Are Damien Hirst's paintings any good ?

[MaryAmericanSmooth]

apparently not

Have just looked at the video on the link and those paintings look as though they've been done by a gloomy 6th former with a crush on Francis Bacon, for his Foundation Course portfolio

scamp - I thought they were heavily influenced by Bacon, too.

Carmen, succeeding in the contemporary art market is a bit like winning the lottery. Only one fool per generation can get away with that sort of crap.
(And fwiw, I dont rate either Pollock or Emin).

the point is, the market is not free. It is heavily skewed by a small number of customers, "advised" by an even smaller number of "experts."

you are right, that some of Hirsts work is more creative. But it still isnt among the greats.
For one thing, it isnt beautiful - although that's not a prerequisite for a piece of art, in fact very few great works aren't beautiful (and dont trot out beauty in the eye of the beholder - few beholders find flies or dead sharks or carved up cows beautiful).
Also, it doesnt require any skill - typically his big ideas tend to be conceptual rather than requiring skill to put together. Again, this is not a prerequisite - but these 2 lacunae do make it hard to escape the stench of gimmickry around Hirsts work.

scampadoodle

He is better not using his own actual hands to make the work he does. Ie stay away from painting.

The Director of the Wallace collection said this: 'Hirst's paintings are "very classical in nature" and "his ethereal other-worldly treatment of the memento mori subject evokes centuries of great art...'

She must be blinded by his fame to think this.

His other work is better, the paintings are indeed Foundation Stage work.

To develop the beauty theme - I saw the Quinn exhibition at the saatchi gallery, with the frozen blood head.
Now theres a poncey gimmick if ever there was one - yet, it was amazingly beautiful. One felt that the poncey means justified the end of creating something amaing and haunting. There were some other sculptures by him in the same exhibition, which showed the same absolute love affair with the visual image.
Hirst just doesnt have the same passion and vision.

I paint for pleasure and what Hirst does is original and a heck of a lot harder to do than it looks. In my view Damian Hirst has moved British art forward.

It is true he is not a great portrait painter or lanscape artist - but his art inspires me far more than Tracey Emin. I would argue that his work falls into the same category as Jackson Pollok (they were just paint splashes) and Piet Mondrian (they were just lines and squares of block colour).

Hirst like many classical artists (including Leonardo Da Vinci and Michaelangelo) had ighly skilled technicians working for them.

Betadad, I regret to enlighten you that in fact Hirsts paintings are a heck of a lot easier than they look. Read a book on Bacon, plus one on bog-standard compositions and paint the first thing that comes into your head. Maybe the article showed teh worst ones.

There is utterly no comparison between Piet Mondrian (artistic genius) and Jackson Pollock (artistic twat)!!

My degree is in performance art and installation stuff, so I am rubbish on matters of painting and won't comment there. You're very probably right that he isn't a skillful painter.

But, while I can appreciate beauty and skill, those aren't the core factors for me. I like to go to an art gallery to be inspired and provoked. I like to go home with a new perspective or some problem to think on. For me, Hirst works well at doing that. I do find his work emotional and it is definitely something to talk and think about, so it works for me.

Most paintings make me go 'Ho hum, that's a nice painting' - they don't grab me and draw me in like something physical or live might. I have to work to appreciate a painting. It's just a different reaction.

I have no problem with an artist using assistants to do their work. Although I'm sure those highly skilled artists ABD mentioned didn't outsource all of it. ie they could actually paint.

Jeff Koons is a brilliant artist and others do his paintings.

Damien Hirst's, no, I don't see any way one can compare with Pollock or Mondrian, the mark making doesn't cut it.

The performance aspect is probably the strongest part of hirsts limited repertoire. As a purveyor of visual images, I maintain that he is pants!

His butterfly stuff is trite. You can buy the same a hundred times over in a souveneir (how the hell do you spell that?) shop at a butterfly farm in Asia. So he's invested it with a sort of post-ironic look at beauty and mortality? It's a bit sixth form, as that article says.

I think he can paint though: as in, can paint and reproduce light and images accurately and evocatively. But the ideas are a bit ..trite.

I can't see that comparison with Mondrian or Pollock either. You can look long at those. The last Hirst showing I went to (about a year ago, and it was the butterfly stuff, diamond skull and other paintings) there was a lot of wandering past.

nightbtnight - well I guess what I said and what you said illustrate why art is such a personal thing and causes such controversy.

I like a nice Turner, Stubbs, Constable, Monet, Pissaro, Picasso, Dahli, but struggle to see the point of Rembrandt, Rubens, Vermeer.

It is as CarmenSanDiego says.

Carmen I just don't see that new perspective. I do have some appreciation (am lay person but used to work in a modern art museum) but I suppose it could be down to philistinism.

No, I don't think there's any philistinism. It's just personal in what you respond to or what triggers your brain to make connections. Some people might be inspired by music or poetry or paintings or theatre... it's very personal.

There are some criteria that you can set for 'Good Art' - such as brushwork or use of colour. But really, all those little things are a bit meaningless. It's all to do with how someone responds to it. And that response can vary from 'that's a pleasant picture' to 'I'm angered by that image' to 'yawn'

I'm not sure which reaction designates a piece of art as good. Although my instinct is that it should provoke something more than yawn in interested parties.

I have to say though according to that criteria they still don't do anything for me.

And are indeed yawn.

Plus my goodness he is going to sell them for a lot, silly sods.

If it is all subjective then there's not much to debate. We just accept it is totally personal?

I have a feeling that this arguement about Hirst is a little like the arguement about Jack Vettriano.

Both highly commercially successful but looked down on by many in the art establishment and yet a huge number of people like looking at their art.

They just don't seem passionate.

His non-painting work doesn't irritate me. Some of it is nice to look at.

His paintings, well I'm not sure a large number of people do like them. Do they?

And if they do, it wouldn't sway me. Hell a lot of people watch Big Brother or read some trashy bestseller, more than they read Chekhov etc...

jack V is not taken seriously by any poncey art critics. He is todays Peter Scott.

There are loads of criteria of good art. Sometimes you can see (or read or hear) something and think Thats good, and then later you come across the source, and realise it was completely cribbed. Anyone whos never seen Bacon, will probably be more impressed by DH's latest paintings, for example.
And other times, an introduction from an art history tutor can open your eyes to appreciate an artist that you thought was boring.

Betadad - try again with Vermeer, he is worth it.

Can't speak for my DH's opinions, Carmen, but I know that lots of varied art works move me intensely and Hirst's doesn't. Similarly I found Michaelangelo's David far less interesting than some of the other, more 'earthy' sculptures in the same room. And Billie Holliday - can't stand her. But give me a bit of Ella Fitzgerald and I'll do anything for ya - within reason!

No I agree Hirst isn't looked down on by the art establishment, he's a successful part of art history.

(These paintings are still bad though! )