Art History Videos » Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hED__0x8ejA Being interested in painting means that you canrsquo;t just be interested in technique, you have to know where you fit into the world, or if you donrsquo;t know where you fit into the world then you should know about who came before you. Now, you may be thinking that you donrsquo;t have some sort of lofty ambition to become the next greatest artist, you just want to paint some flowers, and thatrsquo;s ok, however even the decision to paint flowers on a table has a long, and vibrant history. And to deny yourself the history of flower painting also denies you of one of the greatest resources that you have. Irsquo;ll get more into this concept later. Often times people are scared, offended, or angry with contemporary art. This stems from a feeling that the artist is trying to be smarter than the viewer. A sort of dictatorial power where viewers must look at the creations that artists make. This is generally made into a straw man argument, complete with references to some obscure performance art piece which seems highly inaccessible. Since we are focused on painting lets take a look at some paintings which are considered to be ldquo;hotrdquo; right now, and fetch extremely high price tags. The work of Lucien Smith takes from artists who died nearly half a century previous. Obviously there is a connection to Jackson Pollock, because of the dripping. But if we really look at pollockrsquo;s dense canvases we can see that they are much more vibrant and full of life than Smithrsquo;s work. As we delve further into Smithrsquo;s work we see that these abstract paintings are just one of many different ways that he paints, and that he changes styles frequently from painting to painting. He isnrsquo;t bound by one particular genre and isnrsquo;t confined to one particular description. Now, you may be thinking ldquo;I donrsquo;t like itrdquo; and thatrsquo;s ok, I donrsquo;t particularly like his works either, but whether you like something or not is irrelevant. It still exists, and it still can be used as an example of where the contemporary is at the moment. With this in mind, it is nearly impossible to say if a work of art is ldquo;goodrdquo;, or not. With that in mind, you may be surprised to know that Lucienrsquo;s works are not well received everywhere in the art world, one of the most influential critics living today ldquo;Jerry Saltzrdquo; said that work similar to his was ldquo;crapstractionrdquo; a play on the word abstraction, and that ldquo;This is not painting but semantic painterbationrdquo;. So as you can see, the art world isnrsquo;t some giant monolith that everyone makes it out to be. There is a wide variety of viewpoints and no clear consensus as to what art should or shouldnrsquo;t be. Many times an agument is put forward by someone without a lot of historical knowledge that there are rich buyers, and snobby critics who just randomly choose some MFA student to make famous and then they all agree, and everyone makes money. One of the worldrsquo;s most famous painters living today is Eric Fischl, who was known for his perverse paintings of American suburbia has devoted a whole slew of his new paintings to the theme of art fairs, where this stereotype certainly rings true in his paintings. And his paintings are not being shunned by the art world, instead the opposite is true. This is because most have an ability to be self critical, a skill which is mandatory if you want to become an artist. So whats this have to do with the flower paintings. In the 1600s in the Netherlands what we now think of as still life paintings really flourished. These painters depicted everyday scenes with amazing detail and were true masters of oil paint as a medium. Artists such as Roelandt Savery and Jacob Vosmaer made a great living off of their works and lived very opulent lifestyles. The idea that historically speaking, you have to be dead to make a lot of money from your...

Salvador Dali Biography. Exploring the history of his paintings as well as his life.

The life and paintings of Marc Chagall.

A brief history of oil paint.

Short biography and looking at a a few of Lucian Freud's most important works.