Aesthetics

No, it’s not some kind of new exercise regime or new brand of cosmetic. It is the study of why art affects us the way it does … amongst other things. It is to do with appreciation of qualities like beauty and how to define these effects. There are some big puzzles. For instance, if a forger paints a copy of a Van Gogh that is indistinguishable from the original why is it of lesser value? Let’s say the difference can only be known by carbon-dating the materials used for instance. That means that the original and the fake as you look at them are absolutely identical and yet one is worth a fortune while the other one isn’t for reasons that have nothing to do with what it looks like. So; the aesthetic value of the painting is not just in the appearance of the art or even the technical merits of the artistic talent put into creating it but in the facts of the history of it. Now, isn’t that bizarre? Because it is the first one, painted by a particular person at a particular time it is worth much more, even if it looks identical to a copy. How can two pieces of art that look identical be of a different value? In the end, you see, it is all in the mind – the value we choose to give to something and the values by which we decide that even if they look identical they are not of identical value. It only goes to show how subjective the experience of art really is. Possibly there are as many versions of the Mona Lisa as the number of people who have looked at it :-)

Is it really Flash to be Flash?

Someone was asking us today about Elric prints by a particular artist and although we are fairly sure they are not available we thought we’d check the artist’s own website just to be sure we haven’t missed something. Bash in the URL and up comes this blank screen with a “download plug-in” message. Didn’t have time for all that messing about so I left it and wondered at the logic of presenting a new visitor to your website with the choice to download software or go away!

Hmmmm?

Any prizes for suggesting the answer we came up with?

The only member of the Artists UK team who may have thought that a Flash Intro (especially without an obvious ‘Skip’ option) is a really good idea was Mitzi … and since she is the cat and we can only interpret her reaction from the purring she makes when she gets stroked, we decided that that was as close to unanimous as unanimous ever gets. Plus we decided that Mitzi would be extremely pleased at the mouse in unanimous :-)

Short Notice

The prize must go to John Howe for the shortest notice on a signing with the following in his newsletter –

I will be signing the FANTASY ART WORKSHOP (Yikes! That’s tomorrow!
Where’s my passport?) at Forbidden Planet in London on November 17th from 12:30 to 2:00 pm.

Fortunately, first thing this morning, John laid his hands on the workable Time Machine he’d been looking for since sending that email … :-)

Ed Org IN PERSON :-)

Sadly it emerges that Ed Org is not capable of bi-location and has not been cloned. Mind you, with a few more of him running around producing those amazing works of art (and identically!) it wouldn’t be so special (and possibly a bit creepy too :-( ). So; on the downside it means he won’t be at both places and a friend of his will be running his stall at one of the events on the duplicate dates. On the upside it means he is still unique! :-)

…… finally here is what he says –

“I will be in person at Ludlow Medieval fair (24/25 Nov) and Knebworth (8/9 Dec)”

So; if you want to meet the great Ed Org go along with all your clones and ENJOY :-)

If you have no idea who he is or want to buy prints then click here.

Lost or stolen artwork listings

Another first from Artists UK DotNet! If you are an artist (or even if you’re not) perhaps you have had a piece of artwork, painting etc (or several even!) reported lost or destroyed by a publisher or manufacturer with no evidence. Or maybe the artwork or painting was just plain stolen from your house or exhibition. Whichever it was, at Artists UK DotNet we are offering a free listing service to help in the recovery of such items. Someone out there must know something! Our new section for these listings is here.

This may be of particular use to artists who did not have artwork returned by publishers in the bad old days before the legal requirements came in to do so. Of course, it may be that the current owner has no idea that the artist was never paid and that the artwork still belongs to them. It may be that they acquired it through perfectly honest means as far as they know. But maybe they would feel uncomfortable enough to part with it or make some form of payment if they knew that it had not been legitimatelyacquired from the artist.

If your painting or artwork was stolen then it must be somewhere, someone must know something and the Worldwide Web must be the best of all possible places to try to reach that ‘someone’. There are no guarantees so that is why we do not intend to charge for this service. What have you got to lose? Send us an email with as much information as you have and preferably a small jpg image of the painting or artwork that will come up around 3″ x 4″ on the screen. Make sure you tell us when and where the painting or artwork was lost or stolen as also who might be interested in owning it (so we can include relevant words in the listing to pick up on searches through search engines). We’ll also need your statement in writing in the email that you are the legal owner of this painting or artwork. If you are prepared to offer a reward for the return of this painting or artwork then please let us know how much.

We hope this new service will be of use to artists and art lovers in recovering their property. If you have any comments or suggestions about all this then please click the Comments link and tell us what you think.

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