Salaam Iran

Mazloom,

I get, all you wanted to say was there is no clear definition for Art, am I right? This is what excatly I said in my blog entry, "There is no black and white answer for it". By the way why did you pick an example of a child drawing, why don't you bring an example of a child making steel sculptures by forming metal, or making crystal glass artworks? A child who compose and write music? Can a child design rug pattern?

Yes I know they are innocent and creative and all artists want to be as creative as a child but what thoes artists don't want to tell you is if they want to trade their techniques and skills with a child too. Creativity and originality is good but not enough at the 21st century. You also need to have techniques simply because all the ideas that required no to primitive level of skills are alredy used.  

narrow definition of art

I believe you are trying to define what art and artist SHOULD BE according to YOUR OWN TASTE.

Take the example of Nazeri vs. Shajarian, your preference is for Shajarian, as you’ve mentioned it, however to many others it’s the other way around. This is what is called “in the eyes of the beholder”. If you could revisit these two singers one hundred years from now, your preference would be Shajarian, and others would be for Nazeri. Take the example of Classical Music; some businesses have learned that if they install speakers outside their businesses and play Classical Music it would repel teenagers from congregating around their establishment. Classical Music is universally being accepted to be artful, yet it is a repellent to others. Take the example of Pop Music, they’re sold around the world by millions, yet to those who love Classical Music it is just harsh noise.

If one revisits these two types of music a century from now, there will be people who would prefer Classical Music and some who would prefer Pop Music. The other night I learned that the richest female entertainer in the world is the novelist J.K. Rowling, the British Author of Harry Potter series. She is worth 1.5 billion dollars. Her revenue from her books alone amounts to 100 million dollars annually and it is predicted to continue for the next SEVERAL years. Yet I am sure many people would consider her work to be “junk”.

1.5 billion dollars contribution to any country’s economy is a lot of money, and it would be wrong for anyone and any governmental entity to try stifling artistic creativity with narrow definitions.

Midwesty, I am afraid you took me wrong!!!

My art work is my faith and therefore I have nothing else to share with you.I hope you find it somewhere else.

Tahirih

Tahirih

If you click on my log name's hyperlink it directs you to my profile and then you can see the 'Contact' tab on the left top side of the screen. That'll open another screen to let you contact me via email. I look forward to seeing them.

Dear midwesty

For sure, just ask.

Tahirih

Mazloom

What I said does not mean that your grand daughter won't be an artist and she is not an angel artist in her family's eyes right now but I am talking in general. It takes much more than technique to call something art. It needs a universal consent and it needs time, time, and time. Shajerian's voice is heavenly and he is very artistic in his performance. Nazeri is innovative but less skillful. Guess who got the French knights medal for his artistic achievements? I still prefer Shajarian. He is a master and he has left no room for anybody to wiggle in Persian classical singing for long time. That's why Nazeri came up with something new and polished it over and over for years to get the recognition he thought it deserves.

Mazloom

Let's set aside your case since it doesn't fit well in our argument. I have seen a 15 year old kid draws better than Kamal-ol-Molk bt that makes him an artist? No because he was copying Kamal-ol-Molk. and Kamal-ol-Molk was also copying his older western counterparts but since he was the first one in Iran he became famouse. Kamal-ol-Mol did his work in Romanticism style couple of centuries after western painters had moved on to another front. Maybe that 15 year old one day become an artist but not as long as he is doing what he was doing. We all know a piece of art does not make one an artist.As I said it is a long journey. I would like to call people with original ideas who has put not only their time but set their life around their work an artist. It is an insult to those to call every copy cat an artist. It is difficult to distinguish between these but time tells you all. That's why most artist are long gone when they become famous. Unlike scientists who get rewarded right on the spot. Because you see the outcome of their science in front of you but in art it takes maturity from the audience and patience form the artist side to arrive to the point to call it art.

Omid Hast

Are you comparing Muslims to Christians regarding their response to an insult? If you do you are missing one huge point. The westerner's response is mostly subtle and sometimes cuts even deeper. Please elaborate more on that.

Let's not kill artists!

My seven-year old grand daughter has been disputing several of your statements in your blog and follow up comments ever since she was four years old. She has been drawing beautiful paintings ever since she could hold any kind of marking tools in her hand. The first assumption that “in a TRUE art there is everything but simplicity”, my grand daughter is a proof that art could be simple, or complicated and anything in between. Picasso worked all his life to draw like a child. He said, “The critics say I draw like a child. When I was a child I drew like Raphael. It took me my whole life to draw like a child.”

You do not need to bother stating that my daughter is not an artist, because to us and anyone who has seen her drawings she is an artist.

I don’t know about your statement that artist must explore things that are SOMETIMES out of proportion, out of ordinary and outspoken. I have seen many pieces of art work that are about nothing but being proportional, ordinary, and mundane. I believe a lot of artists become fixated with one style of drawing and devout a good portion of their life to it. For example naturalistic and representational artist who paint animals such as birds in perfect proportion. Also artists of “still life” who draw most mundane objects, and “landscape” artists who draw ordinary paintings of nature scenery. My grand daughter for awhile was interested in drawing dolls. Simple, proportional, ordinary, mundane dolls.

“...a TRUE artist should not to be afraid of testing new flavors”, falls within the same argument that many artist become fixated with one style, and devout most of their life to it. This statement that they “SHOULD NOT” do this or that is so wrong. It can’t be required of my grand daughter, and it can’t be required of any grown up artists.

 “However a true artist doesn’t come every so often rather what we see are mostly junky artists. So who is the judge of that? There is no black and white answer for it but time. Time is the best tool to clear out the real from the fake.” No, no, no. I don’t need time to tell me my grand daughter’s drawings are so called “fake“ or “junky”. The people who love her are the judge of that.  Her paintings are real and perfect. I understand that you are not talking about a child when you say “artist” or “true artist”, but I am using this analogy to make a point, and the point is that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Time is not a mandate for recognizing beauty, nor is it a requirement for disdain of it.

My grand daughter sometimes draws something but does not want us to look at it, and some other times she proudly wants us to hang it on the wall. This tells me that audience is not a requirement for an artist either. She most likely sometimes draws something for her own sake, to communicate with herself and no one else. Those are the drawings that she does not want anyone else to see. And the ones she wants others to see, well that’s to share her creations with others.

"Piss Christ"

"Piss Christ" is a controversial photography by the American photographer Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's urine. It is best described as a statement on "what WE have done to Christ". Take the examples of Jim Baker, Tammy Faye Messner, Jimmy Swaggart, and some 40 Catholic priests fleeing charges of child abuse in the United States who are reportedly living in Mexico, etc, etc... So in comparison, Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” is a most decent depiction of what some people have done to Jesus’ message of love.

It would also be quite appropriate for an artist, who is not concern about his own life, to depict a submerged, in urine, image of prophet Mohammad to bring attention to what some ayatollahs have done to his message, whatever that message is, and however he wants to create an image of him. But first and most important thing is that the artist should not be concerned about his/her own life, because most likely he/she will only live for a short time.

Tahirih,

I'd like to see any of your artworks. I am far from being expert but I grew up around artists.

I hope...

you guys/gals see what I am trying to do here. It is about getting the bigger picture. It is about understanding the both sides. I am trying to say lets make bridges. Lets sneak into each other’s system of belief and wonder around. Let's see things through the eyes of our critiques, competitors and heck knows even our enemies.

Dear Midwesty I have great respect for you.

you  sound so honest , and your personal sensorship about that word, made me to have such a respect for you.As an artist I will be more sensetive to your taste, BECAUSE you are to mine.

As far as this new and flashy style that I like ,it is beautiful but you have to see it with your own eyes and judge with your own mind.The obstacle is that most people see it through an art dealers eyes who has no motive other than his own benefit.

I agree with you I see it mostly with my heart not my mind, but I am in love with this art and this is a love that consumes me day and night, and I can not explain it to anyone unless they have experienced it.

hope someday, all humanity taste this love.

Respectfuly,

Tahirih

A true artist...

A true artist struggles for deep self expression and has a fervent desire to express what is inside. He will go to no ends to express himself but in the end if he is destitute and needs money to feed or shelter himself, he will certainly make art for the public. most likely he will feel despise for himself but after all he needed money. A true artist would rather starve and express rather than create for the masses.
Just look at the history of Pollack, Van Gogh, Matisse, Modigliani, O'Keefe,.. any self-expressed artist, and you will see a background filled with misery, alcohol and drug abuse, social ineptitude. but in the end, all that we remember is that they "made it" in the Art world.

To Midwesty

If they express themselves to themselves so why do they need medium then, paper, notes, instruments? They could just simply think it.
GOOD QUESTION? HUMAN MIND IS A STRANGE MUSCLE!!!!!. we have tendency to forget things very easily..why people write a journal?. why people take pictures etc,..What do you do when you miss your love ones? i think you agree with me that we immediately look at their pictures..Why not think of it? because That picture which taken at certain location or in a certain moment will bring a special memory of happiness or sadness or.....that how an artist think..,By paint or taking a picture or creating any other form of art they will keep that moment alive for ever..
it is all about A MOMENT.

ramintork

I would agree with you in an ideal world but in this world that Art is being manipulated to advance specific agendas, I try to be cautious to call any thing new and flashy a true art. But nothing stops me about fantasizing the world that you pictured. It is beautiful but I am afraid what I see in Hollywood in contrast with daily life of Iraqis makes me to believe that we aren’t there yet. 

Standing on the shoulder of Giants

Artists in the west are free because they are standing on the shoulders of Giants that have emancipated this part of the World, but even here this freedom is not taken for granted and as the world once again has become more religiously fundementalist, the artists and intellectals have to fight their corner to maintain their freedom.

It has taken centuries to evolve a secular society where freedom and expression has allowed the art that we enjoy and their expression is free from the chains of religious dogma.

As for Blasphomy, it is a victimless crime! If you don't believe in God then you haven't insulted anyone and if you do then it would be childish to think that an omnipitent God's emotions is likely to be hurt by an Artist and even if it does it is a matter between the creator and the created so you have no business getting in the middle!

In fact the problem with most religions is to do with someone in their mind deciding they want to act as the hand of God and manifest God's wrath on Earth and doing this without a proof of communication from the other side, and very often with the alterior of motive of dominating his fellow man into submission, building Empires, having sex with young women or gathering of wealth or rather foolishly making asumptions about God's intent.

Our blue planet is a tiny spec of dust in the wings of our Galaxy that contains Billions upon Billions of stars in a Universe that has Billions upon Billions of our Galaxies. I think in such a vast Universe the time for a stone age personal 'Alpha male chief of the tribe' type of God that would like to censor Art is over so freedom of Artistic expression stands.

LA,

'Self Expression' is a subset of communication. I can't imagine that an artist express herslef/himself to nothing. If they express themselves to themselves so why do they need medium then, paper, notes, instruments? They could just simply think it. Humans are social creatures. As you know communication is between two or more people. So even when you as an artist think that nobody is looking you are imagining an audience to tell your story not just for getting rewarded. Paul Gauguin's audiences were Tahiti natives, Van Gogh's audiences were Amsterdam’s prostitutes and Beethoven’s audience was God. 

Obviously this is my opinion and nothing is written on stone. 

Tahirih,

Do you remember one time you asked me to remove a word from one of my articles and I asked Jahanshah to remove it for me? Do you know why I self censored myself despite that I am against any type of censorship? Self censorship is even the worst type of censorship because it eats you from inside. I removed it because I gathered you were the voice of not just one but many. I could convey my feelings with or whiout that word.

Dear Tahirih, there is NOT any clear answer to your question. But one thing I can say is that to invite artists to be sensitive about public feelings and ask the public to be courteous about the sensitive souls of the artists. Saying that I also believe that the good artists rather use their heads more than their hearts and are aware of public’s demands and their surrounding environment.

To Midwesty

I disagree with you that the artist need us as much as they need their paint,,May be you're talking about us as a matter of financial or recognition point of view.. I learned in art school that your art must be portrait of your own self expression, if and when someone admire your art it is form of flattering and recognition but it is not need it by THE TRUE ARTIST.

Dear midwesty,thank you for your civil reply.

I appreciate that you believe artists should be free to express themselves . This is a big step towards harmony and unity.

I realize that audience should be able to critique my work,but it should be done with pure motives. the audience's role is to find ways to improve my work and encourage me to be a better painter,NOT to burn my place of work and make a big walmart over it.Just like in shiraz, iran!!

we can teach artists to be the best artist that they can be in their own style, not our prefered style.We should make costructive critizem and leave the rest to the painter if she wants to change or not. And if we are not able to change her style ,we should be detached from her work(as audiences have this right) and move on and totaly ignore her.

If she is a bad artist nobody will buy her paintings ,but if she started selling it ,the previuos audience should not get violent and tearing her art work apart.

Is there anything wrong with this idea? Please I am all ears to hear you  My good syber space compatriate.

Respectfuly,

Tahirih

Dear Tahirih,

Thanks for your comment. While we should let artists to express themsleves we should remember that we have equally the right to criticize them. A piece of art without an audience is nothing. They need us as much as they need paint, colors and material. We as the audience for the artists complete their artworks and we have the right to find faults in their work.

you are the one

Red and blue are colour of US and zionist flags, alliagince to those flags makes any body lose their legitamcy, even if that is an art subject.

Artists should be free to express themselves...

We should  respect the fact that not every artist has the same taste.

We should leave them to create their own masterpiece. we can not tell the artist ,you have to only use color blue and red because , as one comentator said 95% of us like blue and red, and your parents used blue and red only.

 Also an artist should not stay with certain type of painting, if she has moved beyond the limits of that style.Why force them to stay if their heart is with another stlye of expression?

And above all let the artist have their supply ,to be able to paint,and do not discriminate them at the paint store wanting identity card with alegiance to color blue and red!!!

Respectfuly,

Tahirih

Mona,

It's always nice to see your delightful comments. Take care!

Bahram,

You are right on bro! The roots of all of these three major religions are the same and there are many evidences in their books indicating forgiveness is better than revenge until there is no other way out but to defend. 

Midwesty: If you only

Midwesty: If you only realized how revealing the title of your post was/is!!!...If there ever was a classic Freudian slip...how utterly sad and disappointing when human being define themselves in terms of some dogma instead of humanity...

An Everyday Survival Kit ...

# Toothpick - to remind you to pick out the good qualities in others.

#
Rubber band - to remind you to be flexible, things might not always go the way you want, but it will work out.

#
Band Aid - to remind you to heal hurt feelings, yours or someone else's.

#
Pencil - To remind you to list your blessing everyday.

#
Eraser - to remind you that everyone makes mistakes, and it's okay.

#
Chewing gum - to remind you to stick with it and you can accomplish anything.

#
Mint - to remind you that you are worth a mint to your family and friends.

#
Candy Kiss - to remind you that everyone needs a kiss or a hug everyday.

#
Tea Bag - to remind you to relax daily and go over that list of your blessings.

# May you be richly blessed. To the world, you may just be somebody... but to somebody, you are the world.~ Author Unknown

Thank You Dear Midwesty,....Good to Hear from you again.

Respectfuly,Mona

Have a Wonderful Day,Gentlemen ;)

respect your dad , respect yourself

I was born to moslem parents who were also born to moslems and so onn...there are certain things I like to get done in an islamic manner, like getting married, getting buried(when I die) and at the last but not the least getting asked.if you ask me what I am?I wont hesitate to reply back by saying 'I am an iranian moslem'. I am iranian because my father and father of my father....were all iranians.Akso they all were moslems(I guess just like 95% of Iran).

My knowledge of islamic rules and teaching is limited to that I stuided in 12 years of school in Iran, which is not much yet enough for me to build my values on it. they say there are 2 kind of moslems one group is just moslems and the second one are the believers(momen). I chose to be from the former.

just for record,judisim christianty and islam so called Abrahamic religions all 3 come with their own book,  similiar pattern and subjects are found in all 3 of them, same exact stories,, therfore accussing one of warmongering and appluding the other for peace loving would be simply absurd.

Majid

Who hear advice and follow the best thereof. Such are those whom Allah guideth, and such are men of understanding 39:18

Assuredly you will be tested (by God) in your property and in your persons, and you will hear much wrong from those who were given the Scripture before you (Christians and Jews), and from the idolaters. But if you persevere and ward off (evil), then that is of the steadfast heart of things 3:186

The (faithful) slaves of the Beneficent are they who walk upon the earth modestly, and when the foolish ones address them answer: Peace 25:63