The unedited John Brown

[Cottonwood]

It's possible to appreciate the good in Western art, and the positive contribution is has made, and its many accomplishments, without being blind to its very significant problems and contradictions, and the damage it has been a part of. Appreciating it does not automatically mean that you swallow it whole, or that you look down on the art of other cultures or feel superior to them.

I think that probably the majority of people are not making the dogmatic assumption you assume they are, just because they say they enjoy Michelangelo's work. Most people are a bit more thoughtful than that.

Just to expand that, it's possible to enjoy the beautiful buildings in Bristol without being in favour of a return to slavery.

BugBear

Thats all very well, but those "beautful buildings" in Bristol couldnt have been created without slavery.....

 

[Cottonwood]

I'm quite grateful to the Borgias for patronising Michelangelo. a whole sequence of unique works of Art, of the highest quality.

BugBear

The borgias were corrupt criminals who made popes. They havent exonarated them selves by paying for some statues and pictures.

 

[bugbear]

I think (for a painter), there are two kinds of repetition. The first is a constant striving for perfection, or at least improvement.

This is more like repetitive practice than multiple production. I think Van Gogh's sunflowers come under this category, and certainly Mondrian's paintings appear to be a kind of striving towards a platonic ideal of colour and design.

The other kind is more commercial - Gainsborough did a lot of similar portraits; he did them because people commissioned them.

Both kinds are quite distinct from a bodger turning up for yet another day of making hundreds of chair legs the same as he made yesterday, and will make tomorrow.

BugBear

 

[bugbear]

I'm quite grateful to the Borgias for patronising Michelangelo. a whole sequence of unique works of Art, of the highest quality.

BugBear

The borgias were corrupt criminals who made popes. They haven't exonarated them selves by paying for some statues and pictures.

What you say is quite true, but you're attacking a point I wasn't making.

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

.....
Both kinds are quite distinct from a bodger turning up for yet another day of making hundreds of chair legs the same as he made yesterday, and will make tomorrow.

BugBear

If you spend a long enough time doing landscape paintings, portraits, turning chair legs, making mince pies, almost anything, you will get better at it.