Humor In Art

55 pages 6 articles.

Humor in art. There is beauty in. Space and matter. Just slip on a banana peel. Nonetheless they are always a delight to encounter. There is the famous picture of john arnolfini and his wife by jan van eyck. When it is explicitly comical it can become difficult for people to consider it meaningful deep or take it serious. The funny far out visions of surrealists like rené magritte and salvador dalí influenced decades of graphic humor from monty python to new yorker cartoons and beyond.

Humor in contemporary art. In this self portrait. Art as humor there is jan van eyck. Sometimes these artworks crack you up and other times they manage to convey the artist s own opinions or a social commentary in the most perfect manner possible. And sometimes it s a simple yet complex matter of making the viewer uncomfortable. Still once it makes you laugh it is not always perceived as art. Fresh wry and not as easily deconstructed as a joke art can be an ideal medium for humor.

Humor in art has traditionally been a slippery slope. The four artists profiled in humor have been influenced by the history of humor and comedy including vaudeville cartoons and comic books. The artists in this hour reveal how humor and satire can stimulate laughter as well as serve as a vehicle to explore serious subjects such as feminism the natural environment the excesses of consumer culture social injustice and war. Maybe it s something s ugliness or bawdiness that s funny or perhaps it s a work s outlandish or irreverent attitude. Anything for a laugh. F rom surrealism to pop art humor and satire have been a recurring underlying emotion in works of art for a long time. To give lines to a tomato is to make the tomato more dignified and to make lines a little comic.

Now you could study shakespeare and be quite elite. Today s prevailing attitudes embrace a more lighthearted outlook as this title illustrates. Occasional papers series published by the museums of beloit college wi. Humor is an existential phenomenon like most themes encountered in contemporary art today. And you can charm the critics and have nothin to eat. Ya while humor is something we see as having value in our lives humor in art was historically seen as being in poor taste blasphemous and sometimes even perceived as being subversive.