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Originally Posted by travric
Very interesting points. Right, I am stunned at how 'popular' a Bacon painting has become. Is the art perhaps an expensive 'taste' of the times which as you noted focuses now on the 'disturbed' and 'unbalanced'? We apparently are at the other end of the spectrum say from the Mona Lisa. Really Bacon's painting all have the 'posions' right up there on the surface. He sets it right up to the viewer's face. heheh what's happening to so-called 'beauty'?' ...;-)...Arguably it now looks like it's lost or perhaps undergoing a transformation.
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As the old saw says: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I'm not a Bacon fan, but then, I have never seen one of his paintings in person.
Reproductions are very seldom accurate to the original. The camera always robs a painting of something, and film always changes the colors. Electronic only reproduction is no better for the same reasons.
There is nothing yet made that is as sensitive as the human eye, and a painting's size is a vital element always. Who knows? If I'm ever to see an original Bacon, I might change my opinion in a split second.
EVen so, there is still plenty of conventionally beautiful art to be found. A painting by Gustav Klimt went for multi-millions last year, and Klimt was extremely controversial in his day, but few would say his paintings are not beautiful. He was popular when he was alive, especially among the wealthy and influential art buyers of his day, and has become even more popular in the 100 years since his death.
Klimt was a true master of the craft as well as being a visionary artist.
There were others in the Austrian Secession art movement in turn-of-the-century Vienna, and many were fine painters and sculptors, but none could match him in the technical mastery of his materials.
Few of his contemporaries would have spent the money on materials that Klimt spent as well. His use of gold leaf was extravagant, as was his use of oil paint. Both were as expensive then as now.