I'm going to go out on a limb and say you have to give credit to a guy who can take a throw away panel from a comic book and turn it into a multi-million dollar enterprise. On a certainly level, whoever the original artists were are certainly getting more exposure than if Lichenstein had never lifted the panels.
We have to separate artistic ability, which should be lauded, and marketing ability, which can be good or bad depending on what's being sold and what the buyer is being told.
We have to be careful not to laud someone just because they got rich. These comic panels would have been transformed into new art if he would have told his appreciators where the panels came from, how he interpreted them and then RE-interpreted them.
Madoff turned nothing investments into a multi-billion dollar ponzi scheme. Not all marketing jobs should be applauded.
Selling people something that's really nothing is a talent and a skill that most people don't have or would not use if they did have it.
I just got an email today, that will allow me to buy my first Licht. piece, it's from an enterprising Nigerian man promising millions for allowing him to use bank account. What ingenuity on his part.
I think you and I are getting close to a agree to disagree point, so I'm hesitant to quarrel on new points with you. But here I'd like to comment on your use of the phrase "artistic ability"
I find that for most people who can't or don't draw, or Do not consider themselves artists of any sort, tend to glamorize the ability or the talent level of artists, or artistic persons. They also limit it to the artist's ability to wield instruments in fashioning realistic looking two dimensional images on paper or canvas. Yes thats a simplification that doesn't encompass artists other than painters and drawers. But these are the talents we are discussing so its apt. You guys decide who draws the best looking (most realistic) images and that guy is a good artist.
The anti Lichtenstein position here is basically that he CAN'T draw, and the comics "hacks" can, so Roy stole from them. I say hacks here not because I think the guys whose panels were lifted we're the hacks in our world, but because these little images were very much indistinct from the thousands of comics panels created by lesser artists, and these guys best works as well.
But, those of us who don't mind lichtensteins use of the source materials to fashion a larger and bolder statement to a wider or more "elite" audience do not limit the phrase "artistic ability" as narrowly as you do. Drawing well, drawing with lifelike realism is in many ways, while amazing and commendable, and not easy, really little more than a parlor trick that some can do and most can't. But ART Has always been about the human condition, and spirit. About our minds as well as our hands and eyes. ARTISTS have strived to archive a deeper penetration in our minds than that of photographic realism.
It's why Frazetta is so much cooler than Boris, for example.
Anyway, I'm losing my train of thought.... Basically we give Lichtensteins lifting and transformation of these panels a pass because he put them to far better use than the comics did. It's not about which of them could draw and who couldnt.
Not anymore. Those days area long gone back to choosing a portrait painter. Who does that anymore based on who can get the best likeness?? Who even has a portrait painted?
I'd also like to add that many abstract artists are in fact excellent draftsmen. Who excelled in art schools in their early years. But the styles they settled on that made their reputations were distiller to say a brushstroke, or an attitude. Mondrian is one example. Picasso another. Even Leroy Neiman could draw as realistically as Neal Adams or Russ Heath!! He just liked the dynamism of dripped paint a lot more once he got there. And yes, that's a reference to poor defamed Pollack too! He chose to pour paint like that on purpose. And please go out and TRY to duplicate their finesse at it sometime ! Looks easier than it is.
#5177817 - 10/23/1111:39 PMRe: Lichtenstein Comic Inspired Art Estimated at $35-45 Million
[Re: aman619]
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Originally Posted By: aman619
Originally Posted By: comix4fun
Originally Posted By: pinupcartoonguy
I'm going to go out on a limb and say you have to give credit to a guy who can take a throw away panel from a comic book and turn it into a multi-million dollar enterprise. On a certainly level, whoever the original artists were are certainly getting more exposure than if Lichenstein had never lifted the panels.
We have to separate artistic ability, which should be lauded, and marketing ability, which can be good or bad depending on what's being sold and what the buyer is being told.
We have to be careful not to laud someone just because they got rich. These comic panels would have been transformed into new art if he would have told his appreciators where the panels came from, how he interpreted them and then RE-interpreted them.
Madoff turned nothing investments into a multi-billion dollar ponzi scheme. Not all marketing jobs should be applauded.
Selling people something that's really nothing is a talent and a skill that most people don't have or would not use if they did have it.
I just got an email today, that will allow me to buy my first Licht. piece, it's from an enterprising Nigerian man promising millions for allowing him to use bank account. What ingenuity on his part.
I think you and I are getting close to a agree to disagree point, so I'm hesitant to quarrel on new points with you. But here I'd like to comment on your use of the phrase "artistic ability"
I find that for most people who can't or don't draw, or Do not consider themselves artists of any sort, tend to glamorize the ability or the talent level of artists, or artistic persons. They also limit it to the artist's ability to wield instruments in fashioning realistic looking two dimensional images on paper or canvas. Yes thats a simplification that doesn't encompass artists other than painters and drawers. But these are the talents we are discussing so its apt. You guys decide who draws the best looking (most realistic) images and that guy is a good artist.
The anti Lichtenstein position here is basically that he CAN'T draw, and the comics "hacks" can, so Roy stole from them. I say hacks here not because I think the guys whose panels were lifted we're the hacks in our world, but because these little images were very much indistinct from the thousands of comics panels created by lesser artists, and these guys best works as well.
But, those of us who don't mind lichtensteins use of the source materials to fashion a larger and bolder statement to a wider or more "elite" audience do not limit the phrase "artistic ability" as narrowly as you do. Drawing well, drawing with lifelike realism is in many ways, while amazing and commendable, and not easy, really little more than a parlor trick that some can do and most can't. But ART Has always been about the human condition, and spirit. About our minds as well as our hands and eyes. ARTISTS have strived to archive a deeper penetration in our minds than that of photographic realism.
It's why Frazetta is so much cooler than Boris, for example.
Anyway, I'm losing my train of thought.... Basically we give Lichtensteins lifting and transformation of these panels a pass because he put them to far better use than the comics did. It's not about which of them could draw and who couldnt.
Not anymore. Those days area long gone back to choosing a portrait painter. Who does that anymore based on who can get the best likeness?? Who even has a portrait painted?
I'd also like to add that many abstract artists are in fact excellent draftsmen. Who excelled in art schools in their early years. But the styles they settled on that made their reputations were distiller to say a brushstroke, or an attitude. Mondrian is one example. Picasso another. Even Leroy Neiman could draw as realistically as Neal Adams or Russ Heath!! He just liked the dynamism of dripped paint a lot more once he got there. And yes, that's a reference to poor defamed Pollack too! He chose to pour paint like that on purpose. And please go out and TRY to duplicate their finesse at it sometime ! Looks easier than it is.
Here's my problem with several of the artists you mentioned and what I believe is the general problem with the art world itself.
People are giving too much credit to certain artists simply because of who they are rather than what they created. Warhol was fascinating as an individual but as an artist, not so much. Not every "expensive" artist is some other-worldly, tortured genius that we attempt to understand through their creations. They are people, just like us, and they care about the same things as many of us.
Picasso detested the art world. He frequently stated so in numerous interviews. I touched on this in the Great Art thread in the WC but Picasso purposefully started painting pretty much anything, no matter how bad, just to see what the next one would sell for.
Picasso was an unusual artist in that his paintings started selling for large sums well before he died. He, much like some contemporary comic artists, started writing his own paychecks and it didn't matter how good or bad his next piece was.
It's well known by most anyone even remotely familiar with abstract art that Pollack was an alcoholic. What we've been given from this is the most expensive painting in the world was created by a dancing alcoholic that liked to play with paint and use unconventional items to sling, drip, or rub it on extremely large canvases. Because of this, the art world considers him a master? I consider it pure rubbish. Plain and simply. It's easy to say that not anyone could create the composition that he did but that statement goes against the entire grain of what he was doing. The lack of composition is what he was achieving in his paintings. Much like photographs of garbage dumps.
In the other thread I spoke about Pollack at length. I even went so far as to create a "Pollack" piece specifically for Bedrock. I called it, "The Tall Texan"
Of course my piece wasn't completely dry yet when I photographed it for the thread but it pretty much looks like 95% of Pollack's paintings. Anyone who doesn't believe so is only believing the commission based lies they're told about art.
It's true that not art has to be realistic. That doesn't always make good artists. At the same time though, don't ever kid yourself into believing that all well known expensive artists were doing anything more than earning a living, no matter what the subject matter. It sure beats a desk job.
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#5177820 - 10/23/1111:41 PMRe: Lichtenstein Comic Inspired Art Estimated at $35-45 Million
[Re: aman619]
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Originally Posted By: aman619
Originally Posted By: comix4fun
Originally Posted By: pinupcartoonguy
I'm going to go out on a limb and say you have to give credit to a guy who can take a throw away panel from a comic book and turn it into a multi-million dollar enterprise. On a certainly level, whoever the original artists were are certainly getting more exposure than if Lichenstein had never lifted the panels.
We have to separate artistic ability, which should be lauded, and marketing ability, which can be good or bad depending on what's being sold and what the buyer is being told.
We have to be careful not to laud someone just because they got rich. These comic panels would have been transformed into new art if he would have told his appreciators where the panels came from, how he interpreted them and then RE-interpreted them.
Madoff turned nothing investments into a multi-billion dollar ponzi scheme. Not all marketing jobs should be applauded.
Selling people something that's really nothing is a talent and a skill that most people don't have or would not use if they did have it.
I just got an email today, that will allow me to buy my first Licht. piece, it's from an enterprising Nigerian man promising millions for allowing him to use bank account. What ingenuity on his part.
I think you and I are getting close to a agree to disagree point, so I'm hesitant to quarrel on new points with you. But here I'd like to comment on your use of the phrase "artistic ability"
I find that for most people who can't or don't draw, or Do not consider themselves artists of any sort, tend to glamorize the ability or the talent level of artists, or artistic persons. They also limit it to the artist's ability to wield instruments in fashioning realistic looking two dimensional images on paper or canvas. Yes thats a simplification that doesn't encompass artists other than painters and drawers. But these are the talents we are discussing so its apt. You guys decide who draws the best looking (most realistic) images and that guy is a good artist.
The anti Lichtenstein position here is basically that he CAN'T draw, and the comics "hacks" can, so Roy stole from them. I say hacks here not because I think the guys whose panels were lifted we're the hacks in our world, but because these little images were very much indistinct from the thousands of comics panels created by lesser artists, and these guys best works as well.
But, those of us who don't mind lichtensteins use of the source materials to fashion a larger and bolder statement to a wider or more "elite" audience do not limit the phrase "artistic ability" as narrowly as you do. Drawing well, drawing with lifelike realism is in many ways, while amazing and commendable, and not easy, really little more than a parlor trick that some can do and most can't. But ART Has always been about the human condition, and spirit. About our minds as well as our hands and eyes. ARTISTS have strived to archive a deeper penetration in our minds than that of photographic realism.
It's why Frazetta is so much cooler than Boris, for example.
Anyway, I'm losing my train of thought.... Basically we give Lichtensteins lifting and transformation of these panels a pass because he put them to far better use than the comics did. It's not about which of them could draw and who couldnt.
Not anymore. Those days area long gone back to choosing a portrait painter. Who does that anymore based on who can get the best likeness?? Who even has a portrait painted?
I'd also like to add that many abstract artists are in fact excellent draftsmen. Who excelled in art schools in their early years. But the styles they settled on that made their reputations were distiller to say a brushstroke, or an attitude. Mondrian is one example. Picasso another. Even Leroy Neiman could draw as realistically as Neal Adams or Russ Heath!! He just liked the dynamism of dripped paint a lot more once he got there. And yes, that's a reference to poor defamed Pollack too! He chose to pour paint like that on purpose. And please go out and TRY to duplicate their finesse at it sometime ! Looks easier than it is.
I care little for photographic realism. Like you and several others in this thread I have studied and appreciated art for the vast majority of my life. After so many years you can see the gifted, you can see the lazy and you see all the variations in between.
You are referring to artistic vision and I am referring to ability. They are very different.
The reason I used the term "artistic ability" is because when Lichtenstein chose to deviate from the source material you got something this....
When he deviated and tried to alter the look, frankly, he struggled, and it's incredibly distracting when looking at these pieces. It's easier to see an entirely original piece of art, that's actually saying something original or entirely from the artist's inspiration and then to see what the artist is trying to say and ignore the shortcomings of anatomy, proportion and depth. Lichtenstein may have had incredible vision but I fail to see the ability.
I am glad you brought up Frazetta, what a singular gift he had. I can't sell him short calling it a parlor trick. He could take what he saw in his minds eyes and create something entirely new and incredibly enticing and enthralling. When he had the first of his strokes he taught himself to do the same with his left hand, and the pieces were still stunning.
There's no way to compare the pure ability of Frazetta to Lichtenstein.
So basically, what you're trying to say is it's ok to steal as long as some uber-rich people say it's ok? Well let's just goahead and let Bernie Madoff out and get his stuff back because he obviously didn't do anything wrong by taking the money that was gleefully given to him to invest. After all, they gave it to him.
And I'm certain other uber-rich people won;t disagree that he didn't do anything wrong.
Forget all this "art is this, and art is that" junk. Let's get down to the real meat of the argument.
Is it ok to profit from the use of someone else's property without having their permission to use that property?
I say "property" to mean ANYTHING that is legally owned by a person or entity such as a business. That means patents, copyrights, equipment, buildings, monies, and anything else that can be covered as legally ownable.
You DO understand that this is exactly what happened don't you? Lichtenstein painted an image (through whatever method) that was owned by someone else by copyright law without their permission and profited from it.
Do you think us to be such sheep that because a few of the "elite" of the art world like his work and think it great work, we are going to believe he did nothing wrong? Heck, I like what he did too, and I could actually see some value to it had he gotten permissiontouse the panel first. As it stands right now though, it's nothing more than stealing and all the profits from his works should be taken from his estate and heirs, divided up, and given to the artists and their families/heirs whose work he stole.
I'd have to go read some Lichtensteins books to find out if his Bad drawing was cause he was copying freehand and it came outthat way because he can't draw, or, since he could have easily projected the comic panel and traced it, he CHOSE to mess it up that badly. Heck, he probably was aware of copyright issues that a line for line recreation would have Opened him up to.
Either way, showcasing his drawing "ability" wasn't what he was going for. Isn't that clear yet!
Your drip painting has some nice moments! A little heavy handed over all... But it does show that with a few years more practice, you could fake a Pollack. And why can't a painter paint drunk? Or be a drunkard?
Anyway, since I also feel the ART business is just a business, fueled by Hype more and more... I don't really follow it closely. But I know what I like, and what moves me and pleases my eyes. And whose work I feel is well thought out and earns my respect and interest.
I liked Banksys work in Exit Thru the Giftshop. I'm afraid of your opinion on him!!,
#5177854 - 10/24/1112:13 AMRe: Lichtenstein Comic Inspired Art Estimated at $35-45 Million
[Re: comix4fun]
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Allow me for a moment to compare something a little closer to the soul of this thread rather than Picasso or Pollock.
I give you Tom Everhart
Now, obviously Tom didn't create the Peanuts characters as we all know who did. I kind of like Tom's paintings, but it's mostly because I like the source material. I was given the opportunity to purchase the above painting by an extreme high pressure sales women at the gallery that handles Tom's work exclusively.
It's not a particularly large painting at approximately 20x24. The price on the painting at the time (which was many years ago) was $6000. I really did consider purchasing it due to the high pressure my wife and I were enduring. I then learned that this was actually from a series of paintings titled "76 Dog Salute" when I asked about the series I then learned that it was a series of 76 versions of the same painting!
Mind you, they are all different, in a sense, as some of them have Tom's foot prints and hand prints on them. He's the official Jackson Pollock of the Peanuts world as it were. When I learned that there was actually 75 others of essentially the same painting, we quickly got up from the private viewing room and left. Why? And why do I relate this story?
Because true artistic originality matters to me, in composition, and in creation. I was willing to ignore the originality aspect and focus on the creation but then was instantly turned off when realizing that this living artist was simply creating these pieces as a means of financial gain off of them. That is the true realization of art, looking past the "tortured soul" stories and accepting why it was created.
Lichtenstein, Picasso, Pollock, Warhol, etc. They're only as "tortured" as the gallery representatives make them out to be. Creating art as a job is far and away different than creating art simply to be an artist. Michelangelo created art because it was his job, not because he was wanting to make some inspirational statement as an artist. I feel that many artists that are purposely trying to inspire, fall flat on their faces. At least Picasso understood this.
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#5177861 - 10/24/1112:22 AMRe: Lichtenstein Comic Inspired Art Estimated at $35-45 Million
[Re: aman619]
BuffyfanBuffyfan "I don't feel like a freaknut..."
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Originally Posted By: aman619
I'd have to go read some Lichtensteins books to find out if his Bad drawing was cause he was copying freehand and it came outthat way because he can't draw, or, since he could have easily projected the comic panel and traced it, he CHOSE to mess it up that badly. Heck, he probably was aware of copyright issues that a line for line recreation would have Opened him up to.
Either way, showcasing his drawing "ability" wasn't what he was going for. Isn't that clear yet!
Your drip painting has some nice moments! A little heavy handed over all... But it does show that with a few years more practice, you could fake a Pollack. And why can't a painter paint drunk? Or be a drunkard?
Anyway, since I also feel the ART business is just a business, fueled by Hype more and more... I don't really follow it closely. But I know what I like, and what moves me and pleases my eyes. And whose work I feel is well thought out and earns my respect and interest.
I liked Banksys work in Exit Thru the Giftshop. I'm afraid of your opinion on him!!,
My Pollock appears heavy handed because I did it on a small canvas panel. Had I of had more room offered than the island in my kitchen it would have been rendered differently. I was more concerned about the clean up of the paint I was slinging on the kitchen cabinets and floor and really trying not to get it on the ceiling. As I stated in the Great Art thread it actually was fun painting it as abstract is not my area of interest as I've been painting figures. Although, I regress and admit that I have copied abstracts for decorative purposes in my home.
Pollocks paintings are huge in comparison to mine so he had the ability to do his drunken aboriginal dance around his entire studio.
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So basically, what you're trying to say is it's ok to steal as long as some uber-rich people say it's ok? Well let's just goahead and let Bernie Madoff out and get his stuff back because he obviously didn't do anything wrong by taking the money that was gleefully given to him to invest. After all, they gave it to him.
And I'm certain other uber-rich people won;t disagree that he didn't do anything wrong.
Forget all this "art is this, and art is that" junk. Let's get down to the real meat of the argument.
Is it ok to profit from the use of someone else's property without having their permission to use that property?
I say "property" to mean ANYTHING that is legally owned by a person or entity such as a business. That means patents, copyrights, equipment, buildings, monies, and anything else that can be covered as legally ownable.
You DO understand that this is exactly what happened don't you? Lichtenstein painted an image (through whatever method) that was owned by someone else by copyright law without their permission and profited from it.
Do you think us to be such sheep that because a few of the "elite" of the art world like his work and think it great work, we are going to believe he did nothing wrong? Heck, I like what he did too, and I could actually see some value to it had he gotten permissiontouse the panel first. As it stands right now though, it's nothing more than stealing and all the profits from his works should be taken from his estate and heirs, divided up, and given to the artists and their families/heirs whose work he stole.
Wait a minute. Let's assume for argument's sake the Lichenstein did violate a copyright. Even if that were true, it's the publishers that have a claim (since they own the copyright), not the individual artist. Since the publishers don't seem to care, what's the big deal?
BAck to your previous post, I have to say I love Warhols color portraits. Not all of them, but out of all 60s big art, they are the most pleasing to look at to my eyes. His color choices, the kodalith hi contrast black plates, plus of course how the plates don't line up are electric to take in.
The simpler black on color pieces with repetition don't do as much for me.. Nor most of his non portrait stuff. Like the soup cans though. Whi knew looking at a blowup of an everyday object with corporate graphic sensibilities would translate so well as "art"?
