[monochrome]

I would love to live in any of the homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Chris

I actually contemplated buying the wonderful 'middle-class home' example about half a mile from here. It is southern cypress with some red brick and uses 60 and 120 degree angles extensively. Even the beds are angular. Virtually nothing horizontal is square.

However it is so historic (it is entirely as built, including all the FLW-designed furnishings) that the owner and preservationists were pushing for some form of easement or trust. They were actually insufferable about it and we backed off and bought a regular house.

Five years later a non-profit was established, the house and 10 1/2 acres transferred to the County Parks and it is saved for posterity.

ADDED RE: Livability: the house is clearly livable. The design was commissioned by a newly-married couple in 1948 and construction substantially completed in 1956. The design is fundamentally open plan other than bedrooms and uses substantial glass, enclosed, semi-enclosed and open outdoor spaces on a single level that flow into each other. The house feels as if it is part of the surrounding landscape, and that one is living in the landscape rather than separated from it. severalsnakes above made relevant comments about appreciating art in context.

The original owners lived there for 55 years, until the house was transferred to the non-profit.

I don't think we ultimately would have been happy raising three children there, but it sure was fun to come close to owning a Frank Lloyd Wright house!

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Last edited by monochrome; 01-08-2016 at 08:30 AM.

[Canada_Rockies]

I would love to live in any of the homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Chris

You might think you would like to, but from the reviews I ran into while living in Chicago, they might work as art, but they don't live well.

[boriscleto]

It's nice we have Besson to slap them back in their place.

Of course it's all luck - Henri Cartier-Bresson

[severalsnakes]

As part-time professor of art history, I definitely think knowing where the art came from, how it developed, and how it fit into its place in history REALLY enhances your ability to appreciate it. You can look at something like Jackson Pollock's drip paintings out of context and call it "bad art", but you don't know the whole story.

@micromacro 's reference to his acquaintance who admitted "I don't understand it" hits the right spot, for me.

Edited: for clarification

[Murfy]

You might think you would like to, but from the reviews I ran into while living in Chicago, they might work as art, but they don't live well.

the two I have been in were very tiny. I am not a big person, 5'6" and 130pounds , and hallways and stairs were very narrow for me. but someone does live in one of houses I toured, I believe during the winter months. you can't be tall or wide, that is for sure.

[Rupert]

I doubt I could effectively describe the color "orange" to Stevie Wonder.

I asked Otis about "art" since he is the resident World Acclaimed art critic here......and he said "Show me some naked girls and I'll tell you all about it!"

He did however, say that squirrels know a lot about orange....



I claim no knowledge of "art".....you all know that already. I would be more defensive of "sharpness" if I got more sharp shots.......but I don't.

Having lived a lot longer than I expected...or anyone else expected I would....I will say that in life I have learned that "success" often depends as much on Lady Luck as it does knowledge and hard work. I could write a pretty thick book with examples of just that.

Regards!

[luftfluss]

As part-time professor of art history, I definitely think knowing where the art came from, how it developed, and how it fit into its place in history REALLY enhances your ability to appreciate it. You can look at something like Jackson Pollock's drip paintings out of context and call it "bad art", but you don't know the whole story.

I agree. A great artist will either be the culmination of his/her era, or transcend it.

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Last edited by luftfluss; 01-07-2016 at 10:33 PM.

[Quartermaster James]

With respect, I actually disagree with that. I'd say "art is what it is". You can like it, dislike it or be indifferent. It doesn't change the art, and doesn't make it "good" or "bad" (which is completely subjective)... Example - my photography, and more recently, my graphically-artistic photography (unrefined though it may be!!) is "my art". I'm not trying to get away with anything, it's just what I produced through photography as an artistic outlet. You and/or others may or may not like it, but it is what it is. Now, some artists may have different motives - specifically, commercial - but it doesn't change the fact that art is art.

No respect required. I stole that from Marshall McLuhan, also of "the medium is the message" fame.

And I don't read anything in the rest of your post that I regard as disagreeing with the sentiment.

Except, perhaps, a pejorative take on the phrase "get away."

Art is just about the only thing I know of that really has no rules. Do your own thing. If someone else calls it art, then you "got away" with it. If not, it's still art.
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Postscript: after writing the above, it struck me that any of us here discussing photography as art have all "gotten away" with it. Or, at the very least, benefit from those who did. It is not so very long ago that the idea of photography as art was highly contentious and debatable.

[luftfluss]

No disrespect to the OP, but... Damn, that's some come-back, LOL

I mean... as photographers - or at least as picture-takers - aren't we continually training ourselves (intentionally or not) not only to see but to also see into things? See the shapes, see the textures, see how the subject interacts with it's environment? That's practically a mantra of FLW's designs. How can one not see the brilliant creativity?

Of course some of his houses are more art than home, but those have their place, too, similar to how a concept car relates to a future model.

[arnold]

Of course, all art is subjective, and there's no point in arguing what is and isn't "art" or what is "good" or "bad" or "better" art - you are getting into the part of the brain where faith lives, and there's no reasoning there.

While this is the overwhelming general opinion, there is an objective way of judging art. This is a philosophical issue, so requires some effort to grasp it. Let me quote someone in this regard:

"By a selective re-creation, art isolates and integrates those aspects of reality which represent man’s fundamental view of himself and of existence. Out of the countless number of concretes—of single, disorganized and (seemingly) contradictory attributes, actions and entities—an artist isolates the things which he regards as metaphysically essential and integrates them into a single new concrete that represents an embodied abstraction.
For instance, consider two statues of man: one as a Greek god, the other as a deformed medieval monstrosity. Both are metaphysical estimates of man; both are projections of the artist’s view of man’s nature; both are concretized representations of the philosophy of their respective cultures."
What is being said here, is that in art, we put our mental view of life, into a physical form. If you reverse the process, you have insight into the artists mind. For example, what do you think of the mind of the artist of Piss Christ? Can you have an objective opinion of that mind, or is everything subjective and not to be judged?

[THoog]

For example, what do you think of the mind of the artist of Piss Christ? Can you have an objective opinion of that mind, or is everything subjective and not to be judged?

Any opinion I have is colored by my own tastes and mores. My opinion of the the work itself is that it a clumsy effort to gain notoriety using shock and an easy target, making me think the artist is rather lazy and attention-seeking. This is probably more negative than a truly objective opinion could be.

[BigMackCam]

While this is the overwhelming general opinion, there is an objective way of judging art. This is a philosophical issue, so requires some effort to grasp it. Let me quote someone in this regard:

"By a selective re-creation, art isolates and integrates those aspects of reality which represent man’s fundamental view of himself and of existence. Out of the countless number of concretes—of single, disorganized and (seemingly) contradictory attributes, actions and entities—an artist isolates the things which he regards as metaphysically essential and integrates them into a single new concrete that represents an embodied abstraction.
For instance, consider two statues of man: one as a Greek god, the other as a deformed medieval monstrosity. Both are metaphysical estimates of man; both are projections of the artist’s view of man’s nature; both are concretized representations of the philosophy of their respective cultures."
What is being said here, is that in art, we put our mental view of life, into a physical form. If you reverse the process, you have insight into the artists mind. For example, what do you think of the mind of the artist of Piss Christ? Can you have an objective opinion of that mind, or is everything subjective and not to be judged?

I do understand that argument, but I don't personally subscribe to it. Unless the viewer has at their disposal a definitive account of the artists' intentions, inspirations, perceptions, emotions etc. when creating the piece, I really don't think he / she can truly judge the piece objectively - there will always be the viewer's interpretation, assumptions, emotions etc. involved in their judgement. That's just my view, of course

---------- Post added 01-08-2016 at 02:04 PM ----------

Any opinion I have is colored by my own tastes and mores.

Actually, Todd basically said exactly what I meant - and in far fewer words (you'll never be a professional art critic, Todd - not wordy enough!! ).

[normhead]

My projection would be that over the million of years of evolution that shaped the development of human perception, triggers have developed in the human mind, certain shapes patterns etc. wake us up, and stimulate us. Those being sequences locked into genetic based sequences of perception.

AN example would be water falls. The water at the bottom of waterfalls is aerated, has just been exposed to light and is likely cleaner and healthier to drink than stagnant pond water. There would be an evolutionary advantage to being drawn to waterfalls. There is no evolutionary advantage to having pictures of them hanging on our walls, but we can still stimulate the waterfall trigger by walking by a picture of one every day. The same with Rupert's naked girls, even though he chooses to use Otis as a surrogate spokesperson for that particular stimulation.

Art is something that stimulates one of those unconscious triggers.

Painters express those unconscious triggers on canvas, photographers have to be aware of when they experience them and try and capture the visual source of the trigger in an image.

So I would argue that to understand art, you have to understand your response to it almost as an observer. Call it the "meditators and self awareness approach to art" as opposed to the " understanding art by analyzing it" approach to art.

[gaweidert]

In college I had an art professor who believed that photography is not an art. He also believed that engineers (This was at Rochester institute of Technology) could never appreciate art.

Henri Cartier Bresson tried to capture the decisive moment in any action. To him sharpness was not a concern.

I had a photograph published in a book titled "Perception and Photography" by Richard Zakia. I am in there with photographs by Richard Avedon, Edward Weston, Henri Cartier Bresson, my hero William Henry Jackson and a host of other very good photographers. It was to show something and is in no way a good photograph other than it illustrates a point.

The book went through several editions changing it's title to Perception and Imaging. It expanded the concept with each edition. It addresses the psychology of an image and the many complexities that go into how we look at things. Pretty interesting stuff. BTW I think I got into the original edition because I called the author Uncle Dick. Of course I want to keep that little item a secret. As for the rest of the world, I am published with some of the greats!!!!!

[Canada_Rockies]

My personal taste for visual art is more photographic than impressionistic, but I can appreciate the Group of Seven's works or Emily Carr's works, even if I personally would not buy either. If the piece has emotional content, in my mind it is art. If it has none, It is not, and is a con job in the same category as the Emperor's New Clothes.