I would love your thoughts ...

Hi Sarah, it takes a lot to insult me, and you didn’t. I think we as artists/painters have a tough skin, we deal with rejection and criticism. Then along comes a lovely comment or a sale to put you on a high. A painting has to speak to you. The photo of ‘Close of Day’ was purchased from me at an art trail. It was bought by a sculptor from Hong Kong, driven from his home by the Chinese, he had to leave everything behind including all his sculptures. He told me that my painting spoke to him and reminded him of his home at sunset. I don’t know how I held it together 🥲

Intrigued by Alan Owen's brief comment - if he means we pull our punches with each other, he's probably right.  On the other hand - this would be a fractious place full of angry comment if we didn't.  Of course, he might have meant something else - you never quite know with Alan, until he goes and says it.... 

Cymru am byth!

I love your comments good or bad I love you all

we all know a name  carries  the most weight,, when selling a painting  what do you suggest   ,,,MAD DOG ALAN ..

most welsh have Spanish DNA ...

This is turning into a very interesting discussion. I went to the National Gallery in Edinburgh twice last week and saw two exhibitions. The first was about 200 prizewinning and commended paintings by art-school trained artists, mostly representational but some abstract. I think I liked about a dozen of them, maybe one or two being abstract. The second was of work by internationally well-known artists and was very 'modern' and mostly abstract. Some of them were priced in the thousands of pounds. I didn't like any of them. I got the same sense you did, Sarah, that the gallery was pushing 'high' art at the expense of the kind of art most people actually like and buy and it reaffirmed my own feeling that either I wasn't artistically sophisticated enough to appreciate what they were offering the public and that they were trying to educate us, or that art snobbery is still alive and well and that as long as you can speak the language and keep up the pretence you can enter their elite world. I think the truth is in between though. Where there's room for creativity there's room for artistic expression. I think the reason I'm suspicious of abstract art in general is that there is too much freedom allowed and no room for painting skill. If there are no rules, there is no way to tell whether a child or a master did the painting. It's chaos rather than creativity, which needs a language to be properly communicated. In contrast, with hyperrealism it's all skill and no freedom of expression. So at either end of the scale from hyperrealism to abstract, it's difficult to discern where the art is. The art I like, and I suspect most art lovers appreciate, falls in between. Impressionism is a good example. The impressionists had great skill but the level of detail was often no more than was required to communicate the impression they were trying to convey (please correct me if I'm wrong here - I'm no art student). Keeping detail to a minimum maximises the expressive potential.  It's the same in classical music. To write traditional classical music a composer needs to know scales, sonata form, chord progressions, four part harmony, etc. But modern composers often abandon it and create discordant music or apply aleatoric (random) techniques. The result can be like an abstract artwork and is only appreciated by a few cognoscenti. I think the musical equivalent of the blank canvas somebody (can't remember who) created is John Cage's 4'33", which is silence for that period of time and no more music than the blank canvas is art. They are both just statements, signs that an end point had been reached in musical and artistic awareness, and they could only be made once.  So my own feeling is that art galleries should stop trying to educate us and cater to public taste, which includes all art, from hyperrealism and pop art to abstract and everything in between. Nobody enters a gallery unless they love art anyway but being pushed in the direction of greater artistic awareness leads to a push back and lower attendance figures. People grow in awareness at their own pace and the best way to allow that is to give art lovers as much choice as possible.

Hi Bill,  Have just read your very interesting comment. I must admit, I went into automatic 'I'm not artistically sophisticated' defence mode when I had the conversation of my friend and of course, our paintings were compared.  I do find it hard to judge abstract art, but it's certainly an interesting subject and I have learnt a little so far in my one week crash course. There was a quote from Rothko posted earlier and I do agree with it - art is about communication. I always think if one person likes something I do, then it's worth it. Well, I try to think that; human nature being as it is, of course you want everyone to like it, but that's impossible! I guess that's the point really, tastes differ art, I suppose can appeal on many levels.  It's funny you mention music, I was thinking the other day that (using myself as an example) I can love a Bach cantata and something by, say, the Beach Boys on equal terms, and without knowing how either piece of music was constructed. I'm not musical!  And despite a Beach Boys song being more 'accessible' than Bach, there are still complex things going on musically. Same for art. I hope that analogy makes sense! Anyway, thank you for responding to my howl, as I think Robert put it earlier. Or rant, as Paul did. They are right!

The subject of what constitutes art is a subject we all ponder, I think. Yes, it is about communication. Or to put it more dryly, about the transfer of information from the artist to the viewer. The problem with a lot of abstract art and music is that the more random the process the less information can be transferred, because there's an inverse relationship between the two. A truly random artwork (not that this is possible, but it can be approached) contains no information at all to transfer. Anything the viewer sees is therefore in their imagination. A bit of randomness can loosen up a painting and make it fresh, but there has to be something deliberate in there, requiring skill, which could be defined as the facility to accurately depict the artists intentions (the information he wants to transfer). I suppose what I'm saying is that I have a problem with most abstract art. I think it's often just pretentious crap! But not all of it, certainly.  I also dislike hyperrealism, but for the opposite reason. Now that we have cameras, there is no point in painting that level of detail, other than as a demonstration of great skill. Before the camera appeared it had value, but although there is some room for artistic expression the detail the artist puts in limits him or her in other ways. Great skill is really just a vehicle for inspiration and great artists are valued because they can be channels for the divine, in the same way as a biblical prophet. But if you're either so free with your paintbrush you don't transfer anything communicable (like someone who may or may not be inspired but is babbling incoherently), or are so constrained that the canvas becomes filled with stifling detail (like a scripture-bound theologian). The best artists have a skill base that can be used by the Great Artist to create uplifting, inspiring works. That's really what art is all about and it can be found in any art form, not just 'high' art: a well crafted song can be more inspired than a mediocre symphony.