Art of Being Artless

Was George Eastman lucky or clever?  Did he have skill or just a marketing genius?  Was Bob Ross a talented artist or simply a brilliant promoter? Who is to say who is an artists or fraud?

Fraud is a word I chose with care.  Just because a picture is in a museum, does not make it great art.  The pictures that never make it to galleries is not  any less great? Of course there is always the idea that photographs have no value when taken and then years later are deemed great art. 

Acting is different.  We hear about paintings and photos that were panned by critics and later held up as an art standard, but acting performances that were said to be very poor are not usually heard to be brilliant in later years.  Bad acting as they say is bad acting (unless I learn otherwise later chapters).  Acting should also be part of the evolving review.

We need to get back to the issue of fraud. Are there really great actors as well as those that market themselves well, like Eastman and Ross.  The answer is yes. But does that mean anything?  At the end of the day if people want to purchase a camera they do not use particularly well, watch a guy who can paint some pretty tress, or tune into a sitcom with panned laughter, its all the same.