Painting Search Goes Global; Hate List Counters Great List

I just don't get this, however my repulsion by this apparent fascination with ranking paintings by some mysterious criteria is somewhat off-set by this, an unofficial response poll that seeks to find "The Most Overrated Painting." What makes this so much worse than the BBC & NGA poll are the "nominees" and the comments made by those suggesting contenders.

Here is a sample:

"Turner. Possibly the most boring artist ever." Posted by Zee on July 26, 2005 04:09 PM.

"Guernica - terrifying depiction of war? Bah! It looks like a rather jolly little do to me. ohh! A headless bull!" Posted by Alastair on July 26, 2005 04:14 PM.

"I've never understood the fuss over Munch's 'The Scream.' It looks like something my girlfriend would have done when we were 16-year-old "goths." Posted by Charlie on July 26, 2005 04:16 PM.

"I would distinguish between the insipid (Fragonard, Lorrain, Constable) and the really aesthetically vile like Jackson Pollack. All of his droolings should be hidden away forever." Posted by Sandy Camargo on July 26, 2005 04:20 PM.

"Anything by Picasso,ESPECIALLY Guernica, EVERYTHING by Warhol, ESPECIALLY the soup cans, and most of the stuff by whats his face the guy who did flat acres of boring color. Oh yes, Mark Rothko. Who on earth would want to hang this crap in the house?" Posted by Sandya on July 26, 2005 04:51 PM.

Wow - I mean really, to have Picasso ("ESPECIALLY Guernica") placed in a trash heap with Pollock, Munch and Turner is downright ignorant. Detesting Picasso with such venom is inexplicable; a disliking of Warhol and Rothko, while not entirely unfounded since both are controversial artists, is still equally confusing given the complete absence of an intelligent justification or explanation.

Fortunately, a few commenters shared my reaction. I will focus on one in particular:

"I am not going to vote for my least favourite art- work-- to categorise art in this way is a vapid, culturally ignorant and philistine parlour game. if you don't believe me, look at the level of discourse on this blog. Jackson Pollock in studio 54? As far as i'm aware he was long gone by the time it opened-As for the person who nominated the Marcus Harvey- can you not tell the difference between a mediated representation of a murderer and the actual crimes? Marcus Harvey's work is about representation and not the crimes themselves. Duh. Fragonard- noxious? he's a genius. You lot have no taste." Posted by Jonathan Schofield on July 26, 2005 04:55 PM

Mr. Schofield points out several problems with the discourse on this topic and, in my opinion, the problem with attempting to find the "greatest" painting in the UK or elsewhere. First, it requires people to make an assertion based on whatever knowledge they have of art and art history which, to put it delicately, is often substandard. The anachronism he refers to with Jackson Pollock is in response to a comment that suggests Pollock's canvases resemble what he might have left at the bottom of a Studio 54 toilet bowl after a night of drinking. The comment clearly comes from someone lacking any knowledge of the historical, and art historical, context in which Pollock exists, something I'm sure a significant number of others share who participate in one of these types of polls. This leads to the second point, that decisions are being based entirely on individual personal taste, hardly a satisfactory basis on which to judge artistic greatness. Mr. Schofield himself states that the most critical commenters "have no taste," confirming that whichever side you're on, taste plays a role in how you feel about a work of art.

On judging artistic greatness on the basis of personal taste, Schofield addresses a critique of Marcus Harvey’s portrait of Mrya Hindley and correctly points out the motivation behind the controversial work of art that depicts the child-killer’s face made from the handprints of children. A previous commenter nominates the portrait for "most hated picture" (yes - the title of the list varies from comment to comment), essentially because they feel the work lacks sensitivity, concluding that it is an “obscenity.” This is followed by some rather inarticulate banter about how “It does not ask meaningful qustions [sic] of us or nurture debate - it simply occupies a space in the nations [sic] culture made vacant by pain and sorrow - a place where our deepest fears reside, and lurks there to remind us of how debased we might become.”

I disagree completely. The work demonstrates a remarkable and unprecedented balance between the evil and grotesque and the pure and innocent. The work does not replace the pain and sorrow associated with the heinous crimes committed by Hindley, but rather forces us to directly confront those emotions. The raw nature of the composition is intentional and unapologetic. Art is classically a medium in which we may express and evoke emotion, be it negative or otherwise. Such a portrait as that by Harvey does this with such skill and creativity that many modern artists can only dream of achieving. Love it or hate it, it is a remarkable work of art.

Personal taste is typically what defines the methodology behind the private collector. One collects works of art based on what they find pleasing, perhaps because they find the work’s subject matter enjoyable or perhaps because the formal elements such as line and color coordinate with the location in which the work will be hung in their home, office, etc. This is not to say that collectors do not appreciate the larger, art historical significance of the work or its producer, however their collecting is more likely to lack the organization and sophistication that museums and cultural institutions possess. In part, this is because institutions are governed by a collections policy and mission statement that strictly dictates their collecting ambitions and focuses their acquisitions on works of art that meet their mission and gives depth to a permanent collection that represents their established policies.

Each person who appreciates the fine arts has their preferences for certain periods, styles, artists or media and there is nothing wrong with that. Ultimately, one who truly appreciates art must look past their own biases and prejudices to examine the real value a work of art may possess. If an individual prefers the finely detailed and decorative still lifes of de Heem or the beautifully emotional and historically narrative scenes of Delacroix, surely works by Pollock or Kandinsky might be difficult to digest, but to deny them the historical importance and aesthetic merits they deserve is to demonstrate an unforgivable ignorance of art history and the fine arts more generally. I have no reservation in saying that I don't really enjoy the majority of works by Paul Gauguin. I find his overall style irritatingly primitive and flat (both intentional stylistic qualities, minus the irritating part). I also find that his Tahiti period is wrought with contradictions between what he was attempting to convey in his images of natives and the life he led while there, something that numerous scholars have pointed out. However, I would be quite wrong to say that Gauguin has no talent, that his work is worthless and is not worth discussion or contemplation. Gauguin and other Fauvists used color in a way that truly shaped modern painting (think Munch and Chagall) and he was exceptional at depicting scenes from alternative perspectives. In the end, when contemplating the importance of a work of art such that one would call it "great" or even "over-rated," personal taste should be a non-factor.

One final note since I believe something should be said about the canon of art history which I believe should be approached with caution and an understanding that the canon does not always celebrate praiseworthy artists and perhaps over-emphasizes the significance of others. One might criticize the canon as nothing more than an institutionalized version of personal taste, but there is something to be said for longevity and some art and artists withstand the test of time and cultural evolution with remarkable durability. It is also important to understand that "the canon" is divisible into subcategories based on genre, media, geographical location, etc. A work of art that is undeniably canonic in one subcategory may be omitted or considered questionably canonic in another subcategory. When we attempt to identify the greatest painting in the UK (which, if you remember, must be held in the collection of a public institution), we are ignoring a significant portion of the art history canon that includes sculpture, works on paper, new media, etc., as well as works in other geographical locations. Thus, a work such as Sir Henry Raeburn's Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston's Loch is able to make the list because it is considered a canonic work within the history of British art, but would surely be omitted from a list that examines a broader portion of the canon.

In other words, we must examine the greatness of art not solely though our eyes as we see the works today, but we must understand them in terms of their historical significance as well. Art should be examined, understood and appreciated for several reasons using various criteria for judging, but personal taste should be left out of the equation. The canon is built on an understanding of a long history of art and to obliterate it in one fell swoop by attempting to identify the "most overrated" or even "the greatest" painting is just plain absurd.

Cultural Institutions Impacted by Hurricane Katrina

AAM has an updated list of museums and cultural centers and their status.

Also, MSNBC discusses the fate of other historic and cultural landmarks here.

Greatest UK Paintings Shortlist Announced

The BBC and National Gallery have announced the shortlist for the greatest paintings in the UK. It's no surprise to me that just two works from my list appeared on theirs, however it was surprising that their choice of Turner was The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up. Serena Davies, author of the article, attempts to explain what the chosen works are about and why they're great, providing the following explanation for The Fighting Temeraire: "Of Turner’s many apocalyptic seascapes, few are more dramatic than this moving salute to passing greatness." I can think of one in particular that is at the Tate, Snow Storm (which was on my list) and is clearly a more dramatic and emotional work of art than The Fighting Temeraire.

One notable omission from my list that appeared on the shortlist was Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, which was left off due to my general lack of familiarity with UK collections but it really deserves to be on the list. The article's author believes the list's predictability is it's strength, which in theory, makes some sense but I think on the whole this list is weak and disappointing. For Sir Henry Raeburn's Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston's Loch to make the list but not da Vinci's Virgin on the Rocks seems to me to be one of the largest practical jokes ever made rather than a real attempt to ascertain UK's greatest paintings.

The other works on the list and not already mentioned are:

1. The Haywain, John Constable (NGA- London)

2. Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, David Hockney (Tate Britain- London)

3. Sunflowers, Vincent van Gogh (NGA- London)

4. The Last of England, Ford Madox Brown (Birmingham Museums and Art gallery & Fitwilliam Museum- Cambridge)

5. A Rake's Progress III: The Orgy, William Hogarth (Sir John Soan's Museum- London)

6. The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck (NGA- London)

7. The Baptism of Christ, Piero della Francesca (NGA- London)

The National Gallery of Art in London has the most works on the list with 5, which supports my initial suspicion that this is just a marketing ploy by Britian's department of tourism. Yes, I understand that these works were chosen by the public and that they could arguably be considered "great" paintings but the idea of having a "competition" that clearly points out that UK's best are at the NGA seems curious indeed. On my unofficial and unranked list of 10 paintings, 6 were from the NGA and the two works that were on my list that also made the shortlist were both from the NGA, meaning I identified four other works in the NGA's collection that I thought could be great. In that same post, I also identified 6 other works that could also potentially be considered great works of art, three of which were from the NGA. Needless to say, it seems quite likely that others who made their own lists also had works on theirs from the NGA that did not make the shortlist, confirming my initial assessment that such a poll has no real purpose except to highlight the quality of the NGA's collection. In short, the poll is self-serving and ultimately meaningless.

Hurricane Katrina Spares New Orleans Museum of Art

The story is here via The Times-Picayune weblog which has covered the aftermath of the hurricane non-stop. According to the article, a few museum employees who had remained inside the museum throughout the duration of the hurricane, had been ordered to evacuate the building by Federal Emergency Management Acency representatives but refused to leave the museum unsecure. The building itself is said to have avoided any wind damage or floodwaters and the museum's generators have been working to provide air conditioning for the works inside.

Commentary on how Katrina will impact the culture of New Orleans can be found here and information on crisis aid and how you can help can be found here.