What distinguishes the Great from the very technically accomplished?
 

What distinguishes the great artists from the many very technically accomplished artists? That question has been buzzing in my head for a long time now. Here is my take on the question.

All the great artists have been very technically accomplished in their craft, but they brought something else very special to the art world...a unique identifiable style. You can walk into any gallery or museum in the world and instantly pick out the Reubens, Bouguereau, Van Gogh, Caravaggio, El Greco, Picasso, Monet, Turner and any number of other greats.Their style identifies them and their work.

On this forum there are many brilliantly accomplished artists. Some standout because they have created a unique, distinguishing style that we could identify in any gallery that has their work hanging on the wall. Here are just a few that come to mind....Linda Nelson, Kimberly Dow, Tony Pro. There are others that I am sure come instantly to mind.

Now here is the crux of the matter. What constitutes a unique identifiable style?

No. I think there's more to it than that. I don't want to disparage any specific artist's work, but there are artists who are universally recognized as schlockmeisters in the art world, who have an easily recognizable style, and a fair amount of technical skill.

It's not that easy to define. Great art has to speak to you. If it speaks to a lot of people, the artist is recognized as great.

Even then, there will be those who dispute your assumptions of who is great and who is not. It's a slippery thing.

I think that's 2 different questions : for exemple, Picasso had some very differents styles during his life, and if you don't know his life you can easily think that some of his pieces are made by different artists...

Change of question. What makes the great painter Great?
 

I think we should change the question slightly to, What makes the great painter Great?

Jeff, you hit on something very important to the discussion. Great painter's works appeal to a wide audience over many generations. So now we have two characteristics of great:

1 - Distinctive style
2 - Wide appeal over time

I'm wondering if we shouldn't add retina burn factor to the list as I can think of many artists who meet the above two criteria, but would not be considered great.

Marina, indeed the great artists can change styles and still be brilliant. The new style however still meets the distinctive style criteria.

So again the challenge thrown out to all is to define the qualities or characteristics that define what makes an artist great. We know great when we see it, but what is it?

I think opinions vary so widely as to what is "great" that it would be impossible to pin down. Many people think Picasso was great, and many more would strongly disagree.

Michele,
Point 2 allows for those who disagree. History shows that the greats stand the test of time for the many.

Our quest in this threat is for us to find what makes the Great great. Pick your own greats and contribute any thoughts you may have on this elusive characteristic.

What makes an artist great?

1. One of the things great artists of the past have in common, is that they where ahead of their time with their art. They where avant-garde: in front of the masses. These days the question if you can still speak of avant-garde, is open to discussion because

Soul.

Heart and soul... a lot of artists have that, but they are not all great...even if they are technically skilled.

I think it also has to do with how influential an artist has been during and after his time i.e how much he or she contributes to the development of art history. Therefore it has less to do with how technically skilled or how soulful a work of art is, but how much it encompasses (and expresses for the masses) the zeitgeist that is on the brink of coming into existence - i.e. the feelings, morals, beliefs etc. that are still unconscious in the minds of most of the said artist's contemporary society. The surrealists (for example) were highly influential in the development of post-modernism, but quite a lot of them denied being technically accomplished (although one can argue that quite a lot of them were) or romantic or soulful in notion.

(Max Ernst's "Ein Kupferblech ..." below)

I think the true grate artists strive for the truth and nothing but the truth.

There are grate artists that tell the truth and there are grate artists that lye and are not grate but promotion has made them out to be grate lyer's. One can see this in their work.

An artist that strives for the truth will not compromise. Artists that lye will continue to spin their web. The world is fool of unsuspecting flays that rather land on.

Please excuse me for being so blunt but if a artist is not playing with a full deck and this is evident in the art then why is he/she so grate? Is it because one can draw a rectangle, a square and a cow and add color? Is that what categorizes an artist as grate?

If some weird looking figure seems like its holding another small weird looking figure, am I to think that is what a mother holding her maybe looks like? Which one of you would commission such a thing and admit these persons are related to you?

It is up to each one to decide which road one will travel. My brushes and I strive for the truth.

If "soul" isn't in itself sufficient for greatness, and I grant you it may not be, I wouldn't agree that innovation or "newness" alone is a sufficient measure either.

A work might be very effective in capturing or documenting the psychological terrain of the culture in which it is produced, but I'd submit that the great works are universal and transcend history.

This example isn't technically innovative for its time, nor does it depict anyone particularly charismatic or remarkable within that culture, but I'd consider running into a burning building to save it.

But of course! At the moment there is a resurgence of belief and interest in humanity, the individuality of the artist, and the striving for technical excellence (by which I mean one that is imbued with an honest joy of the workings of paint and joy of the thrilling illusions that can be rendered, and the tangible, tactile realism that can be achieved).

At the time of Max Ernst, however, mankind had just gone through the Great War and, not surprisingly, there was a great disillusionment that followed. Such focus on the attainment of individual genius seemed callous when so many individuals had fought and lost their individual lives for the protection of their people. Many people also lost their belief in, and hope for, the future, and some of the responses to this were Dadaism and Futurism where madness, chaos and the impact of machines on humankind were values (or anti-values) that seemed vital to express.

The "truth", Mischa, is quite subjective to the individual artist, the individual race, the individual country, and individual era, for example. We take from the past what speaks to us most in the time and situation we are in. The striving for newness was at first, I believe, indicative of a fleeing from the horrors of the world wars, and then an expression of the impact of industrialism and twentieth century popular culture. Many if us now are tired of the intransigence of the constant renewal of the new, and have a deep need for something more permanent and solid and, as you say, universal.

So, running into a burning building to rescue that painting is something that I would probably do too, Tom, but it would arguably have been anathema to Max Ernst and others of his era.

Which raises a lot of interesting tangential questions.

Those who see the work of the Dadaists, Futurists, et. al. as a soulless calculation to dupe the public miss exactly what you describe--that such expression was a real reaction to a horrible new level in our ability to knock each other off. The Dadaists couldn't have been less concerned with the public's acceptance or non-acceptance of what they produced.

But it wasn't the only art produced during that period. So I wonder (and I don't necessarily have the answers to these questions), are Art and Art History the same thing? Or is Art History just a shifting construct for our need to organize the past? What makes one type (or types) of art officially representative of its time? Or "great?" Who decides this, artists, art historians, the public?

I have a volume of "The History of Art" by HW Janson, thought at the time I was enrolled in a university art program forty years ago as the definitive Art History volume. There is no mention of Sargent at all, and most women artists who know the book have a definite opinion of its value based on a stupendous lack of recognition of their efforts. We are addressing some of these omissions in our canon now. So the content of the historical summary shifts over time.

I've always appreciated the visual inventiveness and playfulness of Dadaism and its cousins, but they feel somehow less powerful to me because they need an attached manifesto to have real weight and convince me of any long-term staying power. And again, lots of other styles of art were produced concurrently. Are Dadaism and other genres "great," or just historically intriguing for some of us at a particular point in time?

So again, is there some element or elements of artistic greatness that transcend a need for historical explanation?

(I'd still run in there even though Ernst would have disdained such sentimentality.)

Best as always--TE

(PS: I recommend reading "The Painted Word," by Tom Wolfe, to everyone. It recounts how a very small community of artists and critics in post WW II New York codified Abstract Expressionism into the "official" art of the time, in spite of public indifference, and stole the attention from Europe. It's a short, quick read, and hilarious.)

The Dadaists were, in fact, quite concerned with the public's response to their work. They were out to shock. Not to shock for shocking's sake, but to shake people out of their complacent acceptance of the status quo. They wanted to express how the war and the threat of more wars to come had and was undermining the idea of civilised society. To return to pre-war values was, to them, a pretense, an artifice, the foundations of which seemed to have disappeared leaving society a bit like a chicken without a head. It looked like the real thing but was essentially dying and chaotic. Dadaist theatre and art focuses on the idea of the chaotic, using the subconscious mind with it's uncontrolled impulsive instincts and irrationality (madness) as their tools - as the only values, they felt, that had any real relevance to their society at that time.

But back to the point, I agree with you - I have been talking more about famous paintings instead of great paintings, and of course there is a difference. I do like the Max Ernst work. I do think it stems from a great and noble idea. As a painting I think it stands out above many other paintings so I am going to stick my neck out and say yes, it may well be a great painting. Ernst seems to love his craft and is skilled at it as well as being highly intelligent and pursuant of what in his gut he felt was the truth. I think his ideas are not only expressed through the images he made but also through - in a much less describable sense - the marks he made. There is an inimitable style in his work, and a resonance which, to me, seems the embodiment of his philosophy: his philosophy that is not fully able to be expressed in words. It is assimilated, perhaps, into his whole (including his bodily) existence. His ideas, his art, was his life and his life was his art and his philosophy. Everything he did, I presume, from the mundane to the outstanding was connected to his ideas. I think that's what makes art great - the expression of a life-directing and life-encompassing passion.

All the best to you to, Tom.

You start following links around this site, you find huge library of information. From an article by John Howard Sanden in the form of questions propounded to Philip Alexius de Laszlo, this exchange seemed destined for this thread:

Quote by David Leffel:

"A master painter requires patience and commitment because paintings is a rational pursuit"

...I think he has a good point here.

An educated audience
 

Our society is arguably uneducated in almost all areas of art. So, to most, art is not a great thing, nor is the artist. Artists can become great in our society in spite of their mediocre art. Wouldn't it be lovely if more people had some better quality art training - not just art history, or art appreciation, but art apprenticeship? There would be a higher level of true appreciation for better art then there is today. As it is, we have deplorable art exhibits, and very low levels of art teaching in many art classes today.

You have to have intelligent viewers to have great artists.

When you can sense a message, or you might say a story comes through to the viewer. When the artist has a great deal of respect and admiration for the subject matter, whether it be a portrait, or a magnificent landscape. Robert Vickery is such an artist in my opinion. Can you define great art for all the masses? I'm undecided because everyone one has the freedom to enjoy their own personal taste and individuality so great art may be exclusively in the the eye of the beholder. Then there are great painters like Rembrandt. When you look at his work it appears that his entire body of work is great as a whole, and I'm sure not everyone shares that opinion. His technical skill was fantastic, it set him apart from his contemporaries, but yet to achieve what he accomplished, I think you have to have a love affair with all humanity and a tremendous love for painting to produce great art.