/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>The 20th century practically destroyed five hundred years of carefully acquired knowledge in the art and science of fine painting. Today, not many college or university art departments have faculties that can actually paint and draw with any ability or knowledge. Performance art, conceptual art, installations, video, talk and posturing, have largely replaced what we used to think of as art. Faculty members who are the products of modernism simply don't know how to draw or how to use paint. One doesn't teach what one doesn't know, hence the old ways are lost. This tendency has even spread to many professional art schools, where in many cases certain vital components are no longer properly understood or taught.

>Times are changing though. There is a great groundswell of interest on the part of the young in traditional painting and accurate drawing. The discipline will take twenty to fifty years before it gets back to the point where it was in about 1880. After that, watch out! Most of the great works are yet to be done.

tl;dr come back in 50 years faggut.

>>2133158
I've always held out a soft glimmer of hope that there would be a revival. It saddens me how unimpressive contemporary "art" looks in comparison

>>2133151
all people care about today is cuming to anime girls and looking at space ships. You aren't going to see a great output when the input is tv and videogames.
>>2133159
The revival will come after collapse just wait or start it now.

>>2133158
Honestly, I think there's still pockets of strong focus on traditional fundamentals. Back in high school, my art teacher used to work at an atelier before he handed it off a family member. I kick myself for being chock full of Dunning Krueger back then and not listening to him.

>>2133166
>spaceships
>bad

>>2133159
Uh, the revival already is happening man. The number of ateliers that exist today vs 30 years ago is insane. There's probably like 25x as many now. There is definitely a renewed interest in fundamentals and realism, and with the internet things will move even faster. Look at like New Masters Academy or Watts Online. People are setting up gateways for the knowledge for people all over the world.

When you say there is no art being made now you just aren't looking in the right places. There's a ton of amazing masterful realist painters around who sell their shit for 6 or 7 figures.

>>2133166
>comparing commercial art and fine arts
>thinking tv dictates the art world
topkek

nobody cares about academicism anymore. it's all about explaining away the art, not letting it speak for itself. luckily everything is cyclical but still.

>>2133179
No the shift has already begun. People now can relate more to realism than abstract contemporary art. They will say "wow, this is so beautiful and realistic!" about academic art, and about abstract art they will say "I don't get it. Art? More like a con-art. My 6 year old can paint this! I should try selling her paintings for a million dollars! Haha I'm so funny! No but really this is trash I don't get it."

>>2133183

Exactly how I feel, which is why I spend the majority of my time in the Renaissance sections of large art museums; I've found all others can't match

>>2133151

Pic related.

>>2133236

Another piece by the same artist.

We live in a noise economy, you'll be hard pressed to find legitimate masters vying to compete with artists who have the spare time to constantly push their crap.

>>2133240
Damn that's tight

>>2133236
>>2133240

While these might be realist, they do not possess the deeper emotional and philosophical qualities that Renaissance art encapsulates so well.

>>2133172
I do enjoy this piece

>>2133258

Which "deeper emotional and philosophical" qualities are you referring to?

>>2133258
you're using "Renaissance art" as if it's some specific thing. renaissance art varies greatly from early renaissance, to high renaissance, to late renaissance. northern renaissance, italian renaissance (florentine? venetian?). not to mention there were tons of renaissance artist, and not every artist was god-tier like tintoretto or titian.

>>2133157
this isn't from the renaissance, it's modern- Renoir.

>>2133258
Because you hold the renaissance on a pedestal. So no matter how good something created recently is, it will never be good enough to you because its missing this "thing" the renaissance pieces had

>>2133263
John Berkey is an absolute beast.

>>2133258
Because.............?

>>2133335
>that slight blue tint at the edges of shadows

UNF

I've never been a fan of renaissance art - particularly during the "busy" periods from which you post.

Their technical proficiency is largely unimpressive, they have poor composition, little emotion, and do a fairly job at expressing anything.

They're meta. They have consistent and referential imagery. That's the only real fascination.

If you want to be floored, go look at paintings from the Art Noveau period.

To answer your question, there are many current and active masters out and about - more than ever, in fact. Many of them are young.

They are difficult to find because the sheer quantity of art being produced, and the ease with which it can be shared, buries everything unless you know how / where to look.

>>2133341

fairly bad job at expressing anything*

>>2133341
you're and OP are both retarded, in opposite ways

plenty of great modern and contemporary painters, the people who idolize the renaissance know little about art history

srsly bro there have been tons of great painters since the renaissance. check out repin, kramskoy (pic related) and the rest of the Wanderers.

booooooring

Maybe this is a good thing.
I am already bombarded with imagery every day

>>2133674
I love you anon. Wyeth is one of the greatest of all time and I feel he is really under appreciated. Well maybe that's not the right word. People acknowledge him, but just see him only for Christina's World, but his beyond that painting is stunning and often ignored. There's been more focus on his Helga series in the last few years, but he has more work beyond that too. I really wish people were more familiar with all the awesome things he's done.

PS: I got to see a couple originals by him, they were very interesting to see. Unfortunately I found the matte nature of tempera meant they didn't have that extra magical glow that some oil paintings have that doesn't reproduce in print. His paintings in life looked very much like they do in print, which is a good thing I guess since it means all the ones I can't see in life are probably pretty close to how he intended.

>>2133674
God i love Andrew Wyeth

>>2133691
I saw one of his paintings in detroit (pic related). The detail, down to individual pebbles, is insane.

>>2133151
The primary reason for this is that art is no longer taught well except at Art Academies in the larger cities.

Another reason is that the market for cheap, poorly-made oil paint derivatives is increasing, so that the quality of paint is lowering all the time.

If you want to buy quality paint (with beeswax in it for adherence) buy Lukas Artists Oils!

>>2133818
>Another reason is that the market for cheap, poorly-made oil paint derivatives is increasing, so that the quality of paint is lowering all the time.
I don't think this is really an issue to be honest. Modern chemistry and technology mean we can have a greater variety of paints, paints of higher quality that aren't fugitive, paints that are consistent from tube to tube etc. I don't think you realize how shit the paints they had back in the day was. They literally would grind up anything and throw it into oils and hoped it worked. And then hundreds of years later we are like, "oh, yeah, you probably shouldn't have used asphalt to paint with, now it's all fucked up". I mean, people used anything and everything in their paints, and there was no consistency in quality. Now we can control the exact chemical compounds and proportions and have some scientific basis behind things.

>>2133674
>that subtle red plate on the right equaling out the whole composition
This is great

>>2133838
I'll concede your point on the grounds of long-term consistency of paint, we're not using 'Cow piss Indian Yellow' for example. However, in terms of workability and adhesiveness, a lot has been lost. Most paints function like some variety of water color, having no real capacity for layering. Most of them dry very quickly as well, so you can't work 'wet-in-wet' as easily.

So what we find is that there are more students of art, but those students are less and less serious about their work. It's easy to pump out acrylic paintings of Lady Gaga, but it's harder to really capture your environment in a thoughtful and provoking way.

A lot of student paints still contain beeswax, which are a necessary component for adhesion, yet the 'quality artist oil paints' often don't contain it, because they're so focused on pigment load per tube. This doesn't actually help anyone because it makes tubes both more expensive and less workable. For this reason, I'd have to recommend Old Holland or Lukas Oil paint.

There are plenty of modern day artist that possess the skill and potential to create works like this. From what I've noticed is that many of them don't want to. We are living in a fast paced society and putting that much detail into a large scale painting doesn't seem to have much of a pay off.

That does not mean that the potential to do so is not there. People on ic are constantly talking about how schools don't teach drawing and fundamentals. I am in an art program at a no name state university and I can honestly say that the faculty shows thorough knowledge in draftsmanship, composition, anatomy etc. Many fell students I know produce abstract works of art that would make ic turn up there noses in disgust. However if you look at the realist works of these said students they have a good understanding of perspective, shape form lighting etc, because we were required to learn those before our teachers would allow us to dabble in abstraction in upper level classes.

>>2133926
Yeah, you can teach yourself composition by acquiring a grid, but life drawing will help furnish your figures. A desk with proper implements would help.

It is kind of a shame that universities do not acquire more cheap casts of Greco-Roman works. They don't cost all that much in themselves. I suppose it's the cost of importing them to the states which prevents them from doing so.

>>2133838
It's more the application of paint, I think. Now we have such light-fast pigments that people don't really think about what their putting on their canvases anymore. Why bother to glaze if you can achieve a red so saturated with cadmium red? Yet glazing still imparts a more brilliant look. Old masters often suspended fugitive or chemically unstable pigments and lakes in resin to in effect lock it from exposure. We still see the most brilliant crimson lakes and vermillions from the Renaissance. Most artists today have no knowledge of that. Today we also have a greater aversion to toxic pigments, especially in the case of lead white, which remains still the greatest white pigment for oil--for a layered process, at least.

Manufactured consistency is not always the desired outcome. The painters then knew their pigments and could better alter them to their needs. Intimacy with the pigments arrived from necessity allowed them, aside from few particular cases, to make greater use of pigments.

Asphalt and bitumen were only used later on, when artists after Rubens thought he used it for the under painting and the rich dark portions.

>>2133893
Vasari writes that just oil and pigment alone are suitable to paint with.

>>2133671
Knowing about these more modern painters doesn't mean the person would like them, you know. Don't be so quick to think that people who praise Renaissance the greatest don't know much art history.

>>2134205
Considering OP praised renaissance and then posted some pics including one that's not from the renaissance...I would say that anon is correct in saying their knowledge of art history is limited.

>>2134208
That's the first time (and worst case) of seeing someone praise Renaissance and post/talk about something so far from it. The younger Brughel and Poussin, I can kind of understand if someone would post when talking about Renaissance since many of the manifestations of the Renaissance tradition were still alive at that time, especially in Poussin, although talking about Poussin in the topic of Renaissance usually falls more under accidentally somewhat-right opinion than something informed and deliberate.

Most people, whether they like or dislike the Renaissance don't know much art history. It's nothing specific to liking the Renaissance. It's an attractive term and people tend to use it freely when describing something old. There's actually quite a bit of Renaissance art historian specialists compared to some other categories of art.

>>2133341
Art Nouveau? Really? I like some of the stuff, but it hardly represents anything revolutionary, nor is the skill displayed by the artists particularly impressive. It's so cheesy it almost borders on being kitsch.
As I said, I like some of it, but it's more on the level that I like modern illustrators and certain designs, rather than being outright impressed by it.
Personally, I find the Baroque era to have the most impressive artists skillwise, but they built entirely on the legacy left by the old masters from the Renaissance. As far as imagery goes, I'm more a fan of the Renaissance painters, as I prefer the more reflective motifs over the theatrics of the Baroque era.

>>2134243
I agree with all of this.

Because the artist would have to study so much more than just the fundamentals. He'd have to study the process and technique, the forms, the philosophy, iconography... essentially recreate within his soul the same culture that created the type of art that he likes.
I think Leonardo has a point, too, when he writes that following too many painters leads to mannerism. We're all too vulnerable especially today to look at these art and think it's merely the style that is the appeal, and thus think that style will save the art, and not the inner principles. It's certainly the most conspicuous, but it's only a part of it. We might also see that the particular artist's style is what makes him unique, and, thinking that goodness comes from uniqueness, set forth in our ambition to be good through uniqueness alone.

>>2137227
well said

>>2133151

that's not from renaissance you stupid shit

>>2133330
>>2133331
>>2133332
>>2133335
>>2133335
>>2133337
>>2133341

this guy is un-fucking-believable

There are some digital artists, who do good stuff
>ew digital

>>2133674
lawd have mercy

>>2137586
Thanks.
Of course, I'd like to also add that it's not impossible to paint the way the Renaissance masters -thought-. It's just a lot harder and many painters who try to follow Renaissance masters don't realize what it takes. Perhaps it even takes a different type of world view than anything available now. Not only would one have to read the ideas that were in current, he would have to look at them through the scope of one from that time. This would require longer time than someone native to that time, since they, these artists and intellectuals native to that time, had no choice but to absorb them. It's a lonely path made needlessly labyrinthine because of the many new and modern interpretations of the ideas related to the art.

>>2133341
he fucked up the right foot :/
>that heel

>>2137708
He has some nice stuff but I feel like it is missing that special "something". I think he's too faithful/reliant on his photoref, and so things are a bit boring. I wish he simplified things more in some parts, or took more care to arrange the compositions or fabrics. Just an extra layer of design in it would be nice.

Pic related is a Lipking piece that I feel is much more successful in these regards.

>>2140815

I agree, imo that is one of his best pieces.

>>2140953
Drew Barrymore is still lookin' good.

>>2140972

>>2133747
that´s... a painting?

>brb an hero

>>2133747
was it part of the dia's permanent collection? I'm moving back to the area and I'll go check it out if so.

The Sargent they've got there bowls me over every time. I just sit on the floor and stare at it. Pic related does it no justice. The skin looks alive.

>>2133151
classic /pol/lution
>oil painting
>naked women, bunch of columns
>gotta be rennaisance

>>2140983
thats not where the vagina is

Hard mode
Show me a beautiful modern painting not just of nudes being sexy or languishing

>>2145272
>was it part of the dia's permanent collection?
yep. though their permanent collection is so huge you can't be certain it will be on display when you go. I went back to see a caravaggio once, but they'd rearranged their baroque art and it was no longer on the wall.

>>2137708
>liking hyperrealsim
pleb

>>2146471
>doesn't know what hyperrealism means
pleb