looking glass spectacle replace it with a genuine water hose, if nobody notices then it is not art.

Good point. Because of the fastest technological advancement we experienced in what can be historically considered a short space of time, the thirst for originality sky-rocketed in ways that didn't happen on previous centuries, and went hand in hand with the core purpose for producing artwork like never before. This isn't a bad thing at all, when an artist produces work that can fight for space in a saturated market without heavy-handed, redundant contextualization, but when you see a dog being starved in a gallery with the dubious intentions of presenting it as art, any genuinely intelligent person should question if the meaning of originality that naturally impacts on the viewer has been distorted by the artist (and whoever supports his/her work).

You are invited to the Blood Orgy of the Atomic Fern

this might be true, but in some way, i find being able to paint a photorealistic picture a bit of a waste of time. it's a great skil, and one of the first things we learnt in art school was to draw a realistic picture from what we saw, just because you have to understand reality before you can turn it into something of your own. i love drawings from life that have an artist's interpretation in them, because it makes the works ten times more personal. a model sketch by egon schiele is far more interesting to me than that leopard.

right now i'm at a point in my education where we still get classes in drawing from life, but our teacher assumes we know reality well enough to give it our own twist. right now, i go to a museum of old airplanes with my bits and pieces of paper, i look at an airplane and i make this:

Also, an artist who happens to find an original formula not necessarily becomes the best practitioner when using that formula. The idea that something is best only when it's done first is a myth. The Ramones found a way of writing songs that has its own distinctive, if derivative, trademark, yet my ears detect a (disputable) improvement when the Ramones' formula is used by Shonen Knife.

Absolutely. And to use your same example, while I love the Ramones (conceptually) more than probably any band, I have to admit that I think on record, Action Swingers did a better version of the Ramones than the originals did.

ploesj, maybe you assume that the painting of the leaopard is some sort of photorealist image, or an image taken directly from photographs? It could very well be a completely made up scene, but by an artist familiar with big cats.
just sayin'. Love yr plane though.

You would not want schiele to paint images for inclusion in an animal compendium right? each art has it's purpose.

That's a good point but a bad example. Bateman, who painted the leopard, always paints from photographs.

This is not Here, surely?

ya never know.

I prefer abstraction myself, but I also love optical illusions.

a lot of pot oriented people are man..

everything is art.

that's pretty awesome... i love old graph papers, log charts, time cards and stuff... anything with technical looking dashed lines and arrows and crap. you've managed to make it all flow like texture or contours without distracting from the image of the plane... i also really like how the fold/binding provides an illusion of two white walls coming to a corner behind the airplane like in a gallery. it really adds depth to the thing... wonder if that was intentional or one of those 'beautiful accidents?'




... also, i'm wondering if this is really art at all :p

But what does that painting do for you though? Serious question.

Paintings as realistic as that leopard astound me. If I weren't told that it was a painting, I would've actually assumed it were a photograph.

At most, that yellow hose could make me think, "Yeah, that's kinda clever." But something painted with such precision, that it actually appears lifelike...that really sets me aback.

The leopards have in me wonder at how a person can stay in such close focus to capture the details of lighting and tones and expression and proportion of real life to produce such a thing. The hand by itself will gladly mash splotches and circles into a canvas.

The focus!!

I mean, have you ever tried to simply copy a picture? You can still translate things so horribly, just like in conversation, saying things you didnt mean to.

Also, geez, I feel like my eyes could touch the soft velvet of that cat.

thanks! the fold is not intentional, we are supposed to work in a large sketchbook for this class so there always is some line running through my drawings... the paper is an old clothing pattern sheet from a nineties burda magazine, combined with red chalk paper and details of grey ink.

i don't call this, art, to me it's an excercise that turned out well.

nothing more than allow me to appreciate what a giant cat looks like resting on a branch.

I thought it was a photo at first. I have alot of respect for someone that can make something like that out of nothing. I know if I painted that leopard he would look like a dog that was hit by a car. I have always admired that talent.

no doubt dudes like that are talented but i don't understand how they can be bothered to take the time to paint like that as it's a very painstaking process.