Kohones: Got Big Ones

"I would rather die of passion than boredom."
Vincent Van Gogh

Art can be entertainment, however, entertainment, it has been said, can never be art.

Prehistoric, Primitive, African, Greek, Roman, Medieval, Gothic, Fine, Pop, Modern, Abstract, the list goes on. Painting, sculpture, photography, even architecture, how many forms? Unfortunately, a few (more likely mucho out there) believe art is the realm of intellectuals, sophisticates and phonies (did somebody say "bored rich people" ?). Whoever first dropped their drawers and photocopied their butt should probably have looked at it as a work of art rather than an office prank. They could have called it "Ass On Glass" or perhaps "Stool Moon". What do we know?

Anyhow, we won't take hours of your precious tiempo and hundreds of megabytes of hard disk space on our server to delve into unsolvable controversies about what is or isn't art or whether any specific "art" is good or not. However, from that instance, over 20,000 years ago, that a Neanderthal "thought" to create something, art as a means of breaking the boundaries was born.

For example, let's look at impressionist paintings ( Duh! What else would you do with a painting).Impressionism started in the mid 1800's by some guys with kohones in France as a rebellion against the status quo's realism and established rules. Their work was criticized as crude and seditious filth, but they just pressed on. Incredibly, the whole controversy was only about style and approach, not the subject matter they painted. Yup, all they painted was mostly landscapes, daily life scenes, flowers, nudes (oh, I'm blushing) and other moderate stuff, but they did it their way. Who were these guys? The most famous are Monet, Renoir and Manet.

One of the all time favorite impressionist painters is Vincent Van Gogh ( did somebody say madman ?) who, although not a founder of the "movement", is famous for his unique vision and style that took impressionism to a special level and also because he sliced off one of his ears in a fit of anger.
Guess he just wasn't into stereo, man.

While on the subject of supposed loco painters, there was a visionary in Spain named Francisco de Goya. He started out as a fairly regular painter but over the years he became increasingly edgy and radical. Maybe it was because of a sickness that left him deaf. Or maybe it was because there was no MTV who knows. What is known is that his provocative and biting satirical paintings totally pissed off a lot of people and almost got him hanged. Undaunted, he kept painting what he needed to say. For sure, with this dude it was about the subject matter.

Passion in the extreme can be found in art. Search for it! Got talent? Then create it!