Sunday's Fancying a Day at the Uffizi

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Sunday's Fancy for a Day at the Uffizi

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Opinion:

I have a very soft spot for acutely detailed art and my favourites ranges from the ever popular High Rennaisance to the much criticised Impressionist era.

So when I was going through some of the current Malaysia art earlier today and its always a surprise for me when a pointless painting of "gibbly-goshly" colours thrown onto a white canvas which curiously looks like a leering mutant dinosaur can be sold up to tens of thousand of dollars.

How grand it is to be an artist today no? 

However very few artists fit the stereotype of suffering for their arts, where they starve in unheated dusty loft, producing unknown and unrecognized masterpieces one after another until finally they achieve recognition on their death bed (actually that was Van Gogh's history 101).

But the image of the artist as a lonely, ignored and overlooked genius is somewhat attractive, but unfortunately very misleading. Because the truth is actually much more pedestrian and colourless.

The more common reality is that, the artists who attract lavish praises and recognitions in his or her lifetime usually just sink into irreversible obscurity, muted in the foreground and becomes a footnote in art history rather than a chapter.

Probably the most idyllic time for an artist to flourish is at beginning of the 16th century when Leonardo Da Vinci argued that the artist should be treated as the social and intellectual equal of aristocrats and scholars.

Many great artists of this High Rennaisance shared the same appreciation (not a surprise) and the splendid flowering of their art proves how succesful they were in establishing this courtier role.

But now as I was looking from one artist's brief biography to another, "artist" has been reduced to being sucessful multimilliion businessmen or women. Selling to institutions or private clients such as large corporations or auction houses.

And more and more artists are now slipping into a managerial role. Where artist does not create a work of art in the traditional manner, but merely promotes and idea or concept and delegating the physical assembly or components to the selected subcontractors to express their individual revolutionary or political opinions.

But 1800's impressionism art was never be conspicuosly revolutionary, its aim simply to depict the immediacy of the world with complete fidelity.

Its style is often delicate, mosaic-like brushstrokes in light brilliant colours which are deliberately intended to capture an instant moment, briefly glimpsed.

The aim is more of spotaneity, which pointed a new way of seing things. Where artists like Monet, Sisly and Pissaro or early Rembrandts gave us random slices of life. All artwork seemingly fleeting but in actuality the product of painstaking labour.

However today's most exhibited art often means large scale work such as "Marsyas" by Indian artist Anish Kapoor (2004), which shows a gigantic sculpture that was covered by a dark red leshy textured PVC membrane - which supposedly referring to Marsyas, a Greek satyr who was flayed alive.

The modern art is all about shock and gritty realism with emphasis on headline grabbing issues or worst, the neurotic lifestyle of the artist's private life such as the celebrated Andy Warhol.

It was once said the quiet contemplation of the dignity and absurdity of humanity, or a wish to create a bettwe world for humankind is "out".

An interest in beauty, clarity and spiritual values is also "out" whereas material values and art-made-to-confuse are "in".

Genuine passion and belief are out of fashion while detachment and irony are widely praised as virtues.

Sloppiness can dramatically be applauded as spontaneity.

And ultimately the dissapoinment of modern art comes from the sub-contracting all aspects of physical creation to anonymous hands are now simply accepted without question.

Give me Uffizi anytime and I don't mind the line, grazie...