Well done BBC - yet another hour-long homage to modern 'art'. It's been a while since I've had a rant about the garbage that the BBC's open door policy to the talentless takes great delight in thrusting down our throats. The UK has a plethora of brilliant painters, never mind the rest of the world, yet virtually none is ever portrayed by our national broadcasting service.
Unless I am very much mistaken, I believe that the VAST majority of the viewing public would much rather watch an hour of a great modern painter actually painting en plein air or in the studio, instead of watching some pillock piling up rocks, or tipping water down a rockface, or putting a cow's head in a glass case with a million flies, or embroidering the names of all their conquests on a tent, or wrapping the Reichtstag in silk sheets, or staging a happening, or making another 'installation'....need I go on?
We do occasionally get a retrospective of Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir etc., if there happens to be an exhibition at the National Gallery, but why no modern great painters, like Curtis, Brown or Howard? You would think, if you watched the BBC, that all art made these days is the sh-t that graces the walls of the Tate. Depressing, when there is SO much brilliant art out there that NEVER gets a look in on our TV screens. Grrrrrrr! Rant over.
Unless I am very much mistaken, I believe that the VAST majority of the viewing public would much rather watch an hour of a great modern painter actually painting en plein air or in the studio, instead of watching some pillock piling up rocks, or tipping water down a rockface, or putting a cow's head in a glass case with a million flies, or embroidering the names of all their conquests on a tent, or wrapping the Reichtstag in silk sheets, or staging a happening, or making another 'installation'....need I go on?
We do occasionally get a retrospective of Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir etc., if there happens to be an exhibition at the National Gallery, but why no modern great painters, like Curtis, Brown or Howard? You would think, if you watched the BBC, that all art made these days is the sh-t that graces the walls of the Tate. Depressing, when there is SO much brilliant art out there that NEVER gets a look in on our TV screens. Grrrrrrr! Rant over.
Brilliant rant...with which I wholeheartedly agree!
ReplyDeleteThanks Sharon - I'm not alone then!
DeleteYou are NOT alone Peter! I agree completely with your post! Rant on!
ReplyDeleteThank you Bev - I've stirred up a hornets' nest on Facebook too!
DeleteFull House here Peter about your rant. More please. Oh! if only the BBC would listen eh? Lets all form a club on this subject, I would be the first to sign up for it. Brilliant painting Peter. As a matter of fact it is an amazing painting. All the best my friend.
ReplyDeleteVic.
Thank you Vic - no dissents so far! I'll let you form the club!
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ReplyDeleteI can kind of understand why the BBC is doing this. They are looking for the new, the interesting, the never been done before. Do the public want to see yet more sailboats in the habour? Do they want to see mum and daughter on the beach again the sunset, or God forbid another wanna be Bob Ross with his two inch house brush showing how easy art can be for every one, or even worse some Kinkade type pumping out twee country scenes? (no Peter I am not refering to you your paintings are beautiful truely,please write a book that actually explains the process fully 99% dont seem to have any idea how to do this)
ReplyDeleteI recently joined a couple of art clubs and the standard is simply embarrasing. The subject matter so predictable. I think maybe the BBC would be more interested in a sitcom based at an art club. Such pretention, such banality, so little actual creativity! It was like attending a Cof E tea afternoon, lots of very nice people playing with water colours to be really honest no art. I attended because I wanted answers and was really overwhelmed by all the colours, and the seperation of green, and getting those muted greys, and I had very little experience of the actual process they looked at me like I was mad and what was my problem? I wantched a couple of them pump out a landscape in an hour without even using a photo!! I had been sat freezing my arse off for three weeks on the canal side, in tears, because I really wasn't capturing what I saw, and felt like I was dealing with a pond of floating colours whist some one was throwing rocks into the water.
Now if the BBC could make a program that expressed the frustations and pains of actually trying to learn this art that would really something!
I'm sure every one at that art club would agree with you too Peter but it would be for entirely the wrong reason.
Thanks for your comment Luke. Sorry to hear your experience with your art clubs. It's always pot luck, but it's as well to see if they have regular demos by professional artists - some do and some don't, but the ones who do are usually a good bet to join.
DeleteI would love to write a book one day if I could get it published. I am still in the process of doing my own DVD, so watch out for that...
I take your point about tweeness and totally agree - that's just as bad as 'contemporary art', but that's far from what I'm talking about. To see the likes of Ken Howard, David Curtis, John Lines, Peter Brown etc., REAL painters who just don't do twee, but proper paintings in front of the subject and in the studio, would be a joy to behold, not just for the painters among us. The b***ocks that we're unfailingly confronted with on terrestrial TV is the ridiculous, pretentious, laughable codswallop that gives 'art' a bad name.
Well said my honey-bunch, and lovely rant...as usual. In particular, loved Luke's comments.
ReplyDeleteAnd might I add, for the record, the pastel painting you did at the Sock Gallery is BRILLIANT!! Soft and painterly and not a bit ...twee...
BIG KISSES --ahem...
Janey
Thank you DP, you're very kind, and BIG kisses to you too....
Delete100% agree with you Peter. There are some truly magnificent artists here in the UK and we should be celebrating them and making more people aware of their work. And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE hurry with your DVD!! But don't let the producers use the usual naff music in the background :-)
ReplyDeleteTom (Bolton, UK).
Thank you for your thoughts Tom. The DVD is, seemingly, always on the back-burner with all my exhibition commitments, but I am determined to get it done and edited. I'm producing it myself, so I shall be in control of the content and the naff music, so I'll try not to offend! Watch this space....
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