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We live in a big world with so many skilled people that it's much harder to stand out.

https://www.artrenewal.org/

I had a chance to hear David Stork present his counter arguments to the 'Secret Knowledge' theory expoused by David Hockney and Charles Falco. He was focusing on Van Dyke, who's work is not as objectively realistic as Vermeer. His two main pieces of evidence were:
1. If you attempt to re-create the perspective in the a Van Dyke painting in the computer, it never quite lines up with spacial reality, even accounting for the distortions of the lenses or mirrors which might have been used to project the or image the scene.
2. If you put a capable artist to the task, they can create a highly realist scene, with better geometric accuracy than the 15-16th century artists using no optical aids whatsoever.

Vermeer is definitely a standout. I don't believe that any of his contemporaries were producing work remotely similar to what he was doing. So I almost believe he might have had something up his sleeve. It is know that he took a really long time to complete a painting. I wonder if he could have used optical techniques out in the open, and it would have been so unusual that others wouldn't have even understood what he was doing, and so not think it worth noting it down.

Check Out the counter-arguments at : http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2003/Hockney_Refuted/hockney1.php
(Warning: drawings of naked people done without optical aids)

That 99 out of 100 times, anyone who speaks of making a 'statement' with their 'art' falls into most of the following categories:

1. Leftist.
2. Repeating cliche, trite ideas dressed up with a college sophomore's verbiage.
3. Incompetent at creating aesthetically pleasing work.
4. Using the 'statement' angle to try to get an audience for their work even though item 3 applies.
5. The 'art' in question, as a consequence of all of the above, is ugly and absurdly abstract*.
6. If you point out that the 'artist' is juvenile and incompetent, and the art is ugly, the 'you don't get it' scam is applied.

This statement nonsense is a long standing pattern with 'modern' art. Actual art speaks for itself.

No one who creates quality work that stands on it's own needs to tie themselves up with nonsense about 'statements.'

Only hacks with no skill or talent ever speak of 'statement' and 'art' in the same breath.

*(Picasso and many other famous abstract artists were accomplished Classical painters before they turned abstract. This solid base of skill gave them the tools to create aesthetically pleasing abstract pieces.)

Just recently, an art teacher was suspended and may be fired for *recommending* to his *high school* students that they *consider* attending life drawing classes outside of school.

http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2003/Best_of_AR C/best1.asp?msg=716&forumID=56

So what would happen to an art-related site that has nudity, either in the form of art or reference for art? Should it be forced to use .xxx? I bet some people woud think so, but many of us would object.

"Fred Ross, Chairman of the Art Renewal Center, addressed a crowd of over 700 portrait artists, gallery owners and members of the press today at America's premier institution of art, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, at the American Society of Portrait Artists (ASOPA) Conference. Mr Ross was interrupted at least 10 times to thunderous applause or peals of laughter, as he blasted Modernism and its chief icons, Picasso, Mattisse and DeKooning, with some of the most biting, yet truthful satire that has ever been heard in those sanctified halls."

"Fred Ross, Chairman of the Art Renewal Center, addressed a crowd of over 700 portrait artists, gallery owners and members of the press today at America's premier institution of art, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, at the American Society of Portrait Artists (ASOPA) Conference. Mr Ross was interrupted at least 10 times to thunderous applause or peals of laughter, as he blasted Modernism and its chief icons, Picasso, Mattisse and DeKooning, with some of the most biting, yet truthful satire that has ever been heard in those sanctified halls."

"Fred Ross, Chairman of the Art Renewal Center, addressed a crowd of over 700 portrait artists, gallery owners and members of the press today at America's premier institution of art, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, at the American Society of Portrait Artists (ASOPA) Conference. Mr Ross was interrupted at least 10 times to thunderous applause or peals of laughter, as he blasted Modernism and its chief icons, Picasso, Mattisse and DeKooning, with some of the most biting, yet truthful satire that has ever been heard in those sanctified halls."

"Fred Ross, Chairman of the Art Renewal Center, addressed a crowd of over 700 portrait artists, gallery owners and members of the press today at America's premier institution of art, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, at the American Society of Portrait Artists (ASOPA) Conference. Mr Ross was interrupted at least 10 times to thunderous applause or peals of laughter, as he blasted Modernism and its chief icons, Picasso, Mattisse and DeKooning, with some of the most biting, yet truthful satire that has ever been heard in those sanctified halls."

Would you consider that art or not (Jackson Pollock)?

No, Pollock wasn't art. It was crap. The 20th century art world was high-jacked by idiotic critics that proclaimed that everything before was drivel.

"For over 90 years, there has been a concerted and relentless effort to disparage, denigrate and obliterate the reputations, names, and brilliance of the academic artistic masters of the late 19th Century. Fueled by a cooperative press, the ruling powers have held the global art establishment in an iron grip. Equally, there was a successful effort to remove from our institutions of higher learning all the methods, techniques and knowledge of how to train skilled artists. Five centuries of critical data was nearly thrown into the trash. It is incredible how close Modernist theory, backed by an enormous network of powerful and influential art dealers, came to acquiring complete control over thousands of museums, university art departments and journalistic art criticism."

If you want to be an artist, be an artist...don't throw paint at a canvas and say "I'm a genius!".

Want to know a little more why I'm pissed off? Go to Art Renewal Center and look around. Art should speak to you right from the start.

I'm sick of it. The 20th century was hijacked by the art critics and lead everyone into believing that the crap that Pollock and Picasso made was "art".

Take a good, long look at this website http://www.artrenewal.org/index.html

It used to take years and years of training, copying from the masters, learning space and form, learning perspective etc etc. But when you see people paying $100,000 for a blank canvas because some critic said it was important, then it's time for us to stand up and say enough is enough!