Saturday Evening Art Wonderings

~ humoringthegoddess

Happy Saturday Eve! A discussion, a wondering, a confusion for a Saturday evening (with pictures!)

Yesterday I went to a wonderful art festival on the Milwaukee lakefront:  The Lakefront Festival of the Arts. Part of the ticket price was entry to the Milwaukee Art Museum:

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So hubby and I spend a good deal of time walking through the museum. They had art from every era. There was this 1800-something bounty hanging  my husband enjoyed:

A Dale Chihuly:

And even a Georgia O’Keefe:

We wandered through the contemporary section, and I found myself having a little harder time understanding what I was looking at.

There was this neat hanging rock display:

And a modernish painting I kind of got a vibe from:But then I came across two paintings that I just didn’t get. They both had their own wall, so there were no distractions. And my favorite question mark:

And I wonder — why are these last two considered art?

I know I know…beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. The artist is making some sort of a statement. Or non-statement. I did not retain the artists’ names, but I am sure they are impressive in their own right. After all, they have a spot on a wall in one of the most popular art museums around.

So this Saturday evening, I was wondering if you could help me out. Maybe you are an artist that paints similar paintings. Maybe your friend or relative is an artist that really “gets” modern, contemporary art.

Maybe I am just out of my league. But I know I ask what thousands of others often ask. Why is this considered art? I love paintings. Not just the Masters, but I am enjoying the modern approach as well. But what talent is there is painting a canvas all one color? What am I missing?

It’s not that I don’t appreciate an avant garde approach to art. But walking through the art festival, I saw plenty of other works that would have made much more sense up on a museum wall. 

If you have an answer I’d sure like to hear it. 

Ahhh….something else I need to learn….

Published by humoringthegoddess

I am a writer of fantasy fiction that often surrounds middle-aged women. I am a married mother of two and granny to three, a BoHo Chic kinda gal. I am recently retired and busier than when I worked 9-5. But writing and blogging is my main game.

9 thoughts on “Saturday Evening Art Wonderings”

  2. Of course I know very little about art, but I like art to inspire an emotion when I see it, whether it be awe, sadness, anger, or remembrance. The only thing I feel about some modern art is bewilderment.

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  4. I love your offering. I believe that is why every artist shares their work. So someone will react to it. Preferably with a wow or asking for an explanation or interpretation. For our work means everything to US. But there is a difference between your busy designs and a blank slate. People can discuss all they want about feelings and interpretations of a plain ivory canvas, but I just don’t “feel” anything when I look at it. Make me sigh, make me shake my head, make me gasp. Just create so others can feel something. With a plain pink or white canvas I feel nothing. And I love your work. Sometimes there’s a combination of colors that just make me say Wow.

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  5. Morning Claudia … I don’t pretend to know about much art but, this is what I shoot for, you see a piece of mine and want to walk toward it and go “wow’ I like how this visually feels , and hopefully can say for a long time afterward Long before issues of the name, the style, the place in art history, the politics, the bewilderment, the need to get people in the door, the need to be liked, the money, the shock, the fame etc which are all valid aspects of art enter in. Some art riffs on those other factors which get in museums.
    You asked before where my paintings end up, usually in a big pile on the floor and 5MB+jpeg in a hard drive. As ever looking forward to your future sojourns-MYMM.

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  7. That makes sense…and I know that lots of times I don’t understand what I’m looking at. I just don’t get what a canvas of pink is supposed to convey to me. And I think that’s what it’s supposed to do. Maybe it did its job, eh?

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  8. Fir AP art final, my daughter needed to give a definition of art and examples of her definition. Roughly stated, she said art is something that involves the viewer, so she said “global visionary” by Naim Pak is art, and Mondrian is not. Etc.

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