[PenultimateManStanding]

Enough about beheading pictures. Many people like kitsch: pink flamingo lawn ornaments, paintings of Elvis on black velvet, etc.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Thomas Kincaid has made a fortune with his cutesy HallMark Cards kitsch

[PhilBiker]

So far I've enjoyed the PMS art gallery, but I have to draw the line at Kinkade.

[PenultimateManStanding]

I wonder what happened to the Caravaggio and Gentileschi and Klimt versions of Judith and Holofernes? They were there a few hours ago.

[PenultimateManStanding]

OK, I lead in with kitsch because I wanted to show my own paintings which were from a harebrained scheme to make some money. I painted a bout 60 celebrity portraits and took them to the swap-meet to see if they would sell. I had people stopping in all day to check out the collection but nobody bought one. Oh well. Maybe I can sell them on e-bay.

[PenultimateManStanding]

the lovely Charlise Theron

[PenultimateManStanding]

The sexy Jennifer Tilly (I got the subtle pink background by glazing gray over ochre)

[PenultimateManStanding]

Cobain

[PenultimateManStanding]

eminem

[PenultimateManStanding]

Of course I did Presley and Monroe. My kids helped me to pick out names of current pop stars. I did the cast of Friends, Linda Blair with her creepy Exorcist make-up on. The guys at the swap meet said I should raise the prices and show them at a kiosk or something.

[PenultimateManStanding]

The whole Modernist Movement was heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud who was extremely influential a century ago. Much of the impetus to modernism was fueled by his theories about dreams and the structure of the human psyche. Here we see Kandinsky painting his apparently meaningless abstract shapes. Obviously it isn't so abstract if you know how to look at it. There is a story about Picasso and Braque, who invented cubism, that goes like this: Picasso is looking at a painting by Braque and says, 'Why did you put that squirrel in it?' Braque says 'What squirrel?' Picasso says, 'There, that squirrel' and points it out to Braque. Braque then spends many days trying to get rid of the squirrel and then shows it to Picasso. Picasso smiles and says 'its still there.' Non-representational art is strangely revelatory. (of course, what the squirrel revealed is a mystery)

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 't')he shapes are curious sometimes

[PenultimateManStanding]

I think the fact that non-representational paintings are so self-revelatory on the part of the painter is one of the main paradoxes to come to light in that big experiment last century. Of course, it makes artists nervous and so it was abandoned about fifty years ago. Pop Art, Post-Modernism, etc.: they all have cynical disillusionment at their core.

[PenultimateManStanding]

The famous Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso. Its a huge painting that Picasso kept in his studio for several decades because it was too weird to find a buyer. All the avant-garde painters in Paris saw it and were digusted by it. Andre Derain quipped that one day Picasso would be found hanged behind it. Its a good representation of the modernist aesthetic and now hangs in the MOMA in New York City.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Demoiselles d'Alabama: a Post-Modernist satire of the above painting. Sums the situation up nicely.

[PenultimateManStanding]

The little slice of watermelon is a cute touch, don't you think?

[PenultimateManStanding]

But Andre Derain was young and brash when he made his quip. Later his career and creativity stalled while Picasso went on to international stardom. The Spaniard was shrewd. His ladies went insane or committed suicide. All around bad guy and the perfect icon for the end times.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Interestingly, Picasso had a Jewish girlfriend when the Nazis were in Paris. They left her alone. I think Hitler admired Picasso for very subtle and deep reasons.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote The Revolt of The Masses in 1930. Hitler, Picasso, and Stalin along with a host of other European politicians of those days were a phenomenon of rebellion by the petit bourgoise against the old regime of European Culture. Hitler admired Picasso even though he launched a Nazi crusade against 'degenerate art' for many reasons. If there are any art historians in this forum who would debate this point, I would state categorically that Hitler admired Picasso. Makes no difference what Hitler might have said at some point in time, the fact that Dora Maar was unmolested by the Nazis speaks volumns about the truth. Hitler knew what Picasso was up to. He himself had tried to shake his petit bourgoise background by moving to Vienna to become an artist. In those days, art was held in high esteem. He found himself unable to adapt to the nihilism ruling the world of art and made a momentous discovery: the revolutionary, nihilistic spirit was abroad in the land and one could use it make a career out of political agitation. Contempt for humanity was the underlying force as the masses came to the fore. Manipulation and cunning guile to 'herd the sheeple' was the order of the day. Hitler knew full well how Picasso achieved his fame and admired him for it.
http://www.4literature.net/Jose_Ortega_ ... ses/2.html

There exist, then, in society, operations, activities, and functions of the most diverse order, which are of their very nature special, and which consequently cannot be properly carried out without special gifts. For example: certain pleasures of an artistic and refined character, or again the functions of government and of political judgment in public affairs. Previously these special activities were exercised by qualified minorities, or at least by those who claimed such qualification. The mass asserted no right to intervene in them; they realised that if they wished to intervene they would necessarily have to acquire those special qualities and cease being mere mass. They recognised their place in a healthy dynamic social system.

If we now revert to the facts indicated at the start, they will appear clearly as the heralds of a changed attitude in the mass. They all indicate that the mass has decided to advance to the foreground of social life, to occupy the places, to use the instruments and to enjoy the pleasures hitherto reserved to the few. It is evident, for example, that the places were never intended for the multitude, for their dimensions are too limited, and the crowd is continuously overflowing; thus manifesting to our eyes and in the clearest manner the new phenomenon: the mass, without ceasing to be mass, is supplanting the minorities.

No one, I believe, will regret that people are to-day enjoying themselves in greater measure and numbers than before, since they have now both the desire and the means of satisfying it. The evil lies in the fact that this decision taken by the masses to assume the activities proper to the minorities is not, and cannot be, manifested solely in the domain of pleasure, but that it is a general feature of our time. Thus- to anticipate what we shall see later- I believe that the political innovations of recent times signify nothing less than the political domination of the masses. The old democracy was tempered by a generous dose of liberalism and of enthusiasm for law. By serving these principles the individual bound himself to maintain a severe discipline over himself. Under the shelter of liberal principles and the rule of law, minorities could live and act. Democracy and law- life in common under the law- were synonymous. Today we are witnessing the triumphs of a hyperdemocracy in which the mass acts directly, outside the law, imposing its aspirations and its desires by means of material pressure. It is a false interpretation of the new situation to say that the mass has grown tired of politics and handed over the exercise of it to specialised persons. Quite the contrary. That was what happened previously; that was democracy. The mass took it for granted that after all, in spite of their defects and weaknesses, the minorities understood a little more of public problems than it did itself. Now, on the other hand, the mass believes that it has the right to impose and to give force of law to notions born in the cafe. I doubt whether there have been other periods of history in which the multitude has come to govern more directly than in our own. That is why I speak of hyperdemocracy.

[PenultimateManStanding]

every western democracy is only a hair's breadth away from the most ugly political meltdown you can imagine.

[PenultimateManStanding]