Perhaps I am showing my great arrogance and ignorance of fine art.

I imagine that in painting, an artist can make a smudge of yellow paint in one
corner, and one viewer chooses to  be offended at their interpretation of a
yellow dog and another viewer takes delight in their interpretation of a yellow
canary.  All along, the artist may have meant it to be a tiny yellow campfire.

Similarly, in fine arts like painting, silly people can get offended, say, if
Picasso stops painting in blue or if an artist places a toilet in the middle of
the gallery.

I think that in many fine arts, artists willfully INTEND to do things, and yes,
the observer has the freedom to delight or take offense or totally miss the
boat.

I wonder if raytracing is a bit different. I think that when a raytracing artist
makes an error, it is more offensive to 'theme.' A raytracer will always create
an image for you, no matter how much work or little thought the artist puts into
it.  You don't use your hand to make a yellow smudge of paint. Instead, you
might simply say, "MAKE BOX" or "INSERT POSER FIGURE", and get exactly what you
ask for.  In raytracing, the result will often look like a real-world photograph
with a few inane, arbitrary changes made to it.  For example, you will end up
with an image that looks just like a photograph from the true Stone Ages where
someone has taken the time to airbrush out all of the cavepeople's hair. As
another example, you can end up with a Christmas scene of a boy opening presents
where the boxes are perfect rectangular solids with high ambient light. The
result looks like a photograph of a boy opening presents, where someone inserted
a flat cardboard drawing of boxes infront of the boy.

I have the freedom to ask, "Why are the cavemen bald clones?"  I have the
freedom to ask, "Why are the presents a 2-D cutout of a drawing of boxes?"  I
hope I'm not as silly (abusing my freedom) as the person who said, "But Picasso,
that's not blue and you are still in your blue period."

Of course, if the artist shows that he or she intends for things to look
cartoony, surreal,  or odd with a very consistent style of construction, then we
often can find good theme and artistic merit.   That is why I am much tougher on
sloppy photorealism than on cartoonism. The best photoreal images usually get
the highest ratings from me, nonetheless: my personal voting often picks the
podium.  But sloppy, half-hearted photorealism as an intentional form is
offensive artistically and thematically to me.  All their scores get
contaminated downward.

Pedro Graterol wrote:

> Greg M. Johnson <"gregj;-)56590"@aol.c;-)om> wrote in message
> <36dc9466.0@news.povray.org>...
> >This ain't high diving.
> >
> >Any ol' fool can throw a bunch of sloppy CSG and isosurface patches and
> fail
> >miserably for technical merit in my book.  I think that Annig's earlier
> post
> >talked about "appropriate use" of technology.   I have rated images low for
> >being an obtuse showcasing of a raytracing program's capability.
>
> I am answering this because I saw one of my post  attached to this one, and
> I like the topic.
>
> I strongly agree with Annig's personal evaluation scale regarding topics or
> aspects to review.  I was trying to be objective assigning points and/or
> qualifications. To this regard, I  keep my word to the last answer in the
> same thread, which obviuosly has not been referenced.
>
> >I found that detail offensive to its artistry: who'd want
> >that entry hanging on a wall?  It was offensive to technical merit: it
> showed
> >careless use of a canned model.
>
>  I won't ever discuss any judgement regarding technical merit about using
> raytracing. It is very simple, I am not a programmer, nor mathematician.
> However, I do not have to be one of them to raytrace and, by the same token,
> nobody has to be an artist to raytrace.  I have realized that the more I
> raytrace -or try to- the more I learn. This said, It's matter of time -in
> appreciation, rendering, analysis, trial-and-error renderings and
> experimentation - that I can differenciate and/or aprehend more technical
> subtleties
>
> > It was offensive to concept:  WHY ON EARTH
> >would a group of cavemen be cloned and bald?  What kind of message is the
> author
> >trying to convey:  time travel? loss of identity in cults?
> >
>
> The magic word here is art, which means primarily freedom.  Unfortunately,
> the downside of art is precisely the opinion of the viewer, which cannot
> affect the artist nor the artwork itself. It is a viewer's  point of view.
> In the same way Duchamp was dumped from a museum when he put a toilette in
> the middle (go now and ask for the price of that toilette); in the same way
> Picasso was rejected when he stopped painting "in the right way" ; in the
> same way the collage technique is now  "a state of the art " to make
> portraits (after being someting confined to entertain kids in rainy days)..
> and so on., everybody is entitled to depict, represent or figure out
> everything is a free way.  Raytracing has become a superb tool to do many,
> many things. After all, this is 1999.
> I also realize that raytracing is *not* photorealism. This is a trend, and
> slowly -and because this is the same cycle repeating when photography
> finally took the "reality burden" from painting- raytracing will evolve more
> and more.
>
> A also realize the importance of writing the description in IRTC, as odd as
> it appears.  To me, it is aimed at jurors, not to explain *why* I did
> something. It is to enlighten  one's mind.  I was very upset first, when I
> sent my second entry -elements-, which was about the Periodic Table of
> Elements. When I read the comments, I sadly agreed with those that
> encouraged me to 'write about'. , it was evident that not many people knew
> what a periodic table is.  This is a learning process, where we all learn,
> or more accurately and not to offend anybody, where I am very proud of being
> learning.
>
> Marjorie Graterol

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