• gregorum@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Le Demoiselle de Avignon may be a revolting exploitation and sexist display by a renowned, womanizing misogynist, but it’s also a fantastic example of form, style, cubism, an illustration of the shift from art nouveau to art deco, and, frankly, a celebration of the female form. I’ve even heard it argued that it empowers sex workers, although I’ve also heard some fierce debate about that.

    My point is that, when exercising the nuanced discretion of “separating the art from the artist”, the “art” in question should, at least, be of sufficient redeeming value to consider overriding the distaste for the artist in order to consider the value of the art, especially when considering the overall contributions to art (on the general sense) made by the artist in question (nobody reasonable would dare question Picasso’s contributions to the art world, for example, despite home being a contemptible person).

    W. Bush, on the other hand, is no Picasso— and even Picasso, the shitbag he was, was no war criminal. And he certainly hated fascists.

    • The only thing I would disagree with in this take would be who are you to judge what is and isn’t of sufficient redeeming value to override to state of the artist? I would argue that art by definition is subjective and as such making any objective arguments or claims to discredit an artwork simply due to its creator is therefore invalid.

      • livus@kbin.social
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        6 months ago

        Seems to me @gregorum is talking about Demoiselles d’Avignon’s impact on art a a whole. It was a very influential painting.

        Bush on the other hand is only notable because of who painted it. It’s a common naive realism style.

      • gregorum@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        I’m not judging anything. What I’m saying is that works must be judged for their redeeming value in toto against the actions the deeds of the artist. Ie, one must be judged in balance against the other, not simply one or the other in a vacuum.

        I’m trying to express my standard for judgement, not making a judgement myself.

        • Hmm its an interesting take. I tend to take the approach of evaluating the frameworks individually and and comparing to other artworks based on each framework itself. Obviously the artist themselves are one framework for which you must evaluate but I think trying to compare that to other frames as apposed to other artist themselves is an exercise of the subjective.

          • gregorum@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            The artist isn’t a framework. An artist creates a framework, from which they must eventually be separated (in your wording).

            So, once an artist is prolific enough to establish (as you put it) a “framework”, then one can separate the judgement of the “framework” form the individual artist themselves.

            Does that make sense?

            Edit: if not, maybe I can clarify further

            • Any perspective is a framework I would consider the artist to be a perspective (framework) through which you can view said artwork. You are a framework I’m a framework an artist is a framework it inherently creates subjectivity.

              I’m well aware its usually not considered a framework in its own right and often lumped in with contextual or maybe historical but when making a division between the frameworks I find it a useful division to make.