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Comment by tgv | Hacker News Reader

That requires a lot of goodwill from the reader: "I'm going to try to find this interesting because it's supposed to be a poem."

Suppose you find a scrap of paper with the text (which I'm sure you haven't seen before):

    I withdraw and wait.
    This is time that doesn't get lost:
    each minute becomes future.
    I am an ocean of waiting,
    in a waterproof envelope of now. (*)

Or you'd find a scrap of paper with the text

    lighght

Isn't there a difference? I can appreciate the attempt in the latter, I think the "cricket" one is at least funny, but can it withstand comparison with Shakespeare? It's not a coincidence that the the article starts with the mention of Oulipo: it's word play, the joy of expressing under extreme constraints, rather than poetry.

(*) Source: Eb (English: Ebb) by M. Vasalis, in a loose translation.

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Here are two paintings.

[1] https://cdn8.openculture.com/2018/08/22215450/sciencde-and-c...

[2] https://painting-planet.com/images/9/image293.jpg

Painting [1] demonstrates a mastery of light, shadow, and color. It's complicated. It's full of detail. Anybody who walked by this in an art gallery would surely think, "This person is a great artist" and move on. Painting [2] will most likely be called a great painting by most people, but that's because most people have seen it at some point and know who painted it. This person has a massive reputation as one of the greatest artists of all time. People who walk by this in a museum will stop and snap a picture and take a minute to really look at it because, hey, this guy is super famous, so he must be great.

But [2] is clearly painted much faster than [1] and has far less fine detail. A person who doesn't know anything about painting [2] or the artist behind it will probably say something like "anyone could do this. Even I could do that"--but it was a revolutionary style at the time because people didn't do it. [1] was merely fitting into a more established framework of art and was far less likely to blow minds, even though a typical person without foreknowledge might be more likely to compliment [1] on being a "good" painting than [2].

And many might know this, but [1] was painted by the artist when he was a child. [2] was painted by him as a full-fledged artist as an adult. The reduction in realism and complexity in favor of abstraction was an intentional progression for his work.

These simple poems don't need to be as complex as Shakespeare. They're not trying to be. They serve an entirely different purpose. People are still writing long, epic poems even today, but it's a vastly explored field of art and demand for new material in that style is quite low. Not every one word poem is going to be mind-blowing, but some definitely grab some interest. There are plenty of people, even well-read people, who find Shakespeare tedious. There are people who think a page with nothing but "cricket" is fluff. Both kinds of art can coexist.

> Both kinds of art can coexist.

But do they? In your typical museum, what kind of art do you find in the post-WWII section? I've been to a few, and to say it doesn't compare to what came before doesn't even begin to describe it.

As for the "mind-blowing" quality - you can only turn a urinal on its side so many times before the trick gets old. Where do you go after that, after you've heroically broken with all the accumulated knowledge of past artists in whatever is the opposite of "standing on the shoulders of giants"?

It depends on the museum. The curators decide what they want.

I've been to museums full of nothing but plain black swabs across a canvas. I've also been to ones with nothing but realistic scenery paintings made within the past 20 years.

Eventually, there'll be another revolutionary trend in art and people will yearn for the minimalist abstract stuff that fills museums today.

>Eventually, there'll be another revolutionary trend in art and people will yearn for the minimalist abstract stuff that fills museums today.

I fervently hope so. Call me uncultured, but I prefer art that has aesthetic value.

The realist painting style basically disappeared after photography was invented. Because what is the point of emulating a camera with paint? If you want realist imagery we have photography, tv, movies etc.

The natural succession to the classic "Academic" style is not cubism, its Hollywood.

Take a look at the following artists:

Zdzislaw Beksinski: https://culture.pl/en/gallery/selected-paintings-by-zdzislaw...

Frederic Edwin Church: http://www.museumsyndicate.com/artist.php?artist=421

H. R. Giger: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-nightmarish-wo...

Frank Frazetta: http://www.museumsyndicate.com/artist.php?artist=693

Hokusai: https://www.wikiart.org/en/katsushika-hokusai/

Would you say photography has replaced any of them? Have you ever seen photographs that look like their work? I have not. There is more to art than a binary choice between photorealism and modern art (or whatever that collection of styles could be called).

An artist, even a realist one, does far more than emulate a camera.

Thanks for all the pictures! My comment was probably too flippant, I didn't mean to say a realistic style of painting had no value after the invention of the photography. I was just trying to explain why painting styles have changed, for better or worse. For example I love the hand drawn illustrations used in many advertisements and posters in most of the 20th century. They have artistic qualities photography cannot replace. But nevertheless, photography have gradually overtaken this domain and now totally dominates advertising. It is clearly what the market demands.

The most prestigious genre in the academic style was the historical painting. My claim is the movie industry and perhaps now computer games are catering to this demand for immersive historical representation and myths.

A realistic illustration style have survived for long in comic books and sf/fantasy book covers. Here realism is an important tool to make the fantastic feel real. But as the capabilities for CGI advances, Hollywood is taking over here: Today marvel movies outsells marvel comics many times. The market speaks clearly, for better or worse.

To be clear, by realism I mean a style which strives for realism in anatomy, perspective, lighting and so on. Hokusai or Bekinski are not realist any more than say van Gogh. But Frazetta clearly is building on a realist style reminiscent of the historical painting, just with more monsters.

> In your typical museum, what kind of art do you find in the post-WWII section?

James Gillick paints today, using traditional techniques. Does he count? He's been in a few galleries.

https://www.gillick-artist.com/exhibitions/past-exhibitions....

https://www.gillick-artist.com/for-sale/

"suckling upon the genitals of midgets" ?

or maybe the genitals of giants, reflecting how sometimes there's a groundbreaking idea, but the following up on that idea looks an awful lot like jerking around in its shadow

It's a form of art, no doubt. And you can consider it better or worse art.

I think the problem is forcing the label "poem" onto these utterances, probably because of the historically acquired status that it brings along. As such, I say: it requires a lot of goodwill from the reader.

Can't wordplay be poetry? Shakespeare is full of wordplay.

IOCCC winners would require a lot of goodwill from a typical iPhone owner: "I'm going to try to find this interesting because it's supposed to be an app."

https://www.ioccc.org/years.html#2019

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