audiobook This Wheel's On Fire by Bob Dylan; Rick Danko; The Band in Arts-Photography

Review

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful. Humor; philosophy; anecdotes - and the difficulty of scholarly proseBy CustomerBackground: for last Christmas; I bought my 4-year-old grandson a "hand-painted van Gogh;" Harvest at La Crau; with Montmajour in the Background. The original is 72 x 92cm; Bens copy is 8x10 in. His pre-school teacher had presented several weeks on painting (you have to assume there were no details on a biography unsuited to pre-school); and Ben for whatever reason responded fervently to van Gogh. I wanted him to see the dimension of paint on canvas and I received two gifts from him -- he immediately ran his fingers over the impasto surface; again and again; then he asked that the picture be hung; right then; in his bedroom.Bens copy came from China; probably from Dafen Village; which is the setting of Ms. Wongs treatise. Thats the setting: the *subject* would have to be summarized as "Challenge everything you ever assumed about art; the artist; creativity; originality; Chinese social structure and politics; and WalMart."When I ordered the book; five months before it got far enough into production to reach my door; I wanted a popular explication of how (possibly) thousands of painters produce many tens of thousands per year of van Goghs; Utrillos; da Vincis; Bougereaus... well; virtually any famous artist you want to name.What I got instead is a mix: insightful anecdotes from conversations with painters and bosses; compelling discussions of painting factory methods and organization (many exploitative; some humanistic; avuncular); massive tugs at assumptions around originality; and; frankly; boring excursions into angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin types of things.Anecdotes? While watching one; er; artist (re-)producing one of van Goghs sunflower paintings; the artist stood back toward the end; then said; "Time to sign it." Ms. Wong pointed out that van Gogh had not signed the original. The artist: "Oh. You own one?"Sort-of an anecdote: Ms. Wong quotes from the marketing copy of a van Gogh reproduction sold by Amserdams van Gogh Museum: "It seemed a dream; but this replica makes it possible: a painting [in reality an inkjet - glicee - print] by Vincent van Gogh on the living room wall; and almost indistinguishable from the real thing... This amazing reproduction is delivered rolled-up; affordable and safe; just as van Gogh sent his own canvases to Paris."Anecdote: A Dafen van Gogh artist who; chafing under the low wages; exclaimed that he was not making much more than van Gogh did.Anecdote: Always open about her objective to study Dafen for scholarly purpose; Ms. Wong was interviewing one artist; who pointed out that he was also an "excellent and prolific writer." "...since he had been in Dafen far longer than I; it would be much easier for him to write my dissertation for me.... In the hands of Dafen painters and bosses [and writers]; it [ghost-painting; ghost-writing] is a habitual and ubiquitous phenomenon; and recalls a condition in which painting and writing do not constitute any sort of special labor...."One commentator on the Dafen scene wrote; "I realized that most of Dafen painters remained kind of detached and regarded painting more as a labor job." Of course; for hundreds; maybe even thousands of Europeans artists prior to the Romantic age; painting *was* a "labor job;" and not a sort of special labor.Throughout youll all sorts of tweaks; all sorts of unanswered and possibly unanswerable questions. For the most part; this book is a sort of high-level page-turner. All this said; however; there are times that I wish a competent copy editor had made some suggestions -- and that Ms. Wong had complied. Take that last sentence in my final anecdote above: could it not be expressed less syllabically: "In the hands of Dafen painters and bosses [and writers]; it [ghost-painting; ghost-writing] is ubiquitous. For them; there is no special labor in painting and writing."Scholarly language aside; what happens when -- the very thing we conceptualize as golden fruit of glorious individual vision -- Art becomes a mass-produced object on an assembly line? Is it automatically schlock?Bens little van Gogh is all master strokes done by a master hand with crystal-clear colors. It is; as Ben immediately saw; equally beautiful to both the eye and the hand.1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Four StarsBy G CPretty interesting book.