Featured New game: Yea or Nay?

Thanks, Brad. Thanks for managing this whole thread. I feel it has really offered our "community" here an opportunity to share ourselves with each other in a special way.
Onwards!

 

Thanks Gila
Upside down really let's you see if a painting works from a composition point of view as well as giving a new slant so to speak.
I also sculpt and look at a piece in all sorts of light, candle, torch, day, flourescent etc to see if it works and to see errors. Funny thing with sculpture is that I can see photos of sculpture work by another artist and like it and then actually see it in the real and not like it. Vice versa too, didn't think I'd like Jacometti stick woman sculpture but thought they were terrific when I went to an exhibition.

 

All good ideas and points, Houseful!
We kinda think alike!
STILL no offense.

 

None taken!!

 

Thanks, Brad. Thanks for managing this whole thread. I feel it has really offered our "community" here an opportunity to share ourselves with each other in a special way.

Well put, Gila. Thanks, Brad. Keep 'em coming!

 

Thank you!

 

Pair #8

Painting A: 24" x 12"


Painting B: 24 x 18

 

First Pair

Painting A: I like the birds, and I like the background; but I'm not wild about them together. It seems like the size of the birds is disproportionate to everything else. I like the concept of someone's spoiled picnic being enjoyed by the birds, though.
Painting B: I find this disturbing, and am actually a little repulsed by it. Maybe it's because it seems to symbolize some sort of trauma, or my cluttered brain.

 

A. I like this very much. The figure is important for the scale and to lead the eye to the arch in the rock. Is there a hole in the sky or is it a damaged cloud? If it's a hole in the sky I like it more, a world beyond the sky.
B. Looks a bit Dali - ish, like it too but not as much as A. Composition rather stilted.

 

Talking about pair #8 BTW

 

Pair #8

My first observation of this pair is the use of lines to create distance.

Painting A: Seems to have a soul-searching quality to it. I get a message about walking a straight line along a crooked path, or pier, to reach one's desires and what lies beyond (the arched pinnacle).

Painting B: Strikes me as Daliesque. I like the painting, but it is pretty stark and foreboding. While painting A appears to invite me to walk the path, painting B makes me want to turn around and go home.

 

Our brains must work in the same way, Brenda.

While B is definitely in the surrealism category, A looks borderline to me. (And btw - I know I have seen image B before, probably on eBay back in the time before we all left to come here. And my brain is telling me it's not just Dali-ish, but by Dali. Now maybe that's because someone else claimed it is, but was later disproven, so it will be interesting to see if my memory is accurate when Brad "reveals all.")

I see A as more "fantastical" than surreal, but I do find it fascinating - drawing me in to walk the crooked path to the "city gate?" in the distance. I imagine that is his dog accompanying him.

B, on the other hand, has that skull on a pole and the landscape is desolate. Warning! Danger! Don't come here!

 

No dog in A. I thought this pic should have been enlargeable but guess not. Here is a closer detail.


Not Dali' nor ever attributed to him for painting B. Remember, no very famous artists for the pairs.

 

Corrected on both counts, Brad!

 

Pair #8... here we go...

Painting A. A rather dubious Utopia... stark, but lofty, offering a passage that suggests a big transition, probably a positive one. A lone walker is making his/her way with apparent purposefulness, following a wide, clear path across traversing shifting/vague/confusing territory. Bright, primary colors, giving a sense of hope, but not pinning down the nature of the hope, allowing viewers to project their own journeys/hopes/needs onto the canvas. Murky edges to the horizon avoid giving us a too-predictable or sophomoric Utopia, though, so there's room to easy or instant Heaven here. I feel that there's really nothing to dislike here. Nice panorama. I could spend some time enjoying it.

Painting B. Well... "Utopia" has been hung out to dry. The sky is verdant, but nothing else is! Spider web (and no spider)... those hanging things make me think of dried meats or jerky... the mutant skull (what is that thing? A saber-tooth duck?) on the post... a few other odd objects... and stalagtites, stalagmites? Overall, the content is stark, BUT... there's a certain vibrancy, or life to the scene, for me. Compositions like this are tricky... a little too much "drama" and they can be sophomoric... like the over-the-top stuff I used to enjoy painting in order to horrify or confound people. But this painting stops short of that. It has a message, for me, of loss, and caution, but also, of simplification and reflection. ALMOST an Existential place.

Compare and Contrast of the two?
I think they go well together. A dubious Heaven and a dubious Hell. I don't think one overwhelms or fights with the other.
As some of you may know, I have a very minimalist idea of décor. One focal point per room, roughly. And I don't need any more. I wouldn't buy either for myself. SO... in order to "play" our game more fully, I like to imagine... for whom I WOULD buy a painting, or to whom I might show the painting(s), to see if THEY might like to purchase them, or receive as gifts, whatever.
In this case, I'd show the pair to a friend of mine who's still living out west, and who is a very devout Catholic BUT also an activist as far as questioning doctrines about birth control, LGBT Catholics, handling of sexual abuse by clergy... See where I'm going with this? I believe she'd appreciate the complementary yet polar energy and tension these two pieces provide.
Man, I know I'm wordy but... this thread is a rapture for me... somebody is actually asking what I think about art!!!!

 

Don't have time to say a lot, so here's my $0.0002 worth...

8A - I kind of like it, but it wouldn't fit in my home.

8B - Don't like it at all.

 

Surprised that there were not more comments about these. I see both paintings as portraying a journey. As someone pointed out, they both use lines in the same way to direct your eye and symbolize a pathway. Technique is different between the two paintings but both artist's are accomplished.

In painting A, I see a passage to another realm. There is a clear gateway ahead with something more beyond. It is symbolic of our passage through life. I don't get any sense of disappointment or expectations for better beyond the arch. Neither realm is more attractive than the other. There is a sense of the unknown and it allows you to impart your own meaning to the scene. If this had been more literal, I think it could have come across as pandering.

In painting B, I get the sense of moving through and away from desolation. In this sense, there is an essence of hope portrayed even though you don't really know what one is moving toward. You just get the sense that it has to be better than what exists now. I don't necessarily see this as an analogy for a life journey. It seems more like a psychological or spiritual journey to me. It is more about desolation of the soul.

 

I think that A is the better of the 2 pictures, both technically and in terms of understanding the zeitgeist of surrealism. What is that thing in the sky? I look at it and think it's representing some sort of apotheosis.

The second picture looks more amateurish to me: an attempt at surrealism by someone who just thought it ought to look weird. Not so much the expression of an idea as a conglomerate of incongruous imagery.

 

What do you (any/all) think as far as the pairing of the two... for me, that was a bit of redemption for both, as I wrote. A compare/contrast of style, skill, expertise... but providing a sort of polar "pairing"... dubious heaven, dubious hell... or dubious utopia, dubious lost world... dubious yin, dubious yang... as a pair, I thought they were entertaining somehow.