| | Gosh, Jody, that puts me into terrible territory.
I will only come off as a snob if I tell you what I really think. I know lots of people really love their work; and I almost do. Short answer is: I don’t like’em. But that won’t do will it?
Perhaps more than any other painter, Rembrandt gets my juices going. Its not so much about what he paints but how. Form, light, and space are axiomatic to sight. Many of the greatest names in art Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Delacroix, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, and several others are masters of integrating these aspects and adapt them to their particular style. Picasso and Bacon, as several others, exercise these aspects at will. Abstract artists reject this, which led to so-called color symphonies, in which color no longer was used as a means to create form, light, space but was supposed to be significant in its own right–art for art’s sake–flat compositions of color fields. (A little aside for Hong’s benefit.)
If you were to visually compare the Pre-Raphaelites to Rembrandt you would start to observe that the Pre-Raphaelites begin to break down in one or more of those three aspects. Actually the aspects are tied together, if one is off, form of the head for example, it will throw off the space and light as well.
I am very much an elitist: the price of admission, for me to attend a representational art work, is their mastery of these aspects. If not, I get kind of angry, annoyed with the artist, very impatient and ready to run out of the gallery–it actually feels as if the canvas is bemoaning or screaming to me about their ill treatment at the hands of being butchered. Not joking here or taking artistic license. I am civilized so I don’t go around ranting out loud–but boy, it is a very intense feeling of dislike.
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La Belle Dame Sans Merci
