What is Real Art?

Starting my day off by sharing some of the artists that I enjoy really puts me in a great mood and influences how I feel when I get to the studio and start working. I guess you can unfollow my posts if it drives you crazy but I hope it makes you all stop and take a look too.

William Michael Harnett was an Irish-American artist that painted what he knew and used what he had around him. His compositions feel like you step into a bit of the chaos of everyday life. He successfully brought a reality to his paintings that few can achieve but he was criticized 

by his contemporaries for being too ordinary and boring. He drifted off into obscurity for a long time. Many artists agonize over what their contemporaries feel are "real art" at the time. Vincent Van Gogh felt he really had to master the figure and spent and extraordinary amount of time and money on models when we love the paintings of what he observed around him most, the peasant workers, the bedroom, the sunflowers. There's a lesson to be learned here for most artists. Follow your passion and concern yourself less with what others think you should be doing.

by Renee Bangerter