What pictures are really beautiful?
As Ernst Gombrich successfully noted, Art with a capital letter And it became for us a kind of fetish. You can criticize the artist, telling him that his work is not “Art”, but something else. Or, for example, to say that the robot is not bad in its own way, but this is not “Art” at all. Easy to criticize, hard to create.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with the fact that we like some particular sculpture or painting. Someone loves landscapes, because, for example, they remind of native places where this person grew up. Someone likes the portrait, as he reminds him of a friend or a loved one. And there is nothing wrong with that. We all, seeing the picture, think of thousands of things that affect our likes and dislikes. While these memories help us evaluate what we see, you should not worry. But if, for example, a person turns his gaze away from the picture, because he remembers his fears and offenses, then it is worth thinking and looking for a more joyful and pleasant association.
Most people see in pictures what they would like to see in reality. This is a perfectly normal addiction. We all love beauty in our life and thank the artist who can perpetuate it in his works. And the creators themselves, in turn, do not criticize our taste, they want us to see the beauty with them, which caused many emotions, and which they presented when drawing one or another picture.
The problem with the beauty of the pictures is also that the norms defining what is beautiful and what is not changed very much. Those who were accepted by society became classics, and their beauty and significance are now not disputable for anyone. Here we are talking, of course, about the epochs, styles and trends of art. That is, despite the fact that each of us, considering the same work, will see it in its own way (since each person sees the world around and all phenomena in it differently), there are still undeniable and universal for all the canons of beauty that have been created for the entire long history of art.
As for modern art, you still need to believe artists that they know how to draw. You should not try to see the realism of the world around us in their work. With the advent of photography, the artist no longer needed to paint as he sees things in reality, there was freedom to display his inner world and the world of the portrayed, feelings, emotions. If the picture seems implausible to us, we must always remember two things. First, the artist may have had reasons to change the appearance of what he saw. Second, you never need to criticize a work of art just because it is incorrectly drawn.
But, of course, one should not (as happens in the modern world of art because of the fear of appearing stupid, one who does not understand modern art) to praise everything that we do not understand, so that later we are not ashamed when a small child says: “ And the king is naked! ” It must be remembered that in our time, pictures serve, first of all, in order to express themselves, their views, and creative searches. Both for the artist and for the one who looks. In addition, it seems to me that we love the pictures most of all precisely because we can find in them our reflection, hidden thoughts, feelings.
