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0 pointsmattkrause6mo ago0 comments

Art museums are even worse. "Portrait of Duke von Duke (London, 1841). Oils."

Who is this guy in the painting?! How did he merit a painting? What's unique about the style/composition/whatever?

Conversely, I went to an exhibit of Napoleonic Art and they had a whole breakdown of the symbolism. For example, Napolean liked bees as a symbol of hard work and order, apparently, and they were snuck into most depictions of him as little Easter Eggs.

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watwut6mo ago

Most likely, there is no special backstory and the painting was simply commissioned. And most likely, there no super special composition in that portrait and the style is exactly the same as the style of surrounding paintings.

Most paintings dont have a cool backstories. They are just paintings. Art student can see technical details of how they were done, but those are not really interesting if you are not trying to learn to paint.

stevage6mo ago

But even that basic context is useful and interesting: "in this era it was common for wealthy people to commission portraits." Etc

aleph_minus_one6mo ago

> But even that basic context is useful and interesting: "in this era it was common for wealthy people to commission portraits."

This is basic knowledge.

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mr_toad6mo ago

Unfortunately portraits are what used to put dinner on the table for an artist, which is why you see so many portraits of random rich person. The camera changed all that though.

parpfish6mo ago

Then there are the “artist statement” ladies on some exhibits where artist get to describe their work on self-aggrandizing terms that only make sense to people with a graduate degree in the field

BeFlatXIII6mo ago

The longer the artist statement, the worse the art.

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