re: #55 Charles

Yes, I have that link open right now.

The morons have actually LINKED to that art catalog — without even grasping what it says! Alma Thomas’s painting is a deliberate ‘riff’ on the Matisse painting, and it says that explicitly in the catalog — and STILL they’re accusing it of being a cheap copy.

Artists do this all the time. Calling it plagiarism is so freaking ignorant these people should have their computers confiscated so they can’t inflict that dimwitted nonsense on anyone else. ARGH.

This one just takes the cake — a triple layer stupid-food cake with idiot frosting and little chunks of dried moronfruit.

One positive personal note: I learned from reading the catalog that Thomas’ painting was based on one of Matisse’s vast series of paper cutout works. I saw an enormous display of these when they visited Detroit’s Art Institute maybe 25-30 years ago, and they made a huge impression on me. Many of the works are flabbergastingly huge - upwards of 20 x 30 feet in some cases - and I visited with a girlfriend during a time when we were not getting on very well. The overall emotional impact of the exhibit was astonishingly calming, and by the time we left we were both in much better moods. A few years later, discussing this with a friend well versed in art, he mentioned that Matisse’s whole focus on creating art was to provide something that people could come home to after a day of soul-crushing work and be spiritually recharged by. So his work had had precisely it’s intended effect on us, even though I wasn’t aware of Matisse’s philosophy at the time.

Learning that this piece is linked to Matisse’s work only makes it more interesting to me. Pointing that out over at Malkin’s site, however, is like banging a tin cup on a cage full of shit-flinging monkeys.