Exorbitant sums of money.

What do I think of Pollock? I think he's interesting. I don't like some of his paintings, but some of them I really do like. The one on the cover of the fractals article, for example, has a very nice color scheme. I might hang something like that on my wall. Maybe.

But I most definitely would not pay millions of dollars for it. The more I hear about the exorbitant prices that art works go for in the world, the more puzzled I am. Maybe it's just because I'm a poor college student working to finance my education so I can get a good job, but if I had 140 million dollars to throw around on something, I would donate it to the Humane Society or create a bunch of college scholarships or something. I wouldn't spend such a huge sum of money on one single little painting. Ridiculous.

As for Pollock himself, I thought it was hilarious in the video when the forgery artist guy said that you'd have to be drunk before you could create something that looks like a Jackson Pollock.

The fractals article talked about how Pollock's paintings mimic the natural world. Pollock himself said that he was one with nature. Well, in essence then, Pollock is imitating nature. Plato would hate Pollock's paintings, because they are thrice removed from the truth. Aristotle, on the other hand, would think they were great because they mimic nature.

Uninformed ramblings.

It could be solely because I missed both of these presentations and their discussions (PAC 10 tournament for the win), but I don't think Nietzsche and Tolstoy are talking about the same thing at all.

Nietzsche discusses the two tendencies of order (Apollo) and disorder (Dionysus). He talks about how the introduction of chaos into order (the collapse of the principium individuationis) both terrifies and delights man, and how art can only really result from the clash between these two tendencies. However, Nietzsche seems to refer to these tendencies as being contained within each individual man--they are individual experiences.

Tolstoy's theory of art revolves around shared emotion. He says that art can only result from the infection of one man's emotion to another man.

These two ideas are not the same at all. Nietzsche is talking about something which is felt at an individual level, though the feelings are similar across all mankind. Tolstoy, on the other hand, is talking about something which is transmitted from one person to another. I suppose that in regards specifically to art, both theories discuss the transmission of the feelings from one person to another. But then again, every theory of art discusses this transmission, so to say that the two theories are similar in that regard is to say that every theory of art is similar. At any rate, these two theories discuss different ideas--Nietzsche is talking about internal emotions which are aroused in each man individually, with no mention of the intent of the artist, whereas Tolstoy says that if a man makes a piece of art from his own emotion, it will be transmitted to another man by the force of that emotion. The transmission of feeling evoked by art is completely different.

Are black-rimmed glasses really "arty"?

Stereotypes are kind of tricky things, aren't they? It's all well and good to be righteously outraged about them, but on the other hand, they really do speak volumes. It's interesting that in Faking It, the "experts" who attempted to convert Paul into a "real artist" placed high importance on his appearance. They gave him a haircut, bought him a new wardrobe, and even went so far as to get him some "arty" glasses.

Someone brought up in class that this importance on appearance probably had a great deal to do with Paul's own image of himself. They were almost playing on his own stereotype of an artist, in order to make him feel even more isolated and different from his usual house-painting self. I think this is a really good point, but I also think that these changes had practical implications for Paul's ability to squeak past the art critics. I think that Paul looking the part of a hip, up-and-coming artist (with short hair, black-rimmed glasses, and tight T-shirts) is less likely to arouse suspicion than Paul looking the part of a middle-aged house painter (big sturdy coat, long shaggy hair). I could see these art critics accepting him as an artist no questions asked in the former scenario, but I can see them being a little more suspicious of him in the latter.

I think Paul will be able to fool the experts. After all, just because he is new at this professional artist business doesn't mean he is a fake. His works are genuinely his, and he seems to be awfully proud of them. The only thing that he is really faking is the history of an artist. He "has a small vocabulary," as someone in the film stated. He doesn't know much about art in general, and he might have a hard time faking that in the presence of art critics.

I think as long as they don't ask him about art history questions, or contemporary artists, or basically anything that we've learned about in Art Theory so far, he will be able to fool the critics.

Superiority--in other words, stop being pretentious and get over yourself.

I think that art has almost always been for the upper class. A mark, something which distinguishes the upper class from everyone else. They have their opera, they have their mansions, they have their art. So what Kinkade is doing--that is, creating art for the middle class--must be shocking. An equalizer? No way! Got to find something wrong with his art in order to maintain the superiority of the upper class.

I know that Kinkade really does have a few spins of the same scenery and that's really all he draws. Lighthouses, cottages, and gardens. It's the same thing. But why does that matter? Lichtenstein just drew cartoon images over and over again, but he's hailed as an artistic genius. Why the difference between Lichtenstein and Kinkade?

Art as commercialism? I don't know. I don't see how it's that much of a problem. Especially in America, right? Everything is a business here.