No the thread has not run its course! At least not for someone new to the forum like myself!
It's been fascinating reading it and echoes many of my own thoughts. With this difference: I've been reluctant to get involved with 'wildlife art' because of the bad connotations it has in the 'high art' world as some have noted here. I've had that thought largely because my background is so-called 'high art', i.e., not illustration, and because I don't like a lot of wildlife art, probably the same type of wildlife art that most responders have said that they don't like either. So I think unlike most I come to it more from the non-wildlife-art viewpoint.
But I'm also sympathetic with many that 'high art' is often not really so high. Damien Hirst is one among many that I can't take seriously and that I think does great harm to art and humanitys love of art. Art like music is something that I think most people appreciate regardless of education and cultural background. At least they're open to it if art goes halfway to meet them.
To put it most simply I'd say this: many high artists have abandoned art that is connected to humanity. It will never be appreciated by most of the public. They say that this is because the public just can't understand it. But in my mind it is the opposite. They've just lost touch with what makes art art, regardless of how much verbiage they might use to defend themselves. On the other hand the best wildlife artists, the ones that show the joy of birds as Nick mentions, that try to capture the individual beauty of a particular bird in a particular setting in an artful way, are actually much closer to the original impulse of art: an honest emotional expression.
I've been in the 'art' world for about 30 years, though I've become less and less attached to it and knowledgeable about it as I've gotten older because so much of it, particularly that covered in the media, shown at the better galleries, etc. seems unconnected to the basic human impulse to make art. Today I see that impulse much more in 'good' wildlife artists, like many that I see on this forum.
In the end I think art is an honest response to something. It can be wildlife; it can be something else. In my older abstract art it really was more an honest response to color and shape. I loved them, regardless of whether or not they represented something. I think that I considered my art closer to the abstractions of music rather than more realistic iart. But that doesn't mean I didn't still love representational art, for example Chardin.
I've done art with nature, particularly birds, as my subject for the last three years. But I felt like someone wandering around alone in the wilderness. I knew that there had been great artists in the past who had used nature as their subject, e.g. Durer and Courbet. But I couldn't find contemporary examples. When I stumbled upon this forum I finally felt that I was on more familiar ground, even though most people I think come more from the 'wildlife art' perspective.
But I think the fact that Mike even asked the question means that he and others don't want to be pigeon-holed as just 'wildlife artists', especially if that means something lesser than 'art.' I believe that John Busby said that artists who portrayed birds and nature should also be aware of other art that is going on. What also needs to be said by someone the equivalent of John Busby in the 'art' world is that they ought to be paying attention to nature and wildlife artists. But I don't think that is happening. So many art students at art colleges wouldn't think of looking at or going into wildlife art. Of course I may be wrong; it's been many years since I've been in school.
I think both sides have something to offer the other. But all in all I think that good wildlife artists, like the ones I see here, are much more willing to look at the other side than vice versa. That is sad.
I do hope to see the day when good wildlife art shows in museums, not just natural history museums. And that honest wildlife artists can make a living from it. I can always hope!
One final thing: all in all, and I realize it's a great generalization, my feeling is that there is more integrity in honest wildlife artists than in high artists. On the other hand honest 'high artists' may feel that there is far more integrity in their work and that may be because they only see the bad wildlife art that is formulaic but sells. In the end I think artists with integrity can spot it in other artists, whether they're wildlife artists, broken crockery artists, art painted with a garden hose artists, or whatever.
Sorry for going on so long................
