tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post7707715932251903729..comments2024-03-28T13:34:12.139-04:00Comments on ILLUSTRATION ART: FOUR ARTISTS AND A COMPUTERDavid Apatoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-28646596397194255832020-01-17T12:31:37.866-05:002020-01-17T12:31:37.866-05:00saat ini tersedia secara efektif. Dengan menggunak...saat ini tersedia secara efektif. Dengan menggunakan perangkat ini teknologi canggih yang <a href="http://loginpencetjudi.net/" rel="nofollow">loginpencetjudi</a> tentunya dapat lebih puas dan nyaman jackpcapciphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07168771085829608861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-46368742800064103312020-01-09T20:27:17.278-05:002020-01-09T20:27:17.278-05:00I can tell you, anecdotally, that my Jewish father...<b>I can tell you, anecdotally, that my Jewish father and uncle were both told from birth that they were going to be lawyers. And almost everything my grandparents did with them in childhood was aimed at molding them into lawyers. And high class lawyers too. They took dance lessons and piano, and always wore shoes and ties even as children. My father's skin didn't touch denim and his ears didn't hear doo-wop until he was in his late 50s.)</b><br /><br />This opens the kaleidoscopically complicated question of precedence.<br /><br />I’m going to assume from my impressions of your own intelligence, that they had well above average IQs.<br /><br />Now, it could be that their culture is an independent variable from their intelligence. It could also be that their culture was a direct behavioral projection of their IQ (when given the option).<br /><br />My own grandfather was raised in a single-mother household by a Cuban Actress, with a taste for strange men, in the cold-water flats in Queens. He was himself remarkably brilliant, and became a relatively accomplished lawyer. Despite not growing up in a particularly stable or socially conservative household, he sounds very much like your grandfather.<br /><br />On one occasion when I was three, I soiled the only outfit I had packed, and he was asked to run to the store to pick up a change of clothes. He came back stuffed to the gills with bags of three-piece suits, ties, and leather shoes, insisting that even a three year old boy must dress like a gentleman.<br /> <br />I believe it is much more likely that his taste for order was a projection of his intelligence, not the cause of it.<br /><br />Which does not mean that culture is merely a feature of the IQ of a given individual. Raising a person with a 180 IQ in a near feral environment, and dropping them into the stone age, isn’t going to give you a Rembrandt. But it may give you the creator of Löwenmensch.<br /><br />Thanks for the interesting debate. I’ll be signing off on this conversation since we’re now we’ll behind David’s current post. Cheers.<br /><br />Richardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-80273523201863226042020-01-09T01:14:53.641-05:002020-01-09T01:14:53.641-05:00I do know however that Lisa Keister of Duke Univer...<b>I do know however that Lisa Keister of Duke University found that American Jews have a median household income of $150,000, roughly three times the median income of the entire sample. Given that American Jews have a Standard Deviation (15 points) higher IQ than the American average, this appears to me to be an extremely clear example of the IQ/Wealth relationship in action.</b><br /><br />American Jews have a median IQ of around 113. The question begged is what is the median income of all people with around 113 IQs. If it's lower than 150k (and it is) then other questions are begged about why American Jews in particular are earning above the norm. (I can tell you, anecdotally, that my Jewish father and uncle were both told from birth that they were going to be lawyers. And almost everything my grandparents did with them in childhood was aimed at molding them into lawyers. And high class lawyers too. They took dance lessons and piano, and always wore shoes and ties even as children. My father's skin didn't touch denim and his ears didn't hear doo-wop until he was in his late 50s.)<br /><br />How to unpack the Jewish income thing returns us back to the problem with millionaires having a median IQ of 118. This doesn't mean that people with IQs in the 118 range become millionaires. The vast majority do not. So there are other crucial factors working synchronistically with IQ that cannot be dispensed with in order to understand the phenomenon. If those factors aren't present, IQ can't make up for that deficiency. That is why the correlation between IQ and wealth is only .5, which is 25% strength. kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-50738243394630754602020-01-08T20:39:13.180-05:002020-01-08T20:39:13.180-05:00> 1 in 4 of the Ashkenazi heritage known for ha...> 1 in 4 of the Ashkenazi heritage known for having a higher than average IQ, carry genetic diseases.<br /><br />I have done next to zero reading in epidemiology, so I don't have the faintest idea whether Ashkenazi have more genetic diseases than other populations.<br /><br />I do know however that Lisa Keister of Duke University found that American Jews have a median household income of $150,000, roughly three times the median income of the entire sample. Given that American Jews have a Standard Deviation (15 points) higher IQ than the American average, this appears to me to be an extremely clear example of the IQ/Wealth relationship in action.<br /><br />Somehow, Keister ignores this possibility entirely, theorizing <i>"going to religious services may be another opportunity, especially for Jews, to be indoctrinated with beliefs that help build wealth."</i><br /><br />Interesting word choice there lady! <br /><br /><i>"Also, it is a social network issue – a church or synagogue can be a good place to meet people with investment tips or money to loan for a new business."</i><br /><br />Evidently, to Keister, the intelligence of the advisor and the quality of the investment tip doesn't enter into the equation. With that logic, I know a few flat-earth-believing drunks at the local dive that oughta strike middle class any day now, they're filled with creative investment ideas!Richardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-60143563144195610362020-01-08T11:22:51.273-05:002020-01-08T11:22:51.273-05:00Yes, I agree that the high quality and sufficient ...Yes, I agree that the high quality and sufficient data isn't there, as I mentioned earlier. <br /><br />Such data that there is, however, tells against a strong correlation between IQ and wealth, while telling for a moderate correlation. I don't dispute that a moderate correlation is significant. It is certainly true that the average IQs of millionaires and billionaires is above average. But it is also true that the vast majority of high IQ people are not millionaires or billionaires - and that is a very strong tell against high IQ being the most relevant factor in monetary success.<br /><br />Without doing complex psychometric and family and work-history work-ups on each and every millionaire and billionaire AND each and every high IQ person who is not a millionaire or billionaire (the vast majority) it is impossible to know just when and how IQ translates into wealth and when and how it doesn't. Whatever the answer, it won't be the simple formula you seek. <br /><br />Regarding anecdote about artists coming from "rich" families; as the line goes, "the plural of anecdote is data." That I can tell, of the thousand or so artists I've met, only a handful came from the upper middle class. <br /><br />I agree that high intelligence tends to be in pursuit of some fascination. But I don't agree that such fascination is necessarily marketable or even tangible. IQ is not an Entrepreneurship Quotient. Creative people tend to have higher-than-average IQs, true, but higher than average IQ doesn't guarantee creativity. <br /><br />It is very common among high IQ people that they take menial jobs during the day in order to fund their intellectual interests at night. A great many high IQ end up in academia, earning salary teaching. There is also a positive correlation between high IQ and depression, 'over-analysis/analysis paralysis' and other mood and anxiety disorders, in excess of the general population. Anecdotally, some of the most dysfunctional, miserable people I've ever met were ultra-high IQ; clever people are very clever at fooling themselves, it turns out. 1 in 4 of the Ashkenazi heritage known for having a higher than average IQ, carry genetic diseases. And so on.<br /><br />Bottom line; the answer isn't simple.<br /><br /><br /><br />kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-80114512826524106462020-01-07T21:52:26.348-05:002020-01-07T21:52:26.348-05:00> Most artists don't come from rich familie...> Most artists don't come from rich families. Naturally, arguments in defense of that erroneous contention will lack rigor.<br /><br />Like the IQ argument, this will just circle around anecdotal evidence. <br /><br />Given that we don't have data on it, there's not much to work with. We can only extrapolate from anecdotes, which can only really amount to a measure of our biases.Richardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-22414596795266642912020-01-07T21:34:05.238-05:002020-01-07T21:34:05.238-05:00Instead of pontificating about ultra-high IQ (abov...<b>Instead of pontificating about ultra-high IQ (above 170, say) individuals and wealth, you can simply google them and see whether there is a "significant" number of billionaires among that cohort. After a quick googling, I do not believe there is.</b><br /><br />Talking about IQ is predominantly speculation. They are hardly measured despite their significance, and the incidence of error is very high. I could not myself find a single verified IQ score for a billionaire. <br /><br />Occasionally you can find an estimate based on an SAT score, or a mention of a childhood achievement but not much more.<br /><br />It appears that the only attempt to correlate millionaire or billionare status to high IQ is by Wei (the numbers you offered up earlier), but to obtain those estimates he was rather unscientific about it. <br /><br />Wei sampled each income bracket to see where they usually go to school. He then took the average SAT score for that school, and extrapolated from the bottom SAT score a demographic estimate of IQ. <br /><br />So if Billionaires often went to Stanford, and Stanford's minimum SAT is a 1400, and 1400 is estimated to be a 137 IQ, then Billionaires get weighted towards 137 IQ by the percentage of Billionares who went to Stanford. Not terribly impressive. Those estimates could wildly exaggerate or underestimate the IQ variance between income brackets.<br /><br />Like you, I am speculating about IQ based on how I think the world works. <br /><br />I believe that work ethic and luck are highly exaggerated economic forces. That we get a clearer view by interpreting success as primarily a function of intelligence. A force that drive can choose to apply, but not a force that drive can supplant.<br /><br />McDonald's employees don't have the neurological capacity to be Controllers, Controllers don't have the capacity to be Doctors, Doctors don't have the capacity to be CIOs, and CIOs generally don't have the capacity to be self-made Billionaires.<br /><br />To circle back to Art, I believe that professional artists telling lecture halls of amateurs to "practice practice practice" are lying to them. For the vast majority of people who would like to be artists, they don't neurologically have the mental capacity for the work anymore than I think Albert Einstein telling third graders to "work harder" is being realistic about the average person's capacity to understand his proofs for relativity, let alone make similar discoveries.<br /><br />I'm not even sure work ethic is real per se. I suspect that visual intelligence produces interest, and interest produces habit, and habit plus intelligence produces skill. I don't believe that habit on its own produces anything at all. The exceptional intelligences I've met never seem to work a day in their lives -- they're always scratching a mental itch. When I see billionaires, I see people scratching an otherworldly big itch.<br /><br />I'm comfortable being the odd man out on that one. There are strong political motivations by the two primary positions to ignore IQ as it relates to wealth -- Democrats prefer to blame Rich People and Racial Injustice, Conservatives prefer to blame Work Ethic and Morality. From my experience, both sides are wrong, and few people on either side have the stomach to honestly grapple with the strong possibility that maybe rich people are rich because society rewards intelligence, and poor people are (from no fault of their own) just plain stupid.Richardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-79859488646713772392020-01-07T12:40:49.887-05:002020-01-07T12:40:49.887-05:00The words you used, "rich" and "wea...The words you used, "rich" and "wealthy" (or "Billionaire") reference static states, where people "end up." The $2.3 million net worth cut-off for "wealthy/rich" I related was also the result of a survey.<br /><br />I don't know what stat you sought out, but an income of $100,000 a year is not an indication of wealth because we don't know the expenses and expenditures pulling against that number, so we don't know the actual net worth that resulted. Plus we don't know how many years that income lasted, cost of living changes, etc. <br /><br />Instead of pontificating about ultra-high IQ (above 170, say) individuals and wealth, you can simply google them and see whether there is a "significant" number of billionaires among that cohort. After a quick googling, I do not believe there is.<br /><br />As mentioned earlier, the 0.5 correlation tells against IQ being all that significant compared to other relevant factors in wealth. Above-average intelligence surely matters, but not super duper high IQ, thus the weak correlation. I'd put Age, Health, Ambition, and Opportunity as more relevant. <br /><br />Most artists don't come from rich families. Naturally, arguments in defense of that erroneous contention will lack rigor.kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-49993375387851152492020-01-06T19:56:16.695-05:002020-01-06T19:56:16.695-05:00Which means 99.3% of [people with IQs above 130] a...<b>Which means 99.3% of [people with IQs above 130] are not billionaires. Thus, going through life with a high IQ does not cause billionaire-ness.</b><br /><br />I would note that I didn’t say a significant portion of 5 million people with IQs above 130 IQ fell into the 7000 billionaires. You are right, that with be arithmetically preposterous. <br /><br />My argument was instead that a significant portion of the ~300 people with IQs above <i>180</i> fell into the 7000 billionaires. <br /><br />If we say that perhaps 50 people with IQs above 180 (16%) are beset my debilitating illnesses of one kind or another (mental, e.g. autism, extreme depression, social anxiety, or physical, e.g. amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.) we’re left with a cohort of 250 healthy people with IQs north of 180.<br /><br />If even only 50 healthy people with IQs 180+ fell into that 7,000 person cohort, I would call that extremely significant, since that you would tell you that (having no other information) you could confidently tell any given healthy person with a 180+ IQ that they have roughly a 1 in 5 chance of having more money than God.<br /><br /><b>Study showed that $2.3 million dollars is the cut off for being rich/wealthy.</b><br /><br />I should have been clearer. When I say “rich”, I’m using it in the common sense. <br /><br />Surveys of Americans show that the average American thinks that if you make $100k or more then you are “rich”. <br /><br />A $100k income puts you in the top 20% income bracket. There are 69 million people in the top 20% income bracket. <br /><br />I don't think it's remarkable to suggest that if you are one of the 5 million people with IQs north of 130, then you are almost assured to end up in this 69-million-person cohort if you do not have an illness. Perhaps even if you do have an illness, it’s still likely that with an IQ of 130+ you’ll end up in the top quintile of income.<br /><br />So to go back to my original argument with Anon, if there is a bottom threshold for creative ability at 120-130, and the vast majority of those 5 million people should end up falling into the top 69 million people by wealth, then the fact that most artists come from rich families shouldn’t be chalked up to “late stage capitalism”. It’s a demographic inevitability. Richardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-47392560387942460052020-01-06T11:11:41.317-05:002020-01-06T11:11:41.317-05:00Extrapolating from those two points, then that wou...<b>Extrapolating from those two points, then that would strongly suggest that a significant portion of the country's population with IQs north of 180 are also billionaires.</b><br /><br />No! My god, epistemology!!! EPISTEMOLOGY!!! Find the good data first, try to destroy it, then when you have the good data, then really work the problem. Anybody can make wild guesses. And what is a "significant portion?" 5%? 25% 75% Earlier, you stated "a majority" (50 percent or more) of High IQ folk end up rich!<br /><br />Study showed that $2.3 million dollars is the cut off for being rich/wealthy. Most rich people are just rich, not way way rich. There are a million millionaires, but only 7000 billionaires. Which means most rich people average an IQ of 118; just above average. <br /><br />But let's do a back of the envelope calculation on 130+ IQs causing extreme wealth.<br /><br />There are about 240 million adults in the United States. 2.1% have a 130 IQ or above. Which means over 5 million adults have an IQ of 130 or above. Yet there are only 7,000 or so billionaires. Which means only 0.14% of 130+ IQ people are billionaires. <br /><br />It seems that most billionaires are between 60 and 80 years old. So let’s say that that age group is 1/5 of the adult population. Which gives us a ballpark figure that there are 1 million 60-80 year olds with 130+ IQs. (And since IQ’s decline with age, we’ll assume they had a 130+ IQ all along.) <br /><br />Given the stat related above that there are only 7,000 billionaires, this means that 0.70% of 130+ IQ individuals in the 60-80 age cohort are billionaires. Which means 99.3% of High IQ 60-80 year old people are not billionaires. Thus, going through life with a high IQ does not cause billionaire-ness. The end.<br /><br /><br />kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-29292101715349962442020-01-05T20:28:42.893-05:002020-01-05T20:28:42.893-05:00Afaict, to the extent this has been studied, a &qu...<b>Afaict, to the extent this has been studied, a "moderately positive" .5 correlation between IQ and relative wealth was found. That means only 25% of the direct consequential relationship therein is actually operative. Which means that 75% of what causes relative wealth inequality is not IQ related. </b><br /><br />That includes both self-made rich, and those who inherited their wealth. Bill Gates is in the billionaire population, but I imagine so will be his children Phoebe, Rory and Jennifer. It's reasonable to hypothesize that out of the 4, Bill is the one with the brains. <br /><br />Perhaps Gates' intelligence was 99% of the cause of his wealth, but in his household he's the only one with a high IQ. Say, 180 (180 + 120 + 120 + 110 = 520. 520/4 = 130). He will give birth to generations of billionaires, only some small percentage of whom will be born with the same level of intelligence.<br /><br />While this effect is easy to see in the Gates microcosm, I would propose that this same issue tracks through all of the wealth percentiles.<br /><br /><b> the average IQ of people with 10 million dollars is 118. With the same average IQ (118) for those at 1 million. For one-hundred-million-aires (centimillionaires) the average IQs seems to be 124. Only at 'Billionaire' does the IQ average get to 130, which is what I would consider a "high IQ." </b><br /><br />First, I would point back to my argument above.<br /><br />Second, given the first argument, an average IQ of 130 for billionaires is actually exceptionally high and could go a long way to supporting my argument.<br /><br />There should be a significant distribution of intelligence among those billionaires. Given that an IQ of 180 is somewhere between the 99.999 and the 99.9999 percentile, then in the US we should expect between 30 and 300 people with IQs of 180 and above. <br /><br />Extrapolating from those two points, then that would strongly suggest that a significant portion of the country's population with IQs north of 180 are also billionaires.<br /><br />The same sort of analysis could be applied to the centimillionaires, tens of millions, etc.Richardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-28234937648766558292020-01-05T01:58:45.534-05:002020-01-05T01:58:45.534-05:00Being intelligent won’t do the work to get you ric...<b>Being intelligent won’t do the work to get you rich, but I believe it’s a prerequisite.</b><br /><b>the majority of high IQ people end up wealthy barring extenuating illnesses.</b><br /><br />The data on this stuff is really sparse, despite the surety and conclusiveness of the various articles readily available on the net. Media outlets prefer eyeballs to epistemology, and so junk science and bad statistical claims win the day every day.<br /><br />Afaict, to the extent this has been studied, a "moderately positive" .5 correlation between IQ and <i>relative wealth</i> was found. That means only 25% of the direct consequential relationship therein is actually operative. Which means that 75% of what causes relative wealth inequality is <i>not</i> IQ related. <br /><br />The variable with the strongest correlation with relative wealth is actually Age, not IQ. The older humans get, the likelihood is the more relatively wealthy they'll get compared to younger humans. <br /><br />Regarding absolute wealth differences in relation to IQ over time, sufficient data doesn't exist to make any kind of solid case. And I don't think it will ever exist. <br /><br />But it is interesting to relate the following in connection with the question; the average IQ of people with 10 million dollars is 118. With the same average IQ (118) for those at 1 million. For one-hundred-million-aires (centimillionaires) the average IQs seems to be 124. Only at 'Billionaire' does the IQ average get to 130, which is what I would consider a "high IQ." kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-54055277468936044922020-01-04T22:33:43.197-05:002020-01-04T22:33:43.197-05:00> I've known brilliant artists who are bare...> I've known brilliant artists who are barely verbal, barely literate, and couldn't sit still long enough to take an IQ test, let alone care about it.<br /><br />IQ is the best of the measures for general intelligence, but it is by no means a perfect system. IQ is By no means the ideal metric for artistic ability, but that general intelligence is real, and general intelligence and artistic aptitude and strongly related.<br /><br />I agree that Mensa members are a miserable class of people. Intelligence and good sense are weakly correlated, if at all. Being intelligent won’t do the work to get you rich, but I believe it’s a prerequisite.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08249577762409684046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-1154899506422566662020-01-04T12:34:56.436-05:002020-01-04T12:34:56.436-05:00Kim Jung Gi is a fascinating savant. Amazing drawi...Kim Jung Gi is a fascinating savant. Amazing drawing ability. But he is somewhat like Robert Fawcett to me in his utter fixation on linearity and descriptiveness. Even moreso than Fawcett, KJG's intellection completely overwhelms any other artistic concerns; including those conceptual, compositional, and gestalt concerns which, since the beginning, have been widely and I think rightly considered paramount in importance in the Arts. Which is just why I can't remember a single image of his. It is not the product of synthetic imagination; it doesn't function as visual song. All I recall is bits.<br /><br />Regarding the subject of the New York Times, and other media gatekeepers and tastemakers and 'news' purveyors, there isn't language adequate to explain and describe their failings as cultural stewards. They never should have had the reigns in the first place. But text is a hell of a drug. kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-69877539416708003782020-01-04T12:12:28.692-05:002020-01-04T12:12:28.692-05:00Only a very few IQ tests contain even a few questi...Only a very few IQ tests contain even a few questions that get at the kind of intelligence involved in art making. I've known brilliant artists who are barely verbal, barely literate, and couldn't sit still long enough to take an IQ test, let alone care about it. The fact is, no brilliant artists have ever been involved in creating IQ tests. Mainly because there are no brilliant artists (or even artists) in the relevant academic or research fields. These are different worlds with different interests and wholly different languages and modes of thought. (Also because modernists and then postmodernists grabbed academia and held on with all their might... and their aesthetic theories are as painfully deficient as their talents.) I don't put any stock in the field's ability to capture the full range of intellectual variation. <br /><br /><b>the majority of high IQ people end up wealthy barring extenuating illnesses.</b><br /><br />If anybody thinks there is a necessary connection between IQ and moneymaking, I'd advise them to attend a few months' worth of Mensa meetings. And as far as IQ and creativity, my experience with Mensa was that 'creativity' consisted of repeating Monty Python lines and making inside jokes of the "you had to be there" variety. Or making easy dumb jokes at the expense of normies. <br /><br />And while it surely true that people in the average IQ range (90 - 110) are going to fail at a whole host of candlepower intensive endeavors, there's nobody more dangerous than a 120-130 IQ person who has developed their sense of self amid 90-110 IQ people. Which is just why there are so many ARRRRGHnorant (ignorant + arrogant) people. It's come to the point that I don't trust any 'intellectual' that doesn't engineer and build physical objects... because only in that consequence-soaked feedback loop between direct experience and the understanding does sanity and humility occur. <br /><br />I've also met brilliant chess bums galore. And I knew two phd candidates in advanced math who took a decade to finish their dissertations because they tried to become professional Texas Hold'em players. I've known brilliant progressive lawyers barely scraping by because they were consumed by political activism. And so on. Cults are filled with lost but 'high IQ' people. <br /><br />This points to the main problem with the relationship between IQ and success in the world; the intellect is a modelling system; and not all modelling systems do good or useful work. It is supremely difficult to actually model the world in the mind with any sufficiency; thus most intellectualism is just a kind of egoistic escapism; castles in the sky to dream and ponder and interesting but irrelevant games to win handily.<br /><br />Intellectuals get addicted to dopamine hits from solving game-like problems all day long. Which is surely why "fail forward fast" works better as a learning model for life than "contemplate the question in solitude." Most intellectuals, it seems safe to say, don't have either the hard-won experience or the epistemological humility to sense the deficiencies in their internal models. Even if its costs them money on a daily basis.kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-39523429819833434972020-01-04T03:37:43.123-05:002020-01-04T03:37:43.123-05:00Richard,
I'm not familiar with his work.Richard, <br /><br />I'm not familiar with his work. Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-41716350362326039512020-01-03T21:57:53.913-05:002020-01-03T21:57:53.913-05:00Laurence,
Do you like Steve Huston?Laurence,<br /><br />Do you like Steve Huston?Richardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-28516764557002902372020-01-03T00:22:26.552-05:002020-01-03T00:22:26.552-05:00“One can be a great artist with average intelligen...“One can be a great artist with average intelligence. Someone who has high aptitude in one subject is not going to be above average at all tasks.”<br /><br />My experience doesn’t bear that out at all. I’ve found most skilled artists are accomplished in a number of other intellectual pursuits as well. I’m not sure I know of any great artists who appear to have no other signs of intelligence.<br /><br />That should be expected — some level of mastery of anatomy, optics, perspective, acting, cloth physics, chaotic systems like smoke, architecture, biology, and many many other fields is required to be even a remotely skilled illustrator. To say nothing of the intelligence required to master the media itself, gesture, composition, etc. More than perhaps any other skill, it’s truly multidisciplinary. You have to be a very sharp generalist to make even okay art.<br /><br />And that’s not just true of art, but of many intellectually demanding tasks. The historians I know are great pianists, or skilled in math, or finance. The sculptors are also programmers. And so on.<br /><br />General Intelligence is real. Smart people are almost never smart in just one thing (except Ben Carson, but the exception proves the rule).<br /><br />The current research on this suggests that there’s a threshold at about 120 IQ to be able to think at all creatively. I suspect that were we to raise the requirements to be a good artist, that general intelligence threshold would rise significantly also.<br /><br />Getting good at art is mentally challenging. A dumb person can practice painting their whole life and they’ll never get any good. The limiting factor, I believe, is the quality of the mind, not the amount of time spent doing it.<br /><br /><br />As for whether Basquiat and other modern artists had high IQs, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I don’t think the fact that their pictures are meaningless and degenerate means that those pictures are also easy to make. It’s hard to make really good designs that speak to people and get famous for doing so.<br /><br />I’ve met hundreds of stupid people who TRY to make pictures like Basquiat, Twombly, or Frankenthaler, but I’ve not yet met a single stupid person who could. The accomplished modern artists I know, even though I hate their work, are still themselves as smart or smarter than the average MIT or Harvard educated programmers I work with.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08249577762409684046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-13968478694568826992020-01-02T23:45:04.641-05:002020-01-02T23:45:04.641-05:00> “ endless dioramas of animals, sci-fi whimsey...> “ endless dioramas of animals, sci-fi whimsey, hardware fetishism and soft-core babes gets boring very quickly”<br /><br />I agree wholeheartedly (except about the soft core babes part.) I’m personally much more interested in his work in historical Asian scenes, and his fantastic depictions of Shinto/Animism. Unfortunately he’s done much less of that lately.<br /><br />That said, part of what I like about this blog is that we can discuss fantastic artists who paint and draw garbage. That’s most of what we do here. I think he fits well into the pantheon of artists who do extremely low subjects extremely well. The museums have enough artists who do good subjects poorly, and artists who do good subjects well seem to be almost entirely nonexistent in the last 100 years.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08249577762409684046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-42564970115087568202020-01-02T23:43:37.953-05:002020-01-02T23:43:37.953-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08249577762409684046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-54745528950650005602020-01-02T11:31:36.144-05:002020-01-02T11:31:36.144-05:00Today's geeks and freaks are supporting the ab...<br /><br /><br />Today's geeks and freaks are supporting the abysmal good illustration and worse yet, they have enough support from the elite to make it deem "good".<br /><br />" But the endless dioramas of animals, sci-fi whimsey, hardware fetishism and soft-core babes gets boring very quickly, and seems to have nothing to say. There's an arrested adolescent, stoner, masturbatory quality to it all. "<br />Just because you can't relate to the male gaze doesn't mean it's bad. <br />Sounds like you would be more happy with agitprop art, which there is plenty of.<br />There are plenty of artists promoting some kind of "-ism" or "pride" or "power to this group". <br />Or perhaps,you have a more female view of the world, which in case I would recommend the New Yorker or Noelle Stevenson. <br />or perhaps 99% of what is considered "art" these days.<br />https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-15-emerging-illustrators-art-lover<br /><br />If anything, one has to try very hard to find art made by contemporary artists that <br /><br />have an incredible ability to draw from his imagination, without the need for any photo-ref , who produce an endless dioramas of animals, sci-fi whimsey, hardware fetishism and soft-core babe, and seems to have nothing to say and has a an arrested adolescent, stoner, masturbatory quality to it all. <br /><br />Just about every single supporter of the arts (the commercial arts included) has condemned this kind of art .<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-20923175218794956452020-01-02T10:57:50.650-05:002020-01-02T10:57:50.650-05:00Much of good illustration survives on the fringes,...Much of good illustration survives on the fringes, where the geeks and freaks roam.<br /><br />I have also long wanted to read David's thoughts on various 'modern' illustrators and the like. Otomo (Katsuhiro and now his son Shohei, who is an excellent draughtsman), Giger, Moebius, Katsuya Terada, James Jean, etc. I was surprised and pleased to see articles on Matt Muharin (an actual talented photo illustrator), Ashley Wood, Phil Hale, and Tomer Hanuka. And this is the place where I discovered Thomas Fluharty, Carter Goodrich, and others. Chris Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11931414857801867456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-67087156984725656832020-01-02T09:06:53.312-05:002020-01-02T09:06:53.312-05:00Richard: "Does Kim Jung Gi have something to ...Richard: "Does Kim Jung Gi have something to offer by way of comparison?"<br /><br />He's clearly a phenomenal talent with an incredible ability to draw from his imagination, without the need for any photo-ref. But the endless dioramas of animals, sci-fi whimsey, hardware fetishism and soft-core babes gets boring very quickly, and seems to have nothing to say. There's an arrested adolescent, stoner, masturbatory quality to it all. Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-57242357832577419542019-12-28T03:15:15.938-05:002019-12-28T03:15:15.938-05:00Fame has nothing to do with intelligence. One can ...<br /><br /><br /><br />Fame has nothing to do with intelligence. One can be a great artist with average intelligence. Someone who has high aptitude in one subject is not going to be above average at all tasks. <br /><br />I'm afraid you're falling for the marketing. Jean-Michel Basquiat is NOT a genius art art-making. It's just that the critics have made that a reality by constantly saying that he is.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-74329683867768806392019-12-26T14:22:38.426-05:002019-12-26T14:22:38.426-05:00> Genius is no longer being selected for in the...> Genius is no longer being selected for in the various art markets.<br /><br />After all, if they were smarter wouldn’t they realize that their chosen artform is garbage?<br /><br />Well no, not necessarily. Being intelligent doesn’t mean that you’ll think critically about your culture or place within it. There are thousands of world class geniuses busily wasting their lives becoming top World of Warcraft players. <br /><br />Helen Frankenthaler or Jean-Michel Basquiat may leave something to be desired when compared to Michelangelo (who no doubt had an IQ pushing 200), but I suspect that they were geniuses in their own right, if of a lesser variety. It's hard to get famous, even selling snake oil, if you aren't terribly intelligent.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08249577762409684046noreply@blogger.com