Over A Decade RANT

Snowman999

Active member
I collect Naoto Hattori artwork. He's a Japanese Pop Surrealist who creates miniature paintings, with incredible detail. I don't own any of these originals. But, the largest here is 4" x 4". The prints are a little larger. But, his originals are breathtaking. I have a room dedicated to his work. The walls are covered. I have an antique music stand with a book filled with prints. I flip a page a day. But, this isn't about Naoto, he's just wonderfully talented.
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The only artist I love more is Salvador Dali. I will never own a Dali original. But, for over ten years I've been searching for a set of his 100 prints for Dante's Divine Comedy. There are stories, theories, real, fake, blah, blah, blah... In the USA until recently, people have aimed to sell sets for roughly 40 - 50 thousand. I will never afford that. BUT, they were made in France, and from there, you can get them for $4000. That's still too much. But, if you do the math, $4000 for 100 prints is $40 a print. Which is what I pay for a Naoto Hattori print. But, I don't buy 100 Hattori prints at a time. Plus, he gives me a discount.

I set a price limit for myself, and occasionally they sell at auction for my price. I found a guy in France selling a fancy set two weeks ago. It turns out he placed an ebay classified ad, which means you deal with the seller off site, and you have no protection. We worked out a deal, and because he refused to use paypal (would have protected my payment) I asked him to take a photo of himself with the books. He refused. He said I didn't trust him. Which I didn't. I bank transfer thousands, receive nothing, I don't get my money back. That deal fell through.

I found a set on an auction site and it was in my price range. I asked a few questions about it, which they didn't bother answering. But, it was in my range, and I was gonna go for it, and if I won, I'd get them to answer the questions before I paid. Since it was in the UK, I had to get up at 6am. So, I had a good chance. The one thing I did know in advance, 30% (pretty high) premium, and I would have to get someone off site to pick it up and ship it to me. They had 4 places listed. So, I thought that was fine. I was the only bidder and I WON!

I can't tell you how excited I was. I sent emails to all four shippers minutes after I won. I emailed the auction house in London, where do I pay? I was so excited. I knew I was probably going to pay about a grand over what I bid. I had NO IDEA I was going to pay almost 2 grand over what I bid. There was all kinds of charges that I couldn't even find in the fine print. Over 50% more than the bid. It took 3 emails for them to answer simple questions, like condition of the prints. Even the ad said to ask. They're coming uninsured. That would have been over $300 more.

The kicker, only one out of four shippers even bothered to get back to me. I asked the auction house if they could reach out and they refused.

I've gone from sheer excitement and joy to, I hope the plane and the package go down in the Atlantic. I'm sure once I see these prints (make sure they're what they described) I'll be thrilled again.

These are three of 100 - they're fucking COOL! There's only one Dali!
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Very cool. My favorite artist is by far Van Gogh. Will never have an original of course. People speculate he had schizoaffective disorder, and having the disorder myself, I would not be surprised in the least of he did have it. I’ve seen some paintings up real close in a museum in London. The one that struck me most there was his chair painting.
 
Never really understood art myself. To me an artist is someone who can paint a person or other life like object/scene so it looks as good as a photograph. All the other stuff is just cartoons or funny shapes.
 
I've never been into art really, but we have a local artist who paints in a style I like and they're based on things he sees locally - So I now have two. This one features things the locals here would recognise. Mark Burrell is his name. Taken me years to appreciate pictures.


EDIT - anyone else here use Mandenbulb3D? I use it all the time for album covers and once you get into it the results can be amazing.
 

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Never really understood art myself. To me an artist is someone who can paint a person or other life like object/scene so it looks as good as a photograph. All the other stuff is just cartoons or funny shapes.
Dali 1926. This is on display at his museum in Florida. I can't tell you how long I stared at it. You could almost smell the bread. They have 3 or 4 paintings, that are over 9' tall and 6' wide. In books you usually see different parts. But, in person, you could probably stare at one for hours and not see all the detail and illusions within them.

I do love detail. That's why I love Hattori and Dali.
Ni5qcGc

Very cool. My favorite artist is by far Van Gogh. Will never have an original of course. People speculate he had schizoaffective disorder, and having the disorder myself, I would not be surprised in the least of he did have it. I’ve seen some paintings up real close in a museum in London. The one that struck me most there was his chair painting.
There aren't many artists that thrill me. I can appreciate Van Gogh, he's just not my style. Art like music and movies is all personal to an individual's taste. My wife likes Warhol's Campbell's Soup. I think it's moronic. I asked her why she liked it, and her response was "He was the first to do it." I thought big deal. It's still not art. But, she likes it.
I've never been into art really, but we have a local artist who paints in a style I like and they're based on things he sees locally - So I now have two. This one features things the locals here would recognise. Mark Burrell is his name. Taken me years to appreciate pictures.


EDIT - anyone else here use Mandenbulb3D? I use it all the time for album covers and once you get into it the results can be amazing.
That's cool. I've seen paintings like that before. I just don't remember where. What is Mandenbulb 3D? Is that where you can make the picture move like 3D?
 
Dali 1926. This is on display at his museum in Florida. I can't tell you how long I stared at it. You could almost smell the bread. They have 3 or 4 paintings, that are over 9' tall and 6' wide. In books you usually see different parts. But, in person, you could probably stare at one for hours and not see all the detail and illusions within them.

I do love detail. That's why I love Hattori and Dali.
Ni5qcGc
Yes that's a good example Snowman.

But at the risk of being savaged:-) I also think there is a lot of bollox around art and 'some people' are like sheep. For instance if some so called expert says something about a painting/sculpture or something. Then lots of these 'other people' will agree with him even though they haven't got a clue as to what he was banging on about. Most probably because he was talking shite in the first place.

Art I think attracts those who think they are superior to us other mere mortals and it gives them a chance to look cool and talk pure condescending shite.
 
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mandelbulb3d is free, and based on fractals. But can do amazing stuff, and if you are patient can create fly through environments. I do one and it took three weeks to render!
 

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The set arrived and I can't be more THRILLED. I still have no idea if these are the real thing or some magnificent counterfeit. But, unlike lithographs or prints where it's 2 dimensional, these were printed one color at a time. So, there's depth and they look and feel like real watercolor paintings. It's like I just received 100 real works of art.

These are the Binders they came in. They're 18" x 13.5"
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These are my awful photos of the first six from Dante's Divina Commedia - Inferno or Hell as we know it.
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As nice as these look (even with my awful photography), imagine that each color has it's own plain. It's like I'm at the Dali museum, only it's in my home.
 
Art is stupid and useless.

Is it possible that art can be useless and stupid at the same time?

Yes would be the easy answer.

In the world of musical arts, take Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Folks at the time possibly thought it useless, but for some of the same folks it was also stupid, vulgar, grotesque, inspiring a near riot. Evidently it was good for something, to challenge people's comfort zone. For generations to follow such as our own, it was far from useless, had it not been for that period of music perhaps watching a good Alfred Hitchcock or similar suspenseful yarn would not be at all the same.

I encourage a listen. It might not be everybody's bag, but if you can;t spare the time for the entirety maybe skip to about 3:48, it's badass.

 
^^If you did listen, ymmv, you gotta admit, maybe, that there accesses a different area in your brain than typical musical art. Maybe that was what some of those visual artists were trying to achieve.

Ol' Igor said, "Beethoven? Yeah, hold my beer."
 
Thats a picture of a dude with a spear through his face. " I was the only bidder and I won" , yep.

Like those fucked up women who look at a pile of afterbirth...and say 'its beautiful'...

You need to get to some higher ground.
 
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Thats a picture of a dude with a spear through his face. " I was the only bidder and I won" , yep.

Like those fucked up women who look at a pile of afterbirth...and say 'its beautiful'...

You need to get to some higher ground.
I was the only bidder. But, on most every other set I've seen there's multiple bidders. It's Salvador Dali, not the guy who did your avatar.

It's the watercolor for Canto 28 from Dante's Hell portion of the Divine Comedy.

Kids... I'm hoping you're a kid.
 
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I don't mean to be nasty, clever or sarcastic, but I see nothing special in those two paintings other than what an average Joe or even somebody may produce in their art class.

So what do you think is so special and so artistic in them Snowman?
 
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I don't mean to be nasty, clever or sarcastic, but I see nothing special in those two paintings other than what an average Joe or even somebody may produce in their art class.

So what do you think is so special and so artistic in them Snowman?
I can't speak for him, but for me it would be who did the painting.
 
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