FINE ART THOUGHTS

During my years participating in various Paint Out events, I noticed one particular thing during my stay with wonderful artists’ hosts.

If you are wondering what a Paint Out is, it is when invited artists travel to different locations within the country for the period of seven to ten days and paint, paint, paint… Usually, these events are being organized by local art or other non-for-profit organizations – part of the proceeds from artwork sales benefit local charities.

In most cases the artists are being hosted by local families who are involved with those local groups. Many hosts are painters themselves and choose to support their local charity by accommodating the needs of guest-artists.

These wonderful people share their houses with the artists from all over the world. After introducing me to my place of stay, they almost always open the closet and say I can use a part of it. Boom! The first thing I see is dozens of framed paintings stacked in the corner of the closet… DO you wonder why?

Frequently these are paintings which no longer please their owners for one reason or another. It happens…

Why do many hosts keep them away from public viewing? The money has been spent on them, holes in the walls has been made, and the removed artwork is taking precious square footage in the closet – the cycle goes on and on. What’s wrong with this picture?

Throughout the history, humanity was involved in three basic visual art activities… up until today!

First and foremost was the craft. Craft is something which is done by professional craftsmen with certain level of education and has a practical use. We are talking about furniture, household items etc. Yes, sometimes they are ending up in the museum if they represent historical significance. Don’t get me wrong, they can be quite stunning in their beauty! To abbreviate, these are the things which we can sit on, drink from, store things in, etc.

The second important visual art is decorative art. Decorative art is something which is purely made for receiving aesthetical pleasure and consists of no other purpose than that. Decorative art specialists require much more extensive art education than craftsmen and utilize numerous knowledge of light, composition, colors and other important elements and principles, and how they visually complement each other. The problem with decorative art is that it is closely related to fashionable trends at any given time and therefore has a quite short lifespan of attractiveness.

The third final visual art is what we call fine art. Fine art is not designed specifically to be eye-candy despite it can be visually more appealing than decor. Its main purpose is not only visual stimulation but also appeal to our inner emotions, intellectual sense along with sense of timelessness. If I would be hard pressed to clarify further, I would compare these states of visual arts with music. We have a pop culture music genre and we have a classical music genre. One is popular at times and the other is popular eternally with its inner harmony of the form and the depth of presentation.

There is an abundance of paintings in a so called gray area, and that is where art sellers are trying to convince you that you are buying the “real deal”. Of course that is not the case, when you are on the market to buy something for your wall to complement your couch or carpet. The case is clear then. My advice to potential buyers is to consult professionals when investing a large amount of money into an artwork. The problem is that those so called experts sometimes play the same game as the sellers, and mass media is not to help here either! The scheme is going actually both ways. Remember the famous work of Johannes Vermeer’s The Art of Painting, – his name had to be forged out to sell as another fashionable painter of the 19^th century at the time (I don’t remember his name, do you?). That was one of the most expensive artworks ever sold, with a real name reinstated eventually!

So what’s wrong with pop culture music and decor you may ask? There is nothing wrong! Both areas are as important for our intellectual development and understanding of the world we are living in, as our necessities in water and bread. What is important as well, is that artists and art consignors have to at least better understand and predict long term intellectual and monetary value of the work on their wall.

In the inevitable advent of artificial intelligence there are already the attempts to mimic the work of art created by humans. I see no problems in creating a successful decorative work. Machine has no problem compiling mutually beneficial colors and shapes, and it should not be that hard... From the other hand when it comes to fine art, it will miserably fail. The idea of human feelings, emotions and intellectual depth behind simple knowledge will always be alien to the robot. Soon the AI will be next big thing and perhaps it is a big thing, just it’s not in the area of fine art and thankfully it never will be.

Vladislav Yeliseyev