Reaction to: Enter the Dragon: On the Vernacular of Beauty

The first, and seemingly most important question that I asked myself was: "What the hell did I just read?" Not only was Hickey confusing in his organization of whatever argument he was making, but he used a drastic amount of unnecessary words that turned out to form ridiculous sentences. Take for example this sentence: "He appropriates a Baroque vernacular of beauty that predates and, clearly, outperforms the puritanical canon of visual appeal espoused by the therapeutic institution." Now, for those of us who aren't double English and contemporary art majors at Oxford, what in God's name is he trying to say here? Because I have no idea. His whole essay seemed to be little bits of information that could be understood by the masses surrounded by sentence after sentence of philosophical bullshit. Hickey jumps all over the place, from talking about the Renaissance to Andy Warhol. I couldn't even begin to tell you what his argument is here. I know that he is talking about beauty, but can anyone realistically get a firm grasp on what he is saying? He seems to be saying that beauty is what gives visual pleasure to the observer (which is an observation that any half-brained 10-year-old could tell you). He also seems to be saying that beauty sells (duh). He seems to be saying that this is a problem in our society, but I am not clear on his argument here. My conclusion is that he is not telling us anything new. He is taking a subject and making an argument which could have been expressed quite effectively in 2-3 pages but instead decided to use his keen writing ability and turn it into a 17 page essay of filler, useless jargon, and blabber. Hickey is clearly a smart critic who writes with intellectual grace, but he needs to understand that the average Joe who would normally be interested in this type of argumentative piece will have no idea what the hell he is talking about.

Art In My Life

Up until this point in my life, I have never really thought about art and it's role in society. Growing up, the only extensive amount of art I was exposed to were the car drawings that my dad had framed in our basement. Being a car collector and growing up around the automotive business, my dad loves car design and to this day, if you ask him, the best artists are the ones who design automobiles. Growing up in a family who has been in the car business since they came over from Italy, when I think of art (besides the obvious famous pieces such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper) I think of automotive design.

Violent Art

In response to the violent works of art we were viewing in class, I discovered this painting by Barnaby Furnas depicting Jesus. The image is intriguing because it's creatively violent. Furnas uses simple splashes of red paint to show blood. It is violent without being over the top.