IS IT REAL ART? |
 The greatest significance of paint by numbers is the fact that this whole craze was the first major conceptual art event ever to occur, as well as the first mass distribution of an art multiple, setting the stage for later developments by Warhol and others. Comtemporary art took a turn and a whole different course was established. In the fine art world at the time, Pollock dripped and splattered, Kline and de Kooning made their grand-scale, strange and mysterious images...and the public was thoroughly bewildered by the whole thing. But Grandma Moses had championed the recognizable image with her naive and detailed paintings. Her work had "crossed over" from popular to "fine art" classification, helped along by the Unites States Information Agency's exhibition sent to Europe in 1950. The French received her warmly, much to the chagrin of the American art establishment. Dan Robbins and others provided the popular subject matter the public of the day desired in paint-by-number format, making "everyone an artist". Popular art or "Pop Art" was beginning to coalesce as a concept. The influence of the paint-by-number craze on the subsequent development of mainstream American Art is obvious and undeniable, having less to do with "regimentation" as the sociologist often suggests, and more to do wth experience and participation as Robbins himself suggests. Robbins likes to compare the paint-by-number experience to a musician's playing the work of a composer, or an actor playing the role described by a playwright...or someone just whistling a familiar tune. |