An appreciation for “art?”

hey dick, I feel your pain with regard to art appreciation. I read a book about the evolution of modern art by tom wolfe some years back called The Painted Word. it’s humorous and enlightening. I think you’ll find some insights there. dwight

LikeLike

A newspaper column I wrote in 1999.

WHEN IT COMES TO ART, HIS TASTE IS IN HIS MOUTH
But he’s trying to develop an appreciation.

Not long ago, I saw on TV where a man cut two motorcycles in half and attached the front halves onto a piano. Some invisible commentator was calling it art. I wondered what he did with the rear ends, but the man never told that.
I mentioned to some folks why anyone would do such and they gently chided me for having no appreciation for art; one went so far as to say all my taste was in my mouth.
Strange thing to say. Of course it is, just like everyone else’s!
Maybe I’m off base, but it seems to me that sometimes at least a few folks just pretend at being cultured. They go into exhibits, ooh and aah at stuff trance-like, and walk out as ignorant about it as when they went in.
I like stuff I can tell right away what it is, like statues. Special to me are those of people on horseback (like the one of Lady Godiva in Coventry, England. It don’t take any figuring out at all!). Also the stunningly beautiful bronze statues of old, worn-out cowboys or Indian warriors astride a saddleless horse.
Other favorites are the multi-figured Iwo Jima flag-raising monument, the bronze Lone Sailor standing watch at the Navy Memorial and the Viet Nam Memorial, all in Washington, D.C.
The folks who first thought of and then created those wonderful things are so much more talented, in my mind, than those who throw a bunch of stuff together and call it Sweet Justice, Survival or maybe Midnight In The Swamp.
Realizing I have no “artistic” talent and will leave behind only dust over which both friend and foe may briefly grieve, I always, when confronted by something unidentifiable, honestly try to figure it out, to get some “good taste,” and to become what they call ‘mainstream.’
Now folks, that ain’t all that easy.
Like once in a big city I’m strolling down a very smooth and wide walkway, enjoying the weather and the pleasure of being alive, when there suddenly looms before me a thing. The small crowd of people gathered around it are oohing and aahing, whispering to one another as though they’re afraid it might come alive.
Quietly I stared at the thing, several huge, thick, twisted pieces of green metal. My head was tilted to one side, trying to figure it out. All I could tell for sure was that someone had welded all those pieces together.
Not wishing to appear altogether touristy clodish, I slyly sidled up to a trio oohing and aahing in rather nice harmony and asked with a voice full of honest interest, “Is this part of the 18-wheeler wreck I saw on TV last week?” The man in the group stares, no, he glares at me, speechless. The young ladies with him gasp, cover their faces with delicate hankies and turn their backs to me.
Heck, I was just trying to get some couth, some high-classedness, some art appreciation education. I was about to apologize for my ignorance as to what that ugly pile of metal’s supposed to be, when the three answer me all at the same time.
From one young lady comes, “Spring Has Sprung, But Where?” The man hollers, “It’s Humanity’s Collective Guilt,” and the other young woman fairly screeches at me that it’s obviously “Reaching For The Universe, which all but ignorant clods can plainly see.” With that, they scurried off, leaving us behind; me and that ugly pile of metal eyeballing one another.
But, when I found out later the huge amount of money that city had paid to have those big metal pieces twisted out of shape and welded together, at home I right away started looking in the yellow pages for a welding school!

LikeLike