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Color Scheming 'Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid's Scientific Guide to Art.' By James DiGiovanna Painting by Numbers Komar and Melamid's Scientific Guide to Art, by Komar and Melamid and JoAnn Wypijewski (Farrar Straus Giroux). Cloth, $50. IN THE 20TH century, scientific methods have been put to use on ancient philosophical questions, often with spectacular results. We now have a well-supported theory of the origin of space and time, a deeper understanding of the material processes that make up thought, some strong ideas about what matter is, and several decent sentential theories of truth.
Flushed with success, they repeated their endeavor in countries all over the world, and, much to their surprise, found virtually the same results everywhere. In all but one of the countries polled, people wanted large-sized landscapes with lots of blue sky. And in all but that one misfit country, everyone agreed that abstract art was no good and should be kept safely in museums, where it can't hurt anyone.
I won't reveal what degenerate land bucked the trend, but the
fact that it was the only country to stand out in its tastes says
a great deal about the modern world. In fact, this book has more
insight into aesthetics, mass marketing, popular tastes and capital
production than any 10 volumes of dry, academic writing, while
at the same time being a total hoot. Which just goes to show that
truth is beauty, and beauty truth.
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However, it took Russian artists Komar and Melamid to finally
provide the answer to the greatest of philosophical questions:
What is beauty? K&M used telephone polling to find out, from
that great aesthetic resource the American public, just what was
good and bad art. Then, using the poll results as general blueprints,
they painted America's most desired painting, and America's least
desired painting.
