Chess 'fever'.

        There is more pretentious tosh talked about some forms of art (cubism, inpressionism, etc.) than anything else, in my experience. A classical example of "The Emperor's New Clothes".

Cheers Robbie.  

Do you honestly think that I actually believe my own propaganda?

Dont mention it, anyone else you would like freed?

Hardly.  One needs to see them in their historical context to appreciate why they are conceptually important.  My own feeling is that cubism was a great idea, it just didn't make for very good paintings, but conceptually it was brilliant.  With modernism we are seeing the emergence of art with intellectual content, prior to this art was largely decorative.

My illusrtious friend, you know i only drink quality beverages made from the finest grains harvested in that great English county of Gloucestershire!

        I should not, perhaps, have mentioned cubism or impressionism. What I would say is I object to being told that a sheep's carcase in formaldehide; a dead shark in a display cabinet - both Damien Hirst; an unmade bed, recently slept in - Tracy Emin, or a pile of bricks arranged in an oblong pattern at the Tate Gallery, are anything other than pretentious nonsense.

        Such things are a confidence trick eagerly swallowed by the modern art establishment. The only efforts I have so far seen by Jackson Pollock, for example, could have been created by a chimpanzee, yet he enjoys the psychophantic adoration of hordes of so called art lovers. I saw a TV documentary about him once and he was shown standing in front of a canvass flicking splashes of paint at it with no recognisable pattern or purpose. This is not art and has no merit. This is what I meant.

Sure but you have entered the realm of purely conceptual art.  There was an 'artist' near where I live who won a national prize.  His work was a piece of blu-tack on a wall.  Ideas like this I suspect are that the work is intended to be a vehicle for ones own imagination, the artist therefore is supposed to be able to make a much stronger connection with the viewer than providing everything for them.  I cannot say for sure but this appears to me to be the rationale.

I do agree with you though that there is too much pretentiousness.  I remember when I was going for my interview at art school, one of the lecturers when he was discussing my portfolio stated, 'there are no right answers, only right questions'.  I wanted to jump up like a gazelle and slap him about the head.  I thought to myself, if there are no right answers then why are we searching for solutions.  I immediately dismissed his words as those of a madman and left feeling somewhat deflated.

You are standing on philosophical ground, because what indeed is the purpose of art? At first it was narative, paintings on caves etc then imitation of nature was seen as the prime goal, then this was dispensed with as man inserted his will and sought to enter the creative process himself.  Have we deluded ourselves into thinking that its something more than decorative? I would say so.

The Scottish painter Vettriano sells millions of purely decorative prints much to the annoyance of the Art School establishment who view him as somewhat of a charlatan (he's self taught), and yet ladies love the romanticism and he became rich as they hung his prints on their living room walls.  There is another Glasgow painter, she paints tenements, but in my opinion her work is laboured and rather dull and yet she sells lots of prints to the uninitiated who simply want something to hang on their wall. Is such airhead painting really art? Then we have the other side of the spectrum in what you are witnessing with these exhibits that you mention. An attempt to impute intellectual content to a work of art.  The problem is that it may be so intellectual that no one can relate to it in any tangible way and we are left thinking what the heck was that?

Pollock is an interesting example, his concept to mirror a purely mechanical form of art (I believe he somehow hung paint on a string, pushed it and let it make an impression on the canvas)  is perhaps not so far removed from the pop artists like Worhal.  You can see that conceptually its very interesting, to mirror the mechanical mass production and hum drum of the modern era but it makes for very poor paintings in my opinion.

I think it was Socrates who defined the difference between a skill and an art form. The latter being that it was open to experimentation which is completely lacking in a skill.  No one wants their hairdresser to experiment on them, by way of example, they would much rather have their hair cut skilfully rather than artisticly.

        What I would say as an art "critic" is that the painting which springs to mind as making an "impression" on me, is Van Goch's celebrated depiction of the orchard. It is not just an image of an area of land with fruit trees, but seems to make one feel so much wind swept bleakness and rawness. This is not the only work of his I have admired. I hope I'm not making myself sound too pretentious!

No Theo was the special one because his art has a transcendent quality, its eternal and will speak to generations, ultimately because its human and its these human elements that we can relate to.  Gauguin his friend is similar but he's a little more complicated.  Theo has that purity and simplicity which sets his art apart.  There is nothing pretentious about it.

Is that comment conceptual art?  Are you a minimalist?

Have you ever been to a degree show in Glasgow or Edinburgh art school? You should go there wil be one coming up soon and you will see 'the state of the art' :D

How would you know K unless you visit places where art is exhibited?

All chocolate box artists whose work would not look out of place on a biscuit tin!

Ideas are ten a penny. I'm sure I could think up a dozen arty concepts in hour if I had too.  I have more admiration for skill and technique in putting ideas across.

I have a simple criterion for art which works well for me, namely that if I could replicate it, it is almost certainly rubbish.  I have no artistic talent whatsoever.

Well this is the interesting phenomena.  People hang by way of example Monet on their living room walls, French poppy fields with ladies in sun umbrellas painted in pastel shades.  Do they really understand what Monet was trying to achieve when he painted those pictures? Do they really need to understand what he was trying to achieve? absolutely not.  My brother has one and he understands nothing about art, to him its simply pretty picture.  What I am trying to say is that in art there are all kinds of levels of understanding.  Your fictitious friends haphazard approach to art may have resulted in art, but who can say, its open to interpretation and levels of understanding.  It might be the same a Van Goghs empty chair, its not the chair that is important (or in this instance the bench and the backpack) but what is absent from it.  Your fictitious friends backpack on a bench may evoke similar expressions. 

Its true, what intellectual content does Constable have? or Turner for that matter? Lets not talk of that charlatan Vettriano

Yes but there is a difference between skill and art, is there not?  Baking cakes is a skill, but is it an art form?

Art that doesn't require any technical skill or practice? How convenient.

https://www.google.com/search?q=modern+art+gallery&biw=1920&bih=1079&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=JSQhVYHDHsbvsAWR0IBo&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#imgdii=_