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Journal Sloppy's Journal: Art 10

Journal by Sloppy
I like beauty (and, indeed, consider its pursuit to be just about all that life is good for) but I just don't "get" art. I'm starting to understand it a little better, though. I think I may understand it enough to know that I'll never understand it.

On September 7th I went to the High Art Museum in midtown Atlanta. Although I knew the word "High" is actually a proper noun (named after someone who donated a house to the museum), I amused myself by pretending that that it was going to be "high" as in "over my head." "These snobs are going to confound this beer drinker, eh? We'll see about that!" I joked to myself as I went in.

The biggest disappointment (which I only learned of after I paid for admission) was that two of the three exhibit floors were closed. Argh! But I made the most of it, and got to browse an Ansel Adams collection (among a few other things). That's when I realized that I really don't get it.

Ansel Adams is famous for capturing natural scenery, and the subjects are usually grandiose enough that even a clod like me, can enjoy some of his photographs. But the enjoyment I get is from the subject matter itself. I think of a photographer as a technician whose job is to briefly fool me into imagining that I am in Yosemite looking at big rock structures, rather than looking at a piece of paper. The beauty is in the message itself, not how it is presented.

I was confounded when I saw that the museum, in some cases, displayed multiple prints from the same negative. WTF? To me, these are the same photograph. Sure, one may be a little lighter or darker than another, or have slightly different contrast, but that's just the inevitable weakness of the medium. We're just looking at shadows on the cave wall, after all. Of couse Adams' photos aren't as good as really being there. Print one of them out on an old dot matrix printer with a half-worn ribbon, and while I might grumble over the fidelity of the reproduction, I still might stare at it and say, "Wow, that Half Dome is an impressive chunk of rock."

Well, from an art perspective, my take is just plain wrong and different prints are different works of art. But I'm trained to think Platonically, and I always try to see through the extra "noise" added by technological imperfections, minor variations in exposure, the color of the paper, etc. These things aren't what's important to me -- the subject of the photograph is. But no, in the art frame of mind, these choices that artists make are done for a reason, and variation in the details is somehow a statement in itself. It is real information just as much as a steganographic message hidden in pixels, except that I'm supposed to perceive it.

I have trouble with this.

What really blew my mind was when I saw a photograph of something here in my own state: Aspens, New Mexico 1958. With the picture of the "glowing aspen" there's just no way I can pretend he's just a technician trying to show me what was there. The real life scene before him, just didn't look like the photo. This person made a conscious effort to show viewers something other than what was there; he is trying to convey information that that does not exist in the subject matter. And there's no steganographic subtlety here; it's glaringly obvious that he's saying something. But what is it? I don't know this language. I don't know what a glowing aspen means.

The more I think about it, the more I suspect the message is as simple as "Here, you might enjoy this." Maybe that's all there is to it. I just don't know.

This discussion was created by Sloppy (14984) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

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  • All art comes down to the artist making the statement like "Here ya go, you might like this." Even if the statement is more like "you might hate this" or "you might find this something to think about."

    A lot of art criticism is just over the top, and a lot of artists will buy into that. They'll be the serious ones that get all huffy if you're a cretin who doesn't "get" it.

    Art is personal. I love it, and go to lots of art museums. All that matters is what you think of it. Did you have fun looking at it? Don

  • art (Score:2)

    by turg ( 19864 ) *

    The more I think about it, the more I suspect the message is as simple as "Here, you might enjoy this." Maybe that's all there is to it.

    That's certainly where it starts. A picture may be worth a thousands words, but that doesn't mean it's directly equivalent to a thousand words. If what the photographer was trying to "say" could be written down in the form of an essay, he should have chucked the camera and just written the essay. If his primary goal was something other than to have the viewer experience

  • I was confounded when I saw that the museum, in some cases, displayed multiple prints from the same negative. WTF? To me, these are the same photograph.

    Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not questioning your statements or your opinion, but do you remember more details about this display more than what you typed? Was it a display about zoning?

    Being a past amature B&W photographer, I've done a lot of reading on Ansel Adams. One of the techniques that Ansel Adams came up with for trying to p
    • There was a display that explained his zone system but it was separate from the multiple prints that I'm talking about here. I do not think that the multiple prints were intended as part of a demonstration of zoning.

      Also, I didn't mention this, but in many cases the prints from the same negative, were from very different times. There would be a print Adams made in the 1940s, and then another one nearby from 1979 or something like that. It was as though he wasn't satisfied with his earlier work, or had

      • There was a display that explained his zone system but it was separate from the multiple prints that I'm talking about here. I do not think that the multiple prints were intended as part of a demonstration of zoning.

        Other than showing off different development styles or something like that, I have no reason why there would be multiple published pictures like that...its beyond me.

        Also, I didn't mention this, but in many cases the prints from the same negative, were from very different times. There woul
  • 1 thing that I found helpful is getting 1 of those self-guided tours on CD. In the art museum that I went to, it was free. When they tell you a bit about what the picture is supposed to be about, then it really helps a lot.

    The pictures that I like to see are the 1s of a snap shot in time, that may give a hint of what life was like.

    I saw this painting of some boats in Vancouver. It was supposed to be bird's eye view of a marina. I didn't get the same impression that the painter. I think that he was being t
  • I love Adams work. Some of it is strictly documentary, ie "here's Half Dome, don't you wish you were here to see it in person?". Some of it is art, as you described. But some of it seems to me to evoke the feel of what is there rather than just the image. I'm the same way with Tom Thompson's paintings. I see one of his paintings of a slightly choppy lake with storm clouds up ahead (and upwind) and I *remember* what it was like to be on a canoe in the middle of a big lake with the campsite up ahead and

  • One thing I've learned from some painter and composer friends is that sometimes art is created, not so much from what we non-artists think of as inspiriation, but from the challenge of solving a problem. How can I capture that shimmer? Can a sonata in only one movement be a sonata and "work"? Can I paint this subject using "dots" instead of "strokes"." Can I write a book without using the letter "e"? What happens if I use a non-traditional composition - can I make it work?

    I've enjoyed finding out tha

    • Can a sonata in only one movement be a sonata and "work"? Can I paint this subject using "dots" instead of "strokes"." Can I write a book without using the letter "e"? What happens if I use a non-traditional composition - can I make it work?

      Hey, you're reminding me of something. A few years back, Douglas Hofstadter (GEB author and therefore eternal geek celebrity) released an unusual book called Le Ton beau de Marot. It seemed to be a whole book about how to translate a poem, and at the time I thought,

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