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Somebody in the Globe features department woke up on the wrong side of the bed

Your kid sucks and will never be an artist, the Globe art critic grumps today. Maybe tomorrow Shaughnessy can tell you how your kid sucks and will never be a major-league baseball player. And then Shirley Leung can explain how your kid sucks and will never be a corporate CEO.


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Comments

All children are above average.

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.

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I'm no art critic, but I really like this stuff.

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I suppose that's why you aren't an art critic.

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Hope you're proud of yourself.

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that's what became of Simon Cowell after he left American Idol.

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Kenmore / Fenway is filled with tens of thousands of children who grew up being told they are artists. You know what? None of them is Picasso or at least Adele, and 99% of them are waiters and babysitters.

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Right? I mean, only the artists who know they are going to be amazingly successful should even try.

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an artist are:

a) The 180 piece orchestra backing her up on every performance, and
b) The 1000 member publicity staff pushing her name down everybody's throats - and her "music" on every radio station in the world - no matter where you turn.

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Let us know when you hit the big time.

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hello,im not really an adele fan but the talent in undeniable. she is a tremendous singer.

it seems like the brits used to (not sure if they still do) pluck the artists out of the academics and put them in art schools. At least that's how they educated John Lennon, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Ray Davies, Eric Clapton, Syd Barrett and Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Ron Wood, Eric Burdon, Freddie Mercury, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, John Mayall, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry,and Brian Eno.

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She might be a good singer but it's hard to tell with the vamping, overdramatic pauses and throatiness that's turned up to 11 from the first second.

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How many contemporary fine art artists can you name off the top of your head?

How many fine art artists can you name period?

Most great artists aren't lucky enough to make ends meet solely based on selling their work. It hardly means they suck.

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Matisse, Renoir, Monet, Degas, Manet, the woman artist who drew moms and kids drinking a lot of tea (do I need to continue?) Most great artists are great because they do not suck, whether or not they can make a living at it.

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Most graduates of art school can make paintings that are 85% of Dana Schutz or Cy Twombly (cited in the article).

Huge proportion of those who do make it to gallery shows have family money or (literally) bend over for the gallery owners, or both.

So the power is entirely with the dealers and gallery owners, which is why they take most of the money.

So many books of popular art these days are about forgery. I think that's because we understand that the art we are supposed to appreciate intellectually is a forgery against our judgement.

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...none of those artists are contemporary.

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Why do we need to import an Australian to do this work when there are hundreds of under-employed American art critics just waiting to take our precious snowflakes down a peg?

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I heard the Globe was doing as well as it used to. They suck more now than they sucked before.

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?

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with one caveat: there is a lot of web-comic style art that requires more narrative talent than artistic talent. Making a point and telling a story with simple line drawings isn't traditionally artistic, nor is using Photoshop to make snarky stickers or parody images, but they still are art that tells a story and makes a point. Much like cave paintings.

That said, the arts are very fun and rewarding, but only the top 1% of people actually achieve the level of talent and skill to excel in their field professionally. There are lots of people who are sort-of talented kicking around community theatres and orchestras, teaching art or music lessons, making and selling art locally, taking beautiful pictures and posting them on blogs for minimal advertising revenue. Those people should keep right on doing so, and also keep their day job.

I don't think it's snarky: it's realistic. Keeping perspective of how your talents rank against others is how you both choose to get better and realize when, perhaps, you need to choose a different path for income.

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Steve Martin’s 2010 novel, “An Object of Beauty,” features an art dealer who has no time for the “my kid could do that” camp. “You want to know how I think art should be taught to children?” says this fictional character. “Take them to a museum and say, ‘This is art, and you can’t do it.’ ”

What a coincidence, I feel exactly the opposite way about Globe journalists. Most days, you could take a transcript of my 2-year-old's nonsensical word salad, and it would form a more coherent article than that pap that Mr. Smee has churlishly excreted onto the pages of this once-lofty paper.

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Come to think of it, let's give it a try! You tell me which sentence came from an enthusiastic toddler, and which one came from a bloviating column writer so curmudgeonly that he thinks it's a good idea to tell kids they won't get to be what they want to be, so why even try?

But it does not follow, as Picasso — playing to the crowd — would later claim, that every child is an artist.

I want to go to the playground, because I want to go see my work friends who are at the playground because the playground is outside

I drew a triangle, and now I want to color it, but not with daddy, only with mommy

But that doesn’t mean that every arbitrarily colored daub or tangle of colored yarn qualifies as great art.

Personally, I'm stumped. All four seem to have about the same amount of semantic content. Two of them seem kind of mean-spirited, though.

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must adjoin a cubicle filled with child art or he's slipped on a few roller-skates while delivering his employers bird cage liner.

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I have always liked Smee's articles since he can describe precisely why an artwork is good and he is enthusiastic about many schools of art, not just only classical or only modern.

Once you get past the click-bait headline, this article is a well-written rebuttal of the idea that the way to great art is to become a child, as well as a show of respect for the hard work involved in producing great art.

Also, for those who are taking offense on behalf of their children, he did not say that a child could never be an artist, just that a kid is not an artist in his or her childish state.

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And it still grates (if not 100% Parmesan strength). I don't know what parents he's hanging around with who think their kids' drawings on the refrigerator are indicative of nascent artistic genius, but he needs to cut that right out. The rest of us put our kids' drawings on the refrigerator because they're by our kids, we enjoy watching them progress with crayons or paint or any of a number of reasons that have nothing to do with us thinking they're budding Renoirs.

The whole column, which I suspect got dragged out because he was really annoyed by that Web site or app or whatever he mentioned, but couldn't figure out how to write an entire column just about that, reads like some bony-fingered, night-cap-wearing English scold telling people to clean up after their dogs or something.

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Those who can't become critics.

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yet his basic premise is sound. And he was referring to the website where gushing parental units can post their kids "art work" for sale. I mean, really, would you pay $50 bucks for:

http://www.artb412.com/a-lone-wolf

Good. God.

Not every kid who draws a few lines on a piece of paper is an "artist". Hey, I love to draw, was told I have talent, and as a youngin wanted to go "into art." Then I saw my competition who also wanted to go "into art" and who were much, much better than I and thought better of it. I was good but not that good.

So encourage you kids to be creative. Please do. But most will not be the next Picasso, Van Cliburn or insert the name major high paying sports figure here. And there is nothing wrong with that (draw because you love to draw) or an art critic venting his spleen a bit about the silliness he sees from parental units who think their wee ones cute art work is akin to gallery quality.

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For those of you that are sick of paying for the crap the globe spews everyday, but still want to read the few useful articles it puts out, I would highly recommend Google Chrome Incognito.

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who loves "black #23" in the national gallery when it's just a plain black canvas.

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This critic can find the beauty in a 17th century piece as well as in modern art.
If he liked the plain black canvas (actually not likely) he would be able to give good reasons why.

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how do you define art? is what you see in museums and galleries? does history tell you what is art, what the artists' intentions were?

and/or - do you see art in many places/parts of life? do you search for and hunger for unknown/underappreciated artists & works ignored by history? do you enjoy street art? do you enjoy children's art?

these kinds of questions are what turn some people off to art, and turn some people on to it.

you do you. nobody can tell you how to approach art. they can try, and some of them will explain it in ways that click with you. others won't click at all, and they might even express their opinions in snarky ways. but art is for you, and it's up to you. be confident in that.

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