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Comment by creer | Hacker News Reader

This is disingenuous. First, classical anatomy copy drawing is rarely mandatory in art school because that's not what art is about anymore. (For another discussion, that it never was.) This was not inadvertent, not done while nobody noticed. Instructors and students noticed that art had changed. Classical drawing schools still exist if you insist. Second, drawing still very much happens in art - it's just not the kind of anatomy obsession these people care about. Just like they call "art" a very specific sub-part of the art world. And it's not like David Hockney himself draws in that style anyway. He could but he doesn't. He has taste, he has interests, and this isn't it. Can it come handy, useful? - sure - but so can a million other things.

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This is the assuage that contemporary artists tell themselves at night to go to sleep. The fact remains that people are crushing in to see the art of 100 years ago. Monet still makes people swoon.

And for our times we have a banana on the wall and we're not supposed to argue because taste is relative and someone likes that ... as we slow step our way down the staircase to oblivion.

There is sooooo much more contemporary art then that one guy who stapled a banana to a wall. If that is all your exposure to contemporary art then you aren't trying very hard.

Taped. This isn't arguing out of ignorance. I feel well-versed enough in contemporary art to both make my accusation and stand behind it.

There is some irony to being caught off guard by someone suggesting it was stapled instead of taped. Is it an important aspect of the piece? Important enough to correct someone over.

There are other places to draw parallels from. Runway fashion shows nearly always show bizarre items no sane person would wear to the local grocery store. But they each, individually, make a new statement that draws some sort of reaction from the observers. It's the very essence of art.

Off the catwalk, scenes like Lady Gaga wearing a meat dress to an award program might offend some people, but you can't deny the originality and subsequent reaction. There were certainly people claiming it wasn't fashion or art.

Yet if someone aped it, it would be suddenly boring and passe, and people would totally recognize it as being derivative. And that sure sounds like art.

For every artist sticking a banana to a wall I guarantee you there is another one with the windows of their studio blacked out and making intricate oil paintings of whatever you think is impressive.

There is simply too much art being produced in the contemporary art world for your argument to make any sense at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armory_Show

>reviews were filled with accusations of quackery, insanity, immorality, and anarchy, as well as parodies, caricatures, doggerels, and mock exhibitions

110 years ago

Sure. Some of the movements in the last two hundred years were shocking. But is this the case of us pushing boundaries of art or the collapse of all criticism? That's the question.

Let's take your example of the Armory Show. It took only two or three decades for Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase to be recognized for its genius.

Jeff Koons' Pink Panther was almost four decades ago. Anyone feel like a fool yet? The art world has egg on its face and it's not because it's pushing boundaries; it's pushing junk as a front for money laundering and pretending that taste is relative because it likes the money and talentless people like to call themselves artists.

Way to create a strawman art community in own head just to hate it.

And it is not like past was composed of Monets only. Or as if people decorated their houses or their products by old paintings only.

But are they crushing in because of the anatomical accuracy of a piece? No. They are doing it because of the names of the artists. There are mountains of works that are as precise as anything by the 20 most loved artists that get no lines in museums. The motivation for most people to see a piece by Vermeer is the same as the motivation to see a piece by Monet or even deKooning.

You don't learn classical methods and anatomy to be precise; you learn it to be correctly imprecise.

Picasso couldn't have achieved in abstraction if he hadn't been classically trained. And that's easy to verify: take an imitation (of which there are many) and an original. Even someone not well-versed it art can pick out the original.

There are quite a few of his paintings from early days that demonstrate quite clearly that he was highly competent in classical painting techniques.

Sorry but I think Michaelangelo and Leonardo knew much more about art than you.

For your definition of "art", most likely yes.

The interesting thing is that music composers don't do this. They know music theory. They don't hit a bassoon with a tennis racquet and say, "Your definition of music may vary."

The dancer in Stomp may or may not know music theory. And analogies may or may not be useful.

I will argue or grant that most visual artists do learn to see - even though they very much do not all see the same thing because seeing is also subject to preferences and intellectual choices. Visual arts have certainly gone far and wide. For much of it, even calling it "visual" is a stretch. Sure.

Dancers aren't normally trained in music theory. Percussionists are but, having studied modern drums for five years at a conservatory, I can tell you with some confidence that most drummers don't know music theory, because they don't really need it. Because most of music theory has nothing to do with percussions. Why do I need to know harmony to play the drums?

So, bad example.

A better example would be the intonarumori by Luigi Russolo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intonarumori

But the truth is that this kind of wild experimentation with the limits of musicality has never caught up in the same way as modern art has. There is possibly a reason for that. I suspect that it's far easier to ignore something Duchamp's fountain than Russolo's instruments... just because the latter make noise and you can't stop hearing it unless you run away.

Btw, I heard some recordings of the intonarumori at a modern art museum in Switzerland, and I thought they were actually ... pleasant? In some sense. But then I find Cannibal Corpse pleasant so I probably have uncommon tastes (though not rare).

John Cage certainly did.

And you speak for Michaelangelo and Leonardo?

Do people really believe there are no curators of, say, the Uffizi and the Louvre? Do people think that we don't generally agree on levels of accomplishment and mastery -- that when you go to the Prado, it's not just a random selection?

Amazing straw man.

I said nothing of curation, mastery, or art history in general. My comment was challenging the parent poster's assumed knowledge of the opinions of old masters.

Do you refer to this: "For another discussion, that it never was."?

Sorry, by parent poster i meant Voldecar who was responding to you.

I don't necessarily agree with you on the 'that it never was' comment but I wasn't objecting to that opinion.

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