You mention Da Vinci as a great artist but you don't mention if he was a decent person---what we are discussing. You can be a true renaissance man and still be a SOB.

From the reading I've done, Leonardo was quite the SOB. IIRC, his mother was an unwed mother, and his father was of the higher social class. His father never acknowledged him as his son. Not to excuse his insufferable arrogance, but that has to scar a person. I'm sure growing up in that religious environment, people weren't too nice to him either. Especially in that era. He dismissed Michelangelo as just a sculptor.

Visionary genius, but I sure wouldn't buy him a beer.

Robert

Hey thanks, ROBAYOKO. all flowers are appreciated, even if i think they are undeserved. I struggled alone for so long to be a blacksmith, trying get enough money to pay the bills. that i never really considered attempting to do the ART thing. I did learn to stroke the big ego type of clients. Let them think their ideas were super! And i would be glad to work FOR them. "Pay to the order of" the finest five words in the English language. I once saw a basketball floating in a fish tank in the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York. ART!

I once saw a basketball floating in a fish tank in the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York. ART!

All art is quite useless.
Oscar Wilde

I much preferred the cow that had been sawed in half and encased in Lucite over the basketball.

A previous post caused me to run out and buy an old urinal to set up on my property line as a fountain. That`s sure to xxxx the neighbors off.

I think I may have to change my name to Art.

Um, Kenny? Is that a urinal laying on its back?

I will never understand Art then because, well, it's a urinal

We have a local craft fair in the next town over and the craft guild has to look over your works and determine if your endeavors are worthy to be shown. Kinda snobby if you ask me. But I'm just a simple man with a simple mind.

No artistic bones in this body. I do enjoy things that took time, patience, imagination and skill to produce.

Just my non artistic opinion.

Mark<><

Really, a urinal? C'mon......or am I just being snobby? :P

One of the older variations of the Dewey decimal system for books had Art as 500 series (I think), but the 600 series that is now technology had the name Useful Art

One of the older variations of the Dewey decimal system for books had Art as 500 series (I think), but the 600 series that is now technology had the name Useful Art

What is useful art?.......mb

If i make steel magnolias, with steel azaelias, as a flower arraingment in a steel bowl. Is it ART because the lover of flowers would know that such a bouquet could never happen in nature, or is craft to make them truly tromp d oily ?

Um, Kenny? Is that a urinal laying on its back?

There was a metamorphosis that had taken place. It was, at one time; when it was vertical, a urinal.
It morphed, at my best guess 90 degrees from its original orientation, into art.
When the object became horizontal, signed "R. Mutt" the transformation was complete, and only philosophically mind you.
It's the idea that changes, not the thing.

Kind of like... at that point when a seizure becomes dance.

magic or bull scat

Kind of like... at that point when a seizure becomes dance.

I am SO stealing that line. That`s just too good to leave behind. :)

I am SO stealing that line. That`s just too good to leave behind.

Why thank you, I am so honored that you would steal from me

The Dada movement did a lot of crazy stuff---like fur lined coffee cups and a sad iron with a row of tacks down the using face. I think some of it was to twit the pretentious ARTISTS of the day, some was to get you to look at daily objects in a different way.

I was told that Salvador Dali called all his students in when he was on his death bed and signed blank canvases for them as a twit to the art world that would massively increase the price on his work after he died with none of that going to the artist himself when he was alive. SD was cool and could work the ART world and still keep his sense of humour!

When in Germany back in the 80's I went to a large exhibition of Salvador Dalis work. Such a range of ideas, but I must admit that after a couple of hours it started to do my head in so had to go and get a large coffee.
If you ever get to glasgow art gallery look for his 'Christ on the cross' a massive piece of work that is hung high on the wall so that you are both looking up at it and down on it at the same time.

...If you ever get to glasgow art gallery look for his 'Christ on the cross' a massive piece of work that is hung high on the wall so that you are both looking up at it and down on it at the same time.

I just watched a BBC documentary on that topic, very controversial painting.I recommend the documentary
Dalí - Christ of St. John of the Cross
Dali` was a revolutionary.

Thanks for the recommendation.