IS art subjective?

[HentMas]

I'll just say that i think the Mona Lisa is shit

Does that answer your question?

oh! i agree with you, when we went and saw the mona lisa, i waited for 3 hours in line to get close enough to see it, everybody was "OOOH!! look at that!!! it follows you with her eyes!!, what a strange SMILE!!!" and shit
and when i got in front of the painting all i could think of was "this is it!?, its not even big!!... how boring..."

and then i walked away and focused in other paintings that were much more interesting to me...

that said

i think that the main reason people are "elitist" about paintings is because in their time people dismissed most of them (the most famous paintings) as "dumb" or "ugly" and as time passed by, the "hype" started because of the "story" before the painting, Van Gogh (or however you spell it) made really weird paintings, and yes, they are weird, its only after "over analyzing" them that people realized he was trying to "capture the light" or "capture perspective" and they acclaimed him for it, which in turn if anyone doesn't like the painting he is instantaneously labeled as an "idiot" because he doesn´t "realize" the effort it took to master that technique...

I like Van Gogh, but there are several examples, like the "shit in a can" of an artist, that is sold its weight in gold, people like it because of its "uniqueness" and its "meaning", stuff like that, but it doesn't take away the fact that its "shit in a can"

 

[gyroscopeboy]

For example, a friend of mine submitted FOR HIS FINAL UNIVERSITY PIECE, a blank photoshop document (with the grey and white squares) and called it "Transparent Seagull". The teacher raved about it and used it as a benchmark example for the class.

What university does your friend go to?

The University of Newcastle, in Australia...which actually is pretty decent, usually haha.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

For example, a friend of mine submitted FOR HIS FINAL UNIVERSITY PIECE, a blank photoshop document (with the grey and white squares) and called it "Transparent Seagull". The teacher raved about it and used it as a benchmark example for the class.

What university does your friend go to?

The University of Newcastle, in Australia...which actually is pretty decent, usually haha.

Even so, this is just...wow. Goes to show you that no matter how hard you work in life, someone's still gonna beat you with the minimal amount of work possible on a project.

 

[HentMas]

I'll just say that i think the Mona Lisa is shit

Does that answer your question?

and PICASSO IS A HACK!!!
You suck picasso, i hate you so god damn much, you and your squiggles.

Ah i love the fact that people like Picasso, MC Escher etc are so bad at drawing it somehow goes full circle and becomes good. The fuck does that work? Double negatives only work in maths!

[sub]And English if you're being pedantic[/sub]

i was thinking... doesn´t that same principle occurs in the web?? an epic fail is a win??

now you made me start thinking... i hate when that happens...

do people really like "bad" stuff so much!?

 

[The Wykydtron]

I'll just say that i think the Mona Lisa is shit

Does that answer your question?

and PICASSO IS A HACK!!!
You suck picasso, i hate you so god damn much, you and your squiggles.

Ah i love the fact that people like Picasso, MC Escher etc are so bad at drawing it somehow goes full circle and becomes good. The fuck does that work? Double negatives only work in maths!

[sub]And English if you're being pedantic[/sub]

i was thinking... doesn´t that same principle occurs in the web?? an epic fail is a win??

now you made me start thinking... i hate when that happens...

do people really like "bad" stuff so much!?

Wins and fails are judged by their awesomeosity, so i'd say if a fail is so fail it becomes a win, it would be a win for physics for allowing the epic fail to happen but still a fail for whoever failed

That's how i see it

 

[spartan231490]

I'm talking about all types of art so are they all subjective,non subjective or just some of them subjective from what I can tell music is the most subjective of them all and paintings are the least because different people listen to different types of music its normal but when some people say they don't like Picasso or Van Gogh they are marked as morons.

So what do you think?

Everything is subjective. Even this topic. Anything that is truly objective only has one answer, and so we don't think about it much. Like math, or grammar, or spelling.

 

[Arkzism]

very subjective...

 

[tkioz]

Art is subjective yes, there are things of common beauty that the vast majority will all agree are beautiful, such as a Sunrise or Sunset, but once you start adding a human element it quickly becomes more and more subjective.

For example I see the beauty in many classical paintings, yet show my almost any "modern art" and I'll tell you I think it just looks like self indulgent crap.

 

[Charli]

Yes. In some variants of 'art' a degree of technical skill would be required to appease the majority of aesthetic taste but on the whole it's incredibly subjective.

 

[Bugerion]

I'll just say that i think the Mona Lisa is shit

Does that answer your question?

and PICASSO IS A HACK!!!
You suck picasso, i hate you so god damn much, you and your squiggles.

Ah i love the fact that people like Picasso, MC Escher etc are so bad at drawing it somehow goes full circle and becomes good. The fuck does that work? Double negatives only work in maths!

[sub]And English if you're being pedantic[/sub]

i was thinking... doesn´t that same principle occurs in the web?? an epic fail is a win??

now you made me start thinking... i hate when that happens...

do people really like "bad" stuff so much!?

Wins and fails are judged by their awesomeosity, so i'd say if a fail is so fail it becomes a win, it would be a win for physics for allowing the epic fail to happen but still a fail for whoever failed

That's how i see it

Well I wouldn't agree totally there are some pictures that look bad but actually mean something I mean something anyone can understand but yes most of them seem like crap,also my theory is that good painters died around the beginning of 20 century and searching for a deeper meaning in pictures is just an excuse for a lousy painting because if you look at how some people painted the detail and how realistic it is you are just amazed but then again who am I to judge I'm not 1337 painter xD

 

[Rellik San]

Ahhh you meant is art itself a subjective thing;

Well I have a degree in "Fine Art" (not the wisest course of study), I despise Monet and I think Damien Hirst needs shooting... as well as Saachi for funding the ponce. But it all comes down to the same basic encoding that tells you if you prefer salted or unsalted chips.

If you meant is arts meaning subjective? I can answer that too; Only if it has failed.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Yes. The closest thing there is to a definition that encompasses everything that can be called art requires that the thing that is "art" have an emotional impact upon the audience. This is, by necessity, something that will vary from person to person and is, as such, open to interpretation. Some pieces of art are particularly good at cultivating particular emotions across a wide swath of people of course, but such things generally rely on some particularly compelling cultural touchstone. Still other pieces are nearly universally recognized as art as they rely on imagery that speaks to the human experience as a whole.

The more specific art is, the more it becomes a subjective thing. The classic morality play of "Everyman", for example, is incredibly general in that it applies to all of humanity (being mortal creatures who will, at some point, have to face death) and thus it resonates with everyone on some level. By contrast, something incredibly specific like the song "Faraway Coast" by the Dropkick Murphys tends to resonate with people who have served in the military in the recent wars in the Middle East and Central Asia and people outside of that group are far less likely to experience any significant emotional impact.

 

[Brightzide]

There are things you can do objectively right with art. Such as your shading, technique, styles and use of colours. But the end result will always be subjective. Popular doesnt equal good. eg. Van Gogh or Picasso. If you find a piece moving or love the sight of it, well then thats just fine. But if you despise a piece others love, well then that's fine too. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that lark

Actually, even those things aren't objective when you take different cultural practices into account. Different cultures and periods in history have valued different techniques and considered them more valuable than others and thought others that we use here today are completely the opposite of what a good artist should do.

Good point, didnt even consider that. See, learn new stuff every day. Cheers pal

 

[Galletea]

Personally I think that art is very subjective. Regardless of obscure examples verses truly skilled landscapes and portraits, you can't possibly know for sure the artist's true intentions and so you have to interpret things in your own way. From why a man put a spade in an exhibition, pickled a shark, or why someone is smiling, or what they're looking at, we can never know for sure, so yeah, I think it has to be subjective.

 

[Nazz3]

Obviously yes.

 

[GothmogII]

I'll just say that i think the Mona Lisa is shit

Does that answer your question?

and PICASSO IS A HACK!!!
You suck picasso, i hate you so god damn much, you and your squiggles.

Ah i love the fact that people like Picasso, MC Escher etc are so bad at drawing it somehow goes full circle and becomes good. The fuck does that work? Double negatives only work in maths!

[sub]And English if you're being pedantic[/sub]

Can't speak for Picasso, but Escher? Bad at drawing? Right:

Spoiler

I know Escher did a -lot- of art involving repetitive and often simplistic seeming patterns, but those are by no means the extent of his work.