Spanish Art
We went to the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia yesterday. I have no pictures, since picture taking was not allowed inside, and taking pictures of the outside of the building, like other people were doing, just seemed very uninteresting. We saw a lot of Picasso, Miro, and Dali, among others. Their most famous piece, I believe, is Guernica. It was interesting to see it in person. You can see where he'd drawn things, decided it wasn't quite right, and painted over them. There were also photos of the work in progress. I imagine it would have been even more impressive to see it in its original location, since it took up the entire wall. In the museum, it did not, and so it looked lesser with all the empty space around it.
I especially liked the Dali paintings. I've always loved Dali, but until you see them in person, you can't appreciate the detail that he put in them. When you take a picture of a painting and reduce it to fit in a book, for example, you cannot see the little, amazingly detailed, people which are about the height of your thumbnail. So much is lost in reproduction. I could have spent hours looking at all the detail in the paintings.
Looking at a lot of the other stuff, though, I thought to myself that I could never be an "artist." Most of Picasso's work is just ugly to me. The point of art for me is to make something attractive to look at, and his work is not attractive (apart from some of his older, less abstract work). Until I learned the story behind Guernica, I did not appreciate it. Later, I bought a poster of it, which I still have. But without that story, I just don't get it. It's not attractive. It's not compelling. It's just a bunch of ugly figures. And I'm torn on whether art is successful if it needs an explanation to be appreciated.
But it isn't just Picasso. A lot of the modern stuff is lost on me. And I am not an uneducated person. I have a degree in art. I took plenty of art history classes. And for the most part I loved it. But the modern stuff... even with the classes, I just don't get it. I don't see how putting a bunch of random trash together in a certain way is art. I don't see how painting canvasses a single color and putting it up on the wall is art. I don't see how pouring paint in random globs on the canvas is art. Some of the stuff that was in that museum (and other museums) I just shook my head at. Why was it there? Some of it could be interesting if it was in a practical setting, but not in a museum. Some of it would be tossed in the trash if someone found it outside of a museum.
Maybe it's the fact that I'm not a right-brained person that causes me not to get it. I'm not left-brained either. I always test exactly equal on both halves. But maybe you have to be way far on the right half to get that stuff. There were drawings on the walls that I would have crumpled up and thrown in the trash if I'd made them. I saw a painting of a cityscape. It was painterly, not exactly realistic. It didn't have every single detail. But there was enough that you could see the hundreds of buildings, the streets, etc. That took some effort. That took skill and patience and insight. And it was next to paintings that looked like random scribbles of paint which must have taken all of 15 minutes to throw together.
I love drawing and painting. And I don't get art. Is that a bad sign? :)
I especially liked the Dali paintings. I've always loved Dali, but until you see them in person, you can't appreciate the detail that he put in them. When you take a picture of a painting and reduce it to fit in a book, for example, you cannot see the little, amazingly detailed, people which are about the height of your thumbnail. So much is lost in reproduction. I could have spent hours looking at all the detail in the paintings.
Looking at a lot of the other stuff, though, I thought to myself that I could never be an "artist." Most of Picasso's work is just ugly to me. The point of art for me is to make something attractive to look at, and his work is not attractive (apart from some of his older, less abstract work). Until I learned the story behind Guernica, I did not appreciate it. Later, I bought a poster of it, which I still have. But without that story, I just don't get it. It's not attractive. It's not compelling. It's just a bunch of ugly figures. And I'm torn on whether art is successful if it needs an explanation to be appreciated.
But it isn't just Picasso. A lot of the modern stuff is lost on me. And I am not an uneducated person. I have a degree in art. I took plenty of art history classes. And for the most part I loved it. But the modern stuff... even with the classes, I just don't get it. I don't see how putting a bunch of random trash together in a certain way is art. I don't see how painting canvasses a single color and putting it up on the wall is art. I don't see how pouring paint in random globs on the canvas is art. Some of the stuff that was in that museum (and other museums) I just shook my head at. Why was it there? Some of it could be interesting if it was in a practical setting, but not in a museum. Some of it would be tossed in the trash if someone found it outside of a museum.
Maybe it's the fact that I'm not a right-brained person that causes me not to get it. I'm not left-brained either. I always test exactly equal on both halves. But maybe you have to be way far on the right half to get that stuff. There were drawings on the walls that I would have crumpled up and thrown in the trash if I'd made them. I saw a painting of a cityscape. It was painterly, not exactly realistic. It didn't have every single detail. But there was enough that you could see the hundreds of buildings, the streets, etc. That took some effort. That took skill and patience and insight. And it was next to paintings that looked like random scribbles of paint which must have taken all of 15 minutes to throw together.
I love drawing and painting. And I don't get art. Is that a bad sign? :)
Labels: spain
posted by Nyx at 9:00 AM
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