Comment by pdabbadabba | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pdabbadabba | Hacker News Reader

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Why isn't enough to just say you don't like it? That's fine. You don't have to. What is tiring here, to me, is all of the completely idle and evidence-free speculation about why other people merely "say" that they like it. I promise you: I really do like it. And it's not just because I want to be part of a club. (And I assure you that there are plenty of popular/fashionable artists that I don't like.)

Maybe you could put forward some specific reasons that you don't like Picasso's work, instead of just accusing others of being sheeple for disagreeing with you?

To put my money where my mouth is, a bit, here are some things that I think make Picasso great, other than their relationship to other works and art history more broadly:

1. Picasso's best cubist portraits move away from representing people just as they look and make an attempt to communicate what it might feel like to be a person in all of its inner deformity and (for some) turmoil.

2. He synthesized traditional iconography (especially the Bull) onto modern art in a way that illustrates (and creates) the continuity between modern culture and more ancient ones.

3. Particularly in works like Guernica, Picasso's composition makes me feel--if only dimply--an appropriate sense of sense of (in the case of Guernica) chaos and terror.

Picasso's paintings are, to me, very emotionally expressive. That (again, to me) is more important than how "realistic" a painting is.

I've seen a bazillion highly realistic paintings that are so emotionally flat. The technique in them can be impressive, but otherwise they tend to be both unimaginative and emotionally hollow.

Even more extreme than Picasso in the "it takes no skill to make this" (apprently) but conveying real feeling is Jackson Pollock.

Lots of people will look at Picasso and Pollock and say "my 5 year old kid could do this" -- and there's something to that, as children's art tends to be more fresh and expressive than art made by trained adults -- but kids don't do either (unless they've seen and try to emulate Picasso or Pollock). Neither do adults.

It took Picasso and Pollock to come up with art like that. Same with Malevich's Black Square and Duchamp's Fountain, which are also about as simple as art gets, but things like that weren't considered art before, and it took these artists to make us look at the world in a different way and stretch the boundary of what art could be.

John Cage's work with randomness in music is yet another good example. His compositions could sound awful or boring, and I personally don't like them -- but why must music be something that we like? Can't we appreciate and value music that isn't pleasing?

The paintings of Francis Bacon and Goya are similar -- pretty "ugly" stuff.. but to me they speak the truth about the ugly/horrible side of life that is valuable to look at.

At their best, such artists open our eyes and ears to the world around us and let us see it in a fresh way that we might not have appreciated before.

> Can't we appreciate and value music that isn't pleasing?

This is an oxymoronic sentence.

Only if you think appreciation and value is synonymous with what is pleasant. I don't.

Malevich's Black Square is not pleasing to me, but I value and appreciate it for expanding the boundaries of art. Same with John Cage's music. What's so oxymoronic about that?

> Why isn't enough to just say you don't like it? That's fine. You don't have to. What is tiring here, to me, is all of the completely idle and evidence-free speculation about why other people merely "say" that they like it.

Imagine every once in a while there's the same man screaming on a busy street you frequent. Most people around you watch and comment on the beauty of the man and his actions.

After a while of ignoring it and moving on with your day, you eventually have to stop and say "what the fuck are you all talking about?"

Everyone looks at you like you're crazy.

"You know, that man was a child prodigy. He mastered classic singing styles and is now showing off his abstract work"

"You don't have to get it. I find it powerful."

"Art is art. It's playful. He's expressing his emotions. Not everything has to fit in the lines."

The man continues to scream. You comment, "My 5 year old does this every day. Why is this special?" You're desperately looking for answers. Maybe there's something you're missing.

"I doubt your 5 year old could scream like this."

"There are millions of 5 year olds. Only one of Him."

The man continues to scream.

You've illustrated the point. If you say "I don't like it" and move on or "What do you like about it?" then we have a mature discussion and everyone is content.

If you get aggressive and say "what the fuck are you all talking about" and act like you're superior and noticing the emperor has no clothes, then you're being an asshole and no one will want to give you any respect.

> The man continues to scream. You comment, "My 5 year old does this every day. Why is this special?" You're desperately looking for answers. Maybe there's something you're missing.

Okay — but outside your narrative, people can tell the difference. Even when the labels are reversed.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761140091...

And preliminary work suggests machines can as well.

https://cs230.stanford.edu/projects_fall_2019/reports/262372...

So, in your analogy, it’s because everyone but you is paying attention to the words and style of the man screaming — which is quite unlike your child’s tantrum. And you’re blinded to that by your own biases.

Picasso has huge variance in his output IMO. He has a ton of shit. He has a ton of pure genius.

So beyond I can grief.

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