Art - Contemporary Treats against downright Huh?

The Good: Some art is meant to move people, some is designed to instill an emotion. However, art can also be used in certain cases just to play with the mind. Salvadore Dali's Paranoiac Visage can be seen only as a group of people sitting in front of a hut, but look at it from its side and it can leave the room deathly quiet as people gaze in wonder at how they didn't see the hidden image. The mystery element is haunting, yet it can have have people staring at it for hours.

In terms of actual painting, the picture is not the best in the world, yet the point of the image isn't to exemplify the skills of Dali. Instead, the painting is trying to interact with the viewer. Looking at Paranoiac Visage is more of an adventure. While staring at it, it's easy to wonder as to why an artist like Dali would create such a mundane image. But once the painting becomes clear what it's supposed to be, there's no denying that Dali is a 20^th century master. Experience it yourself, find a copy, observe it, try to see what the painting is telling you. And once you can't stand looking at it anymore, flip it clockwise and gaze in awe at such a beautiful work of art.

The Bad: Art can leave that 'wtf' feeling in your head, especially when there is nothing there to look at. There are not many other paintings that hurt the brain as much as The Square by Josef Albers. Just as the title says, there is a void of shapes other than squares. There's a green square, upon another green square, upon another one. And the painting isn't even a perfect square, measuring 47 inches by 48 inches.

It's painful to see where art is going when this can be passed for as art. There couldn't have been much of a thought process implemented to place squares on top of each other. The painting could have been created by anyone reading this article, only using a bucket of paint and a yard stick. The Square might be trying to convey the feeling of looking through a window by layering the colors in such a way to give the painting atmospheric perspective. Albers starts with a very deep, dark color as the base and finishes the smallest inner square with a much lighter tone. Unfortunately to come to a conclusion like that would require the viewer to think long and hard about three squares on a page. Contemporary art might be for some people, but squares on a page are ironically, square and boring.