theMankindMachine

Ask me my “top 3” of anything

cloesy:

yeah do it

(Source: champion-triwizard)

in reply to mynationalistpony

in reply to this post by mynationalistpony

Here’s something that’s been nagging me for ages: Nearly all older art and illustration (talking like at least 50% here), especially the shit that gets splashed around in art museums, is unified in its central themes - Deconstruction, distortion, distraction, decay, and chaos. Luckily now, artists have evolved to better themes. But before, so many artists and illustrators were floundering in meaningless imagery, trying so very desperately to be original when they’re all doing is rehashing the same tired strains of hipsterism. The basic format is to take instruments and objects of our everyday lives with a different splash of style. The more advanced “artists” do oil paintings where visual clusterfuckery re-arranging tends to be employed for its own sake. Perhaps what I’m trying to mentally get it is that nothing is shown for its own beauty, it’s always to show off the artists own cleverness or sense of irony. Here are some at random example from some art museums:

Recycled pop culture image with some scribbling over it by Some Guy I Don’t Care About

“The sky is like, swirls, man” by Wasted Oil Painting Skill

I still don’t have any fucking idea what’s going on here but I’m sure there’s a contrived, fashionably fatalistic “meaning” in amidst this clusterfuck of a violin somewhere

Contrast this to Sonic the Hedgehog that decides what it wants to say, and then uses the medium of the characters to illustrate why its message is valid and good. The works above are the results of trying to be clever without having a problem to solve other than “how to be clever.” These grade school kids with overexposure to the masses still haven’t figured out the most basic lesson of making good art - Start at the beginning.

As a counterpoint, check this out by some DeviantArtist. It’s pretty clear here he/she has decided on a simple message: Knuckles the Enchilada in the games has many friends, I want to show him as being lonely.

The result is a thousand times more effective than anything I’ve put up in this post so far. That’s not just my opinion, it’s an objective analysis based on the fact it has a character with a relatable expression, strong line, simplistic background, etc. It follows the ABC’s of Making Good Art. It’s not wallowing in self absorved pity - Instead, it plays on the fact we love the character to help us feel pity. Culture is the essence of each group of peoples particular feelings and sensibilities, and art is a way of bottling those feelings and sharing them widely. Older artists have lost sight of that, and frankly, they were completely outdone by guys who like a little boy’s videogame. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to study figure painting when I’m done fucking my Sonic & Knuckles cosplayer.

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