Rockdoc's " this artwork is almost corny in its use of over sentimentalism" hits a chord with me. It reminds me of the illustrations on calendars from our village general store long ago.
Many years later I really got interested in "sporting art" from looking at some of the Old Masters in books and galleries, particularly engraving and paintings of Peter Bruegel the Elder.
Not that I became cultured all of a sudden (nor am I now) but it was the detail, of what I knew as a country boy, the dogs and game, as in his great The Hunters in the Snow, January and February, dated 1565.
Bruegel must have been a hunter, it seems to me.
One shouldn't disparage as I have because who is to say what art is art? The first canon of aesthetics is interest, and generations made the sentimental surpassingly popular.
However pleasing to the eye and heart, most art is bad art. What counts most for me is originality, thought and craft--- what took the eye of a country boy when he got to the cities.
Last edited by King Brown; 10/04/11 07:55 PM.
