From: Jeff Buck (jeffbuck@swcp.com)
Date: 09/02/02-03:05:28 PM Z
Who knows what "art critics of the future" will think? That's why we have
the future -- we don't know what it holds. A hundred and fifty years ago,
Henry Taylor was the knighted Poet Laureate of England and dead even with
Tennyson in public and critical regard. Heard of him? About the only
reason I have is that he was incredibly handsome and Cameron took his
portrait several times. Anyhow, who cares what the art critics of the
future will think? Is Henry Taylor crap because the critics of this era
think so? Why? Who are they? Finally, what future critics are we talking
about? Those of ten years from now? A hundred years from now? A
thousand? When? If five hundred, then why?
At 04:09 PM 9/2/2002 -0400, Judy Seigel wrote:
>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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