You're not an artist... sorry

So i'm hearing all this toss around of calling someone an artist just because they do something remotely close to being artistic. I dance, I write, I draw, I paint. But do I go around calling myself an "artist?" No. I don't. **** that. You know who's an artist? Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Michaelangelo, etc. Not that guy you have class with in english who craps out bad poetry that tries to symbolize his thoughts on how nobody understands him, and how alone he feels.

Thomas Kincade (sp?) is an Artist, because that's his life. Those people you see on the sidewalk around NYC and San Francisco? They're not artists. They claim to be but they aren't, it's as simple as that.

STOP CLAIMING PEOPLE TO BE ARTISTS SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY KIND OF DO SOMETHING ARTISTIC! They aren't artists, they're hobbyists. Just like most of the people on car forums. They aren't race car drivers, they're hobbyists.

Now I'm not trying to stifle people into thinking they should stop trying. My beef with them is that they go around claiming themselves to be artistic experts. They go and adopt this personality of, "I'm so mysterious and artistic. I'm so enigmatic as a human that you just can't understand me. Join me in my misery and plight, mortal. Oh wait, no, you can' because you're not on such of a level as I am. Excuse me while I go form this pile of clay into something and call it abstract." That is what pisses me off. They can try all they want but that doesn't make them an artist. I play with legos and build structures, that doesn't make me an architect. I mess around with my car a lot. That doesn't make me a mechanical engineer.

/rant.

[KaosTheory]

The thing about art though, is that it is subjective. Basically, art is self expression. The only one who can say what art is really, is the one bearing witness to it. One man's art is another man's noise.

That's very true Kaos, but what perturbs me is the foggies who go around wearing thick rimmed glasses, black and white stripped scarves, converse shoes and quote everything or make allusions to "Emile'" or "The English Patient."

The people who adopt their personality due to what they claim. That is what bugs me. When they claim to be these tortured artists who "nobody" can understand. They are the ones who bug me to death.

[KaosTheory]

Somebody needs a huuuug.....come 'ere big guy

Originally Posted by KaosTheory

Somebody needs a huuuug.....come 'ere big guy

Hahaahahah!

Although rather long for a post, consider some of the following excerpts, in regards to Art:

“At the turn of the last century a new element began to make its appearance in our world. It was an element which had been hitherto absolutely unknown and foreign to us. In former times there had certainly been offences against good taste; but these were mostly departures from the orthodox canons of art, and posterity could recognize a certain historical value in them. But the new products showed signs, not only of artistic aberration but of spiritual degeneration. Here, in the cultural sphere, the signs of the coming collapse first became manifest.”

“The Bolshevization of art is the only cultural form of life and the only spiritual manifestation of which Bolshevism is capable.”

“Anyone to whom this statement may appear strange need only take a glance at those lucky States which have become Bolshevized and, to his horror, he will there recognize those morbid monstrosities which have been produced by insane and degenerate people. All those artistic aberrations which are classified under the names of cubism and dadism, since the opening of the present century, are manifestations of art which have come to be officially recognized by the State itself. This phenomenon made its appearance even during the short-lived period of the Soviet Republic in Bavaria. At that time one might easily have recognized how all the official posters, propagandist pictures and newspapers, etc., showed signs not only of political but also of cultural decadence.”

“About sixty years ago a political collapse such as we are experiencing to-day would have been just as inconceivable as the cultural decline which has been manifested in cubist and futurist pictures ever since 1900. Sixty years ago an exhibition of so-called dadistic ‘experiences’ would have been an absolutely preposterous idea. The organizers of such an exhibition would then have been certified for the lunatic asylum, whereas, to-day they are appointed presidents of art societies. At that time such an epidemic would never have been allowed to spread. Public opinion would not have tolerated it, and the Government would not have remained silent; for it is the duty of a Government to save its people from being stampeded into such intellectual madness. But intellectual madness would have resulted from a development that followed the acceptance of this kind of art. It would have marked one of the worst changes in human history; for it would have meant that a retrogressive process had begun to take place in the human brain, the final stages of which would be unthinkable.”

“If we study the course of our cultural life during the last twenty-five years we shall be astonished to note how far we have already gone in this process of retrogression. Everywhere we find the presence of those germs which give rise to protuberant growths that must sooner or later bring about the ruin of our culture. Here we find undoubted symptoms of slow corruption; and woe to the nations that are no longer able to bring that morbid process to a halt.”

“In almost all the various fields of German art and culture those morbid phenomena may be observed. Here everything seems to have passed the culminating point of its excellence and to have entered the curve of a hasty decline. At the beginning of the century the theatres seemed already degenerating and ceasing to be cultural factors, except the Court theatres, which opposed this prostitution of the national art. With these exceptions, and also a few other decent institutions, the plays produced on the stage were of such a nature that the people would have benefited by not visiting them at all. A sad symptom of decline was manifested by the fact that in the case of many ‘art centres’ the sign was posted on the entrance doors: For Adults Only.”

“Let it be borne in mind that these precautions had to be taken in regard to institutions whose main purpose should have been to promote the education of the youth and not merely to provide amusement for sophisticated adults. What would the great dramatists of other times have said of such measures and, above all, of the conditions which made these measures necessary? How exasperated Schiller would have been, and how Goethe would have turned away in disgust!”

“But what are Schiller, Goethe and Shakespeare when confronted with the heroes of our modern German literature? Old and frowsy and outmoded and finished. For it was typical of this epoch that not only were its own products bad but that the authors of such products and their backers reviled everything that had really been great in the past. This is a phenomenon that is very characteristic of such epochs. The more vile and miserable are the men and products of an epoch, the more they will hate and denigrate the ideal achievements of former generations. What these people would like best would be completely to destroy every vestige of the past, in order to do away with that sole standard of comparison which prevents their own daubs from being looked upon as art. Therefore the more lamentable and wretched are the products of each new era, the more it will try to obliterate all the memorials of the past. But any real innovation that is for the benefit of mankind can always face comparison with the best of what has gone before; and frequently it happens that those monuments of the past guarantee the acceptance of those modern productions. There is no fear that modern productions of real worth will look pale and worthless beside the monuments of the past. What is contributed to the general treasury of human culture often fulfils a part that is necessary in order to keep the memory of old achievements alive, because this memory alone is the standard whereby our own works are properly appreciated. Only those who have nothing of value to give to the world will oppose everything that already exists and would have it destroyed at all costs.”

“One has good grounds to be suspicious in regard to any new idea, or any doctrine or philosophy, any political or economical movement, which tries to deny everything that the past has produced or to present it as inferior and worthless. Any renovation which is really beneficial to human progress will always have to begin its constructive work at the level where the last stones of the structure have been laid. It need not blush to utilize those truths which have already been established; for all human culture, as well as man himself, is only the result of one long line of development, where each generation has contributed but one stone to the building of the whole structure. The meaning and purpose of revolutions cannot be to tear down the whole building but to take away what has not been well fitted into it or is unsuitable, and to rebuild the free space thus caused, after which the main construction of the building will be carried on.”

“Thus alone will it be possible to talk of human progress; for otherwise the world would never be free of chaos, since each generation would feel entitled to reject the past and to destroy all the work of the past, as the necessary preliminary to any new work of its own.”

“The saddest feature of the condition in which our whole civilization found itself before the War was the fact that it was not only barren of any creative force to produce its own works of art and civilization but that it hated, defiled and tried to efface the memory of the superior works produced in the past. About the end of the last century people were less interested in producing new significant works of their own – particularly in the fields of dramatic art and literature – than in defaming the best works of the past and in presenting them as inferior and antiquated. As if this period of disgraceful decadence had the slightest capacity to produce anything of superior quality! The efforts made to conceal the past from the eyes of the present afforded clear evidence of the fact that these apostles of the future acted from an evil intent. These symptoms should have made it clear to all that it was not a question of new, though wrong, cultural ideas but of a process which was undermining the very foundations of civilization. It threw the artistic feeling which had hitherto been quite sane into utter confusion, thus spiritually preparing the way for political Bolshevism. If the creative spirit of the Periclean age be manifested in the Parthenon, then the Bolshevist era is manifested through its cubist grimace.”

PARTICULARLY, IN REFERENCE TO ARCHITECTURE, HE SAYS AS FOLLOWS:

“The dimensions and quality of our public buildings to-day are in deplorable contrast to the edifices that represent private interests. If a similar fate should befall Berlin as befell Rome future generations might gaze upon the ruins of some Jewish department stores or joint-stock hotels and think that these were the characteristic expressions of the culture of our time. In Berlin itself, compare the shameful disproportion between the buildings which belong to the Reich and those which have been erected for the accommodation of trade and finance.”

THESE EXCERPTS ARE FROM VOL. 1 CHAPTER TEN OF “MEIN KAMPF” BY ADOLF HITLER. I WAS TOLD BY A COLLEGE PROFESSOR THAT “MEIN KAMPF” USED TO BE REQUIRED READING IN THE COLLEGES ACROSS AMERICA, BUT, FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON THE POWERS THAT BE ABANDONED THIS POLICY.

Sincerely,
truth

[weasel]

Thanks truth. I've been meaning to read that for a while, but never got around to it. You've piqued my interest.

As far as art: THANK YOU Sircnay!! I don't agree with you completely, but I think I know what you mean....the way that graphic designers, clothing designers, and craftsmen call their creations 'art.' Or how people say someone has raised something 'to the level of art.' Trash. Misuse of the term art (or any word/ideal ) saps it of life and meaning. I call myself an artist now and then, but I'm really more of a designer, since I make things that have a function or a reason. Art is pretty much useless by definition.

Thomas Kinkade IS a great artist, he just chooses to make money instead of art.

As far as the people obsessed with their image, that's just a reflection of US pop culture and its emphasis on the exterior. i.e., Working hard is not as important as LOOKING like you work hard------->torn jeans, dirty shirt. Most artists look pretty ordinary; expression is thru the canvas.

What follows is perhaps, an example of what Hitler was talking about. Note the date and locations mentioned. Remember "Mein Kampf" was written in 1924:

["Urinal Named As Most Influencial Art

December 01, 2004 11:20 AM PST
LONDON - A porcelain urinal is the most influential work of modern art, according to a survey released Wednesday.
The poll of 500 arts figures ranked French surrealist Marcel Duchamp's 1917 piece "Fountain" - an ordinary white, porcelain urinal - more influential than Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," Andy Warhol's screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and "Guernica," Picasso's searing depiction of the devastation of war. Duchamp pioneered the use of everyday objects as art, an aesthetic that questioned the nature of art itself.
Art expert Simon Wilson said the choice of Duchamp's urinal "comes as a bit of a shock." "But it reflects the dynamic nature of art today and the idea that the creative process that goes into a work of art is the most important thing - the work itself can be made of anything and can take any form," he said. The survey was conducted by Gordon's Gin, which sponsor's Britain's leading art prize, the Turner Prize. The winner of this year's Turner Prize is due to be announced next Tuesday."]

Sincerely,
truth

[EnSabahNur]

Originally Posted by truth

What follows is perhaps, an example of what Hitler was talking about. Note the date and locations mentioned. Remember "Mein Kampf" was written in 1924:

["Urinal Named As Most Influencial Art

December 01, 2004 11:20 AM PST
LONDON - A porcelain urinal is the most influential work of modern art, according to a survey released Wednesday.
The poll of 500 arts figures ranked French surrealist Marcel Duchamp's 1917 piece "Fountain" - an ordinary white, porcelain urinal - more influential than Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," Andy Warhol's screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and "Guernica," Picasso's searing depiction of the devastation of war. Duchamp pioneered the use of everyday objects as art, an aesthetic that questioned the nature of art itself.
Art expert Simon Wilson said the choice of Duchamp's urinal "comes as a bit of a shock." "But it reflects the dynamic nature of art today and the idea that the creative process that goes into a work of art is the most important thing - the work itself can be made of anything and can take any form," he said. The survey was conducted by Gordon's Gin, which sponsor's Britain's leading art prize, the Turner Prize. The winner of this year's Turner Prize is due to be announced next Tuesday."]

Sincerely,
truth

Of course they would pick a toilet, since all modern art belongs in one, and all modern artists heads are in one, when it's not up their asses that is.