Art for Monkeys
Bob Ross: Happy Little Painter
By Aperturius, Future, and Dr. Lisa Young

image Man, what an afro.  As far as I’m concerned, Bob Ross is the only white man who could ever pull of a hairdo like that, and the only white artist who ever TRIED.  Seriously, the guy probably hid live squirrels in that thing during tapings of his show.  I truly believe that the secret to his success lies somewhere in that mass of dead tissue.
Of course, now ALL of Bob Ross is dead tissue.  The poor man, star of countless episodes of Joy of Painting on PBS, died about five years ago of cancer.  His art though, lives on in lonely blue-haired Christians everywhere, as they find this easy style of painting a wonderful distraction from bad daytime talk shows and Alzheimer’s disease.  With simple house painting tools and runny oil paints bottled by the lowest bidder, people all over the world produced works of art that any passive-aggressive colorblind could enjoy.  Aww, I shouldn’t be so hard on the guy.  I may not like to readily admit it, but Bob also got yours truly interested in painting.  Yes, I was once a devoted happy little tree painter (and yes, I made sure each happy tree had a happy friend too), but soon realized that I could never be as pretentious as I had potential to be while churning this stuff out.  It sure would have been much more profitable than what I’m doing now, though.  Just look at what Thomas Kinkade, the “painter of light (and the Home Shopping Channel)” has done with the Bobby R. model.  Rich, hack bastard.
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Here’s my problem with this article.  I…I like Bob Ross.  Here I am, writer for Art for Monkeys, one of the internet’s leading series on art, culture, and condescending critique, and I can’t find it in myself to berate this man.  Besides, Bob Ross is just too…Bob Ross!  There’s absolutely nothing controversial about this guy!  The only thing I can think of is that he named his painting technique “wet on wet.”  That sounds kinda dirty, doesn’t it?  Let’s pause and chuckle about this phrase for a moment.

Heh.  Wet on wet.

But seriously, what bad things can I say about a southern guy with a gentle, hypnotic voice, who just wanted to bring a little beauty into the world?  I just can’t do it!  Sooooo…let’s pass the ball to someone who can!  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our guest writer, art critic extraordinaire, Dr. Lisa Young.

image Hi little eager students of art. This is professional (i.e. I get paid for for my opinion,  because people respect me, so you should too) art critic Lisa Young. While I have the utmost respect for conceptualism, neo-minimalism and outsider art I could never stand Mr. Ross. First off he deludes people into thinking they can make art without spending a minimum $180,00 on higher education. Trust me, you aren’t going anywhere in the art world painting happy little anything. Especially trees. You need angst. As an artist you are by contract required to be dark and moody. Angst sells. So do ideas that go way over your audience’s head. And these are things you need to go to college for.  Landscapes and still lifes were passe 100 years ago. Why do you think Bobby R never had art shows in Soho? PBS probably found him working as a mall painter. Or possibly as a vagrant. I mean look at his clothes. Salvation Army, anyone? If you’re going to be a real artist you need a fashion consultant. The artist sells the art. Which is why no one except crusty old museums care about dead artists like “Rembrandt” and “El Greco.” Which is why even when he was walking, talking and “painting” Bob was soooooo yesterday. And hey now that Bob is dead he’s become even more obsolete. My lord, maybe the Joy of Painting was an instructional show on how not to be an artist. Aha!
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Ross was always singing praises of antiquated terms like “color” and “technique.” You don’t really need those things when you have forceful ideas. Like taking Polaroids of toilets and laminating them in gold. Or making stick-figure drawings of Jesus having anal sex. See that’s edgy. When you have great visions like these, you need never learn how to make highlights, blend color or even clean your brushes. Why was Bob always cleaning things? No artist does that shit. That’s what you hire a Puerto Rican maid for. You can stick your giant palette up your ass Bob Ross.

Personal appearance and paint-by-numbers paintings aside I also hasten to add that the production values of Joy of Painting were awful. The solid black backdrop? Borrring. Bob’s monotone and subdued voice? Gag me. That may appeal to the over 30 set, but the new hip young minds of art need a tad more stimulation. Give Puck from the Real World some paint buckets and canvas and you have a show. Some thumping techno rhythm in the background and strobe lights would have made it complete. But no, no, Bob was all about making art boring. No one really likes nature. If nature’s so great why do important people live in cities, you answer me that. What potential buyer is going to relate to a Rossophile’s sickly lakes and stupid bushes.image

To be honest I can’t take any more time from my busy schedule to write about this poseur. I have two Boston art shows to write up, six opening parties to attend and a whole baggie of coke to snort up my pretty nose. So let me conclude by saying, Bob Ross is icky. Ta!