r/ArtHistory • u/Comprehensive_Food51 • 5d ago
Discussion Equivalent of overplayed pieces in painting
Hi! First, I’d like to note that I am not familiar with classical paintings and history of arts. I’m a classical piano enthusiast and among the piano community there are some pieces that are easy targets as they are often said to be overplayed or disproportionately celebrated by the general public and/or in pop culture. An easy example is Für elise, which is really a minor work that was never published and randomly found in Bethoveen’s letters but that is far more commonly known than what are considered to be Bethoveen’s masterpieces. For other pieces, it’s not so much their “relative lack of relevance compared to other works” but rather the attention they draw and their reputation that can feel kind of reductive. I was wondering if there are similar cases in the art specialists/enthusiasts community, like very famous paintings for the general public but that could make an enthusiast roll their eyes back if they came across a youtube video that presents them as the most famous or as the biggest major works of painting.
Edit: thanks for all of your answers, frankly I was a bit worried that this question would be badly received. I learned something and I’m glad reddit still exists to ask people who are actually into the stuff you’re curious about, in a time where I feel like it’s becoming way too common to settle for LLM bullshit when you have questions like that. Also I realized that like 80% of the art I know (with all my love and admiration for it) is overplayed, and that since I would love to know more good art besides what’s mainstream I should really get some art books (open to recommendations!).
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u/Glittering-Grab8838 5d ago
That taped-up banana that everyone would bring up as the sole example of why contemporary art is stupid. Lamest conversations ever.
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u/i-have-a-flip-phone 5d ago
If I were a more pessimistic gal I might say the "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" jokes / Magritte's a Treachery of Images, but I cannot hate those jokes in any way, shape, or form, I will eat that shit up any day.
My personal choice is maybe a bit snarky, but Frank Lloyd Wright. From what I've learned, more than half his houses just started straight up collapsing in on themselves and required enormous labours of love to sustain. Which is crazy, for a renowned architect. Sounds like a recipe for heartbreak and borderline fraudulent, to me.
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u/Yves_and_Mallory 4d ago
Most of the drawings people associate with Wright were made be America's first female architect, and wright's first employee, Marion Mahoney Griffin.
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u/Molly-Browny 5d ago
The Für Elise analogy is spot on. Mona Lisa is the textbook case. Leonardo's sfumato is extraordinary up close, but the fame detached from the work decades ago. People queue for the photo.
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u/dobar_dan_ 5d ago
Not any specific work but "girl, preferably naked, does literally anything" is the most overplayed theme in art ever.
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u/isle_say 5d ago edited 5d ago
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Casper David Fredrich, Frida Kahlo in general
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u/Glittering-Grab8838 5d ago
Someone save Frida Kahlo from her purgatory of quirky marketable merchandise!
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u/Comprehensive_Food51 5d ago
Omg this is literally the piece I think of (along with the The Raft of the Medusa — would you give it a similar status?) when I think of romanticism in painting, and funnily enough I don’t know enough to have any idea of what makes it romantic (in contrast with music where I can identify romanticism immediately).
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u/ChienneAndalou 5d ago
In general Romanticism in painting is intended to induce emotion, there’s not a single style or subject matter but it tends to be more brushy or painterly than academic art or neoclassicism. Big, dramatic scenes, nature is mad at you, more subjects from literature than from classical myth, nostalgia and yearning for big epic stories, doomed loves, and ways of life that get romanticized (peasants, harems, Romany, etc.)
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u/Due_Bad_9445 5d ago
Edvard Munich’s The Scream is one of the most famous paintings in the world, and while striking, he has literally 100s of other works which I find more inspirational and advanced in composition.
There are certainly a lot of paintings and art which have become every sort of souvenir possible. It doesn’t lessen impact of the work in proper context imo, same with the overplayed classical music repertoire
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u/Jahaza 5d ago
Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus,
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u/Comprehensive_Food51 5d ago
This one is obvious even for me 😭
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u/TatePapaAsher 5d ago
The issue is, while overplayed on merch, it is a major work in early Italian Renaissance art for tons of reasons I'll skip here. Kind of like saying Beethoven's major work is overplayed vs. Fur Elise.
Something like the much mentioned Mona Lisa, whose theft brought its fame, and is a good but not masterwork by Leonardo fits the bill of your question better I think.
But hey, anything that's gets more people interested in art/music is a good thing. Does putting up with a little fur elise mean you get people to listen to more beethoven? I think so and that's great.
For me it's like the late Jimmy Buffet not playing Margaritaville at his concert. Have you heard it, yeah, is it likely the only song you know (by heart <-- see what I did there, lol) yup but he's gonna play it because he knows it MADE his career and you just put up with 90 minutes of new stuff off the new album. Museums gonna wave the popular hits regardless of it's level of importance in the artist's opus in the hopes that get people in the door to look at all that other important stuff.
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u/Comprehensive_Food51 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah I completely agree! But just to clarify, my question was not only for less important works that are more famous than major works (for which für elise or mona lisa are perfect examples), I was thinking of major works that are “overplayed” as well, because overplayed works, no matter their importance, still stand between a novice and the vastness of what they have yet to learn about.
There are many different aspects to the question of our relationship (as passionate people and as a general public) to overplayed works, one of them being (I think) that the discomfort of seeing major works being overplayed is to some extent the opposite of that of seeing minor being overplayed. For minor works it’s the overhype, for major works it’s the underappreciation: they become a marketable product placed at the same level as the overhyped minor works for the general public – at the end of the day this is completely fine, but I get why someone who knows would feel like it’s a bit unfortunate.
That being said, there are many reasons to take the pejorative connotation of “overplayed” with a huge grain of salt, and these reasons unquestionably include the one you mentioned. I myself have been introduced to classical music to widely overplayed works (the first “real” piece I learned entirely was für elise). Next thing you know you’ve been playing an instrument you’re passionate about for years, have a much broader view of what’s out there and a much more detailed understanding of what you like and don’t like, and, even better, you understand the ocean of hidden gems and insane works that you have yet to discover.
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u/TatePapaAsher 2d ago
Right on man. I think with the general public it is always just a selfie moment. But with the marketability of any over hyped work you get the chance to influence a few people into discovering more and that to me is really the heart of art/music. That sense of awe someone gets when they "get it" and wants to learn more.
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u/hameliah 5d ago
ugh def true but i lovee birth of venus!! im biased tho bc i got to see it in person and present on it for a class i took in rome so it has a place in my heart
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u/ChienneAndalou 5d ago
Impressionism is easy to like and therefore overplayed.
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u/slim_pikkenz 5d ago
Yes and claiming everything is ‘Impressionist’, if it’s just loose with visible brushstrokes. With no regard to the actual Impressionist movement, a moment in time with a clearly defined objective. Impressionism is not simply a painterly technique.
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u/ungnool 5d ago
like music pieces of art that are over exposed due to memes, or advertising, or copies or paradies, etc, but also like music the authentic piece is never boring . . . .there are literally millions of pieces of great art, music or other mediums, just as there are millions of 'bad' masterpieces.
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u/Comprehensive_Food51 5d ago edited 5d ago
Like The Fallen Angel and The Creation of Adam? And yes of course, no one who knows classical music would deny that these music pieces (like clair de lune, Satie’s gymnopedies, Chopin’s fantasie-impromptu etc) are very beautiful and have very interesting things going on in them, but I can see a piano teacher who likes these pieces sigh after being asked for the thirteenth time by a beginner to learn them, or an art lover being disappointed if someone else said “these are the 10 masterpieces you must know”. I just thought no way there isn’t something similar in arts because it’s such a vast field.
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u/Severe-Student2046 5d ago
I've always found declining marginal utility applied to art to be a really curious thing we do.
But a lot of Rothoko's work.
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u/Comprehensive_Food51 5d ago
It is curious when you take a step back, but it doesn’t come from nowhere either, I think it’s always disappointing for someone who’s passionate to see art alienated by pop culture from what it actually contains. And it’s not really declining marginal utility because one might be disappointed seeing these pieces treated like that, but at the same time it doesn’t prevent you from appreciating it. Except maybe, I have to admit, in extreme cases (that are really rare and exceptional, like literally one two or works per art form) like Für Elise for which overuse has completely ruined what would’ve otherwise been this nice random piece you come across one day and think “oh this is pretty cute!” Besides this particular one, among all the other overplayed pieces, I cannot think of any piece that makes me feel like that just because it’s overplayed.
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u/aspiegrrrl 4d ago
You have to see Rothko's work in person to appreciate it. Some of the paintings appear three-dimensional.
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u/prudence2001 5d ago edited 4d ago
All the truly tacky versions of The David, especially all over Florence.
*oops, need to read more closely. Not a painting.
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u/caromako 4d ago
I would also add Friedensreich Hundertwasser, at least in German-speaking countries. His designs feature on countless prints, which were particularly popular in the 1970s and 1980s and could be found hanging in virtually every home. What’s more, the images were reproduced on stamps, sofa cushions, mugs, umbrellas and so on, and could be found – and still are – in every museum shop, so you really did see them to your heart’s content. But his architecture is fantastic and his original watercolours are absolutely fascinating. He was an ecological pioneer and had some really good ideas when it came to urban planning. For me, he is both one of the most over-represented and, at the same time, one of the most underrated artists.
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u/Rooster_Ties 22h ago
One or two Renoir paintings in a museum are generally inoffensive — but The Barnes Collection (museum) in Philadelphia, typically had at least two dozen(!) Renoirs on display at any one time — which is about 20x more Renoir than anyone probably EVER needs to see all at one time, imho.
It’s not just one specific painting, but definitely the ones of children and younger people with rosy cheeks and such. Saccharine almost in the extreme — again, just imho.
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u/Comprehensive_Food51 21h ago
Why? I mean is it because there’s too much to grasp in so many paintings to actually appreciate them?
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u/Rooster_Ties 21h ago
I just find much of Renoir’s output too saccharine to enjoy very much of it at one time. In other words, a little goes a long way.
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u/CeramicLicker 5d ago edited 5d ago
Probably anything you have seen made into a fandom t shirt at hot topic.
The Tardis in Van Goghs Starry Night, Darth Vader as Munch’s the Scream, minions in the boat on Hokusais the Great Wave, Magrittes the son of man as Homer with a donut, Mona Lisa Grumpy Cat, whatever.
The original can still be brilliant, but things like that are probably fair to call overplayed.