Yes, I agree the attitude here is refreshing, I read a few of the ARC articles and it's nice to see some intelligent criticism of modernism for a change. [Fred Ross] is right when he says how people always love the colour, composition, [and] form of Renaissance art and then ignore it completely with French academic painting. It's as though you're allowed to have those things in a painting as long as you painted it before 1860 lol.
It's like people started raving about how Impressionists were a new style that broke away from 'academic painting' - maybe they were even being patronising - you know the way people sometimes can enjoy patronising an artist they don't see as very good, maybe some people get bored with a painting you can't patronise - say a Bouguereau. I sometimes get the sense people like having modern art there so you can make fun of it.
I actually like the three artists you mentioned - well like them compared to some others such as what I think is the most horrible art style in history - Die Brucke (yuk) - Emil Nolde's awful mess defaces my art history textbook.
I'm currently studying an art school unit about Issues in Contemporary Art (compulsory) and some of the reading is so up in the air. On the internet discussion group I've noticed that at least 6 students, probably more, posted messages on how confusing post-modernism is. Here's just one example of one of the things I have to read:
Talking to people on Yahoo art chat I can't find anyone who can define anything about post-modernism other than it's "after modernism" - well I could have gathered that from the title.
