]

The 'elite' are just messing with peoples minds, in all subject.
The very same thing is happening in the spiritual arena.
Everyone is being encouraged to 'DO THEIR OWN THING' and ignore past knowledge!

Why do you think that is happening?



Hello Pie'n'eal. You've hit the nail right on the head here. They want us dumbed down and they want us to ignore past knowledge because they want a new world order. They want us totally under their control. They want us to go into a new world with no remembrance of the past. Just as they did a few thousand years ago. They don't want us getting any wiser: if we do, they cannot control us.


Hello Kathie,
This is a very interesting and pertinent thread. Thank you.

When I went to Florence one hot day, I was delighted to see what I’m sure must have been the art students of the local academy sitting outside painting along the tourist routes: I’m sure they were serious students of art, firstly because I paint myself and secondly because their work was much superior to what you see done in the streets of Milan where I lived then. Their work was excellent and worthy of any renaissance student in my opinion – quite mind-boggling in fact.

A serious painter will learn the traditional techniques first and as my old art teacher used to say they need to be apprentices first as well and just watch the experts. Have you noticed how governments tend to push children to go to university now despite the fact that a lot of these students will not find work and that a lot of students don’t even want to stay at school as long as they have to and are more disposed toward technical or artisan work where they would earn more and where there is a high demand such as plumbing or cobbling for example. When the artist has learnt to “walk” s/he will be ready to venture into more abstract activities. Picasso was producing work at 13 years old that was worthy of any renaissance painter and that is why his abstract work was so striking. In his last years though something strange happened to his painting and there is a lot of puzzlement concerning it. I saw these last paintings at an exhibition in Milan and found them quite unsettling – Osho said he had huge psychological problems (he also said the same of Dalì) but I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist so cannot judge here.
Michelangelo in his later years started to paint and sculpt in a more abstract way in the Mannerist style.

It is true that the élite are trying to dumb us down. I would be interested to know the lineage of this painter.

When I was working at the American School in Milan (I didn’t teach there but worked in the office) was surprised when well-qualifiied teachers would come into my office and ask me questions such as: “Where is Pakistan?” Once they discovered I knew the answers, they would often come (individually when no-one was around) and ask me ‘general knowledge’ questions, things I was taught when I was a young girl. They were taught how to teach but were given very little ‘knowledge’. They were taught how to instil ‘responsibility’ into little ones, how to instil ‘cooperation’, etc. They were taught, in my opinion, how to make them good little, obedient citizens.

I personally believe that they started this ‘experiment’ in the U.S. and then tried it in Britain with what I call the ‘infiltration’ of Tony Blair into the Labour party. (For our American friends, Tony Blair was not a conservative though I have read that over in the U.S. it was assumed that he was. He was elected as leader of the Labour party but as we have all realized by now I hope, was in fact a neo-conservative infiltrator or in other words a New World Order man).

Here in Italy, they have always had very high standards of education of which the Italian people are, quite rightly, very proud. They are still very proud of their Renaissance roots and the great Italians of history: the great painters and architects, too many to name, but examples are Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarrotti, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Bellini, Giotto, Donatello, Bramante, Brunelleschi, Alberti, Caravaggio - the list is endless. Their great writers: Virgil, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Dante, etc. Their great scientists: Galileo, Marconi, etc. Their great philosophers: Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Giordano Bruno, Thomas Aquinas, etc. Their great composers: Monteverdi, Paganini, Rossini, Vivaldi, Puccini, etc. Their great film directors: Fellini, Rossellini, Bertolucci, Begnini, Sergio Leone, Pasolini, Visconti, De Sica, Antonioni, Zeffirelli and the lists could go on and on.

I used to think that they would never be able to dumb down the Italians. Well, I’ve come to the conclusion after teaching English to a lot of Italian students that they are attempting to dumb the Italians down in a very subtle and sly way. What they do, in my opinion, is to give the students too much work. They are overloading them and they are putting so much pressure on them that they don’t know what to do any more. They come to me to sort their English out. They are drowning under the immense amount of work they have to cover in their curriculum and this is having a detrimental effect on their school work and lives. The government has been pressurising teachers to fail students and put them back a year. This is causing a lot of angst and despair to the point where some students have committed suicide because they haven’t been able to cope with the situation.

We need to be very aware of this policy of present-day governments. They will do anything in their power to dumb us down, especially, in my opinion, young people who nowadays are not watching TV in great numbers (at least this is my experience in Italy). TV has become the pastime of older generations and students are more drawn to the internet.

Thanks for that interesting and thoughtful post, Shamanseeker! A fascinating and sensitive insight into another country's problems.

When you said you'd be interested in knowing the lineage of this painter, did you mean Tracey Emin, the controversial new Professor?
Kathie

[Arrowwind]

[


Here in Italy, they have always had very high standards of education of which the Italian people are, quite rightly, very proud. They are still very proud of their Renaissance roots and the great Italians of history: the great painters and architects, too many to name, but examples are Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarrotti, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Bellini, Giotto, Donatello, Bramante, Brunelleschi, Alberti, Caravaggio - the list is endless. Their great writers: Virgil, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Dante, etc. Their great scientists: Galileo, Marconi, etc. Their great philosophers: Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Giordano Bruno, Thomas Aquinas, etc. Their great composers: Monteverdi, Paganini, Rossini, Vivaldi, Puccini, etc. Their great film directors: Fellini, Rossellini, Bertolucci, Begnini, Sergio Leone, Pasolini, Visconti, De Sica, Antonioni, Zeffirelli and the lists could go on and on.



I wonder... many of these painters lived terrible lives, burdened by over work, debt, disease, political and church enslavery and competitons, drugs and alcohol and shadows of suicide. The same in France. Is it the over burdening of life that restircts a person or is it what drives them on? Consider the life of Van Gogh and Modigliani, Michael Angelo, Francesco Borromini, Antone Jeanne Gros. When limits are met I guess one just checks out, submits to the authority or gives up, or the best of the best take the challenge and run with it, and don't look back.

We have so unencumbered students in the USA that they are brain dead. No homework, tests you are given the answers to before the test, weekends fully off. Lots of TV and video games for enjoyment. Little outdoor activity. All the trash food you want.
I was always astounded at how little work my kids had to do while going through school.
I do believe that where they really learned was at the dinner table duing intelligent
conversation with parents and friends.
Somehow they are managing to take up challenges and succeed.

Somewhere between Italy and the USA there must be a balance. I do think we had it here in the 60's in the USA to some exent, before all went to hell in a handbag.

Ultimately its the parents who tell their children how to cope and what is important and what is not. If there is no home instruction you get what you get.

I think encouraging people to do their own thing is a mad stab at innovation.. but here in the USA I see some very sound innovation going on based on very old knowledge. I guess you see what you look for.

[shamanseeker]

Hello Kathie, Thank you. Yes, I was wondering about the new professor's lineage as I've realized that most of these people have Illuminati connections and are all part of the plan to bring in the New World Order. Though they will probably put out the usual blurb that she was from a poor background, worked extremely hard and became famous as a result of her own hard work and merit. Like Sarkozy for example. We were told he was a refugee from Hungary. They didn't tell us that his father is a Count from Hungary (and funnily enough, an artist :) )and yes they were refugees but refugees with their lineage (no doubt Hapsburg) get a lot of help from their peers. He even married Carla Bruni who is an Italian noble woman - the new king and queen of France you could say.


Hello Arrowind, You are right and I'm very happy for your children that you are their mother! The Illuminati will do anything to dumb down or mess up young people. Because they realized they were up against an impossible task in Italy with its tradition of an extremely high level of education, they knew they wouldn't be able to do what they've been doing in the US so they tried the opposite route. It was the only way to take in their parents. "Oh! look at what they are doing. This book and that book. They are doing English literature when they are only 15 at the same level as a university course in some countries." It was the only way they could mess these students up. The irony is that it was a government that was making showgirls government ministers and these same ministers are advocating failing these students and are telling people that the students aren't studying enough!

[Mark]

I just dont know what to say to this post, but I'm going to have at it anyway.

For someone with no idea of what to say, you said quite a bit anyway. Congratulations. :rofl:


One must remember that ultimately, unless an artist has been co-opted that art is first and foremost for the artist that creates it.

Fortune co-opts quite famously. Fortunately fortune rarely accompanies art.


If one is into crass drawings of body parts then certainly that is a reflection of growth not yet realized and yet to be determined. .. and some people get stuck in that arena for a long time... perhaps many lifetimes before they work it out... obviously there are quite a few people who are dealing with these issues... this should have no bearing on those who are capable and ready to move forward into other avenues of explorations that carry higher vibrations.

Most of what you said is quite obvious as conditions of incarnation, wide varieties of the expressions of potentiality along the scale of dichotomous existence. Since we here are discussing these issues it's not really pertinent what their bearing is upon those who are 'capable and ready' to move forward as the topic of discussion is the art, the woman's ascendance to a high political position and the general statement about society made by her appointment. As many who are 'capable and ready to move forward into other avenues of explorations' are often still within the crucible of societal production what occurs within that society affects them to the degree that they become aware of it. We are all One and knowledge is Power.

[astrid]

I studied sculpture at college considered prestigious
and very hard to get Into here in Aus.
They had a drawing department also. It was
very broad and contemporary in what came
under the banner of "drawing" . Sure there were
some more classical classes, life drawing for
example, but most of the rest was very fluid .
Drawing usually being the basis for all art,
but with contemporary art it's less about
creating beautiful objects and more about
being a reflection of life and getting people
to think. Think conceptual art and you have
the drawing department covered . Tracey Emin
was certainly one artist that was spoken about and
her work admired for her courage and how it
reflected life . By judging her against the more
classical images of drawing the whole point of
what contemporary art is and does is lost .
It very much has a similar function to what we
do here at PA , ironically enough .
I would post some examples to make my point
clearer but I'm on my phone, maybe later .

Personally I think TE is a fine choice to keep
art doing what art does best, which is to
challenge provoke , educate and surprise .
God knows we need people to think more
about themselves and the world they live in.
Don't get me wrong classical art is also vital
and has its place , but in these times contemporary
art is very much an important vehicle of expression
where expression is being more and more supressed.
It's not meant to make you feel good it's meant to
challenge your idea of what art is, and make you
think. And I would say her work as posted here has done
exactly that .

If you look at this from the angle that contemporary
Art is to classical art what we are to the MSM then
you will see how those like Emin are actually on the
same team as us here . Many artists are helping to
wake up the world just as we are here

[percival tyro]

I think that,s an illuminati sun worshipper being watched by a stick insect/human hybrid . So I'll say two and five...

[Arrowwind]

[We are all One and knowledge is Power.

But still the artist struggles regardless of the knowledge that is consciously available or not... power is relative I think, and what is power for one is not for another. Even in her associaiton with a Rothchild as a supportive friend, Neel lived in extreme poverty most of her life yet she had the power to keep producing, keep painting in the face of extreme pressure and social disadvantage and with an acute awareness of the boundaries that society was creating regarding people like her, who dared to be exactly whom they are. The movie called Alice Neel is revealing, a mid twentith century artist compelled to paint, ignored and now famous. What makes a great artist tic is not always money. Contrary, it is very much something else and and unlike you fI feel that fortune does follow good art and that it is a true fortune that some people will pay just to be near the representation of the possibility that they sense but have not been able to create for themselves.

[etm567]

Haha. I'm guessing 2 and 5.......you know.......the primitive ones bereft of any tangible skill?

Many artists do not consider photo realism to be the bee's knees, you know? And those realistic drawings were very likely done with the aid of a projection from a photograph, which is then essentially traced.

I'm married to an artist. He doesn't ever do this, but it is usually done in drawings that look like those above. So, anyone with a little technical skill can do that, trace, you know? They can't necessarily draw from life, from looking at model from a few feet away.

And then there are many types of drawing, including some which are called gesture drawings, which catch an emotion, or a feeling of motion, or something intangible and momentary. Those drawings are not meant to be an accurate representation of a model.

If you want slavish copying, go for the traced photo-realism, all the time! Even a computer can do that!

ETM

[Tarka the Duck]

Thank you for your contributions, Astrid and etm...but I wonder whether you actually read all this thread?

@ Astrid


Drawing usually being the basis for all art...

As I have said several times...(!)...I started this thread to discuss the appointment of someone whom most of the country regard as a figure of fun to the prestigious post of Professor of Drawing at one of the country's leading art institutions. I was interested to hear what people thought about an artist who has said that she felt no need to develop even the most basic drawing skills holding this position.


Personally I think TE is a fine choice to keep art doing what art does best, which is to challenge provoke, educate and surprise

In which case, give her the designation, Professor of Challenging, Provoking, Educating and Surprising. Not Drawing.


...you will see how those like Emin are actually on the same team as us here.

So you disagree that she is a figurehead for the establishment/illuminati, being used as an unwitting pawn in the mind games they are playing with society? The arrogant disregard they are showing for the opinion of the majority of the population doesn't make warning bells ring in your head?!

@etm

I'm sure there are some people who do use the method you describe.

However, the drawings I put on the OP were done by students training in the classical atelier method, and were drawn from life.

You may find it hard to believe that people can achieve such a degree of accuracy and subtlety by training the eye and hand – without having to resort to such crude methods as “tracing” or “projection from a photograph”.

Such work is achieved through the development of technical skill and is a precursor to producing art.


The question is...why are students of art in the UK being denied even the choice of such training, and are being taught drawing by people who have no recognisable skill in drawing?

[astrid]

@ Tarka, go to the RA's site and look at the graduates work for the last 5 years and
you will see why she has been given this job.

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/raschools/archive/

Her work fits right in.
Can you see one piece like the classical ones you listed in the OP???

Again, the Drawing department in these colleges is ANYTHING but classical.
I know i have studied at one and even took classes in the Drawing department
myself.

"The arrogant disregard they are showing for the opinion of the majority of the population"

This is ART, and contemporary art at that.
It's a reflection of our life and times.

We are heading into, or already in a revolution,
so the current Art of our culture will reflect exactly that.

BTW, these colleges all do offer life drawing as part of the syllabus,
but most students branch out into the various mediums we have at our disposal today,
film and projection and installation work, for example are all very common in contemporary art

Most final year drawing students were working in 3D mediums where i was studying.
Complex times, required more complex means of expression, its not that the school
doesn't offer what you are talking about , its more that the students and life itself
is requiring that the Art of today be sophisticated enough to speak of our world.

I get that Contemporary art is controversial, and its a near impossible
discussion to have with those that don't get it, and try and compare
classical art with contemporary art.

[Tony]

All media is being manipulated.

[Tarka the Duck]

@ Astrid



Her work fits right in.
Can you see one piece like the classical ones you listed in the OP???
Thanks Astrid for that - yes, I am already familiar with the courses offered by the RA, and know that she fits in beautifully.
That's not the point I'm trying to get across – sorry if I'm not being clear here!

The thing that is worrying me is that students enrolling at the state-run universities and colleges here in the UK are not being offered a sufficiently wide range of choice when it comes to the level and types of skill they wish to develop.



BTW, these colleges all do offer life drawing as part of the syllabus,

There is “life drawing” and there is “life drawing”...
If you want to experiment and investigate the effect of a range of media while in the presence of a model, you're well catered for.
If you want to learn to represent the human form accurately, there are few tutors who are willing - or able - to help.



its not that the school doesn't offer what you are talking about

You could be right...I haven't managed to find this in state-run establishments.



Art of today be sophisticated enough to speak of our world
For me, that is a very subjective interpretation...



I get that Contemporary art is controversial, and its a near impossible discussion to have with those that don't get it, and try and compare classical art with contemporary art.


As I keep trying to say, this is not what this thread is about.
Maybe we'll have another thread one day to discuss such an issue, but for now, I'd prefer to hear what people have to say regarding the limited range of choices available today.




It's a reflection of our life and times.


Yep.

[Cartomancer]

Traditionally artists including musicians have been used to control the zeitgeist of the public just like TV does today. It wasn't until the late nineteenth century that art became to be seen as a vehicle for simple pleasure and appreciation. In the past this was the preferred medium for the controlling of your mind. All kinds of art may impact you in ways you do not understand or define right away. Like a subliminal commercial it may plant a seed or idea in your mind that is advantageous to those who created or commissioned a given piece of art.

IMO this is the reason fine art has always been a pursuit of the rich and powerful people of the world. Look at all the possible occult overtones of pop music today. This is the same way art was used in the past. Architecture is one of the most overlooked forms of the use of art to control people. Controlling the world of art is seen as very important to the elite ruling class of the world.

But you have to consider what the Medici did in Italy. They freed the artist to paint their inspiration... this was the beginning of the break of art from the Church in Europe. Yet, the techinques were still classic but in the Medici model it was the partonage of the rich which gave the poor and talented the time and opportunity to explore their work. It was through the Medici that the first art schools were formed where students could gain understanding of even what we consider simple things by todays standard, like perspective in line and horizon. .. as well as the freedom to paint the nude.... as well as various other subject matters not previously explored and likely considered taboo.

I dont think the elite are in control anymore, except within their own circle. More common people purchase art or art replications. And although there is still the high priced stuff that goes to auction and commands millions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars of art is sold every year from what just the common man purchases for a few hundred dollars ( or even less) instead of a few million and more, and more local artists and "unknowns" either supplement or make their living at it.

Due to our much easier lifestyle these days many lessor known, and highly skillled artists as well as lessor skilled, lessor appreciated artists flourish in thier work. You see it at art fairs and galleries all across American and in Mexio. I cant speak for Europe as I have not been there. But art is alive and well in this nation and most anyone can afford a decent painiting to medatiate upon if they are inclined to have one.


While I agree with you in the most part and always enjoy what you have to say I'll have to disagree with your assessment of the Medici family. The Medici family were part of in not the founders of the so called Black Nobility. They among others were a family that commissioned artists such as Da Vinci for wholly manipulative art designed to infer their values. You are inferring that one of the largest manipulatiors of art and the social zeitgiest are the ones who freed art for the masses. I couldn't disagree more. Just because they changed the scope of art to me means they did it for their own reasons. The scope of what they were trying to do was oppose the church so they used the exact same methods the church had already employed for centuries.

Here's a good source for Medici and Black Nobility: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_blacknobil02.htm

[Arrowwind]

Traditionally artists including musicians have been used to control the zeitgeist of the public just like TV does today. It wasn't until the late nineteenth century that art became to be seen as a vehicle for simple pleasure and appreciation. In the past this was the preferred medium for the controlling of your mind. All kinds of art may impact you in ways you do not understand or define right away. Like a subliminal commercial it may plant a seed or idea in your mind that is advantageous to those who created or commissioned a given piece of art.

IMO this is the reason fine art has always been a pursuit of the rich and powerful people of the world. Look at all the possible occult overtones of pop music today. This is the same way art was used in the past. Architecture is one of the most overlooked forms of the use of art to control people. Controlling the world of art is seen as very important to the elite ruling class of the world.

But you have to consider what the Medici did in Italy. They freed the artist to paint their inspiration... this was the beginning of the break of art from the Church in Europe. Yet, the techinques were still classic but in the Medici model it was the partonage of the rich which gave the poor and talented the time and opportunity to explore their work. It was through the Medici that the first art schools were formed where students could gain understanding of even what we consider simple things by todays standard, like perspective in line and horizon. .. as well as the freedom to paint the nude.... as well as various other subject matters not previously explored and likely considered taboo.

I dont think the elite are in control anymore, except within their own circle. More common people purchase art or art replications. And although there is still the high priced stuff that goes to auction and commands millions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars of art is sold every year from what just the common man purchases for a few hundred dollars ( or even less) instead of a few million and more, and more local artists and "unknowns" either supplement or make their living at it.

Due to our much easier lifestyle these days many lessor known, and highly skillled artists as well as lessor skilled, lessor appreciated artists flourish in thier work. You see it at art fairs and galleries all across American and in Mexio. I cant speak for Europe as I have not been there. But art is alive and well in this nation and most anyone can afford a decent painiting to medatiate upon if they are inclined to have one.


While I agree with you in the most part and always enjoy what you have to say I'll have to disagree with your assessment of the Medici family. The Medici family were part of in not the founders of the so called Black Nobility. They among others were a family that commissioned artists such as Da Vinci for wholly manipulative art designed to infer their values. You are inferring that one of the largest manipulatiors of art and the social zeitgiest are the ones who freed art for the masses. I couldn't disagree more. Just because they changed the scope of art to me means they did it for their own reasons. The scope of what they were trying to do was oppose the church so they used the exact same methods the church had already employed for centuries.

Here's a good source for Medici and Black Nobility: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_blacknobil02.htm

But I never said that they did it for altruistic reasons! .. (theysought power, pestige, land, money and armies.).. but none the less their promotion of the arts had far reaching consequences into the future, giving artists opportunity to explore and do things outside of the dictates of the Church while receiving skilled training and room and board. We must not forget just how hard it was to obtain paint and canvas back in those days and paint or sculpt and feed yourself all at the same time.

Not only did they employ Leonardo, they actually had him live within the family when he was a boy and practically raised him as their own, and hence perhaps the reason for the design of war machines that Leonardo so dwelt on for a time. Some of the medici had an uncanny ability to SEE potential and they nurtured it... and who is to say that all things were done for evil reasons anyway. That is a huge judgement on a lineage of people that counted in numbers much more than a handful, we dont and never will know. It was the Vatican that abused Michaelango before the Medici ever got to the Vatican... although he had gripes with the Medici also. Who can say all the ins and outs from back then and what is fiction and what was true.. but none the less... the Medici were great patrons of art and architecture for almost 200 years and they took huge risks with their money and time to promote that which and never been created before, at least within their memory.

[Cartomancer]

Traditionally artists including musicians have been used to control the zeitgeist of the public just like TV does today. It wasn't until the late nineteenth century that art became to be seen as a vehicle for simple pleasure and appreciation. In the past this was the preferred medium for the controlling of your mind. All kinds of art may impact you in ways you do not understand or define right away. Like a subliminal commercial it may plant a seed or idea in your mind that is advantageous to those who created or commissioned a given piece of art.

IMO this is the reason fine art has always been a pursuit of the rich and powerful people of the world. Look at all the possible occult overtones of pop music today. This is the same way art was used in the past. Architecture is one of the most overlooked forms of the use of art to control people. Controlling the world of art is seen as very important to the elite ruling class of the world.

But you have to consider what the Medici did in Italy. They freed the artist to paint their inspiration... this was the beginning of the break of art from the Church in Europe. Yet, the techinques were still classic but in the Medici model it was the partonage of the rich which gave the poor and talented the time and opportunity to explore their work. It was through the Medici that the first art schools were formed where students could gain understanding of even what we consider simple things by todays standard, like perspective in line and horizon. .. as well as the freedom to paint the nude.... as well as various other subject matters not previously explored and likely considered taboo.

I dont think the elite are in control anymore, except within their own circle. More common people purchase art or art replications. And although there is still the high priced stuff that goes to auction and commands millions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars of art is sold every year from what just the common man purchases for a few hundred dollars ( or even less) instead of a few million and more, and more local artists and "unknowns" either supplement or make their living at it.

Due to our much easier lifestyle these days many lessor known, and highly skillled artists as well as lessor skilled, lessor appreciated artists flourish in thier work. You see it at art fairs and galleries all across American and in Mexio. I cant speak for Europe as I have not been there. But art is alive and well in this nation and most anyone can afford a decent painiting to medatiate upon if they are inclined to have one.


While I agree with you in the most part and always enjoy what you have to say I'll have to disagree with your assessment of the Medici family. The Medici family were part of in not the founders of the so called Black Nobility. They among others were a family that commissioned artists such as Da Vinci for wholly manipulative art designed to infer their values. You are inferring that one of the largest manipulatiors of art and the social zeitgiest are the ones who freed art for the masses. I couldn't disagree more. Just because they changed the scope of art to me means they did it for their own reasons. The scope of what they were trying to do was oppose the church so they used the exact same methods the church had already employed for centuries.

Here's a good source for Medici and Black Nobility: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_blacknobil02.htm

But I never said that they did it for altruistic reasons! .. (theysought power, pestige, land, money and armies.).. but none the less their promotion of the arts had far reaching consequences into the future, giving artists opportunity to explore and do things outside of the dictates of the Church while receiving skilled training and room and board. We must not forget just how hard it was to obtain paint and canvas back in those days and paint or sculpt and feed yourself all at the same time.

Not only did they employ Leonardo, they actually had him live within the family when he was a boy and practically raised him as their own, and hence perhaps the reason for the design of war machines that Leonardo so dwelt on for a time. Some of the medici had an uncanny ability to SEE potential and they nurtured it... and who is to say that all things were done for evil reasons anyway. That is a huge judgement on a lineage of people that counted in numbers much more than a handful, we dont and never will know. It was the Vatican that abused Michaelango before the Medici ever got to the Vatican... although he had gripes with the Medici also. Who can say all the ins and outs from back then and what is fiction and what was true.. but none the less... the Medici were great patrons of art and architecture for almost 200 years and they took huge risks with their money and time to promote that which and never been created before, at least within their memory.

Point well made and appreciated. The Medici did have a more realistic approach to art than previously despite anything else that may be said about them. Good to see another art fan here among many. Happy New Year to you!

[Tony]

Haha. I'm guessing 2 and 5.......you know.......the primitive ones bereft of any tangible skill?

Many artists do not consider photo realism to be the bee's knees, you know? And those realistic drawings were very likely done with the aid of a projection from a photograph, which is then essentially traced.

I'm married to an artist. He doesn't ever do this, but it is usually done in drawings that look like those above. So, anyone with a little technical skill can do that, trace, you know? They can't necessarily draw from life, from looking at model from a few feet away.

And then there are many types of drawing, including some which are called gesture drawings, which catch an emotion, or a feeling of motion, or something intangible and momentary. Those drawings are not meant to be an accurate representation of a model.

If you want slavish copying, go for the traced photo-realism, all the time! Even a computer can do that!

ETM


Hello ETM

Did you see the video I put on post 52? No tracing involved! No projectors! No photographs!

I spent a year training under such a system - it is all from life. Just you, the model, the paper and the charcoal.

Tony

[zenith]

Sorry Tarka but I don't think one can really argue there's a lack of opportunity for artists.
The masters of old didn't have access to information you or I can source easily in our local
library or the net. Nor where there the sheer numbers of teachers available in every medium
or technique imaginable. Nor the chances to exhibit, promote, or grow and pursue any artistic
direction one chooses. You'll have to look around for someone who's teaching what you wish
to learn but I'll bet the majority could find someone closer to home than the Academy.
Of course you won't get a fancy piece of paper with your name on it at the end,
then again perhaps that's all us artists ever really wind up with. ;)


Peace

[Tarka the Duck]

Thanks for your thoughts, Zenith.

The only thing I would say is that, from medieval times in Europe, there was an atelier system – the workshops of the masters – where apprentices and students would go at an early age to study their craft.
I think this system was gradually replaced in the with the academies in cities such as London, Rome, Madrid, Florence and Paris.
Both these systems rely on the passing on of skills and techniques by accomplished masters.

I obviously don't know which part of the world you are from, but I'm pretty sure that here in the UK, students are certainly not being offered opportunities to work in “every technique imaginable”. If only... ;)

Kathie

[sunnyrap]

As a professional artist of many, many years, I am happy to see a discussion of this. I've long witnessed the hijacking of good sense and education in the alleged upper tiers of society about art my entire career. I've stayed mostly on the commercial side of art because, ironically, I've experienced more freedom and reward in pursuing the expression of my own art there, despite many supercilious slights for it from alleged 'fine artists' for doing so. One of the silliest trends in the world of fine art and galleries is in valuing dead artists' work over living ones--scarcity principle at work. Showing how marketing and psychology, rather than quality, drives the business of art. And that is due to the poor education of the public about art. I don't know if this is intentional social engineering or just plain old profiteering...

[Midnight Rambler]

The only thing I would say is that, from medieval times in Europe, there was an atelier system – the workshops of the masters – where apprentices and students would go at an early age to study their craft.
I think this system was gradually replaced in the with the academies in cities such as London, Rome, Madrid, Florence and Paris.
Both these systems rely on the passing on of skills and techniques by accomplished masters.


The master and apprentice model is the best way to learn anything IMO. I have heard from people who work in Germany that this is the way the Germans do it. The German economy has still a lot of industry where actual products are made. Not like in many European countries where the service industry is very dominant. The education is not compatible with the needs of the company, the knowledge of the "apprentice" is not up to par, and therefor the only way to preserve skill and to transfer knowledge is this apprentice and Master model.

[zenith]

Greetings from Oz Kathie,

It's a whole other thread but I don't think one can isolate an aspect of art (education etc)
without taking into account both what art is, and where it's at in it's own evolution.

Yes, them unimaginable techniques can be quite a challenge. ;)


Peace

[Tarka the Duck]

Greetings from Oz Kathie,

It's a whole other thread but I don't think one can isolate an aspect of art (education etc)
without taking into account both what art is, and where it's at in it's own evolution.



Good idea for a thread...sparks could fly - in the nicest possible way, of course!! ;)

[Arrowwind]

You may find it hard to believe that people can achieve such a degree of accuracy and subtlety by training the eye and hand – without having to resort to such crude methods as “tracing” or “projection from a photograph”.

Such work is achieved through the development of technical skill and is a precursor to producing art.

Few artists use these deceptive skills. looking through the art world it is easy to see that realism has been perfected without camera or computer and done so many years ago. Then again, such trickery I have even used as training mechinisms simply because it has been available to this generation and time. You use it, you learn, you leave it behind due to boredom or other explorations come into view.... no biggy really. Just one of many many approaches that are played with... it is all play you know.



The question is...why are students of art in the UK being denied even the choice of such training, and are being taught drawing by people who have no recognisable skill in drawing?

This just seems so implausable to me. Are you saying that all students are being denied? Is there not more than one art school in the UK and more than one instructor?

You know, students generally have a pretty critical eye... this is why they are approaching the profession in the first place.
and art students aside from often being avantaguarde are dedicated to mastering basic skills for their vision demands skill to make the vision come true. Seems to me that students who have any eye in their head at all would avoid or disregard her if she is all that bad. If she is so bad she will create her own demise I would think.

[Mark]

What makes a great artist tic is not always money. Contrary, it is very much something else and and unlike you fI feel that fortune does follow good art and that it is a true fortune that some people will pay just to be near the representation of the possibility that they sense but have not been able to create for themselves.

Ah, please do not mis-represent what I said with what you think I said.


Fortune co-opts quite famously. Fortunately fortune rarely accompanies art.

The second sentence is integrally dependent upon the first in order to contextually represent my meaning. Fortune as an expression of material gain is often dependent upon the system that fortune is part and parcel of. Monetary gain often comes from achieving success within that system. The system we are talking about is the pyramidal structure of modern western capitalistic culture, which, as we are discussing here, often endows those who represent the paradigms and modalities they wish to see manifest with the trappings of success, which includes, wealth, or fortune. It is not unknown for people to begin their careers based upon a desire for fortune or change the direction of their careers, which might include their artistic focus, once they determine that they can succeed by producing one kind of art over another.If the art they produce is a product of their inherent mental, emotional and spiritual life, more power to them. But if it is a product of that check they got for that last piece of art they did because they saw that it sold, then that is something else altogether. If "good art" receives public acclimation and an accompanying fortune, it is in spite of the system rather than because of it and an except to the rule rather than an example of the rule in action.



One of the silliest trends in the world of fine art and galleries is in valuing dead artists' work over living ones--scarcity principle at work. Showing how marketing and psychology, rather than quality, drives the business of art. And that is due to the poor education of the public about art. I don't know if this is intentional social engineering or just plain old profiteering...

Excellent point. Do you think it can be both social engineering and profiteering? That perhaps the two often go together?

[sunnyrap]

I imagine its just unconscious knee jerk materialism, like the trend of reporting primarily lascivious news;

[Cartomancer]

I guess I've become kind of a cynical art fan in the last few years. When you really break it down and examine if there are very few artists out there having any success that aren't sponsored and selected for the top tier. Despite the modern availability of art to the masses in a wide variety of subject matter it is still all controlled and manipulated by those who want to influence you. Including many of the people who are teaching it. The world of music is controlled in the same way.

If you think about it the business world is no different. I experienced this one first hand by doing better and cheaper. I was intentionally run off with extreme prejudice.

I used to scoff at the many views of the occult and secret societies in music but it is so obvious that you just can't fail to recognize it. The Bohemian Club in San Francisco was formed primarily by artists, actors, and musicians and their membership is still dominated by artists today. This is similar to the artists guilds of the medieval world. You could be the most talented brilliant artist in the world and if you were not part of the right clique you were going nowhere. Some of the best guitarists I have ever seen in my life were in little dives and honkytonks and this is one of the reasons why. You have to have talent and be willing to play ball in all of these artistic disciplines or at least may be limiting your chances of success.

[TWINCANS]

So here is a new (2yrs) independent Art gallery in a fixed up warehouse thingy stated by a group of recent Art College grads. Whatcha think? Are they using their position of being outside the clique to strive for Art with a cap A, or a product of the kind of weirdness that today masquerades as art? Or another option, is this not art but craft?

http://www.angelikastudios.co.uk