Do We Learn to Love Bad Art?

Does great art last because it is great or is it great because it lasts? Do works find a place in the canon by familiarity, like a ubiquitous tune you can’t shake, or do they play on through sheer merit? A recent study in the British Journal of Aesthetics by Meskin et al titled “Mere Exposure to Bad Art” examines the effect of “mere exposure” on how people perceive art. After showing students slides of “good” art (landscapes by 19^th century British painter John Everett Millais) and “bad” art (works by the trademarked “Painter of Light” himself, Thomas Kinkade) at differing frequencies, the researchers suggest that looking at bad art more often makes us hate it even more (or so they hope). But is it still possible for us to learn to love bad art? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Do We Learn to Love Bad Art?"

Julia Margaret Cameron: Pioneer of Modern Glamour Photography?

“It may amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude,” Julia Margaret Cameron’s daughter told her while presenting her with her birthday gift in 1863 while Mr. Cameron and sons were away. Forty-eight-year-old Julia took the clunky box camera in her hands and soon took to her new hobby with more energy than expertise (at least at first). Using her connections to famous friends, Julia Margaret Cameron became the all-seeing eye of Victorian celebrity, recording notable faces for posterity. But, as can be seen in the exhibition Julia Margaret Cameron, which runs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, through January 5, 2014, Cameron’s camera created images strikingly similar to modern glamour photography—equal parts documentation and deception. Is Julia Margaret Cameron a pioneer of modern glamour photography? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Julia Margaret Cameron: Pioneer of Modern Glamour Photography?"

[Image: Julia Margaret Cameron (English, 1815–1879). Christabel, 1866. Albumen silver print from glass negative. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1941. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (41.21.26).]

[Many thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, for providing me with the image above and other press materials related to Julia Margaret Cameron, which runs through January 5, 2014.]

Were The Pre-Raphaelites Really the Victorian Avant-Garde?

Can an idea that looks backward also look forward? That question hangs over the the Tate Britain’s new exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde at the same moment that it celebrates the now crowd-pleasing artists that made up the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Edward Burne-Jones. As seductive as the femme fatales featured in works such as Rosetti’s Astarte Syriaca (from 1877; detail shown above), the idea that the Pre-Raphaelites stepped back aesthetically to step forward artistically seems just crazy enough to be true. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Were The Pre-Raphaelites Really the VictorianAvant-Garde?"

[Image: Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Astarte Syriaca (detail), 1877. Copyright Manchester City Galleries.]

[Many thanks to the Tate Britain for the image above and other press materials related to the exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde, which runs through January 13, 2013.]