"Slashdolt" <sla### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:3ea0cf31@news.povray.org...

My wife has a friend who works at a place here in Houston called "Diverse
Works." This place features some really off the wall modern art like a guy
puking in a glass toilet. What's interesting to me is that even some of the
strangest things there sort of make sense when her friend, Keith, shares
what the artists have told him about their work. Some, however, still
don't.<g>

Keith defines art as anything a peson does to express a thought or feeling.
I can't accept that, because that would mean that I've written a poem
everytime I say, "Ouch, that hurts" or "Damn, that was a really good
sandwitch." I'd use the narrower definition of art as something which
*conveys* a thought or feeling. It's surprising to me, though, how much
really odd stuff even fits that narrower description.

To use Malevich as an example. If I had never seen one of his paintings, and
someone had explained the ideals of Surpemism and from what time and part of
the world it had come, I'd probably imagine something like a red square on a
white background. I'm guessing so would most people.

I usually find that when I see a famous piece of art which makes no sense to
me whatsoever, I later find out that the artist and I have absolutely
nothing in common culturally. I miss the point not because the artist wasn't
communicating it, but because the point is simply too foreign for me to
understand.

It's always fun to look, however. Jim Charter's tea and ornages picture is a
perfect example. He is pretty modest about it, but every word of the first
verse of a song was included in his picture, and it was so plain to see by
just slowing down and looking at it for a second. I'm certinly no art
expert, but even I was able to see all of that in the picture.I'm excited by
using PoV-Ray to translate complex thougts (which would take pages and pages
to write) into a picture which can be seen in a glance and puzzled by why so
few others choose to do so.

 -Shay

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