Paintings Of Current Era Are Quite Different Than What It Was 50 Years Ago

Yes, as well they should be!

I have a similar curiosity. I've long thought that at least part of the impetus behind divergent and creative versions of paintings had to do with the fact that photography has usurped one of the old "duties" of painters, which was to make paintings that looked like but flattered the person who commissioned it, the flattering family picture over the fireplace or the dignified looking head-and-shoulders portrait of a famous person. Landscapes that are intended to be realistic have a similar dimension, although they often seemed to allow for much more creative and fantasized interpretations like those landscapes around the old estate where there are happy peasants harvesting crops, horsemen riding around, dramatic clouds, etc.

It's a challenge for both painters and photographers themselves. If you want a nice picture of Granny, you just pull out your phone and click away until you find one that looks good...no need for a portrait painter and, no need for a professional photographer either. They're similarly endangered unless the creative part of the pursuit can make an image that someone waving around a phone can't do but might enjoy.

I don't know just where this all ends up but I don't see an end to it now. Maybe, at some point, the novelty of a portrait painter who works with real paint will make a comeback, kinda like how artisanal beers have crept up on mass market beer.

Doug, portrait painters are still around and probably get commissions easier than any other kind of painter. Landscape painting has been growing like crazy, especially plein air, new events are added every year. None of the traditional genres are falling away.

Portraiture nowadays should be and often is an interpretation of a person's character as well as their appearance, at a particular moment in their life. Photos, though intrinsically more accurate than a painting, have less interpretation, which is what the artist adds to the basic image.

50 years is a long time. Thank goodness styles change other wise we'd all be living like the Fonz and Richie.

I'm fine loving the art of the past, I think it's just human nature to believe that everything modern has to be better, I am no way convinced of it.

Yesterday, I had an open house art show and I had two works from over fifty three years ago. One of the works was interesting to buyers, but it wasn't for sale. Older works can have serious art appeal.

Art Business Today took a survey in 2003 to find out what the top 10 best selling art subject matter for Paintings in the UK were. (https://www.nevuefineartmarketing.com/art-that-sells/)

These were the results:

Traditional Landscapes
Local Views
Modern Landscapes
Abstracts
Dogs
Figure
Seascapes
Wildlife
Impressionistic Landscapes
Nudes

Does it correlate mostly with an "old" (18 - 20 century) art or a "new" (21 century) art or both?

Hard to say, I love art from thousands of years ago as well as contemporary works and lots of stuff in between.

I love the painting materials of the past, but the aesthetics of the now.

linen canvas, oil grounds, resin varnish etc. hold a special place in my heart. But I am not that interested in painting classical subject matter outside the realm of a commission.

I have too many thoughts in my head that belong on a canvas.

Of course, one of the real changes today, is we artists (painters) rely more and more on photographs. this can create flatten images so they are not as 3D as when people were outside painting from real life.

one of the reasons I think photographs have taken over to a very large extent it's the fact it's no longer safe to sit outside and paint. I would no more go and sit in the middle of the fields of sunflowers now, than I would go and walk outside at night with all the drunk people coming out. we have Gangs of youths combing our countryside now, riding dirt bikes and kicking up a stink. I was on my bicycle with my dog a couple years ago and I was accosted by three of them.

So now I go out... I take my camera.... I take shots wherever I can, and then I go home and I copy them onto canvas.

They will never be what they would have been if I done en plein air...... But it is what it is.

Also our tastes change.

But political upheaval and religious intolerance pretty much stay the same year after year after year. Everything goes to create what we see on the walls of galleries. so although the Styles are different, and the way we paint and the new techniques are different, however, I think the base of the art, the story, the message, is pretty much the same as it's ever been.

Also, artists were highly trained,.... Paid to create pieces. You weren't free back then. In the past people had to create what they were paid to create.

Then people started to paint what they wished. Artists were tired of being slaves and creating only what the church or noblemen told them to, in the classical style.

We now have 'free' art. People painting or creating sculptures of what they want, feel...... In the styles they wish

I'm with Abbie on the freedom to create today and so thankful for it. I would have had to labor to paint in the past centuries and would not have enjoyed it as much as I do. Traditional art sells very well from what I have observed. Buyers apparently still value art that can't be duplicated. As a child I wasn't turned onto art in the museum. If the internet was invented at the time I could have easily been stirred to create more instead of only for high school art class. I am still often bored by sameness of some realism since creatively artists need to be unique and themselves. I'm thankful for being able to sit in front of a computer or phone and see unique creative art that I love. Since we live in the information age with easy access creativity is exploding.

With cameras and computers, software and hardware, we are entering the digital age. Have been here for a while now. A blip though so far in history.

The high end artists today are often creating in programs like Photoshop and then transferring their ideas into actual art in their factories. Koons' contemporary sculptures were all mocked up to perfection in a computer from scratch.

The value, literally dollars and cents, system has been rocked from the simple decor market to the high end in NYC or London. For instance while Koons was getting about $1.8 million often for one of his major sculptures, with computer aided blue prints for each sculpture he could offer different colors of each design. He chose to offer five different colors generally speaking. Now years later he has not fulfilled all of his orders and he has not covered his bases selling all five versions by color. Yet the contemporary market has fallen out since 2008. Regardless of any partial recovery things are not the same for contemporary art.

That is on the high end.

On the moderately unknown end, photographs are flooding the internet. Besides what is fame or being known, models in the fashion world can dominate Instagram with 100s of thousands of followers and still not truly be well known. The internet is ever more becoming democratic in its participation, like it or not.

Just a note on Hirst, his project on Recovered Treasures was financed with $140 million. The goal of his group of investors was to reach for $1 billion in sales. He seems according to a recent report to have come close to $400 million. It is unclear if some lots have been pulled from auction because they will not sell. Or get the asking price.

Hirst's Recovered Treasures was a Disney sort of fine art ride. This has been something major museums have taken to as well in an effort to bring in more traffic. So is the artist trying to make one work of art? Or a themed set of works? That has always been a problem facing us as artists.

Digital tools are MUCH of the future of art. Prefect lines replacing rough hand painted bleeding lines.

Dave

The changes in modern day painting is about the variety of subjects artists around the world have explored and in creating those subjects visually have used various mediums and newer techniques & concepts. So this is something artists of the 21st century have demonstrated with extraordinary vision and the future is going to be in even greater. At the same time, I feel the greatness of the masters of the 18th , 19th & 20 century artists who have created those extraordinary paintings which we see today with that limited art supplies which was available during those days and the absence of technologies which was also not available in those days and the arts created by them are undoubtedly mesmerising even today and no stopping for the future. I take a moment and respect those artists of the greats!
I was also wondering how artists of the 22nd century would be creating and when they look back the 21st century , how would they would be feeling about us.
I consider this as journey of the art from one artist to another and so on like a relay race.