mr. mephistopheles posted:

Most abstract artists are extremely technically skilled before they start making crazy abstract art, though. Like tsa said, they don't make traditional art because it's boring to them, not because they lack the ability.

Here's what Willem de Kooning was famous for:



And here's some sketches he did early in his career:



Here's the Picasso everyone knows:



And here's an early work by Picasso:



Oh, and here's an early Pollock painting:



Even going to other forms of art. Terry Richardson is a photographer famous for lovely direct flash images of naked aspiring models against blank walls and sucking his dick and stuff, but he's done some editorial shoots with complex set-ups and he knows his poo poo. Cormac McCarthy is one of the greatest living writers and he does not give any fucks about punctuation or grammatical correctness. Most artists who break the rules got really loving good at the rules before they made any effort to break them.