Good News Everyone

My ex was an artist and went to art school and all that. She loved pop art and Warhol, and thankfully I asked her to explain a lot of different art to me and what made it art or what made things like the soup can famous and important, and that really helped me start to appreciate more esoteric art and artists.

A lot of us still today think of "fine art" as stuff locked away in rich people's mansions where no one will see it. Back in the day, that was fairly true. The wealthy were the ones that could afford to commission an artist, and then that art was in their homes to entertain guests and to show off. I don't believe art museums were very common, and a lot of non-commissioned art was kept at studios and art schools where other artists could see it and experience the works, but I don't think it was really for the general public a lot of the time.

But people like Warhol saw art could be in everyday items, like the soup can. With graphic design and websites, many of us today can appreciate those things as (hopefully) having great design and what we would consider artistry. People like Warhol were some of the influential individuals at getting us to appreciate art in everyday objects.

One of the craziest things I was taught was that things like Norman Rockwell's famous paintings and magazine covers are not considered fine art, despite the talent and how famous they are. Since they were done for commercial use, they were/are not considered by some to be art.

To myself, and like many of you, we might find that crazy since it is arguable better work than many items we may see in an art museum today. But that is because we live in a time post-Warhol and the like that the majority of us can appreciate it the same as fine art.

The other big thing about Warhol is the embracing of modernity, technology, and mass production. Think of the famous Warhol prints of Marilyn Monroe.

The idea behind things like this is basically: why is there just one, say, Mona Lisa painting? What if you want a really big one for your house? What if you want one in a different color pallete to match your living room set? We have the technology and it is affordable to duplicate or replicate these things, so why should that be unattainable?

And I think that is a wonderful point to make. Art by definition is something that elicits an emotional response in the person viewing that art. If having a painting in a different color makes you happy, why should that be denied? Why should art only be kept and enjoyed by the wealthy?

Pop artistry helps us see emotion and meaning in everyday or affordable objects. It's art that comes to us where we're at, we need not conform ourself to the art. While much of Warhol's work, seeing it decades after it has made its mark, doesn't do all that much to me, I really appreciate its meaning as a movement and its contributions to how we view art today.

It also lets me enjoy a lot more that many non-art people don't consider art, like color studies that most people don't understand why it's art, since any of us could paint the same picture.

Sometimes the painting itself is not what we're supposed to see. Again, it goes back to art being something that causes you to feel something. Look at how the colors look next to other colors. With something like oil paint, look at the effects of different brush strokes or paint textures and how that changes the "vibe". It's just a kind of experiment to see what it brings out of you. And approaching it that way makes something like a bunch of colored squares, random shapes, an off-color Marilyn, or a humble soup can become art.

That's my basic understanding of art anyway. I hope that was helpful to some of you. I'm bored and tired and just felt like talking my story of coming to appreciate art.