I reserve the term “pretty” to mean something easy to grasp and familiar. A pretty picture may well demonstrate high craft and in fact may be even beautiful, however, rather than representing a new perspective, a pretty picture merely duplicates past representations of reality; it is a photograph replicating other photographs conventionally thought to be “pretty”, e.g., a photograph simply documenting a beautiful sunset at the Grand Canyon from the south side. A pretty photograph may be technically difficult of course, but if it does not reflect a new perspective on reality, it is not Art, it is art.
Being creative is difficult, and the more creative one is trying to be, the harder it is because to be creative is to stretch or even break the current paradigm of the artist’s world. Listen to a symphony by Mozart, and then listen to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to see what I mean: a new world has opened up. This isn’t to denigrate Mozart or the art of previous generations more generally as unevolved; it’s just to say that an artist like Beethoven is all about breaking down the old paradigm because for some reason he had something to say that the old paradigm would not let him say.
Great artists don’t even have to destroy the existing paradigm directly or intentionally, they can do it indirectly and unintentionally as well. Bach is a good example of a great artist who so perfected the existing paradigm that there was no space left, and someone like Haydn had to create a new paradigm to stretch his wings. Times change and so do paradigms. Thus, when an image is thought “pretty” it is usually a sign that the cultural paradigm it speaks to is becoming decadent. I hope my images are not “pretty” in this sense. I hope it takes a minute to recognize the subject, and in that minute to realize that a new way has been found to see an ordinary subject.
In the end, we create Art for ourselves. There was a nice editorial piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day by Michael Judge. He quoted a fellow student, Phillip Pace, writing about artful writing:
Let’s try, though it’s hard, to just deal with how the little piece feels to us when we’re done with it…that’s the root purpose anyway…we can drive ourselves crazy with Hollywood dreams but in the end what the writing really seems meant for is to keep us, in this way and that, strong enough to survive the new harsh dawn of another grim mundane February day…
No. 35: I hope that there are not many “pretty” pictures at my site.
I reserve the term “pretty” to mean something easy to grasp and familiar. A pretty picture may well demonstrate high craft and in fact may be even beautiful, however, rather than representing a new perspective, a pretty picture merely duplicates past representations of reality; it is a photograph replicating other photographs conventionally thought to be “pretty”, e.g., a photograph simply documenting a beautiful sunset at the Grand Canyon from the south side. A pretty photograph may be technically difficult of course, but if it does not reflect a new perspective on reality, it is not Art, it is art.
Being creative is difficult, and the more creative one is trying to be, the harder it is because to be creative is to stretch or even break the current paradigm of the artist’s world. Listen to a symphony by Mozart, and then listen to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to see what I mean: a new world has opened up. This isn’t to denigrate Mozart or the art of previous generations more generally as unevolved; it’s just to say that an artist like Beethoven is all about breaking down the old paradigm because for some reason he had something to say that the old paradigm would not let him say.
Great artists don’t even have to destroy the existing paradigm directly or intentionally, they can do it indirectly and unintentionally as well. Bach is a good example of a great artist who so perfected the existing paradigm that there was no space left, and someone like Haydn had to create a new paradigm to stretch his wings. Times change and so do paradigms. Thus, when an image is thought “pretty” it is usually a sign that the cultural paradigm it speaks to is becoming decadent. I hope my images are not “pretty” in this sense. I hope it takes a minute to recognize the subject, and in that minute to realize that a new way has been found to see an ordinary subject.
In the end, we create Art for ourselves. There was a nice editorial piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day by Michael Judge. He quoted a fellow student, Phillip Pace, writing about artful writing:
Let’s try, though it’s hard, to just deal with how the little piece feels to us when we’re done with it…that’s the root purpose anyway…we can drive ourselves crazy with Hollywood dreams but in the end what the writing really seems meant for is to keep us, in this way and that, strong enough to survive the new harsh dawn of another grim mundane February day…