In search of… Art

It’s over 100 years since Claude Monet went to Venice to paint the buildings around the canals. I don’t need to go that far, we have plenty of canals here in the heart of England.  I think Claude Monet would have been envious of my ability to create a picture at the touch of a button. What would he have thought of computers and Photoshop? I don’t think he would have liked Photoshop, he was into impressionism, not perfectionism. In his painting of a building on the canal, he included some posts in the foreground to give it depth. I have a tree in my picture for the same reason and a few posts too, they also give it depth; because they are in the background.

Is this Neodigital Art or photography. There have been many art movements and I think Neodigital Art is just as legitimate as any other, especially 21st century art movements. It is hard to define an art movement, it is usually defined as being a group of artists sharing the same style; the impressionists of Monet’s time or the post impressionists of Paul Cézanne’s time. There can be more than one art movement at any one time of course. The post impressionists shared their moment in history with Art Nouveau. I think Art Nouveau had it’s critics, were the posters of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec really art? I am a particular fan of Art Nouveau and I particularly like the work of Alphonse Mucha and work in the same style. I wish I could produce something like that.

My pictures just lately have been more like the work of Gainsborough or Constable than Mucha; but I keep trying. I put some pictures into this week’s Neodigital Art blogs that were done with Fotosketcher and they were more impressionist.

My local art gallery (Walsall) wants to host the Turner prize and are prepared to spend a quarter of a million just putting in a bid. This in my mind is just showing off. They could show off local talent instead with a quarter of a million. We could have a reasonably good open exhibition with that sort of money. We could even promote a local art movement and have an exhibition of pictures featuring canals; no not Venetian ones…

Art can be very elitist and stupid, I think stupidity is taught in many universities these days. I like the work of Lowry, who was probably criticised too, for his matchstick men pictures, but those matchstick men are in proportion to everything else in the picture. A five year old can draw matchstick men, but not perfectly in proportion. Some art has little skill to it and a lot of promotion; it isn’t very good, but the rich and powerful swoon over the emperor’s new clothes and they are soon in fashion. Whole art movements have become popular on the basis of such swooning. People at my local art gallery (Walsall) are probably swooning at the thought of hosting the Turner Prize.

I can’t write a blog without mentioning that ‘box of delights’, the pink monstrosity in West Bromwich known as The Public.  I’ve just found out I can enter their summer exhibition with a landscape. Previously it was action shots which would be difficult, because I do landscapes. The summer exhibition is for local artists, maybe we can get a art movement going after all? I wonder if they would accept my canal in Springtime picture that I have used above. I have others…

There are more amazing blogs on the Home Page. Please comment and do share with your friends on Facebook, etc. If you live in The West Midlands bit of England; consider entering your Neodigital Art in that summer exhibition at the Public. If you do, let me know, I’ll feature it on my website too.

 

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