so this is a response to Lisa's question, ""Do you believe that modern art is becoming more and more abstract, and therefore harder to interpret, or are art-viewers just getting lazier at piecing together the meaning behind a painting?""

I believe that furstovoll (first of all), that depends on your definition of modern art. Becuase some modern art is very easy to view and interpret, straightforward. However, the kind i believe Lisa means is the abstract kind, or the simple subject that has a deeper meaning kind. I in fact, do not believe that art viewers are becoming lazy at all, in fact, i think art viewers are trying their darnedest to adapt. Becuase if you think about it, abstract art has only really been around for under 200 years, and that is a baby in the long run of how long art has been around. Art was originally reference based and very realistic. And there was no need for real interpretation because it was a simple representation. But then after impressionism, and surrealism, and dadaism and all of those other fantastic isms, art became more complicatied and full of expression and interpretation. And then we were forced to use our brains. And i believe that the less obvious a piece of art is, the more abstract, the more we are forced to use that kind of our own creativities to piece together meaning and hopefully get it right. it is fun, i think, to interpret paintings and works of art which are abstract because it encourages one to be creative. even if they end up being wrong. And that may be a reason for the lack of understanding, becuase some people are afraid of being wrong. And so i dont think that we have gotten lazy, i think that our abilities to make that kind of an interpretation have not developed as quickly as our abilities to create.

So my question for right now is, does art always need to have meaning?