[Pseudoscience-is-malarkey (OP)]

Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, along with the now-dead Charles Nelson Reilly, Peter Bogdanovich, Barry Cryer, etc., were/are artists that sport/sported oversized glasses. We will look at them and will determine them to be geniuses of the arts because of their oversized glasses. We don't even have to examine their content because we feel their oversized glasses tell us enough.

[Petrochemicals]

Also why is "artistic genius" so exclusive? I have seen many works of art by artists that are cheap yet people pay gazillions for a Jackson pollock? OK he has a certain uniqueness but so do most works of art, yet most are sneered at. If modern art represents anything it is that art it far more common than snobs like to think. Street art is a representation of this.


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And the original mona Lisa is far better

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Truth is critics of all sorts are ponses who sustain through exclusivity. Many of the most popular films have been panned by critics, yet strangely some of the most acclaimed films are shunned by the public. To be a finite resource means brilliant, if everyone sported oversize glasses where would the critics be?

[alancalverd]

I wear oversize varifocal aviator specs so I can read the instruments and scan the horizon without having to move my head or change glasses (post-cataract implanted lenses don't focus). My artistic genius, like my previous myopia and susceptibility to cataract, is partly genetic and partly environmental, so the association is obvious.

[alancalverd]

OK he has a certain uniqueness but so do most works of art,

The uniqueness is the whole point of art as investment. On the one hand a work of genius is more difficult to copy than a banker's cheque or bond certificate, so $10M invested in a classic painting in a bank vault is verifiable and transferrable capital.

On the other hand some art is distinctly speculative. Why would anyone pay $10M for a pickled herring? Because if he didn't, the stuffed rat he bought for $5M last week would be worthless. 

[Petrochemicals]

OK he has a certain uniqueness but so do most works of art,

The uniqueness is the whole point of art as investment. On the one hand a work of genius is more difficult to copy than a banker's cheque or bond certificate, so $10M invested in a classic painting in a bank vault is verifiable and transferrable capital.

As the mona Lisa demonstrates copying has never been all that difficult, with printers these days it is very easy. For a few bob, you too can possess a master in like quality.

[Pseudoscience-is-malarkey (OP)]

Also why is "artistic genius" so exclusive? I have seen many works of art by artists that are cheap yet people pay gazillions for a Jackson pollock?

Two dead, overhyped American artists worshiped in the UK: Buckminster Fuller and Jackson Pollock.

There's a rumor that the Brits loved Fuller so much, that he was hired to create the design for the modern British toilet. If true, I can imagine some were offended by this, believing the British toilet should be designed by a proper, Queen-fearing Brit.

[paul cotter]

I can easily scupper this concept. I am two months short of 70 and I have never worn glasses, neither for reading fine print at close range or for seeing clearly at distance way in excess of that needed for safe driving (all true).                      My genius is so close to infinite that god sees me as a threat(you decide!!).

[alancalverd]

My genius is so close to infinite that god sees me as a threat(you decide!!).

Would that be the god that invented congenital syphilis? Not the sort of genius I admire.

[alancalverd]

Two dead, overhyped American artists worshiped in the UK: Buckminster Fuller and Jackson Pollock.

Worshipped by whom?

It is possible that BF submitted a design for the North Mymms motorway service station, popularly known as the Margaret Thatcher Memorial Toilet, but why not? It was an open architectural tender. The British Standard toilet seat (BS 1254:1981 I kid you not) was designed by a committee around the statistics of the British Arse, following the tradition of the great Thomas Crapper, self-styled inventor of the flush bog - though he actually stole the idea.

I think the Tate Gallery has a JP, but then who doesn't?

[Bored chemist]

Before asking "Why do we equate oversized glasses with artistic genius?"
one should ask "Why do we equate oversized glasses with artistic genius?"

[Petrochemicals]

I think the Tate Gallery has a JP, but then who doesn't?

And I bet they paid a fortune for it. I remember an episode of "one foot in the grave" where the base of a birdcage was mistaken for a Pollokesque painting with hilarious concequences. It wasn't quite there but not far off.

[paul cotter]

North mymms, never heard of it. Looked it up and I see brookmans park and this I do know. Visited there about 40 years ago to pick up practical information on improvements to electrically short aerials for am broadcast. The homes in that area must blasted by rf. Working on a 50kw am station I quickly learned never to pick up any random piece of wire more than ~3metres as you would get burned. Topic drift-apologies.