[yial]

Just out of curiosity, what do you feel about outsider art ?

Or mixed media art that is more abstract ?

(I will admit, I have a bias as I tend to like things like tonalism, but I’m also very attracted to muted abstract at times. )

[alienbeast]

I don't hate outsider art. Morally, I like that someone can aspire to make art despite being untrained, and that a good concept can be valuable despite a poor execution. In practice, though, I don't usually find it appealing.

I love some abstract art, but hate others. I like Kandinsky and Picasso, but dislike the scribblers and color-field painters who cross the line into "my kid could have done that". One of my favorite artists is Xul Solar, but I like him for his surrealism rather than his cubism. I tend to like realism, surrealism, and symbolism.

I like tonalism a lot. It combines a realistic image (landscape) with an emotion (distance, calm), which is great. I understand tonalism is exploring the emotions in simple colors and shapes, in the same way a fully-abstract artist like Rothko or Twombly would, but it's also exploring landscapes and realism. It also looks like it took effort and care instead of random scribbles.

I guess I have a lot of interest in precise brush strokes, shading, etc. If I see a painting or drawing which looks sloppily-made, I get the urge to go in there and fix it.

I know art doesn't have to all be super complex and precise, and sometimes there is meditative beauty in simplicity. But there's usually more beauty in complexity. I always hated places like the Rothko Chapel, which just feel to me like zero effort was put in... I guess that counts as "muted abstract", sorry. I can kind of see the appeal, but it just feels like "not art" to me.

Even Rothko tries to be aesthetic, though. The worst is stuff like post-conceptualism and performance art. I'm sure there's somebody out there farting on a canvas and trying to charge $500k for it.