Are Damien Hirst's paintings any good ?

[MaryAmericanSmooth]

apparently not

Marsha, I like to think that time will weed out the Damian Hirsts. After all, there were loads of also-rans in the Renaissance, who havent stood the test of time.
Have you been to the Neue Pinakothek, the gallery of modern art in Munich?
Its full of the most ghastly trash, the Damian Hirsts of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Nothing but squashed cars and giant scribbles - whoever was their buyer in those years must have been a right sucker.

No Nighby I haven't been, love idea of it though will check it out.

It's interesting you say that as for a while (britart) it felt that Charles Saatchi was singley responsible for creating art history. Not so much anymore his painting shows, art from China etc hasn't had as much of an impact on the public (except Stella vine did well).

It do wonder if they will stand the test of time.

I havent seen any recent Saatchi shows. Am interested in chinese art though.
Am near Munich now, there are brilliant art shows and the public is generally very ready to buy original work, but relatively little groundbreaking new stuff is actually produced here.

I don't suppose you happened to see this in Munich a few years ago?

sigh. I missed that one, as it was just after the children arrived in Munich.

nightbynight - on Vermeer (and completely off topic) I feel the figures in the painting have actually got no life in them at all. It is like Jack Vetrianno paintings -pretty and sort of nice in a way, but not actually inspiring any feeling in me. I just think Girl with a Pearl Earring may be a very technically adept and beautifully crafted painting but what is it supposed to do for me?

Whereas many Renaissance painters of 200 years earlier blow me away. Their paintings are very stilted and stylised but mean more. I did a short course on interpreting Renaissance art and once I understood what they were trying to do I just thought 'awesome'. Maybe I should do a course on the Dutch painters.

MonstrousMerryHenry - got to disagree on Miachaelangelo's David. When I saw the copy of it outside the Palazzo Vecchio I just stood there mouth open. I am normally sceptical of pseudo intellectual false emotion and histronics about art but it just grabbed me by the throat.

I think you're a closet pseudo intellectual who's adept at falsifying his emotions and falling into wild histrionics, ABD. And you eat cold custard with bananas .

Perhaps indeed it was the aforementioned pudding repeating on you which actually created the experience of 'grabbing you by the throat' when you spied Michaelangelo's David? I assure you the statue itself is nothing to write home about.

I have to admit, David is my least favourite of all Michaelangelos work, though I can appreciate the skill that went into making it. Maybe it appeals to men more...

Jack Vettriano is just trivial wall decoration. WTF is that shite with teh butler holding the umbrella, anyway? Does it tap into some sad fantasy of having servants at one's beck and call? Who looks at that picture and imagines themselves as one of the servants, and likes it? It cant even be passed off as an image that highlights the suffering of servants, as it's so prettified. The lighting is bland and unimaginitive, the colours flat, the figures stilted, and copied from another image.

Now try Vermeer. (do a Google search for Vermeer paintings, and find loads apart from the girl with a pearl earring.) The lighting is slightly dramatic, the figures concentrated. The scene is perfectly peaceful, the composition flawless. Don't you just wish, that you could be so at one with the world as Vermeer's figures?
Vermeer is the ancestor of Mondrian in the quest for harmony, it is no coincidence that they came from a similar part of the world, where the landscape is flat and the sky dominates.

I find beauty in large mining machinery and supertankers.

I am clearly a Philistine.

Actually, I remember having that conversation at art college, when one of the tutors said the same, and none of the students could understand what he meant.

On my foundation course, we were taken to the industrial museum in Birmingham, to do some drawings of machinery. I particularly like drawing industrial scenes, actually.

As an engineer, I am always conscious that what I produce is mostly craft and science, but partly art as well.

Oi, have you taken another look at Vermeer yet??

still and calm

Two personalities captured

Favourite lighting from the left, and some biographical details

Apologies, I got distracted by the Bucyrus Electric Mining Shovel brochure... but back to Vermeer.

Yes I have looked. I really do mean I have tried. I can see the technical skill, the amazing representation of light. I am sure he is an artists' artist. Having stood in front of similar paintings and probably a few of his I do think "I wish I could do that". However, I also think "that would look nice on a birthday card to my Mum" but it means nothing more than that.

Mondrian has meaning though. He really makes me think. In his famous Broadway Boogie Woogie he captures the essence and dynamism of New York as I know it. Those static square dots on the yellow lines look like they are moving and shimmering like the cars on the streets when looking down from a skyscraper. Even more clever than that the yellow of the lines evoke the New York taxi cab colour and the chequer board black and white stripes on their sides.

I spent ages on that last V site, and have decided to order a print ... but which one??

Must admit, I didnt get V for ages - it hit me in the eye one day, though.

I can't say I've spent much time on Vermeer but love the first link - your 'still and calm' one. Such serenity and harmony in such an ordinary setting. It's very beautiful.

Not having the terminology or training to discuss art at great length I'm feeling rather out of my depth in this convo and so will bid you all a fond adieu, but not without saying ROFLROFLROFL at ABD and your industrial machinery! Art is all around us

Awww that is such a lovely ship all shiney and new. Hope the pirates wiped their feet before climbing aboard.

...probably wiped them on their tea towels, then cleaned out their dessert bowls with said towels before filling them with bananas and cold custard!!