Do you think M F Husain is a great artist?

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

He isn't, and this is my reasoning.



I feel that a person can be called a great artist, a maestro, if:



1. What he has created cannot be replicated by anyone except people with significant expertise in the field,

2. No other person of significantly inferior skill can pass off his work as that of the maestro,

3. At least all people in his field acknowledge him to be great, and a reasonable number of the aam junta feel like saying "wow" when they see the work.



You know that Slash and Santana are great guitarists, by these parameters. You know that Nookala Chinasatyanarayana is great, you know Shah Rukh Khan is great (yes, he satisfies all these parameters, though the second might be irrelevant here).



Look at M F Husain now. Almost anybody can replicate his work, given a brush and some paints. A painting sells because it is a Husain work and not because of what is in it, which means you and I could draw something and pass it off as a Husain. And finally, nobody except those trying to pass off as evolved go wow over his paintings (saying nobody is mean? okay, only 99%.).



I think this is true of almost all 'modern art'ists. They sell because they have somehow created a brand name, usually through friends in the media and some innovativeness. And then rich people with as much of an appreciation of art as that of a (ahem) jellyfish buy up their works since they don't know what to do with their money and they think it's posh.



Don't get me wrong - Husain is probably great. Except, in no way that you and I can't be. It's just that he invested his energy and innovativeness (and life) in creating a brand name for himself. He's no great artist.

[azazel]

dunno abt the artist with the naked feet.. but Slash certainly is unqualified for the praise..

[akhilis2cool]

dunno abt the artist with the naked feet.. but Slash certainly is unqualified for the praise..

how abt prefixing a little f before the name of his profession.

[Johnny]

, you know Shah Rukh Khan is great (yes, he satisfies all these parameters, though the second might be irrelevant here).

Muahhhhhhhhhhhhhh atlast one person who agrees with me...



n yea i too think Mf hussain is an over rated Successful loser

[Mona Lisa Smile]

I am not sure I know too much about art.



To me his works look more like scribbling but he sure does choose his muses very cleverly only to add more media interest or gain publicity mileage for some of his forthcoming ventures



As is true with times we are living in, a lot of hype and very lil show for. I might add MF : Art in India :: Britney Spears : Music



MF Hussain ...wasnt he in anyone's hit list ??

[akhilis2cool]

I am not sure I know too much about art.

To me his works look more like scribbling but he sure does choose his muses very cleverly only to add more media interest or gain publicity mileage for some of his forthcoming ventures

As is true with times we are living in, a lot of hype and very lil show for. I might add MF : Art in India :: Britney Spears : Music

MF Hussain ...wasnt he in anyone's hit list ??

budde ka ek pair kabar mein hai......who wants to waste a bullet on him?

[azazel]

budde ka ek pair kabar mein hai......who wants to waste a bullet on him?

yea.. just put a gun infront of his face n he'll die of a heart-attack

[Lucifer]

I do not know much about art, and I must confess that I have never even seen one of Hussain's paintings. But, somehow, the man ticks me off. He seems to thrive on doing something controversial and sensational - the incident about the Goddess would still be fresh in people's minds. I abhor any attempts of passing off vulgarity as art. It can never be, and it only reflects the man's insecurities and the constant urge to remain in the news. It is for the same reason that I have made it a point to indulge in no activity that would result in my promoting any of his works. I have not seen Gajagaamini and I am not going to watch Meenaxi either.

[Johnny]

budde ka ek pair kabar mein hai......who wants to waste a bullet on him?

yea.. just put a gun infront of his face n he'll die of a heart-attack

Katthulu kaadu ra Kanti Choopu Thone champestha...



Nenu aristhe aa shabdhaanike sasthaavura nuvvu MF husain..

[patch]

why all the husain-bashing? surely a great artist is one whose work touches you in some way?

1. What he has created cannot be replicated by anyone except people with significant expertise in the field

what does that even mean? art students work on copying paintings by many of the world's acknowledged 'great artists'. and so many of them do a good job. do they have significant expertise?

2. No other person of significantly inferior skill can pass off his work as that of the maestro

you're repeating yourself.

3. At least all people in his field acknowledge him to be great, and a reasonable number of the aam junta feel like saying "wow" when they see the work.

oh my god. tell me you're just being inflammatory. van gogh died without his work being recognised, in penury. emily _ had like seven of her poems published when she was alive. so it's only when 'society' and 'the world' and other artists say they're great, that they're great? you talk of art appreciation. the 'aam junta' loves sex and violence, right? so porn is art. killing is art. rape is art.



i know that santana is a great guitarist because i know it. his music touches me. not because someone told me he was great. can we not make up our own minds? why do we need anyone's endorsement?



it's true that husain has created a brand. but what's wrong with that? rembrandt is a brand. van gogh is a brand now. and they are 'great artists', aren't they? paintings sell because of a little squiggle at the bottom right corner. why should that dilute their beauty?

a lot of 'modern artists' are really talented. people buy art for different reasons. some, to seem posh. some, as an investment. and others, believe it or not, because the art moves them somehow.



our idea of artists is so bloody romantic, isn't it. they should live in squalor, and be reclusive and at least a little mad. so a media-savvy guy who's created a brand for himself and has the money to make crap movies is not a great artist.



and please, enough about britney spears. it's getting old. and mildewy.

[nenet]

ah, but the thing about husain is that his work sells. so obviously it finds its mark somewhere. it's unfair to presume that everybody who buys a husain painting is a pretentious artsy-type, that they're all just trying to be "posh". not even rich people can be that stupid.



i agree that some of 'modern art', as you call it, seems like a rip-off. but to label almost an entire generation or genre of artists unremarkable is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.



and the point remains - mf husain sells. and considering the guy's last collection of paintings sold for over a million dollars, if we can all pass off as husain, then maybe we should!

[Spiff]

Phew ..Patch thanks for being such a saviour !!!

i would have ossified if the discussion would have gone one like that .

Did you know some people actually depend on newspapers and magazies to scavenge on opinions . freaky isnt it. almost like being hypnotised

[CtrlAltDel]

i am no admirer of modern art and hussain. i just dont understand the work.

but there must be something in his work that many admire and buy at a good price.

he's as eccentric as many of the famous painters in history...donno why most of em turn out that way!

[akhilis2cool]

i am no admirer of modern art and hussain. i just dont understand the work.
but there must be something in his work that many admire and buy at a good price.
he's as eccentric as many of the famous painters in history...donno why most of em turn out that way!

no one can understand modern art. not even the artist( ) who`s made it.



i guess that is also happening to the fashion industry. cut a piece of cloth like crazy and put it on a dubli patli model and make her walk. ho gay naya fashion statement.

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

art students work on copying paintings by many of the world's acknowledged 'great artists'. and so many of them do a good job. do they have significant expertise?

Art students, you mean. I (i. e. I), with nothing to show by way of any work in painting, can reproduce any (almost) Husain work, almost in toto. I cannot, however, play the guitar like Santana does (even though I do have some grounding in that), or dance like a Vyjayanthimala.

2. No other person of significantly inferior skill can pass off his work as that of the maestro

you're repeating yourself.

Nope. I meant, I (i. e., again, I) can draw some random stuff and pass it off as a Husain (illegal, of course, but that's not the point here), and it will command lakhs. It's different from the above point. The funda is, there is no class or quality of product that belongs exclusively to Husain that even fairly evolved art appreciaters can identify. I am sure I can convince several actual customers of Husain and other real connoisseurs of art that a random meaningless piece of canvas I drew is by Husain. In the first point, I meant that what he does is not difficult, here I am saying he has no distinctive class of his own.

3. At least all people in his field acknowledge him to be great, and a reasonable number of the aam junta feel like saying "wow" when they see the work.

van gogh died without his work being recognised, in penury. emily _ had like seven of her poems published when she was alive. so it's only when 'society' and 'the world' and other artists say they're great, that they're great?

First, I don't know anything about Van Gogh's works - to my, ahem, slow and underevolved mind, all modern art (assuming his is) appears like meaningless rambling on canvas by people who call it their interpretation of the world and get away by even charging for it, since there are enough fools in the world for all of us. I mean, what differentiates my meaningless ramblings on canvas from theirs? Neither of us makes sense to anyone (yes), anyway.

But to come to your point, Van Gogh and Emily _ did not not get recognition in their lives because their work was bad. They did not get recognition perhaps because their works never got the kind of exposure required to generate widespread appreciation when they were alive - sheer bad luck. But today, after some people worked to provide the visibility, all people in their field do acknowledge them to be great, and a reasonable number of the aam junta do feel like saying "wow" when they see their works (I am assuming all this last bit, just to make the point - I haven't seen any Van Gogh or read any Emily). THAT is the point. All this is assuming you have visibility. Husain's works have visibility, and still don't satisfy these.

the 'aam junta' loves sex and violence, right? so porn is art. killing is art. rape is art.

I didn't say everything the aam junta likes is art. I said good art will be liked by most of the aam junta.

i know that santana is a great guitarist because i know it. his music touches me. not because someone told me he was great. can we not make up our own minds? why do we need anyone's endorsement?

Sure. I don't like M F Husain primarily because I think his works are pieces of crap. But everything I don't like can't be crap. So when I said "At least all people in his field acknowledge him to be great, and a reasonable number of the aam junta feel like saying "wow" when they see the work," I was saying why his works are crap without taking only my perception into account.

paintings sell because of a little squiggle at the bottom right corner. why should that dilute their beauty?

Husain? What beauty?

our idea of artists is so bloody romantic, isn't it. they should live in squalor, and be reclusive and at least a little mad.

No, they should just paint something that makes sense.

[azazel]

dunno abt the artist with the naked feet.. but Slash certainly is unqualified for the praise..

how abt prefixing a little f before the name of his profession.

heh

[badcash_high]

art students work on copying paintings by many of the world's acknowledged 'great artists'. and so many of them do a good job. do they have significant expertise?

Art students, you mean. I (i. e. I), with nothing to show by way of any work in painting, can reproduce any (almost) Husain work, almost in toto. I cannot, however, play the guitar like Santana does (even though I do have some grounding in that), or dance like a Vyjayanthimala.

2. No other person of significantly inferior skill can pass off his work as that of the maestro

you're repeating yourself.

Nope. I meant, I (i. e., again, I) can draw some random stuff and pass it off as a Husain (illegal, of course, but that's not the point here), and it will command lakhs. It's different from the above point. The funda is, there is no class or quality of product that belongs exclusively to Husain that even fairly evolved art appreciaters can identify. I am sure I can convince several actual customers of Husain and other real connoisseurs of art that a random meaningless piece of canvas I drew is by Husain. In the first point, I meant that what he does is not difficult, here I am saying he has no distinctive class of his own.

3. At least all people in his field acknowledge him to be great, and a reasonable number of the aam junta feel like saying "wow" when they see the work.

van gogh died without his work being recognised, in penury. emily _ had like seven of her poems published when she was alive. so it's only when 'society' and 'the world' and other artists say they're great, that they're great?

First, I don't know anything about Van Gogh's works - to my, ahem, slow and underevolved mind, all modern art (assuming his is) appears like meaningless rambling on canvas by people who call it their interpretation of the world and get away by even charging for it, since there are enough fools in the world for all of us. I mean, what differentiates my meaningless ramblings on canvas from theirs? Neither of us makes sense to anyone (yes), anyway.

But to come to your point, Van Gogh and Emily _ did not not get recognition in their lives because their work was bad. They did not get recognition perhaps because their works never got the kind of exposure required to generate widespread appreciation when they were alive - sheer bad luck. But today, after some people worked to provide the visibility, all people in their field do acknowledge them to be great, and a reasonable number of the aam junta do feel like saying "wow" when they see their works (I am assuming all this last bit, just to make the point - I haven't seen any Van Gogh or read any Emily). THAT is the point. All this is assuming you have visibility. Husain's works have visibility, and still don't satisfy these.

the 'aam junta' loves sex and violence, right? so porn is art. killing is art. rape is art.

I didn't say everything the aam junta likes is art. I said good art will be liked by most of the aam junta.

i know that santana is a great guitarist because i know it. his music touches me. not because someone told me he was great. can we not make up our own minds? why do we need anyone's endorsement?

Sure. I don't like M F Husain primarily because I think his works are pieces of crap. But everything I don't like can't be crap. So when I said "At least all people in his field acknowledge him to be great, and a reasonable number of the aam junta feel like saying "wow" when they see the work," I was saying why his works are crap without taking only my perception into account.

paintings sell because of a little squiggle at the bottom right corner. why should that dilute their beauty?

Husain? What beauty?

our idea of artists is so bloody romantic, isn't it. they should live in squalor, and be reclusive and at least a little mad.

No, they should just paint something that makes sense.

To cut a long story short dude.. art is all about perception.. just because somebody's painting or writing is not comprehensible to your intellect(or lack of it) does not immediately qualify it as crap(for lack of a better word).. now for the sake of argument, taking into consideration that you've never read emily or seen a van gogh, you come across a book by rushdie or toni morrison. your general reaction would be that its crap since to you it has no quality of differentiation.. in other words anybody could go on rambling like rushdie, use all the greek references that are so prevalent in his works, and pass it of as a novel.. your limited understanding of that book might lead you to the assumption that its "crap" as a way of suplementing your total lack of comprehension.. the same can be said bout art... art is the way a person percieves his surroundings.. it can be nature, an emotion or a dragonfly's wing catching the rays of the sun... what some people do with words others do it on canvas... the aam junta is as aam as it sounds.. the aam junta has the amount of intelligence and awareness found in toe nail clippings.. the aam junta needs a voice to speak up for them, the aam junta needs somebody to lead them, to show them the way.. the aam junta is aam because if it was any other way it wouldn't be aam...

no great reasoning here but it should suffice... the statement that paintings should make sense is pointless... paintings are not created to make a statement, they don't dictate the rules and norms for living a well educated and fullfilled life... they are the looking glass of people who have only that one way of expressing their views of what they see around them... but then see the point with opinions is that everyone is allowed to have one

peace brother

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

To cut a long story short dude.. art is all about perception.. just because somebody's painting or writing is not comprehensible to your intellect(or lack of it) does not immediately qualify it as crap(for lack of a better word)..

You're right about the perception part, dude. Now suppose you did not know the actual reality that you pointed out in your post, which is that I do not possess any humanly detectable intellect. And suppose I made a statement like this:



"Your pace of typing significantly outpaces your pace of thinking."



If you, i. e. badcash_high, did not know that I, i. e. Intellectually Challenged PMoW, made this statement, here is my version of how you would interpret it if various other people made the same statement to you:



Your interpretation if you thought this statement were made by Salman Rushdie:



"Typing is all narcissist, as it were. History will indiscriminately point out to such minutae with precipitately involutionary vehemance, and enjoin, in a deglamorized yet incongruently meretricious pattern that only keenly frivolous thought methodologies laden with Gaussian allusions can claim to popularly demystify, that outpacing is just a state of mind that has agonizingly little to do with peripheral yet umbilical thinking."



Your interpretation if you thought this statement were made by The Dalai Lama:



"Pace is a form of communion. It arises from within the depths of an inner consciousness, and from various types (please note alternate use of word "type", which in itself is a form of communion) of being, which, when woven subliminally into your thinking, will engender a feeling of significantly. Also, spirituality need not be grammatical, it should just be typical (please note alternate use of word "type", which in itself is a form of communion)."



Your interpretation if you thought this statement were made by Mario Puzo:



"It's a Sicilian defence, engendered by the need of the original family bastions to move significantly faster than thought to retain a type-like grip (type = vice, that's what Puzo would've meant anyway, he's an intellectual) on the seamy underbelly of the urban Americas."



Your interpretation if you thought this statement were made by Ozzy Osbourne:



"The sin no longer sets me free. Make that sun. It's all an electric cremation, and where the world ends, the child of madness begins. Please get me some flowers, 'cause I want to run. Away from this world, away from thought, into an incubator, into a typewriter."



Your interpretation if you thought this statement was made by PMoW:



"And now he's starting to reason, too. Officious little prick."



As you correctly pointed out, it's all about interpretation. It depends on who's saying the same thing. And the world is too full of imbalanced imbeciles such as yours truly, whose posts don't even deserve to get read fully before being responded to.



And yes, peace, brother.

[Lucifer]

Junta seems to be squabbling over M F Hussain and his works. Though a few may say that the spirit of a meaningful discussion is missing, I, Lucifer, could not have been happier. After all, it is the work of the devil to promote disunity and discord between people and to make this world as worse a place as possible for people to live in.



Now, don't grudge the devil for that. Things come in opposites. That is what maintains the balance in this world. If there were no darkness, would you appreciate light?

[badcash_high]

To cut a long story short dude.. art is all about perception.. just because somebody's painting or writing is not comprehensible to your intellect(or lack of it) does not immediately qualify it as crap(for lack of a better word)..

You're right about the perception part, dude. Now suppose you did not know the actual reality that you pointed out in your post, which is that I do not possess any humanly detectable intellect. And suppose I made a statement like this:

"Your pace of typing significantly outpaces your pace of thinking."

If you, i. e. badcash_high, did not know that I, i. e. Intellectually Challenged PMoW, made this statement, here is my version of how you would interpret it if various other people made the same statement to you:

Your interpretation if you thought this statement were made by Salman Rushdie:

"Typing is all narcissist, as it were. History will indiscriminately point out to such minutae with precipitately involutionary vehemance, and enjoin, in a deglamorized yet incongruently meretricious pattern that only keenly frivolous thought methodologies laden with Gaussian allusions can claim to popularly demystify, that outpacing is just a state of mind that has agonizingly little to do with peripheral yet umbilical thinking."

Your interpretation if you thought this statement were made by The Dalai Lama:

"Pace is a form of communion. It arises from within the depths of an inner consciousness, and from various types (please note alternate use of word "type", which in itself is a form of communion) of being, which, when woven subliminally into your thinking, will engender a feeling of significantly. Also, spirituality need not be grammatical, it should just be typical (please note alternate use of word "type", which in itself is a form of communion)."

Your interpretation if you thought this statement were made by Mario Puzo:

"It's a Sicilian defence, engendered by the need of the original family bastions to move significantly faster than thought to retain a type-like grip (type = vice, that's what Puzo would've meant anyway, he's an intellectual) on the seamy underbelly of the urban Americas."

Your interpretation if you thought this statement were made by Ozzy Osbourne:

"The sin no longer sets me free. Make that sun. It's all an electric cremation, and where the world ends, the child of madness begins. Please get me some flowers, 'cause I want to run. Away from this world, away from thought, into an incubator, into a typewriter."

Your interpretation if you thought this statement was made by PMoW:

"And now he's starting to reason, too. Officious little prick."

As you correctly pointed out, it's all about interpretation. It depends on who's saying the same thing. And the world is too full of imbalanced imbeciles such as yours truly, whose posts don't even deserve to get read fully before being responded to.

And yes, peace, brother.

Ah my brother i seem to have touched, rather eviscerated, a raw nerve when i commented on my understanding of your intellect... it was not my intention to insult you bro, its just that a well informed opinion can always hold its own.. your understanding of the subject(as was my observation) was all over the place like a kid throwing a tantrum.. and it was really sad to see you play the let-me-be-the-bigger-man card with stabs at disparaging yourself....... your whole counter argument was based on the one line that had so many intepretations.. your choice of words in that line are proof enough that i dissed you without giving you fair trial( "whose posts don't even deserve to get read fully before being responded to" was the parting shot)..... nice little parody of the term "perception"...

later buddy

peace