Art? I Don’t Know Nuttin’ and I’m Happy

Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 23828 – 1267

Dear Sundry and Diverse Readers, Members of My Favorite Audience,

Here’s the haps:

I’ve decided to talk about something I have zero education in: art. Oh, I know I created a character named Art Vegan who happens to be an artist when he’s not solving cases, but today is a rewritten post I did on the subject a few years ago. I said I have zero formal education but I have written about this subject a few times before, here, here, and here, if you’re interested. This post was my final response to questions from the “award” I received. To be honest, this was, to me, one of the more interesting questions I have seen. Perhaps it’s because I’m a commoner with no formal knowledge of what is supposed to be good, the question was:

Very few paintings by Norman Rockwell hang in the great museums. Would you rate his art as highly as you do the art of Rembrandt, Valazquez, and other old masters? Why or why not?

I looked at the other blogs that were nominated for this award at the time, and none of them attempted it at all. I thought, “Well, that’s a fine howdy-do. I was hoping to get a clue to some of these answers. So, I guess it’s up to me to answer this.”

Except I have no clue at all of what I am talking about. One time when I worked at the big-name insurance company office, they were installing a piece of art. It was a six-foot-long rug that the artist had painted on with a paint roller. The artist was there, and one of the bigwigs saw me standing nearby and asked my opinion of it. I just said, “I’m sorry, sir, I ain’t educated enough to judge no art,” and made myself disappear. It was a very uncomfortable moment because the artist was there, and she seemed to be a very nice person, but if someone did that on my rug, they’d get fired. It was really pretty ugly and stupid-looking. I had the good sense to bite my tongue and disappear before any of that could get out of my mouth, along with my other unspoken question of, “How much did it cost?”

I know I like Norman Rockwell’s stuff. I started to ask Der Google about the above-named artists, but wound up on all kinds of rabbit trails and just decided I should not write about things I am not knowledgeable about. Except that, I do know I really like Norman Rockwell. I have never seen a Rockwell painting yet that I didn’t like. Although some of his later paintings about civil rights are a bit disturbing, they still convey an important message. I also like Winslow Homer’s paintings. So much so that I used one for a background for a church theme. But are they art?

The definition of art I found on both Bing and Der Google was, “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” Then I found this quote by Poe that I had heard before, “Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it ‘the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.’ The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of ‘Artist.’”

So, the short answer is, I don’t know. The longer answer is, look up Norman Rockwell and Winslow Homer and decide for yourself. The longest answer is, if you want a list of crazy questions to prove how intellectual you are (or to check the intellectual level of your readers), check out Fifty-Seven Difficult Questions.