you got to get in the mindset that art no longer is meant to be aesthetically pleasing

if your art is conveying the message it's supposed to be, or the theme or initial idea, you're good to go


don't ever strive for beauty in art

SammiJ said:

Cope with what though? We were talking about different things. I know how to handle conceptual art. It's the pure aesthetics that cause trouble sometimes, and that is what I was asking about.

retina said:

thats what I was talking about as well...but nvm.

the only solution like you said is to take a break from the piece for a while. and after that if your still 'blah' about it then maybe its just 'blah' really. and it helps to have someone else or a group take a look at it to get their opinion on what they think about it besides the aesthetics of it. sometimes when a person tells you what they think of when it comes to a certain piece it may help you out a little bit with the visual part.
[Edited 2/8/06 13:34pm]

brownsugar said:

It sounds like you, much like SammiJ, want to weave concept into it as well. I know that the two are often intertwined, but oftentimes I just want to look at the aesthetics in and of itself. I ask that of others too, sometimes. Take my picture on the colour thread ( http://www.prince.org/msg/100/176943 ) for example. That happens to be the door to a bomb shelter and there might be an underlying concept, but with that particular picture what I first and foremost want to know is simply: Is it pretty? Does it please the eye? I don't really want to answer questions about "what it really is".

Anyway, the picture on that thread is actually a pretty good example of a piece that I'm in two minds about (as described above). Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. It seems like it won't allow me to decide (although I'm sure others would be able to do it!).

thats a really nice pic.

why can't you just love it one day and hate it another and be okay with that? it may be the mood your in.

Are you concerned with it pleasing your eye or appearing pretty to others?

It's difficult to be objective with your own work but you're familiar with what constitutes beauty in the established sense and most of us can recognise it when we see it.

brownsugar said:

Thank you!



I guess so, it's just that I'm used to having a consistent feeling about my pictures, which also makes it easier when I have to choose which to include in my portfolio etc. "Untamed" pictures like the one on that thread make me nervous since the reaction they create is so unpredictable. I want to "know" my pictures, if you know what I mean?

Do you have any "untamed" pictures?

LleeLlee said:

My eye.



Well, that's the whole point; I do have my own established sense of what constitutes beauty but sometimes it's suddenly not reliable. I start to wonder if I really think what I'm looking at is beautiful or not. I look at it once and it looks great. Then I look at it again and it looks terrible. It's a weird feeling since I'm so used to having a clear opinion.

LleeLlee said:

My eye.



Well, that's the whole point; I do have my own established sense of what constitutes beauty but sometimes it's suddenly not reliable. I start to wonder if I really think what I'm looking at is beautiful or not. I look at it once and it looks great. Then I look at it again and it looks terrible. It's a weird feeling since I'm so used to having a clear opinion.

SammiJ said:

Well, if you mean that you cope with the beauty problem described above by ignoring it and focusing on the concept (since that's the only thing you care about) then okay, that's...fine.

It just doesn't help me much since I do care about beauty too.

retina said:

When you're looking at anothers work, maybe you're viewing it as how you might have created/designed it if it was yours. You're viewing it as an artist instead of just an art lover. It's easy to pick up on imperfections with somebody elses work when you you're an artist yourself. Try not to look at it with this mindset.

maybe..

Concept and aesthetics can't be separated.

But to answer your question, step away from it and do other things. For me when this happens, it means overkill and it's time to, as they say, "get a life". Talking about myself only, of course.

heartbeatocean said:

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one, my friend.

Yeah, brownsugar said it too (and so did I in the original post) and there's a lot of truth in that. You really do have to leave it for a while sometimes and come back to it later. It's just that sometimes that doesn't work for me either. It almost seems like certain pieces defy categorisation (at least by me) in and of themselves regardless if I've stepped away for a while or not. Usually when this happens I end up scrapping the piece altogether since I can't decide that it's good. But that feels like a waste too. I guess I'll just have to let those pieces sit there and be annoying and uncategorisable.

I worked on a film for three years and every five minutes my opinion of it would vacillate wildly between loathing and love. I really thought I was developing a serious case of schizophrenia. Looking back at that experience, I think it was time to put it on the shelf and walk away from it forever. It was a decent piece with serious flaws that I simply couldn't fix. But I had to finish it to graduate. I also believe in finishing projects I start, so I become extremely tenacious...but glad I stuck it out because once you finish, you're next work comes out leaps and bounds better. It's almost like you need to have a serious, deep cleanse.

Try pulling out some of your other recent work, or maybe some old stuff as well, and look at it beside all of them.

If you know a few other people who are into art as well, maybe invite them over, tell them to bring their work too, open some wine and have some informal critques, crits are one thing I miss the most from my college days, I loved them.

Sometimes it's easier to work on a picture when you give yourself an assignment of sorts. Pretend you're working on a project for someone.

I forget who said it but some photographer broke down artists into two categories, some are mirrors of themselves, others are windows to the world.

LleeLlee said:

Well, this inconsistency in perception that I'm talking about primarily applies to my own work (did you even read the thread, Llee? ) so it's not really about taking on the wrong "role", I think. And it's not really a matter of picking on imperfections but rather a loss of ability to decide if it even has imperfections or not. It just slips away and refuses to be labeled as "beautiful" or "not beautiful" sometimes.

There's a scene in the movie Basquiat (maybe you've seen it) where Basquiat keeps making changes to Andy Warhol's work and every time he does it Warhol goes "ooh, yes, that's probably better...or is it? I don't even know how I feel about it anymore". That's how I feel sometimes, although I'm the one making changes to my own work.

heartbeatocean said:

True. I love to finish what I started. It's so rewarding and as you say, it can be quite cathartic. I too have made a number of films so I know exactly what you're talking about. And all the compromises you have to make along the way....gosh I'm so happy when I reach the end of it sometimes!

These days it can sometimes be quite hard to really reach the real end of creative projects though. Take my photography for example. A number of years ago a picture was a picture. You could tint it and crop it slightly when you developed it, but that was pretty much that. Now that we have digital photography and Photoshop and such things, the process never ends! There are just so many possibilities out there to explore that you find it almost possible to make a final decision that this is the product and it's final. I don't know how many times I've tweaked my latest pictures in a thousand different ways. It's crazy...

Same thing goes for film, if not even more so. Remember when you'd actually edit 16 and 35 on a Moviola or similar? Then when you cut the film, you actually cut it! You'd better make sure that cut was a good one or you'd have to paste it back together! Digital editing has changed all that, for better and for worse.

You know, you look at a piece of art - your own or someone else's - and you suddenly just can't tell if it's aesthetically appealing or not (even though you normally have a very clear opinion)? Usually this happens to me when I look at my own stuff - especially if I've been working on it for too long and made a gazillion little changes - but sometimes it can happen when I look at other stuff too that I haven't been "proximity-blinded" by.

How do you snap out of it? Is it always possible to do that? Is there a sense of style inherent in you that you can always return to or are there certain items that somehow seem to defy aesthetic judgment no matter if you step back and "rest your eyes" before going back to it or not?



There, I've changed the title to make it more clear.

I don't know much about art, but I KNOW what I like

(I went to art school )

You know, you look at a piece of art - your own or someone else's - and you suddenly just can't tell if it's aesthetically appealing or not (even though you normally have a very clear opinion)? Usually this happens to me when I look at my own stuff - especially if I've been working on it for too long and made a gazillion little changes - but sometimes it can happen when I look at other stuff too that I haven't been "proximity-blinded" by.

How do you snap out of it? Is it always possible to do that? Is there a sense of style inherent in you that you can always return to or are there certain items that somehow seem to defy aesthetic judgment no matter if you step back and "rest your eyes" before going back to it or not?



There, I've changed the title to make it more clear.
[Edited 2/8/06 12:56pm]





i dont ever feel like that..becuase..in my opinion art is a think that sometimes is overly overrated,plus your basically missing out on the beauty and point of art if your thinking about the aesthicism of your piece of art,think of art as a form of human emotion without actually saying anything. love your art for the way it is..art is isn't perfect..and art shoudnt be taken so seriously either,this is why i enjoy the dada moment..they tell you to basically make fun of pretentiousness and life. importantly they did whatever they wanted to do..i think in art you have to be somewhat greedy and do whatevery you i figure thats how the great artist did it,they did whatever they wanted to and what others wanted to see..did this make any sense..i lost my self a few lines down the ending.