01 September, 2013

Ugly Art

Would like candid opinions this subject: Ugly Art

I have noticed the web has numerous articles on the subject of opinions as to what modern art is "ugly". I just thought it would be cool to hear from artists who have an opinion about this.

My opinion is there is lots of stuff considered art which is "ugly" to me. Ugly in the sense that it is revolting, untalented, poorly presented and something which I hope not to see again.

The only thing is such descriptions are close to the things of reality which are ugly such as murder, rape, war, violence and inhumane behavior toward animals and people. I can't offer a picture since I tend to avoid the reality of ugliness in life as well as art.

Reply

50 Comments

Lois Penrod 01 Sep 2013

Art I say as you may know is a visual quest to see who you are so when it involves being ugly really you can not say unless you do Art that way.

Yes Vince,To me I describe it as being emotionally extreme.Now if a person meant it to be a drawing to harm yes I totally understand you.If people intentionally are drawing to get attention in a bad way I do not understand it.

See when some people see art the ugly way it is bothersome like the soul is or may be troubled which bothers those in maybe a deeper decent frame of mind can not quite grasp.

I may be wrong on this,The conscious mind (realistic art) and unconscious mind (abstract or surrealism art) are different so no one person does not get away with their art by doing it a certain way. It is either realistic or abstract.

In life its like you have to be conscious in things you do and no the unconscious people are not dumb they may not mean what they do.It does not mean they are crazy but learn from not thinking to clearly.The conscious people learn also but differently so usually if your conscious you make wise decisions that may show through your art.

So artwise to me if consciously done that is great when done in a good way.Abstract way if they truly go with the flow and it turns out bad then it is still unconscious in which something is hidden in them.

Lois Penrod 02 Sep 2013

Vince,Your post you recently wrote after I did just disappeared its not there now.I was going to write something after it.Something happened.

Vincent von Frese 03 Sep 2013

I'd misspelled your name and could not edit it so I just erased it. The post was about how I think ugly events in life are reflected in art and appear in a shocking manner which is intentional.

Vincent von Frese 03 Sep 2013

Thought on art of horror, pain and suffering;

Guess, or hope It's clear that I am saying "don't alway's expect art to look beautiful".

There is much substance in the most modern themes and concepts some which rise above that of basic sentimental art and art which is produced for aesthetic reasons alone. Examples would be a painting which reflects a persons feeling for the tragedy of 911 and a painting which reflects the feeling an artist has for a rose garden or field of daisies. The first painting has the pain the second has the joy. Both paintings could be beautiful but the 911 painting would need suffering as a element that the flower paintings might not need to work. Just a comment for discussion...anyone?

Lois Penrod 05 Sep 2013

Ugly art does depend on the person if someone sees things such as murder for example it can be really touching to the viewer if you just open your mind and understand that issue.

To learn about it more would help you understand what really meant alot to them.

I guess you do not have to have an emotional problem to feel sad or some sort of depression to draw or paint that art form.It shows also they deeply care about the issue on hand or in the past. Iam not saying a person is bad because they do not have a care about that type of art.It is the persons personality they like what they like.Different or not different.

I keep saying to be open but this is very helpful.Your life is always evolving into new thoughts everyday you if you are open to them, if you do not like ugly art such said;as murder,rape,violence, and mistreatment to animals and people it might change tomorrow,but to be able see to new possibilties in your life helps if that is what you want.

There is nothing wrong with it I know it may be ugly but as you could say in a good way.

Dan Ault 15 Sep 2013

You seem to be talking about two different things. Art that has disturbing content is not the same as art that is poorly done.

Vincent von Frese 17 Sep 2013

Well Dan, at least you are willing to converse.

I think by "Ugly art" I was successful in attracting enough curiosity to get people to enter in the conversation. I was attempting to articulate the fact that art ideas are presented in many ways besides "beautiful". Poorly made art is ugly indeed and does little for people. Noxious content in art may be ugly or repulsive but can create enlightenment in people.

Art which contains disturbing content may appear repugnant and ugly to some but it is common in some of the oldest forms of art expressions as in Tantric. War and suffering is synonymous with human culture in general like the Aztec.

So ugly or repugnant art is reflecting reality in a realistic way. Modern work with disturbing content can function to awaken people from the stupor of compliance and apathy if it is successful I think but it often comes with a lot of resistance from the public who is used to being stroked with sweet music and pretty pictures.

As a rule I prefer to enjoy art with sweet music and pretty pictures over most art with heavy intellectual content.

Vincent von Frese 16 Oct 2013

Anybody spotted some ugly art lately!

I have a picture of a one-afternoon showing outdoors here. Nothing ugly about it though except it rained most of the day.

Doug Murray 30 Oct 2013

We have a museum in Dedham, Massachusetts that is dedicated to "bad artists". It always makes me smile, cringe, gufaw, jaw-drop, and gag. I love it and I recommend everyone visit. Bad art/ugly art can still be valuable at times. I want to buy every "crying clown" portrait and put them all in the louvre!

Vincent von Frese 01 Nov 2013

Around here there is an annual Leavenworth Penitentiary art sale. Perhaps "lifers" may be convicted criminals and suffer emotional and mental problems so they might take up painting to relieve stress. Much of this work is fascinating and I own a few including clowns.

The photo shows a painting of a clown 12"x30" oil on canvas painted in the 1970's by prisoner number 76962. The paint has an strange effect so I do not look at it too closely. Most people try not to even think about those in prison lockdown as it is the opposite of freedom. One would think that that loss of freedom would be a powerful incentive to create art however.

Marty Yokawonis 12 Nov 2013

I always thought too be truly artistic a work had to avoid being sappy, sentimental, narrative and well just too emotional.

Lately though, since I have devoted more than a year to exploring art done from a purely emotional or intuitive source and because I have been doing art journaling, it seems appropriate to do such type of art. Art brut may be the term because it comes from the untutored, untaught parts of yourself, the parts that are not grown up adults, where there are no precautions or rules.

Emotionally driven art may be the baddest art of all but is highly satisfying, cathartic and addictive so the recompense makes up for it's being bad art.

Yury Yanin 15 Nov 2013

Hi, Vincent, how are you, my friend, how are your plans for African travels? I am still alive and even made several short hard terrain hunting trips lately.

You have reminded me one episode from my childhood. Once I went to the Russian Museum alone and suddenly found there a picture by Surikov, which I had not seen before. Human remains after mass executions were shown there. Imagine a great heap of human heads almost a heel higher then a human height. Some of heads have already turned into bare skulls, while others were freshly axed with a clear expression of horror still on their faces. The picture was absolutely realistic as if you sow all that with your own eyes in the real life. I was shocked.

Probably you'd call that picture "UGLY ART". I never wanted that picture or anything like that as a decoration on a wall of my dwelling, but I ever appreciated the best pieces of such Art and understand why the most talented painters, who created that kind of ART, became so famous. The majority of the famous Russian painters created UGLY art all the time or from time to time. Serov, Vasnetziv, Repin, Deineka often painted battles, battlefields, disasters, slavery, pain, blood, cruelty,etc. They say that even the famous Russian landscape painter Livitan, first created less known paintings of that kind. Even the famous Russian marinist Aivasovsky on his best known picture "The nines wave" showed kind of an UGLY event - remains of a crushed ship, with sailors, trying to survive on them. And why only Russians? Recall "Guernica" by Pablo Picaso, etc., etc.

My thoughts about all that have leaded me to a rather unexpected conclusions. People always want to buy not UGLY, but PLEASANT ART for decorating their dwellings and environments. The majority of visual artists in all times always tried to create PLEASANT ART, accordingly to market demand. And the majority of them passed by as unknown or, in the best case, fashionable artists of their time. The majority of the really famous OLD MASTERS more often created UGLY ART, which shocked people in their time by this or that way. The true importance of their ART was appreciated later and many of them became famous only long after their deaths.

Today the situation is not much different, but we are even more concerned with the market demand and with our seldom sales and little money incomes. No one knows now who is going to become the famous artist of our generation and will be still appreciated when a couple of Centuries pass. Looking at the modern art, I only afraid that future generations will have a poor choice - we seldom find a talented UGLY ART among the majority of PLEASANT ART nowadays.

Have I understood your term UGLY ART correctly?

Yury Yanin

Vincent von Frese 15 Nov 2013

Great to hear from you my friend Yuri!

I agree that most people, if are to buy, will buy only art that pleases them. Art however has power in it's reflection of the cultures and times it is made. Often history has horrible events and art is one way it has been recorded as a way of sharing the horror in hopes it will be recognized as something which should never occur again. If you look at Mexican art for example; not the Elvis paintings on velvet but the murals by Diego Rivera and many others who are unknown. These show the blood as also did our beloved Caravaggio in the beheading of John The Baptist. The scenes may be ugly but the art is beautiful.

Now I'm also discussing poor and horribly bad art which is made by thoughtless people and it shows up all around...not really worth discussing as all artists are making poor and ugly art at least when they begin their studies.

Russian art of lately I noticed has been very highly valued. On Artnet the auction value is among the highest on any art.

Yea well...I'm no longer talking on FAA. I've been working on my Land Rovers and Land Cruisers a lot and making more wildlife art paintings. Great to know you are hanging out on Art Wanted now!

Yury Yanin 15 Nov 2013

Vincent, I agree with your thought about the flood of bad art in our time... I only think that it is not intently UGLY art, just awkward and bad. Most likely it is caused by the fact that it is too easy to become or to be called "artist" and to produce some "art" nowadays. In addition some persons, who could not even dream about creating any ART formerly, now can create something resembling art due to technical developments. Imagine, sometimes they call "artist" even myself!!!

...a bit out of the topic... Once you asked me about the difference between my vehicles landcruisers and landrovers, and I could not answer clearly. My son has bought a new Toyota landcruiser Prado last winter and now I can compare all them more surely. Landcruiser is an excellent car for long travels on good roads with many very useful options. It allows to ride some worser roads and even to drive out of roads sometimes where terrain is more or less friendly. And still we don't want to use it for really hard travels. It is too good, too expensive and beautiful for it. In our environments it is not practical to try to customize it for hard terrain too. For such customization you would have to get rid of many landcruiser options, details and parts, which were advantageos in other cases, and then to add many other parts and devises specially for hard terrain, which are very expensive. Thus you have to pay 3 times more then the original cost. Add that you will spoil its original beautiful appearance after the first serious trip. That is why my son continues to invest money also into his former out of road vehicle, originally made on the base of a cheap UAZ. It looks ugly, but now it is absolutely another, very capable jeep if compare with the basic track. However, the combined cost of that rebuilding is already comparable with the cost of a new Prado...

Everyone, pardon me for a bit of a private post to my friend here. My thoughts about ART you can find above.

Vincent von Frese 17 Nov 2013

Hi Yuri!

I've seen some cool military Russian off road jeep style trucks in movies lately!

Hardly an all terrain as rough as the tundra in the Russian outback where you hunt!

Flood of artists is right...anybody and everybody is now considered an artist just because they say they are and have the friends to back them up. I have none of that and am just trying to make a better painting or sculpture design!

Vincent von Frese 17 Nov 2013

Art itself is what artists and art lovers are involved in at different levels from minor to the extreme.

But art is NOT a religion which requires some faithful following of chosen leaders. It is not a thing with a philosophy as in religion to believe or not to believe.

Unlike football, which can be a religion of sorts, art is more of a popular vote than a winning effort. For this reason poor and ugly art can find it's way to to spotlight and be considered "popular" as long as enough people religiously believe this to be so.

rosemary gioielli 27 Nov 2013

Ugly art? I'm having a problem visualizing that. Ugly subject matter may be rendered beautifully, like in a H. Bosch painting depicting a nightmarish hell. I can see a horror scene being considered ugly, but the art itself may be excellent. In my opinion, even poorly rendered art is not ugly, it's just poorly done.

Vincent von Frese 27 Nov 2013

I agree but on one of my art web sites there are photos for sale as art showing gassing chambers and canisters used during NAZI times in Germany. They are mere album photos being passed of as art.

If it is considered art as almost anything is these days it sure is ugly art to many I'm sure!

Vincent von Frese 28 Nov 2013

rosemary,

Not hard for me to see poorly rendered art no matter what the subject including mine because there is much more of it around during the early levels of an artist's career.

Ugly subjects or beautiful subjects can be presented and viewed with mixed reactions of course.

Yury Yanin 28 Nov 2013

Vincent, let me be a gentleman this time and support a lady. Rosemary is absolutely right in her definition of your term "UGLY ART" as a poorly made art. It is simple and evident. As for the second meaning, which you have described: "poorly made images of ugly subjects", it is not that clear.

I have no idea weather it is permitted here or not, but I will name the site, which you mentioned: it is Fine Art America (FAA). Aside of the amateur photos of bad quality, which you mentioned, they also sell from that site official portraits of Hitler of the highest quality, possible at that time, and approved for NAZI propaganda by notorious dr Gebels. Certainly, it could be just a historic materials, if properly used. However such materials are promoted there in on row with other art and offered as art. Some (I don't dare to print a proper word here), they desire and buy such portraits and other similar materials from FAA actually as art. They decorate walls of their dwelling with that. That's why I left FAA immediately as I found that - you know my attitude and reasons. Is it art, or ugly art or no art at all? It is all the same for me. Any definition can not change my reaction. And artistic quality or any declared value of such materials can not change anything for me either. For me the main question is who uses such materials as art, whom FAA actually serves so nicely, offering a great choice of that stiff? May be someone consider that as a matter of test of my enemies, for me it is a matter of my basic principles.

On the other hand you reminded me art of one of AW resent newbies, jung sang (exactly as written). He (or she) creates images of different fantastic monsters. They are SOOO UGLY... ABSOLUTELY SCARY AN UGLY... but also funny, humorous and perfectly created. I do not like this kind of art very much, but that entertained me this time and I put one of the monster pics into POD collection. Monsters are UGLY, artistic quality - high. Is it the UGLY ART in the second part of your definition?

May be the problem is that your word "UGLY" doesn't fit exactly for all possible meanings, which you want to discuss. May be I am wrong. English is not my native language, you know, but as I understand, your word UGLY can mean too many too different things here.

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