POLLOCK
In honor of Jackson Pollock and his birthday, Google changed its homepage today. Some would say Pollock was an artistic genius. Others consider him a mere paint splatterer. I personally never understood why some of the abstract expressionists and avant garde artists got the acclaim they did. Seemingly, someone splatters and drips paint on a canvas and becomes an art icon overnight because he or she was the "first person to do it." Okay, maybe there's more to it than splatterings, but how much more? Ellsworth Kelly was the first to paint a canvas blue. And just for that, he became a celebrated artist. Does that mean that if I'm the first to wipe a booger on a canvas, I can be a successful artist too? Maybe I'm missing something, but sometimes it seems there's more of an emphasis on originality than substance. And not just in the art world.
Comments
:)
But when I see something like Leighton's "Flaming June", I immediately and intuitively feel the art.