william.scherk

Tony, I think your understanding of perspective is spot on. The concept of visually making things bigger as they come forward and smaller as they go back, works well, and allows the artist a lot of freedom to create. Trying to be absolutely perfect can easily backfire if one is off by a millimeter. It's really not that difficult to avoid being off my a millimeter. It's simply an issue of self-discipline and practice. It's merely a matter of volitionally choosing not to be lazy and cognitively vague, foggy and careless. Realistic recumbent nudes are hard to master. Perfection is achievable, I think, but the task requires a sense of form akin to 'perfect pitch' -- a 'good eye' -- and the skill to effect the work of rendering. Sometimes the rendering suggests the artist had such a sense of proportion and volume that he did not need to labour over details, his hand-eye coordination tightly coupled enough to guide each stroke and mark unerringly. To cleanse the palate, here are some nudes recumbent that I find to have closed in on perfect rendering. Some folks here might find these exceptionally well-done in terms of form, living anatomy, and space -- and yet at the same time those same folks might find them unsatisfying as artistic creations. They might be felt 'cold,' stiff, fussy, 'academic,' lacking spark that pleases the sensibility of the viewer. Spoilered to protect OL's resident moralizing troll from shock and restraining orders and child sexual abuse. -- side note to Tony G: you wrote of male and female forms, giving example of Michael Newberry's "Artemis" as a male figure (comparing the perspective to that of the female figure of "Counterpose"). Artemis is actually drawn from female models. There is an article on the making of Artemis by Newberry here, lavishly illustrated, and here is a time-lapse video of its making, too: From a great, revealing interview with Michael Newberry, on the subject of mistakes and criticism: When I make mistakes, I’m like, “Damn, I made a mistake! Oh, good! I don’t have to go down that path again. Now that is behind me.” It just moves aside, and I concentrate on where I want to go. Kaizen: The art world is highly competitive, like any other area of human endeavor, and critics and other artists can be harsh with each other. How do you deal with criticism of your art? Newberry: It’s really hard, but I don’t come across much criticism of my art. [...] So I don’t get nasty comments or really critical comments. I think people acknowledge that, while they may not like my work, they don’t want to step on someone who is terribly sincere and authentic. It just doesn’t lend itself to being criticized. I kind of like this insouciant approach. Criticism directed pointedly at a piece of work comes up against self-awareness, self-assessment, formidable firmness of intent and unfettered self-esteem. I don't think Michael can or ought to respond to the particular anatomical critiques of the nude in "Counterpose." It would involve him in discussion that does not comport with his purpose in art-making. Now, Jonathan may be right that Michael's harsh notes on other artists are undermined by his non-response to technical criticism of his own work. But there is no pay-off for Michael in response to critical notes on Hip Dysplasia. It wouldn't be appropriate for him to respond to the critiques any more than it would be appropriate for me to respond to the zany Transsexual Evil Eye Sauna Drug Dream interpretation given to that blue canvas above. In each case the artwork found a home with those who love and cherish it and find continuing value in it. Nothing written here will alter those relationships.

Tricky. I wonder if these are not numerals only, but also descriptors. How about 312211, then 13112221, then 1113213211? The first line is described by the second line: one 1, and so on: two ones; one 2, one 1 ...

I would have liked to have you as a serious student at around 19 years old, but I would have pushed you to master anatomy, form, and space. I appreciate the technical notes, and the confidence you have in your own teaching skills. It's nice to be thought of as talented, whatever my amateur, dabbler status. I make no great claims for my artistic chops, and I think you are probably right that I would have benefited from extensive art studies when I was a brash youngster. As for mastering anatomy, form, and space, this is assuredly difficult. It looks to my eyes that you have struggled to approach mastery yourself at times earlier in your art-making career. I was struck by a number of technical errors in several of your paintings and drawings (from the Newberry Art site). For example, you have given a couple of online backgrounders and analyses in tutorials featuring your 1990 canvas "Counterpose" -- which you write is one of your most satisfying paintings. Here is a reproduction: And here is the image rotated 180 degrees: Michael, do you see the same defects as I do? I see hip dysplasia and several other apparently broken bones. I'd say your modeling of the human form/anatomy is significantly off (how did your model manage to put her knee into her crotch without de-socketing? How did her buttocks move around from the back of her body to the side without major injury? How can she put a knee in her own crotch without snapping the bones in her leg?). I think you will find these questions important to the greater goal of accurately modeling anatomy, form and space. We can all learn from mistakes ...

William should have a restraining order keeping him away from children. Greg dreams of using the force of government to punish creators of art that he doesn't like. Not at all surprising. Greg's oddball notions of homosexuality are what lead him to suggest a 'restraining order,' I think. In an earlier comment, he made his notion clear and simple: -- and expanded the notion: What is left implied is that a new generation of gays requires 'initiation' by abuse, and that gays and lesbians are most likely to revisit this abuse upon new victims. Thus a gay man like myself is ipso facto a putative criminal in waiting ... I can't see any other reason to suggest the law be called in. It cannot be the blue painting. So, I guess Greg believes I must be 'restrained' by legal order to keep away from children, lest I molest them or otherwise abuse them. He may believe that I am an acute danger to most children. I don't take this noxious nonsense personally, nor am I offended by Greg's opinion that it's time for someone to apply legal force. The notion and suggested remedy are too unwarranted to provoke anything but laughter. However, should Greg wish to proceed on his suggestion, he can either contact someone in British Columbia who also feels 'the children' are at acute risk -- or he can attempt to obtain an order himself from the Surrey RCMP: Obtaining a Peace Bond or Restraining Order. I'd advise Greg to have his homosexuality-via-child-sexual-abuse explanation ready for his order application, since the untitled blue painting might not be the best evidence to convince the RCMP that my freedoms need curtailing. All in all, my impression has only deepened that Greg is no friend of reason or objectivity. -- to those who have suggested offstage that Greg has defamed me, I disagree strongly. Greg's notions and opinions here deserve only ridicule. I would, however, relish what reasoning Greg might supply to ensure that my freedom be legally restricted. He can release those reasons here and we can all learn a lot. Not about art, not about sexual abuse, not about me or my danger to children, but about Greg's bigotry. I would actually advise him to say no more about why William needs to be put under an order. What reasons he will pull up will only make his arguments look more stupid and nasty. All rise. Court is in session.

One of yours? Yes, a canvas painted in 1985 ...

Try twice. Twice. Earlier upload may have been too large for the forum ...

My last comment was a long, dreary ramble. Here, to re-orient to the original topic, "Who says that's art," I give you an untitled artwork, for slaughter, for joyous deconstruction, for grumbles, for emotional reaction, for an artist's appreciation..

Me too. Speaking of links, you omitted a link to the Song Facts page you quoted from. I kind of see why -- none of the statements (however true) are sourced. To my mind -- and from my experience as a songwriter, singer, and performer in several bands -- it is part of the creative process to add to or subtract or compress or augment or rejig elements. It's part of the confection process to tinker with the song as presented to the band. It's not readily apparent to me that the creator (in this case me and my songwriting partners) had a pure song in mind that did not survive collaboration, that something was wounded in the process, that the creative alchemy of the band-with-song-idea renders some suspect product. This just isn't my experience in writing songs with my collaborators. -- this isn't to say that that first idea (melody, lyric, rhythm, hook, emotional valence, etc) is not a valuable thing, In my experience there is always something in the initial musical notion that appeals enough to be worked on (in other words, if my song idea wasn't taken up, it did not get arranged and performed or recorded, because it wasn't good enough or appealing enough to the band's sensibility in the first place). If Roger, me, and a keyboard dished up a song idea, it may well be that we both get excited about an essential bit or hook to the idea, and that both of us work to draw out that essence, intensify it, and render it properly present and accounted for in our preliminary arrangement. It could be that when we brought our worked-up idea to the rest of our band we insisted on retaining or emphasizing the "ideal" hooks and other elements we cherished. It might well be that the 'essence' of the confection is agreed upon by all participants, and that they happily fall in place with our preferred initial concept. In any case, the Rolling Stones chose to create the recording that we know as Paint it Black. They did not publish the earlier, possibly more proper version of the song -- so we don't have actual access to it, it is not concrete. It may be fun and interesting to chart the imaginary creative process of the band, to consider the initial 'intent' of the song as it developed into the version we know -- but Roger, how can we reliably gain access to that initial idea or arrangement? How can we warrant that the ideal is more worthy than the 'finished product'? Let's say, however, that you are entirely correct, that the song we have as performed by the Stones is not 'the song' as originally and properly conceived. Let's also say that your computation of the song's emotion does also spit out a correct summary: Sad. If all this is true, what could this mean about 'sad' songs, songs of lamentation, songs of mourning, songs of 'down' emotions? Can we conclude something about such songs? Are they lesser in value to 'happy' songs to the listener or fan? What is the larger calculus that should be put in play? Let's put aside the sarcasm and accept the paragraph's conclusion: the song is about death and loss of love. Let's stipulate that an overwhelming majority of listeners would answer a forced choice question about the song's meaning with the word "sad." There we are with a sad song from the Rolling Stones, a very popular sad song. I think the interesting question to then try to answer is 'why is this song so appealing to listeners and fans? Why has it endured? Why is it a favourite of symphonies, high school bands, ukulele orchestras? Why, indeed, do human beings enjoy sad songs ... ? -- here, I suggest we ought give way to those who do enjoy the song (in its recorded form), we should pay attention to the gestalt response of those listeners. As with Jonathan's quick survey of some of his contacts, emotional readings do actually vary, and individual interpretations will not necessarily overlap with Roger's findings. "There would only be one right answer" if the Stones hadn't thrown their 'concept' under the bus and given us a travesty of 'das ding in sich'? The only (additional) right answer is 'I can't hear "sadness" 'cause the Stones fucked up their own song'? This is to my eyes a fruitless excursion. "Deviating grossly from what it's about" ... "obscuring the meaning of their song" ... is non-demonstrable. As I argued above, the creative process of songwriting in a band takes the first material and redraws it, perfects it, adorns it, gives it oomph. That process is not necessarily a gross deviation from a ding in sich in my opinion, because the ding in sich is a transient construction or a post-facto inference, in some cases ineffable, unable to be restored or heard -- not an ineluctable feature of the song that millions know. I am in general agreement with this, as it pertains to Paint It Black. The Kantian ding in sich or the Platonic 'perfect form' is perhaps an interesting metaphysical cul-de-sac for players, but it isn't as apparent or as 'real' as the recorded version. (In an earlier posting Roger demurred from trying to let decent Objectivish people know how to approach and judge particular visual artworks. He said, in reply to an invitation to do so: "I am not going to tell them how to approach and judge music, let alone paintings or other artworks." Is he not in fact telling decent folk how to approach and judge music with the excursion into 'correct' readings of Paint it Black?') Prove that there is only one correct interpretation of the emotional content of a song. I think we would need other examples of popular music confections. If Roger or Jonathan are not up to specifying the ding in sich, well hell. Who cares? Here's one worldwide smash pop hit -- with trombones and Dusty Springfield! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1TSbCDyYBY Sad? Frustrated? Mourning? Hopeful? A travesty of the original song as designed? We can get a large cohort, expose them to a particular piece of music, and examine their brain states while listening. Will some songs hit 'the sweet spot' of a particular emotion? Will there be patterns of reaction common across individuals, as measured? The limits on this kind of research is how well distinct emotions mirror distinct brain activity. There is a huge literature on this. In another experiment, we can compare given pieces of music cross-culturally and see what folks immersed in mutually-ignorant musical traditions will report as emotions of the pieces from the contrasted culture. I am familiar with the second kind of experiment, particularly a fifteen-year old study by Blakewell and Johnson, A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Perception of Emotion in Music: Psychophysical and Cultural Cues. In this research the question was whether Western ears could identify the emotions conveyed by raga music -- sadness, anger, joy (free download PDF here) -- and vice versa. And another more recent study caught my attention. This one involves Western music and music of the Mafa people. Here's a link to the full study, following are excerpts from a Dave Mugger report on the study at Science Blogs (Cognitive Daily): To put all of this tl:dr in perspective, here's one of Ayn Rand's fave tiddly-wink songs: http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/3000/3590/cusb-cyl3590d.mp3

Ya can't always get what you want...but if you try sometime - you just might find - you get what you need! Eventually I went off the Stones, but in Roger's parlance I've never left my "training wheels" I'm afraid. Melody plus lyrics stayed my preference. Saying which and stating the obvious, to give the music a fair and true reflection, in this exercise of isolating it from the lyrics, one would have to replace the singer's voice with - something. After all, the song is written for the singer and a voice is an 'instrument', too (similarly, instruments have a 'voice') with the singer's phrasing and pitch and all that. Most often heard in fully instrumental remixes of old hit songs, it's sax or trumpet that fills in (oops,sorry to any horn players) for voice and lyric. Tony, are you ready for an orchestral version of the Rolling Stones standards? I had to go looking for iterations of Paint It Black and Satisfaction. I found ukulele, I found the London and the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra, I found a Brazilian girls choir and a high-school 'big band' with chorus. But this is the gem: a fabulous National Symphony Orchestra of Moldova Radio with the Rolling Stones Overture. It's amazing to think what a footprint the Rolling Stones will leave behind, and have left behind. Even if I don't like anything they have made in their lengthy career, the product looms large in popular music since the sixties. Interesting to think that these two 'middling' or not very good songs have been 'translated' into classical arrangements** and performed to the satisfaction of audiences (my own favourite symphonic treatment of the Stones is Gimme Shelter by the LSO -- it doesn't approach the aural thunder of the original recording, but thoroughly thrills the heart in its own way. And who can forget the exciting choral ending to You Can't Always Get What You Want?) Paint it Black and My World Is Empty Without You are both successful, distinctive pop confections, to my sensibility. Each has its own charms. I think Paint it Black's simple bristling rhythms and ornamental oriental melodies have put it in the pop classics songbook. A different, simple rhythm in the Supremes song and the incomparable sweetness of the vocal mark out another golden standard for me. Paint it Black may induce multiple interpretive or imaginative construals of its movement, tone, action, mode, melodies, musical gestalt -- as Jonathan has suggested. The other may also be construed abundantly. For me it is a wonderful strutting expression of love, stylized to smooth perfection. It's a perfect snapshot of American culture on a roll in the mid-sixties. Everyone gets prizes. -- a rare, non-vocal studio recording of the Stones Paint it Black, followed by that fabulous Detroit trio. And one final oddball cover for cover version connoisseurs, the Hullabaloo Singers and Orchestra. Sublime jazzy take on Satisfaction: ____________________________ ** A business called The Rock Orchestra does Satisfaction at a gallop, a kind of love march, less awful than the Hullabaloo massacre, and with a thumping mix of fuzz-guitar and horns from the get-go. Added: clever high-school Roger to have caught the melodic overlap of My World Is Empty Without You To Paint It Black!

Is the passage mentioning Zeki studies the same as quoted in #253? If so, Kamhi is likely to be referring to a particular 1998 study by Zeki and collaborator Ludovica Marini, "Three cortical stages of colour processing in the human brain" -- she cites this particular study in notes to her 2012 article at Aristos -- "Understanding Contemporary Art." I read the Zeki article -- it's fairly dense -- and scoped out a few places that may be interesting to discussants. Here's excerpts from the Zeki article that no doubt caught Kamhi's eye: In Kamhi's Aristos article, we read:

I don't hold it against anyone in any jurisdiction rallying for the right of self-determination. My country has struggled with the legal niceties, but as it stands, should any province wish secession, it need only ask a straightforward question in a referendum (like the Scots independence ballot) and achieve a +60 % yes -- the federal government then would negotiate the details of departure. I kind of have a soft spot for real American characters, and the broad group of folks with an attachment to the history of the Republic of Texas. If a crusty old uncle rallies for the Republic to be returned, what's the problem. Why not? It's certainly a good phrase on which to hang a lot of things, patriotism, pride, grit, the Alamo, Houston, Tex-Mex food. Beyond that, this particular group has quaint things like handfuls of congressmen selected in secret 'elections' (among which voters, a mystery) along with similarly 'elected powers' like Judge and President. These kinds of play-school politics seem significantly stupid, queer as a three dollar bill when compared to the rousing history of the Republic, unlikely to impress more than a tiny rump of present Texas voters. But is their play-school pageant deserving of anything like the pageantry plus search and seizure they faced at the hall? Learning that the geezers have philosophical attachments to the Freemen movement, and to the notion of issuing their own 'currency' and summonses, I have less sympathetic feelings. I still don't like the show of force. The warrant could have been served with no overkill. The seizures of documents, phones and computers also seem to lack specificity. They will apparently be searched for evidence of conspiracy to issue simulated legal documents. Even with a conspiracy to issue their pompous and illegal summonses, even with that crime, are they as menacing as the right whack Christian Identity folks or the Aryan Brotherhood, or other vigilante gangs? That fraud/counterfeit/menacing offence of issuing stupid documents I can see being pursued, with the aim of curbing such frivolous paper being filed in actual working courts or to ordinary people who might be fooled into compliance, I'd hate to see any of the old doofuses get punished with huge fines or cell time -- I wish they could be less stupid in their fantasies of actually getting from here to Texan Independence. It's not like other places haven't figured out how to do it the non-doofus way. See Quebec, Scotland, Catalonia, Norway, Estonia, etcetera. Frankly, this is a situation where both 'sides' seem blundering and misguided.

Thanks for the reply, and for taking the time to review this thread. I don't know how to assess the general effectiveness of my posts above. I showed to myself how the mirror-image of Bob's statement failed to actually parallel Bob's logical point. I think you committed an error, using a false analogy in order to invite mockery of Bob's argument. You think I committed an error in analysis -- or that the analysis as such was a "clever pretzel of blah blah blah" even if it was correct. The pith was: "I wasn't dissing you, but pointing out that your analogy didn't hold because you mistransposed the elements of Bob's argument." There's nothing for me to say about your kid -- I have never suggested you have done anything wrong in his care -- I defer to you as a parent and I have no doubt that you and Kat will continue to be most excellent parents. The broader issues of 'vaccine controversy' don't to my mind have any effect on your care or love, and I certainly do not think Sean needs 'protection' from your ignorance. About the crapload of yadda yadda, this has little to do with me or Sean or my appraisal of a failed analogy, as far as I can tell. It seems quite silly to propose a scenario where William sends government 'after your kid.' I know you are not serious about that. I could never do that to you with a child under your care -- and I can't imagine any 'treatment' of Sean that is any of my business. I'll admit my failure. I didn't convince you that my analysis was useful. You think your analogy was fair, that it exposed a crazy illogic in Bob's argument. I think your analogy was unfair, that it invited mockery where mockery was not justified.

It looks like there has been some further cogitation from those folks who were perhaps repulsed by Liu's painting when it first appeared upthread. Your gentle lawyerly style of address probably played a part in engendering reassessments. -- what I forgot to mention is how much a given painting can have an impact in person. Who knows what Michael and Roger and Greg might feel when standing in front of the real thing? I suspect it would be a quick 'sense of life' emotion/mood/affect, either flatlined or angered or irritated or revolted. However, knowing now more of Liu (if only a glance was given to the other works depicted, and nothing given to his studio or videos, interviews, art world bumf) these viewers might be arrested before a canvas. Who knows ... they might feel more positive emotional reactions, might indeed 'like' this or that. The depiction of Liu painting from life in a disaster zone changed my perception of the artwork -- the girls on the bicycle cart in front of earthquake damage is large, large enough to permit a distant, global snapshot as well as a close-in examination of the brushwork. I think the very largeness would have an impact on those who so far dislike Liu's work more generally. Here's a brief Q & A on this particular painting, from dGenerateFilms' CinemaTalk: Interview with Professor Eugene Wang on Chinese Art and Film. -- so, I am left wondering if any of this contextual information affects prior 'sense of life' shudders. It's interesting to speculate on what a fair and informed Objectivish argument could be made that Liu's work is bad art. I don't think that Greg, Roger and Michael would label this 'bad art,' however. I think Greg would label it ugly and Liu a moral degenerate and that would be that. Roger might venture a crisp review of the context followed by a careful paragraph or two explaining that his personal dislike of the artist does not imply a debased sense of life nor any moral squalor in the artist or artwork. Michael Newberry would I guess walk back his earlier commentary and show an updated appreciation for some work that does not turn his personal crank. I think he'd not make his personal crank the standard of assessment. Indeed. I completely agree, Brant. Roger, this is not moored to any particular image or topic. It's easy to mistake this kind of analogous generalizing for a personal evaluation of an individual artist or artwork. 'Ordinary people' like you may not appreciate Liu Xiaodong's output at all, may even detest it based on a couple or three images, but does that mean that Liu is cast in the role of sadistic abuser of a miserable loser? If so, can you elaborate? If not, then I think it's too bad you don't attach opinions more closely to actual depictions of artworks. Examples often give greater depth to an argument or analysis. No, William, I don't think Liu is a "sadistic abuser." One can be a masochist, desiring to inflict pain or suffering or humiliation upon oneself, with or without the active involvement of another person. If I bought one of Jonathan's or Michael's paintings and flagellated myself with it, either of those acts might make me a masochist - but neither act would (in itself) make either of them a "sadistic abuser." If you don't think Liu is a sadistic abuser, I'm glad -- it wasn't at all clear if you were commenting on any of the Chinese artworks. I didn't know who or what you were referring to in the excerpt I responded to. I suppose now it was a generic characterization of some kind that had no relation to Liu's work (and auction prices) at all. I wonder still what you do think about Liu's work, if anything -- now that you have made clear the generic rhetoric of sadism and abuse is floating above the concretes on view. I think you would probably ultimately agree with Jonathan that a personal 'meh' to a particular oeuvre does not or need not signal a wholesale denunciation of said work and its creator. Your words about misery, abuse, losers do not apply to Liu's work, if I understand you correctly. I am glad you have freely formed a judgment on Liu's creations that does not include accusing him of inflicting misery and abuse on losers. I am glad you don't think anyone who values his art is a loser. In a perfect world, you would find time to venture an analysis of his work, its appeal, its valuation, the qualities that either leave you neutral, disliking or liking. Tony and Brant have done so briefly and effectively. My more pointed questions would be: Can you stand down from a J-hadi state of alert? Put Jonathan on ignore for a while? Remember your audience apart from J-had? Tell decent Objectivish onlookers how to approach and judge examples like the following? Nothing wrong with venturing a broad general condemnation of abusers and losers ... and nothing wrong with personal 'meh' responses. And nothing wrong with being too busy to bother engaging with anyone you figure is not treating you with good faith. There's more to the thread than Jonathan's Cutting Queries, or rhetoric about hate. I did detect a state of high dudgeon in your first expostulations up above, but now believe most of the dudgeon is in reaction to remorseless stabbing criticism, not in reaction to Liu. Regarding 'how to reply," are you updating or revising your earlier comments about Liu, Michael? I took away a few strong characterizations of Liu from your earlier reaction: "didn't give a shit ... shows no talent ... gestures are amateurish ... has an ugly, loathing view of the world, himself, and/or his culture ... " As for the Casey Klahn, this work is new to me, thanks. Here's a couple other works of his: I don't dislike the works above, but I prefer Emily Carr: If you had more to say about Liu Xiaodong, I am interested. Interested in what in particular captivates/repels, stirs emotion, inculcates a judgment. I'm interested in how folks reach their opinions, and how they explain conflicting opinions. I don't know if you have more thoughts to relate on this particular guy and his work (and his insane auction statistic). I hope so. It is the artist’s sense of life that controls and integrates his work, directing the innumerable choices he has to make, from the choice of subject to the subtlest details of style. It is the viewer’s or reader’s sense of life that responds to a work of art by a complex, yet automatic reaction of acceptance and approval, or rejection and condemnation. This does not mean that a sense of life is a valid criterion of esthetic merit, either for the artist or the viewer. A sense of life is not infallible. But a sense of life is the source of art, the psychological mechanism which enables man to create a realm such as art. -- it's almost as if some hear Rand saying 'trust your first rejection' and 'condemnation is automatic' ... without hearing the caveats about criteria of esthetic merit and the warning of fallibility. Maybe the most censorious and indignant about art like Liu's are taking a cue from Rand: condemn, reject and denounce away. It's fun. Give yourself a break, convince yourself into thinking condemnation is utterly deserved. I can get a thrill from reading Rand's hot rhetoric in denunciations. I can even try to thrill myself by using a hot rhetoric. But the thrill is generally gone on the second draft -- until and unless I can construct a reasonable, rational argument to support every step in my judgment. More of Emily Carr. Her works are celebrated here in her home province. For me they have a haunting quality, with the haunting represented in the remnants of the cultures the white folk found upon 'contact.' I surmise that other Canadians also respond to the haunting, as the aboriginal works were -- in Carr's hands -- beautiful. Fading away and falling into disrepair, beautiful expressions of culture captured for later generations. I forgive her loose impressionist brushwork because the evocative power of the canvases is so palpable to me.

A well made point. The task of the unskilled, undisciplined, and unprincipled artist is then to try to convince suckers that their ugly pieces of crap are beautiful... ...and the real kicker is that there are plenty of suckers who believe the artist's lie because they share the same lack of morality as the artist! Greg, these two works back up your point, hat tip to Scherk. They are undoubtedly conveying some kind of message, Chinese Uncle Toms in the Last Supper painting? Coal miners after some kind of accident being transported naked in the back of truck? Or male nudists on a tour? Regardless the paintings feel like the artists didn't give a shit about the means, they both show no talent, and makes it very hard to feel empathy for the subjects. The one below might show a spontaneous gestural painting marks - but that runs aground if the gestures are amateurish, not like a master Rembrandt, Sargent, or Degas. The sad part is that it is almost impossible to feel any empathy for the subjects - why would anyone spend money on these, much less than 24 and 9 million dollars? Somewhere going on: the artists, the collectors, the critics, the agents, the culture have an ugly, loathing view of the world, themselves, and/or their culture. I would feel sick to stomach for what the price tags for these works say about humanity, but after 40 years of seeing the elevation of crap I get the sense that the modern art field has opened the doors for and embraced sociopaths. There is too much moralistic lard in this commentary. The artist Liu has an ugly, loathing view of the world, himself, and his culture? Liu is a sociopath in some way? Auction prices almost always seem insane at the high end. I think one's stomach can feel a sinking, dizzy, high seas lurch at the enormity of the transactions, even when the artwork is appreciably worthy to the eye of the onlooker. Michael, I spent some time reading and viewing interviews and going over Liu's biography and education -- and looking at the sweep of his career in images from his studio. I wonder if your feelings about Liu's work would change as mine did after taking a larger sample and taking in 'outside considerations' ... You might get something out of this interview, in which Liu gives us a glimpse of his own art historical learning in the context of the Chinese 'new wave' -- very cogent to your reaction are the last few minutes of the video: Have a look at the arc of his artmaking at his studio website, Brant. I was in the party stumped by the million dollar nudes in the truck. I could see the sure hand of a trained artist, but was puzzled by what was uniquely 'worthy' of attention and auction bids in the millions. It left me with several mysteries, obstacles of ignorance in 'getting it.' In the video above Liu makes reference to shocking effects that the 'new wave' of art in the mid-eighties brought to the non-art world. One was the depiction of Han figures, the other nudity. The Chinese were, post-Deng, economically engaged as individuals but the private world was traditional, circumspect, prudish. Nudity in art was shocking and had (according to Liu's telling) a powerful social effect. Similarly, the figure in painting pre-New Wave was never Han. Depicting Han visages was breaking the academic rules that had directed art production up till that time. In this context, I understand the wallop of nudity in that particular depiction. And maybe a little bit of the wallop of real, individual Han lives depicted. And having seen the art Liu produced over the years, I can see why his work is unique and valuable -- even if nine million dollars changing hands seems disproportionate to its beauty or romanticism. The video below corrects my mistaken reporting that Liu does not use photographs. It was two photographs of meaning to him that led to the truck nudes painting. The photos together with the truck nudes packs a certain extra wallop. Maybe you should consider learning something about the artist's context. I agree with Jonathan -- learning more about the art and its maker can often answer the puzzles at hand -- as can cooperative inquiry, sharing finds, digging for context. I try to put art in threads like these so folks can have something to hang their hats on. As here, the various reactions to Liu illustrate one of Jonathan's major points -- that reaction to disliked art can move into attacks on the artist or art-appreciator. Moralistic masturbation about the ugly person/ugly art connection is demonstrated most clearly by Greg. He rubs one off on ugly Liu, and he feels good about his discernment, but he is demonstrably wrong (as the video interview shows) about Liu's morality. Xiu's moral calculus, or the sense of life underlying his art, is put forth in his own words. His expressions seem relatively congruent with the pith of Objectivish good things: individualism, meaning, value, reality -- at least to my lay understanding Me, I am not troubled one whit at being called sociopathic for loving the art of Francis Bacon, or at being a sucker for appreciating the art of Liu Xiaodong. I think Liu is pretty freaking good at his job. It is ultimately of no importance that Roger or Michael or Brant thinks I am a fool for thinking that. I can't pretend it is. So, I take nothing personally, and I don't feel it necessary to make it personal by overtly calling Roger or Michael or Brant names. But I do understand Jonathan's vexation at the most dismissive and moralistic rhetoric of the 'haters' even if I don't use his tactics in argument. The tactic of ascribing maleficent motives and debased humanity to a generalized class of 'suckers' and 'abusers' doesn't do much work in argument, and thus attracts the rapiers of Jonathan and William. Here's a brief video looking at Liu and the making of the million dollar nudes, from Sotheby's: I think that the willingness to spend big money was likely due to recognition and appreciation of the risks that the artists took in defying evil forces and of their heroism of creating genuine personal expressions under conditions which were very hostile to genuine personal expressions. This is almost certainly correct in broad strokes. There was a revolution or a 'liberation' in Chinese art following post-Deng capitalist liberation of the economy. The various dead hands of tradition and state mandate were cast off. Liu was a revolutionary in this sense, and part of the creative force that has raised China from the dirt of collectivism to the magnificence of the individual making the world by will... Roger, this is not moored to any particular image or topic. It's easy to mistake this kind of analogous generalizing for a personal evaluation of an individual artist or artwork. 'Ordinary people' like you may not appreciate Liu Xiaodong's output at all, may even detest it based on a couple or three images, but does that mean that Liu is cast in the role of sadistic abuser of a miserable loser? If so, can you elaborate? If not, then I think it's too bad you don't attach opinions more closely to actual depictions of artworks. Examples often give greater depth to an argument or analysis. I wish there was an easy way to defuse the feuds in this thread. If I could vaccinate, I would vaccinate against galloping rhetoric. Somehow there would be fewer outbreaks of 'hater' and 'loser' and 'abuser' and 'sociopath' and so on. You'll find me trying on bonnets in OL's Pollyanna section, near the doors. I'm here all week.

I think that Liu Xiaodong has the skill to paint at that level. The fact that he prefers a rougher style doesn't mean that he can't paint in a tighter style. Attempting to judging a painter's abilities based on one of his paintings is about as stupid as trying to judge Kant's notion of the Sublime while refusing to understand the history of the term prior to Kant. Quit being a hater. J I am a hater, too, or at least a disliker. I tend to dislike the Santos, especially in contrast to the body of work of Liu Xiaodong that I have spied out so far. The Santos seems a bit indifferent, lacking individual style, the cartoon unsure, hesitant. The effect on me is one of lifelessness -- though his other works are more satisfying to my eye. Another Santos: I would say Liu approaches mastery. There is a spirit and confidence and sure, quick gesture in his paintings that strike me as satisfying. The confidence of a master is in the technique underlying every daub. Liu paints and sketches from life, or from his imagination, not from photos. Here below are a few images that might cause a reassessment of Liu's worth (I recommend giving a gander to what is available via Google Image). If his painting shouldn't garner tens of millions of dollars, fine, I can see the point. But I also see the point that his high auction valuation cannot be mere art-market gaming. He rose to the big ten in China because his paintings are appreciated by the Chinese -- and because he is a very good artist. I often have to go past my first impression of an artwork -- I hope the dislikers of Liu's artworks will look farther. The million dollar nudes in a truck is perhaps not appealing in subject, or somewhat unintelligible for some lookers-on, but for me the artist captured personality in each face and body, strongly and simply. These people were depicted as alive, alive, purposeful and at ease with the world. I thought it was a tour de force quick painting (in one session) of an artist at his best game. Here are two Liu canvases and photos of him at work. Muses, forgive me for not appending titles, dates and dollar values.

Wrong. Big government is your own self inflicted scourge on the deserving. Your own individual personal experience of government was created out of your own unproductive needy dependence... ...so it's perfect moral justice that you should get what you made rammed down your gullet. So choke on it, Frank, because you created it in your own image. Sucker. Greg Gee. What did you do to deserve to be so nasty? --Brat[wurst] I'd say Greg has hit a new low in stupid and ugly. I think he gets a little surge of pleasure at being nasty, and I don't think he is socially aware enough to know what such recourse to nastiness might signal to observers. To my eyes the ugly comments exemplify one of Greg's motives. He likes to put people down, he likes to dehumanize, he likes to wield the moral cudgel, he likes to be Man on Top. He'll use the cheapest and nastiest tools to effect this man-topping. Choke on it, Frank? Sucker? Deserving the scourge? Needy? Unproductive? Rammed down your gullet? This is plain old spiteful trolling. It reflects the domineering irrationality of the religious, and it makes OL a cheaper and nastier place to inhabit. I'd say Greg owes Francisco -- and Michael our host -- an apology. Barring that unlikely event, I think he'd benefit from a dose of moderation, preferably self-administered.

Obama was an acolyte of Saul Alinsky. Alinsky hated America with a gut hatred. Obama was an apt pupil. I love the Mugabe reference -- zany and overwrought. Re the Rules for Radicals, John Hawkins at Town Hall suggested "12 Ways To Use Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals Against Liberals" (from 2012):

The local Islamic community has partnered with the local United churches for a series of get-togethers and mutual event-making. I attended the first of them. In a later community dinner, lots of hijab ladies brought in a whack of ethnic foods and welcomed the broader community to tuck in at the prayer centre. The first event wasn't a religious seminar, and it wasn't a live-zoo, it was just locals getting to know each other -- and asking and answering questions. I was surprised to learn how much 'community service' is done by the Islamic community, and how easily the two believer communities mingled. It seemed to me that the prototypical Canadian virtues of hospitality, mutual-aid, tolerance and peaceful order were in play.

Gee, Greg, maybe he's concerned with broader issues, not just his personal productivity. This is something you're purblind to. Greg is indulging himself in raw insult. It is important to him to denigrate discussion partners who disagree with him. It's a kind of feminized leftist affectation, by which Greg adopts the Queenly Knowingness Gambit: he is smarter, more productive, more effective, more holy, more imbued with virtue ... he is Queen of Capitalism and Royal Highness of Productivity. He has a magical pony called Jesus, and a magical in-dwelling all-seeing-eye. Through some kind of post-modern feminine navel-gazing, the Royal Moralist believes he sees into other men's souls. It would be funny if it weren't so sadly irrational. Weak, lazy, bigoted thinking ... a lot more like the feminized left 'reality is what I say it is' epistemology than the hard, manly work of inquiry. It is striking how bitchy and personal Greg gets with people he has no personal knowledge of -- it's a mark of his sloppy habits of mind. The moment a defect in his thinking is highlighted, out come the claws ...

That's the first I've read about the CIA throwing resources behind the 'abstract art' movement. Any clues for the curious? ___________ -- scratch that query. I did an elementary search and discovered that my knowledge of the art world is even smaller than I thought.

I fixed my eyes on it and saw the vaguest outline of a figure ... then I fiddled with brightness and contrast, hoping to see Casper.

The fifth image is displaying just fine on your screen. It may appear to you to be blank, but it's not. [...] "In fact, I'm quite surprised that no one appears to have any curiosity about the realistic/representational image in question 4. I think it is quite clever. Can no one here see what it is, or figure out a very simple way to see what it is?!!! The more that you know about visuals, imagery, and the manipulation of images, the more comprehensible and clear you should be able to see the image. It's worth the little effort that would be needed! It's got some good humor to it!" The fifth image, with contrast enhanced: Looks a lot like the painting "Elizabeth Throckmorton, by Nicolas De Largilliere:

I'm pretty agnostic on the values of so-called natural remedies. Most are if not health-enhancing, at least neutral in effect, and are in some instances just a step away from eating the plant in the decoction, thus straddling nutrition/medicine. If oranges are good for vitamin C, why not a German multinational pharmaceutical company's 'natural' product line of Rose Hip? It mostly don't hurt. I choose not to supplement and simply eat a balanced diet that gives me what I think I need for optimum health. My biggest skeptical roadblock goes up when natural remedies are peddled as cures or preventatives in place of rational, evidence-based medicine. I strongly agree that big pharma sins in its marketing to doctors. There is real sleaze there and also but to a lesser degree in TV and print consumer-targeted ads. In a smaller way various sleazebags and quacks and vegan progressives oversell their generally-considered-safe pills and nostrums (supplements). Even Dr Oz is not free from the sleaze of over-promotion of "health products" on shaky evidentiary grounds. I'm pretty sure you read Blaylock with a chaw of skepticism in your cheek. He has his own lengthy entry at Skeptic Dictionary's "Abracadabra to Zombies" ... makes me think of that book How We Know What Isn't So. Brant, here's an interesting bit of recent scientific reporting on newborn immune systems, from Science Daily:

I am taking Jerry's advice to watch the Infowars video. The first major distortion comes at 3:20. The presenter, Rob Dew, puts up on screen a study published in Vaccine -- "Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies." Dew says, "Basically, what this has done is three doctors looked at fifteen-twenty different studies that all said vaccines are safe. so then they came up with the same conclusion that vaccines were safe." This is, as perusing the study itself shows, bullshit. The conclusion was that vaccines were not associated with autism, not that vaccines are safe (vaccines are not 100% without adverse effects). Dew's spin is that one of the authors of the study "admits that two of his children had adverse reactions to vaccines, one of them very serious, yet he still vaccinated his third child. This is because of the intense programming that doctors go under by this Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundation funded medicine paradigm which is 'only vaccines, only prescription drugs, that is the only thing that can save you, herbal remedies don't work, vitamins don't work, nothing else works unless it came from a Rockefeller Foundation company or a Carnegie Foundation company, okay, and those are the big pharma companies that exist now -- these chemical giants that don't want anything out there natural, they have to synthesize everything because they are afraid of natural competition." -- later in the video Dew directs us to a blog posting at ActivistPost that lists "22 Medical Studies That Show Vaccines Can Cause Autism. The only problem is that the studies cited do not exist in a vacuum. They are not without critics. They are not the be-all and end-all by any means. All in all, the reporting/editorial is sloppy, tendentious, biased and reliant on a one-eyed reading of research. I sort of understand now how Jerry gets off the rational track. A video can seem compelling and even bristling with 'truthiness,' while close inspection reveals flaws. Jerry, let us celebrate that smallpox was a serious disease, a scourge. Was. PS -- I did read the entire 1862 speech of anti-vaccinationist (and anti-medicine) R T Trall, as suggested by you, Jerry. In return, I hope you give the entire study first noted by Dew a thorough read.

Why, Jerry? Why should anyone here bother themselves with Alex Jones and Co as you do? This is a bit murky. What poison or poisons are you talking about? What studies have you cracked to make such conclusions? The information in this video should not be banned, but it certainly can be countered with criticism. I don't understand your martyr irony here. Think for yourself, yes. And assemble the evidence you can trust -- or that you have independently analyzed, yes. Be skeptical of authority, yes -- within reason. What viral disease would you choose over the vaccination? I assume you were vaccinated as a child against smallpox. I assume you were vaccinated for polio. It beggars belief to think that you would rather have smallpox or polio than be vaccinated ... You have an idea that 'the treatment for the virus' is worse that the virus. This is also unclear. Does it mean the treatment is vaccination? Because if that is what you mean, you probably don't understand that a vaccination is not a 'treatment' for a disease, but a preventative measure that confers immunity. Think about it: you did not get smallpox, and you did not get polio, and you can't "give back" your vaccination. If you think that what you endured because of your smallpox and polio vaccination -- whatever the reaction was, I bet you cannot remember it -- then you are contrasting dangerous viral disease with the vaccine effects (or side effects). So, are you really arguing that getting polio or smallpox is better than being protected against polio or smallpox? If so, I think it is a poor argument. OK. I hope I don't catch what you have.