From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 09/02/02-02:09:15 PM Z
On Sun, 1 Sep 2002, Cactus Cowboy wrote:
> ... That his photographs continue to be reproduced on countless
> hundreds of thousands of posters, notecards, and calendars is a testimonial
> to their excellence and widespread, enduring appeal.
Enduring appeal of course .... obviously. Excellence as art -- would
anyone deny the inverse correlation between "popularity" and "excellence
as art" in this country ?
I remember a couple of years ago on the history of photography list
someone (maybe it was Bill Becker) named a photographer I'd never heard of
as the most collected and reproduced photographer in the world, something
like nine million prints sold. As I recall (and this from memory) his
subjects were cosy cottages, picket fences and children building snowmen
-- no I take that back, I think sunsets and kittens, or maybe it was
sleighbells and wagon wheels (someone at the Wadsworth Athenaeum was doing
a thesis on him, maybe I have the URL). The point being, really, what's
mass appeal got to do with it?
A more interesting case is Norman Rockwell. I'm a very strong Rockwell
fan-- have his books, love the work, it's fabulous. The reasons for the
disdain of art critics were I suppose partly/largely the mass appeal, but
many other reasons of the zeitgeist & art of the time as well.
Rockwell is now of course resurrected... tho there are still holdouts.
My question is, will "art critics" (not just photo nerds) of the future
similarly proceed to take Ansel Adams seriously as more than "calendar
artist"? What ideas will he carry forth beyond "ain't nature grand"?
As for,
> Ansel was not "presumably a master
technician", he was definitely a master technician....>
Perhaps "presumably" wasn't a good word choice, but the context was my
inability to judge that kind of technical excellence -- I can only take it
on faith. Meanwhile, I know, alas, that when i've given the test to other
stuff taken on faith it proved invalid (as in the notorious gum-pigment
ratio test). Not equipped to and even less interested in checking out
Ansel Adams's technical virtuosity, writing in haste at 3 AM, I said
"presumably." Will it change any of the above about his "art" if I say
"granted his technical virtuosity'?
J.
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