"If Rockwell’s illustrations made perfect sense to the mass audience, Magritte’s made perfect nonsense to cultured people who got the joke of surrealism."
It is an open secret in art history: art revolutions operate in "clusters". Athen, Alexandria, Roma, Firenze, Paris, NYC because artists need to see each other to copy and improve their art.
That's why out-cluster artists got ignored: Francesco Guardi and late-Goya were basically Impressionist but since their were out-cluster (then, out-Paris) no one cared about their paintings.
Graphic design-y is it. I think a good comparison is Dali, who also has the qualities of “a commercial illustrator”: both are lightly conceptual and easy on the eyes. Magritte should be a hall-of-fame dorm-room-wall artist.
The Rolling Stones all lived quite incredible lives up to the age of 30 and made in my view some incredible music along the way. But if I knew nothing about their lives it wouldn’t detract much from my enjoyment.
Likewise I love Amy Winehouse’s music but the more I learn about her life the less interested I get. She was mainly a belligerent drunk.
But visual art generally needs context for people to appreciate it better. We know very little about Ancient Greek and Roman artists and without that I think the quality of the work gets overlooked. Classical art historians tend to either:
A) struggle to come up with objective criteria for styles and periods
B) impose voguish 21st century ideas on the past (cf Mark Zuckerberg’s sister)
Thanks for the link to a great article. What a tedious person this Zuckerberg person must be……as though the only thing that really matters, when all is said and done, is that she’s got a ‘snatch’. Good luck with that whoever’s patient enough to go there.
Vasari's 1550 book on the lives of the painters is a big reason Florentine artists (e.g., Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo) are more famous than Venetian artists.
I don’t think that’s correct. Firstly, it can’t be claimed that the 3 Bellinis, Mantegna. Titian , tintorretto, carpacccio , veronese, the tiepolos etc etc are obscure……certainly no more/less obscure than the great florentines Donatello, Botticelli etc etc)...EXCEPTING Michelangelo and Leonardo. These two are quite unique (no need to elaborate!)….with or without Vasari.
"Magritte, while good in his way, is not the greatest surrealist by a long shot, and also quite trite in that gay 'examine my mysterious meanings' way that so impresses the non-artist." -- B. Heard, CEO and creative-director of The Aureus Press
"The Empire of the Light" is an interesting painting. I'm more partial to the impressionists, though. I appreciate what the surrealists bring to expand our mental framework of art and its divinely inspired expression of our souls. What has imprinted on me the most and stood the test of time, are the great works of the Rennaissance, mostly because as a teenager, I pulled a big art picture book off the shelf at our local library and marveled at the big color prints of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel panels, the works of Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Boticelli, etc. (no not the Ninja Turtles, lol). I also have a soft spot for the proto-surrealist works of Hieronymus Bosch.
But I'm also an American homer, so I put our best right up there too, Stuart, Whistler, Remington, Rockwell, Pollack, etc. I've always loved their works. It's a great blessing to be alive now and have so much exquisitely beautiful art to appreciate.
To your query, yes its part who you know, but you have to have talent to get in the door and rub elbows with the "who"; what we now call "branding yourself". This is the big limfac that I faced throughout my professional career. I'm competent in my profession, but my personality is such that I eschew jawboning peers and superiors to "talk myself up", since the men who I grew up around looked down on other men who talked a lot unnecessarily, especially about themselves, and that personal ethic imprinted strongly on me (probably a bit of nature in there too, some people are born with the gift of gab, others not so much).
I wouldn't be surprised if Escher's star rises in the next few decades, though, what with the rise of the nerds. I've seen clear echoes of his stuff at least in Inception and Labyrinth. Who'd think there would be Penguin editions of Lovecraft in 1935?
After 2020, the smart rich realized urban real estate may not be a safe inflation hedge. It would be funny if museums began coughing up a few old masters to pay their bills, as aristocrats did last century. Diana's father said his father sold a Titian for a less than a thousand pounds in the 1930s to pay for his education.
Is being among the most expensive paintings a reflection of how good it is? How important it is? How famous it is? How much money the fed has been printing? How difficult it is to find distractions when you are super rich but didn't get that way through occupation?
I tend towards fame plus decades of loose monetary policy.
the 1968 Beatles animated film Yellow Submarine included paintings by René Magritte, including his Le jeu de Mourre (1966) and his big green apple and pipe.
Tangent: In the current issue of Harper's, an author asks how contemporary art has gotten to be so lame. Note that he is not any kind of conservative, just someone who prefers art to tedious rantings.
I was at a conference in Brussels a few years ago and the reception was held in the Musée Magritte which, obviously, contains a lot of his work (along with wine and excellent hors d'ouevres). A treat.
"If Rockwell’s illustrations made perfect sense to the mass audience, Magritte’s made perfect nonsense to cultured people who got the joke of surrealism."
What was the joke?
That there is no punchline.
So it's a scam!
So this how to launder money. Alas, I don't have 121 million to launder. Woe is me!
Why do you think Firenze's painters worked for Florentine banksters like Medici, Strozzi, Bardi & Acciaiuoli...?
It is an open secret in art history: art revolutions operate in "clusters". Athen, Alexandria, Roma, Firenze, Paris, NYC because artists need to see each other to copy and improve their art.
That's why out-cluster artists got ignored: Francesco Guardi and late-Goya were basically Impressionist but since their were out-cluster (then, out-Paris) no one cared about their paintings.
Graphic design-y is it. I think a good comparison is Dali, who also has the qualities of “a commercial illustrator”: both are lightly conceptual and easy on the eyes. Magritte should be a hall-of-fame dorm-room-wall artist.
How much would the negative of 'Einstein Sticks out his Tongue" go for?
The Rolling Stones all lived quite incredible lives up to the age of 30 and made in my view some incredible music along the way. But if I knew nothing about their lives it wouldn’t detract much from my enjoyment.
Likewise I love Amy Winehouse’s music but the more I learn about her life the less interested I get. She was mainly a belligerent drunk.
But visual art generally needs context for people to appreciate it better. We know very little about Ancient Greek and Roman artists and without that I think the quality of the work gets overlooked. Classical art historians tend to either:
A) struggle to come up with objective criteria for styles and periods
B) impose voguish 21st century ideas on the past (cf Mark Zuckerberg’s sister)
What is Mark Zuckerberg's sister up to?
https://www.takimag.com/article/revisiting-the-classics/
Thanks for the link to a great article. What a tedious person this Zuckerberg person must be……as though the only thing that really matters, when all is said and done, is that she’s got a ‘snatch’. Good luck with that whoever’s patient enough to go there.
Vasari's 1550 book on the lives of the painters is a big reason Florentine artists (e.g., Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo) are more famous than Venetian artists.
I don’t think that’s correct. Firstly, it can’t be claimed that the 3 Bellinis, Mantegna. Titian , tintorretto, carpacccio , veronese, the tiepolos etc etc are obscure……certainly no more/less obscure than the great florentines Donatello, Botticelli etc etc)...EXCEPTING Michelangelo and Leonardo. These two are quite unique (no need to elaborate!)….with or without Vasari.
"Magritte, while good in his way, is not the greatest surrealist by a long shot, and also quite trite in that gay 'examine my mysterious meanings' way that so impresses the non-artist." -- B. Heard, CEO and creative-director of The Aureus Press
https://x.com/Trad_West_Art/status/1859181531303944685
"The Empire of the Light" is an interesting painting. I'm more partial to the impressionists, though. I appreciate what the surrealists bring to expand our mental framework of art and its divinely inspired expression of our souls. What has imprinted on me the most and stood the test of time, are the great works of the Rennaissance, mostly because as a teenager, I pulled a big art picture book off the shelf at our local library and marveled at the big color prints of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel panels, the works of Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Boticelli, etc. (no not the Ninja Turtles, lol). I also have a soft spot for the proto-surrealist works of Hieronymus Bosch.
But I'm also an American homer, so I put our best right up there too, Stuart, Whistler, Remington, Rockwell, Pollack, etc. I've always loved their works. It's a great blessing to be alive now and have so much exquisitely beautiful art to appreciate.
To your query, yes its part who you know, but you have to have talent to get in the door and rub elbows with the "who"; what we now call "branding yourself". This is the big limfac that I faced throughout my professional career. I'm competent in my profession, but my personality is such that I eschew jawboning peers and superiors to "talk myself up", since the men who I grew up around looked down on other men who talked a lot unnecessarily, especially about themselves, and that personal ethic imprinted strongly on me (probably a bit of nature in there too, some people are born with the gift of gab, others not so much).
Oh, absolutely it's who you know.
I wouldn't be surprised if Escher's star rises in the next few decades, though, what with the rise of the nerds. I've seen clear echoes of his stuff at least in Inception and Labyrinth. Who'd think there would be Penguin editions of Lovecraft in 1935?
After 2020, the smart rich realized urban real estate may not be a safe inflation hedge. It would be funny if museums began coughing up a few old masters to pay their bills, as aristocrats did last century. Diana's father said his father sold a Titian for a less than a thousand pounds in the 1930s to pay for his education.
"'It’s maybe the best,' said Paolo Vedovi, the director of a gallery in Brussels specializing in works by Magritte "
"Maybe"
Art dealers, always talking their book.
Is being among the most expensive paintings a reflection of how good it is? How important it is? How famous it is? How much money the fed has been printing? How difficult it is to find distractions when you are super rich but didn't get that way through occupation?
I tend towards fame plus decades of loose monetary policy.
the 1968 Beatles animated film Yellow Submarine included paintings by René Magritte, including his Le jeu de Mourre (1966) and his big green apple and pipe.
Tangent: In the current issue of Harper's, an author asks how contemporary art has gotten to be so lame. Note that he is not any kind of conservative, just someone who prefers art to tedious rantings.
https://harpers.org/archive/2024/12/the-painted-protest-dean-kissick-contemporary-art/
I was at a conference in Brussels a few years ago and the reception was held in the Musée Magritte which, obviously, contains a lot of his work (along with wine and excellent hors d'ouevres). A treat.
In related news, about 40 years ago the great Paul Simon (not the former Senator from Illinois) wrote and performed an above-average song entitled “René and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rene_and_Georgette_Magritte_with_Their_Dog_after_the_War