HTML Part 3

(HTML Part 2 can be found under the date 3-13-13.)

Ladies and gentlemen we're here at the morgue with coroner, Jim Lane, who has agreed to show us an HTML body and discuss the meanings of various "body tags."
Good morning, Dr. Lane, tell me, why is it all the bodies are kept in these drawers that look like file cabinets?

Because they ARE files. They all end with the letters ".htm" or ".html"

I see. This one looks particularly gruesome, and it seems to have a rather complicated body tag.

It means this file has a bloody background. That tag refers to a jpg image, always indicated within quotation marks. It's usually quite small (and quick to load). It gets repeated again and again over the entire background of the page. The image must be stored in the same folder with the overall HTML file. It's a way to depart from the standard solid color, perhaps in creating a mood, making the page more interesting. This one is VERY interesting indeed...type B-positive I'd say.

That's a very positive outlook.

Thank you.

You're welcome. And the next one, BGCOLOR="", what does that mean?

Absolutely nothing.

Nothing?

Right, in this case, with nothing between the quotes, it means absolutely nothing. You see, if there wasn't a background used here (we call it wallpaper), there would be color such as "blue" or a hexadecimal color indicator between the quotes that would set the overall background tint for the page. You can tell hexadecimal indicators, they begin with the "#" sign.

Interesting.

Not really.

The next tag inside the same brackets reads TEXT="#804000" what does that mean?

It means the text on this page is gonna be damned hard to read on a blood red background. Here, we should change it to TEXT="black"...not great but easier to read and understand than the hexadecimal code, which before indicated a brown text. With hexadecimal code, you have to look up each color you want on a chart or use some complicated piece of software...very messy...very messy indeed.

Yes, so it would appear.

But, hexadecimal code does allow for the use of subtle colors where single-word descriptors are inadequate.

And the next one is LINK="#FF8040" another hexadecimal code I take it?

Very good! This one indicates the text color of a link from this page to another page. Hmmm...very interesting...that hexadecimal indicates orange...on blood red wallpaper...could have been the cause of death...invisible links...make a note of that...gotta watch your link colors when using wallpaper.

I see. And this one, VLINK="#808000"?

AHA! Just as I suspected, "#808000" indicates RED--INVISIBLE LINKS! VLINK is the color the link changes to when it's in use, an ACTIVE link as we in the profession call it.

Don't yell.

Sorry.

And this last one, ALINK="#ff0000"?

That's just a visited link...the color the text changes to after you've "been there, done that," so to speak.
And finally you end it all with atag?

Only if you want a totally empty page.

I beg your pardon?
The tag goes AFTER all the page content. Here we merely use a ">" to close this particular tag setting the page colors.

Fascinating. So the whole tag reads:




Tell me, Dr. Lane, have you come to any conclusions following your autopsy?

Yes, well, as I said before, the victim died of invisible links...red on red, orange on red, a deadly combination. And I also know who the KILLER was too!

Really! Who?

A color-blind webmaster!

(Gasp!) Well, there you have it. Tune in again next time folks when Dr. Lane will investigate IMAGES!!!

The National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery, 8th & F Streets NW, Washington, DC

Yesterday, in highlighting the work of the American colonial artist, Gilbert Stuart (the entry below), I made frequent mention of the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in Washington, DC. And, though I've written about quite a number of major art museums around the world, this one had failed to catch my attention. As something of a portrait artist myself, that should not have been the case. Though a relatively recent addition to the list of important U.S. art museums, the NPG has an outstanding collection of painted portraits of famous Americans from all walks of life by artists from every era, many of whom are what we'd call "household names." Some may even be more famous than the subjects of their paintings.





             The old U.S. Patent Office (left) became the National Portrait Gallery (right)



In 1957 a move was underway to tear down the U.S. Patent Office in Washington. No, it wasn't because everything had already having been invented (as the director of the agency proclaimed in 1885). The patent office had simply outgrown its massive pile of stone on F Street (built in 1837) and moved to a new, larger, state-of-the-art wing of the then new Department of Commerce Building a few blocks away. (It has since moved to an office campus in Alexandria, Virginia.) During the war years the army soaked up every square inch of DC office space, but by the mid-50s, Congress found itself saddled with a 120-year-old, city block three stories tall of heavily remodeled, long since antiquated office space. As so often happens when huge, architectural landmarks become useless for their original purposes, someone decided it would make a good museum. The Smithsonian (America's national attic) inherited a big, gray limestone white elephant.

Even as the NPG has remodeled and renovated, it's holdings continue to outstrip space.

In 1962, the Smithsonian founded the National Portrait Gallery (imitating the British Portrait Gallery in London) and by 1968, managed to prop open its doors to the public. From the start it was a haphazard affair, though the idea had been around for some fifty years. One might expect the Smithsonian to have had enough portraits for two or three such museums, but in fact, that was not the case. By the 1960s, painted portraits were largely seen as antique. It wasn't until 1976 that Congress allowed the museum to collect and display photographic portraits. Even though their hand-me-down building was remodeled in the 1970s, it was still hardly conducive to the makings of a great art museum, especially as compared to the National Gallery of Art just down the street and around the corner.

The NPG courtyard with its new
skylight.

By the 1980s the museum had over two-thousand items. During the next twenty years their holdings reached five times that (mostly photographic images). Today the gallery houses over 21,000 items. In 2000 the gallery closed for much needed renovation and modernization. Many of their most important works went on tour around the country. The project was suppose to take two years and cost $42-million. In fact, as so often happens in Washington, it was seven years and $283-million later before the museum reopened in 2006. Red tape, inflation, cost over-runs, and a massive courtyard skylight (left) had take their toll on original estimates of time and money. Of course, that kind of money will buy a pretty impressive piece of museum infrastructure, and combined with several equally impressive (and expensive) portrait acquisitions over the years, the NPG now rivals similar museums in London, Australia, Scotland, Sweden, and elsewhere around the world.

Robert Anderson's George W. joins George P.A. Heal's  Lincoln.

 

Gilbert Stuart



Gilbert Stuart Self-portrait, 1778

Some time ago, I made mention of the fact that Gilbert Stuart comes quickly to mind when one mentions American artists. Of course this colonial portrait master owes most, if not all, his popularity to our first president. His portrait of Washington, which formed the basis for the etching on the one-dollar bill (below, left), makes him undoubtedly the most published painter of all time. His unfinished portrait of Washington (below, right, seen cropped on the left and bottom in most reproductions) has graced classroom walls in past eras to become an American icon rivaling the flag itself.

Stuart's unfinished portrait of Washington,
the last in a series of highly lucrative
copies of the original commissioned
by Martha Washington.

Actually there is not one Washington portrait by Gilbert Stuart but dozens (some sources say as many as 130). Once the original portrait was begun, it proved so popular that Stuart started knocking them out one every few weeks. In fact, when Martha Washington demanded the original, Stuart is known to have put her off several weeks so he could finish numerous copies. The famous unfinished portrait is a copy that Stuart was unable to complete before his death. Though great in number, these commercially exploitative paintings (sold for $100. each) were not Stuart's only representation of Washington, or necessarily his best.


Noticed the engraver
reversed Stuart's image.



Lansdowne Portrait of George Washington, 1796, Gilbert Stuart

In 2001, headlines proclaimed, "A little piece of America comes home to stay." That's a quaint, patriotic-sounding way of putting it, but not very accurate. Actually, the 217-year old Stuart portrait of Washington was not what you'd call little, and in any case, it had already been in the United States since 1968. It's some eight feet tall and five feet wide and it has been on loan to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington for decades; but thanks to a $30 million gift from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, Gilbert Stuart's original Lansdowne Portrait of George Washington (above) at last came to belong to this country.

Dolley Madison, 1804, Gilbert Stuart

If the Landsdowne designation doesn't ring a bell, think Dolley Madison, think about the burning of the White House in 1814, and think about the portrait of Washington she saved from its walls just hours before. That was a copy of Stuart's Lansdowne. The painting depicts a full-length figure of Washington in civilian clothes - a black velvet suit - standing amid classical splendor, gesturing dramatically toward a table laden with books and writing materials. The handsomely bound books bear the titles American Revolution, Constitution, Federalist, and Laws of the United States. It was not Stuart's first portrait of Washington nor his last. It was not even his best; but it and the two copies he made later are probably the most famous.

The painting was originally commissioned by William Bingham, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant, in 1796. Washington, who was a very reluctant subject, quite likely owed the man a favor. Some speculate that Bingham's wife, Anne, may have been responsible for persuading the president to pose. In any case, the portrait has long been highly regarded on both sides of the Atlantic. The painting gained its name from the fact that it was a gift to the first Marquis of Landsdowne, a former British Prime Minister and a strong supporter of American causes in Parliament during the Revolution. The painting passed down through many hands in the ensuing 200 years, inherited, sold, and resold until it eventually came to be owned by Lord Dalmeny of London.

The National Portrait Gallery display of the Lansdowne Portrait flanked on the left by Stuart's painting of Martha Washington and on the right his famous unfinished portrait of George.

Though the portrait had been in this country on display at the National Portrait Gallery for many years, Dalmeny notified the Smithsonian Institution that he was willing to sell them the painting for $20 million if they could raise the cash by April 1, 2001. Otherwise, it would go on the auction block. The Reynolds commitment came through on March 13. An additional $4 million was used to construct a suitable space for the permanent display of the work (above) while $6 million went for a three-year nation-wide tour and associated education programs.



Thomas Sully's portrait of
Washington (1820) is based
upon Stuart's version but
corrects the stature
problems of the Lansdowne.

Stuart's Lansdowne image
(perhaps because of the coat)
seems to make the president
look shorter than his six-foot,
two-inch stature.

Though the painting presents Washington as somewhat shorter and stockier than history records, it ranks near the top of everyone's list as one of the most important works of art in American history. Some even see it as standing alongside the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as one of our nation's most important historic icons. With its strong, idealized, expansive pose, the portrait projects a strikingly optimistic message of strength, stability, resolution, and calm determination very much in keeping with our current national resolve as a nation.

Stopping Time

Madame Montessier, 1856, Jean-Auguste Ingres.
Notice the mirror image in the background.

As a portrait painter, my ultimate duty is to stop time. Sometimes doing so even involves going so far as to turn back the hands of time. In a few instances, I've even raised the dead. Of course, in no case have I actually done any of these things, but through the magic of painting I would at least have appeared to. Of course today, the even more magic art of photography makes it all easier, but it might surprise some people to realize that posthumous portraits were done long before photography made it simpler. In some cases, other portraits were used as reference material, sometimes there were sketches made shortly after death, sometimes such works were based solely upon the recollections of the artist and/or those close to the deceased. At other times, portraits are sometimes simply ageless. Jean-Auguste Ingres once spent twelve years working on a single portrait. His painting of Madame Montessier (above), finished in 1856, captures her timeless beauty between the ages of 23 and 35. Dorian Gray notwithstanding, that work may hold the record for stopping the hands of time.



Self-Portrait with Vanitas Symbols, 1651, David Bailly

Perhaps the Dutch with their vanitas still-lifes, and portraits employing similar symbols of life, vanity, and death, were most concerned with the temporal elements of portraiture. A self-portrait by the little-known Dutch painter, David Bailly, painted in 1651, is an interesting example. The painter portrays himself at the age of forty displaying a smaller portrait of himself in a nearly identical pose and clothes at the age of 20, while all about him are paintings of his parents and other ancestors, as well as a skull, an extinguished candle, wilting roses, beads, and other symbolic elements representing the passage of time. It's as depressing as it is fascinating.

Portrait of an Old man with a Young boy
1490, Domenico Ghirlandaio 

One of Domenico Ghirlandaio's most touching works, Portrait of an Old man with a Young boy painted around 1490, depicts a deceased, no doubt much beloved, grandfather, literally warts and all, as he warmly gazes down upon the delicately sweet face of his grandson, who appears to be around six years old. The contrast in their ages and appearances is stunning, sobering, almost staggering. Yet there is such a tender, cross-generational bonding between the sixty-year-old man (ancient for that day and age) and the young boy, that we quickly get past the ravages of old age and the sweetness of youth to linger upon the very personal, unspoken exchange of love between the two.



King Phillip IV,
1627,  Diego Velazquez




King Phillip IV as a Huntsman,
1634 Diego Velazquez



King Phillip IV of Spain, 1655,
Diego Velazquez

Aside from extensive self-portraits, such as those by Rembrandt, we seldom see any portraits painted of a single individual by a single artist over a wide span of years. Diego Velázquez, however, offers us this opportunity in his portraits of Spain's King Philip IV. The first, dating from 1624, depicts the king at age 22. Even though the king's features are hardly attractive, his lips too full, his nose too long and curved, his chin jutting noticeably, the portrait is stunning both for its honesty and for the powerful, youthful image and character it captures in the figure of the young king. Just nine years later, Velázquez again portrays Philip, this time as a dashing young hunter, full length, dressed in conservative black garb, accompanied by his dog and an exceedingly long rifle against an idealized countryside. By this time he has grown a trademark handlebar moustache which somewhat distracts from his still no less unattractive features. And finally, in 1655, we see Velázquez’s painting of the king, 31 years older than the first, appearing still more mature of course; but somehow, by now his distinctive family features seem more in tune with his age. Dressed this time in solid black with a standard, upturned collar, we hardly notice, and in any case don't dwell upon, the size and shape of his features as we observe his simple kingly presence. Philip declined to be painted again in old age because of his old age.

How to Grow a Man in 64 Easy Lessons, 1971, Jim Lane

I've always been fascinated by the effects of age on the human face. As a junior in college one summer, I undertook to paint a large, experimental study in which I divided a square canvas some 48 inches each way into 64 squares, each 8"x8." In each one, I painted a sort of mini-portrait, starting with a one-year-old baby (my sister) in the upper left-hand corner and ending with a 64-year-old man in the lower right-hand corner. (I was a glutton for punishment even then.) Each image was painted a year older than the one before it. Background colors in each square changed gradually from a baby blue in the first square to a vivid blue at age 32, lightening again to the same light blue (senior blue?) at age 64. I don't think I ever did a painting in my life that attracted such attention and deep study at art shows or received such interesting comments as did this work. Rather than stopping the hands of time I sped them up. It was frightening.

The Still-life Tradition

Vanitas Still-Life with Musical Instruments, ca. 1661, Cornelis de Heem--
Dutch still-life painting at its best.

In France they're called "nature morte." In Italy, they're known as "natura Morta." The Dutch call them "still-leven," which may account for the English designation, "still-life." It's interesting that the French and Italian terms translate to "dead nature," while in Northern Europe, the emphasis is on life, albeit still life. 19th century academic tradition had it that this painting genre occupied the lowest levels of esteem in the painting hierarchy beginning with history painting and migrating downward. The feeling was that, while such paintings were art (just barely), they were utterly devoid of creative capital, the work of imitators and copyist--any artist with a modicum of technical know-how, a bit of patience, and some eye-hand co-ordination to spare. Yet as a type of painting, Pliny, writing in the first century CE, indicates that this same artistic genre dates back almost to the very beginnings of art in the Western world--at least as far back as ancient Greece.

A first century still-life from Pompeii.

For this we have more than just the Romans' word for it. We also have their efforts at imitating this most imitative of painting genre. Thanks to a certain hyperactive volcano mentioned yesterday and no small amount of its lava ash, archaeologists have discovered still-life renderings in the frescoes of Pompeii almost 2000 years old. Writings indicate that they were "in the Greek manner" in which case, it would seem that from the very beginning, "tromp l'oeil" was their primary aim and the standard upon which they were valued as art. Roman wall paintings often featured illusionistic shelves laden with fresh fish, or nails from which hung dead fowl not unlike the 19th century work of American artists, William Harnett or Frederick Peto. Roman art also records similar efforts in rendering decorative plant life, marble and wood grain, as well as carved architectural features.

The Annunciation with St. Emidius,
1486, Carlo Crivelli

At the dawn of the Renaissance, along with the rediscovery of the Roman knowledge of one-point perspective, came the peripheral, often symbolic, use of various inanimate objects in religious works. The apple stood for original sin. The gourd was a symbol of the resurrection. Carlo Crivelli's The Annunciation with St. Emidius (right), from 1486, despite its religious aims, is an exquisitely decorated (if somewhat cluttered) showcase for both his perspective and still-life talents. He seems also to have rediscovered tromp l'oeil.

Still Life with Ham, Bottles, and Radishes, 1767, Anne Valleyer-Costa

But, as with so much in art, it took the Dutch, and their groundbreaking switch from religious to secular patronage for the development of what we now think of as modern still-life painting (top). What the church eschewed as materialism, the merchant Dutchmen seemingly embraced as enthusiastically as life itself. Transitionally, Flemish painter, Jan Brueghel, usually remembered for his domestic genre scenes, in 1606 painted for the Archbishop of Milan (but not his church) an incredibly detailed floral bouquet that may well be the oldest "modern" still-life in existence (bottom). Painted over the period of a year, it contains flowers from various seasons, apparently added as earlier blooms faded. And though they seem to have gained their lowly placement in the hierarchy of painting about this time, the Dutch still-life, whether flowers, food, or valuable objects, occupied the time and efforts of a sizable number of professional artists, and seem to have become the primary emphasis for many Dutch female painters such as Anne Valleyer-Costa. Her 1767 Still Life with Ham, Bottles, and Radishes (above) looks appetizing even today.

Still Life with Plaster Cupid, 1895, Paul Cezanne

It wasn't until the latter part of the nineteenth century with the Impressionist and Post-impressionist rebellion against all things academic, including their damnable painting hierarchy, that the still-life began to take on a new life of its own. Renoir explored them, and more prominently, Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso, reversing the common perception that such art was merely the "imitation of life." Their work, such as Cézanne's Still Life with Plaster Cupid (left), painted in 1895, sought not to imitate nature, but to use objects and their natural shapes, colors, and textures as a means to explore art design and composition. The result was a natural bridge from the real world into the exciting, but frightening frontiers of abstraction. That road lead eventually, not just to painting still-life objects, but to collage, and using them as a part of the still-life painting itself.

World War II, 1976-77, Audrey Flack

Later in the twentieth century, Audrey Flack merged Dutch vanitas elements of still life with Cézanne's design emphasis, Picasso's collage sensitivities, and the hyper-realistic gifts proffered by photography into a type of brightly colored still-life painting light years beyond Brueghel, Cézanne, or Picasso. Her World War II vanitas, from 1976-77 (above), layers what appear to be magazine cut-outs (painted) next to shiny, tromp l'oeil still-life treasures, over a painted black and white photo of starving holocaust survivors. The result is a sort of merger of traditional "dead nature" and "still life" elements into an art that is neither. It's an art, like all the best art, combining aesthetic beauty with a consummate mastery of medium and message.

Flowers in a Vase, 1606, Jan Brueghel

 

Pompeii

Mt. Vesuvius rains down ash on Pompeii.
The moral of the story is: don't build cities at the base of a volcano.

When one mentions the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, the first thing which comes to mind is not art but Vesuvius. Yet, we have Vesuvius to thank for much of what we know about Roman art. Of course the people of Pompeii wouldn't see it that way. Ever since 79 AD, volcanoes have not been seen there in a positive light. The image above would tend to indicate why. Today, Vesuvius remains a threat to the whole bay of Naples community. It's an active volcano in the midst of one of Italy's major population centers. However Pompeii once more has an important presence in the Neapolitan community as its most important art treasure and tourist attraction.

 

Pompeii's Long Street lives up to its ancient name.

The story of  Pompeii is so well known as to not bear repeating. Indeed, the history of the city, and its neighbor, Herculaneum (which fared even worse in the eruption) is similarly common knowledge. However, the art an architecture isn't. I visited the site in May of 2001. In approaching the ruins, one expects to visit a seaport. Today, Pompeii is several hundred yards from the water and sits upon a hill (a not uncommon defensive position for ancient cities). The site leaves several lasting impressions. Perhaps foremost is its size. Though nowhere close to Rome at the time, Pompeii was no insignificant provincial outpost. It was a major Roman port city. It even had at least one suburb. It was obviously a city of wealth, commerce, and culture as seen in the remains of its villas, its forum, its amphitheater, even its bordellos and drinking establishments. What you see today as to size is all the more significant when you realize what you don't see. Fully half of the city remains buried (mostly residential areas).

Pompeii is crisscrossed by three major thoroughfares and a couple more relatively minor ones. The lower right quadrant is the oldest part of the city. The elongated space
in the lower left section is the forum. The dotted areas have yet to be excavated.

When the first frescoed walls of Pompeii were rediscovered in 1599 as engineers were seeking to divert the Sarno River, the Italian architect Domenico Fontana was called in. He took one look, then had the walls reburied. Not only did he not realize what they'd discovered, the images themselves brought to light the fact that the city had once been a very hedonistic place, a vacation resort for wealthy Romans. To Italian eyes, in the midst of the counter-reformation, they were little short of obscene. (Later discoveries could only be considered pornographic, even by today's standards.) It was another 39 years before the Italians realized what a buried treasure they had, and then only because the King of Naples wanted a palace built on land which turned out to be the ancient resting place of the town of Herculaneum. Deliberate Pompeian excavations in 1748 were the direct result of that. Digging up the city has been more or less continuous for the past 250 years since (allowing for a various and sundry wars in the area).



A reconstruction image of
the temple of Apollo in the
Pompeii forum.

The Pompeii forum as it
appears today with two
remaining columns of the temple.

The architecture was Roman, though more accurately it could be termed the first of many instances of Greek Revival. However, as might be expected in a town that was already some seven-hundred years old when it met its tragic fate, the styles range from Hellenic to Corinthian, though several Doric columns can be found in the forum. The domestic villas tended toward "modern" Roman Doric in style but were so inwardly oriented around an open atrium that exterior street facades tend toward the bland, giving little hint of the opulence of the interior décor.

The open-air atrium of a reconstructed villa. It's hard to see where preservation leaves off and reconstruction begins. Add a few Romans in togas, a little wine, and even the sculptures would seem to come to life.

This frescoed still-life dates from around 70 BC.

Inside, the first impression coming to mind is that the movies got it right. If you recall interior scenes from films such as Spartacus, Cleopatra, Quo Vadis, or Ben-Hur, it's not hard to see them in the restorations evident within Pompeian villas. Though floor mosaics are impressive, most wall decoration was fresco (pigments applied to wet plaster). Some are remarkably well preserved, though it's difficult to tell preservation from restoration. Despite what Fontana may have encountered in 1599, not all Pompeian frescoes are erotic. In fact, the majority are not. Still, Fontana was not the last to rebury what he found based on a sense of prudish modesty. Archaeologists have since stumbled upon other erotic images exhibiting signs of having been reburied. And if not reburied, many have been locked away in so-called "secret cabinets" only to have been opened to the public, closed, and reopened at various times during the past hundred years depending upon the sexual mores of the times. Most such images are now open to the public, even to children accompanied by parents. (No, I'm not going to include such images here.)

From Pompeii's House of the Vetti, this fresco from the early first century not only
hints at the erotic content of some Pompeian art but also demonstrates the "baroque"
illusionistic skills of the artists at the time. Art historians have termed the illusion of
depth "relative perspective" (as opposed to linear perspective).

 

Postmodern Traits

It Doesn't Get Much Better, 2001, Thomas Kinkade--Postmodern or not?

In writing about Postmodernism and the extent of the misunderstanding our current art era seems to bear with it, a reader confessed to having little idea of the inherent differences between Modern Art and Postmodern Art. She asked for a list of names of artists I considered Postmodern. Another reader questioned whether my mention of Thomas Kinkade in the context of Postmodernism meant I considered his work Postmodern. In that matter, I confess, he certainly is a Postmodern artist, if for no other reason than his marketing strategies surely fill the bill, although I'm not so sure whether the pretty pictures he produces or his storybook illustration style of painting would classify him as Postmodern. I guess I could say I'm having quite a debate with myself at the moment as to whether Kinkaid's work is Postmodern or not.



Coca-Cola 4 (Large Coca-Cola) 1962, Andy Warhol,
certainly put the "pop" in Pop Art. This piece
recently sold for the Postmodern price of
 $35,362,500 (plus deposit on the bottle).

Kinkade is but one example of why I'm hesitant to cite a list of Postmodern artists by name. But if it helps, I feel pretty safe in saying any number of Pop artists fit the bill. The same would apply to those using various electronic media in their work, many (though certainly not all) mixed media artists, artists dealing in dry humor or satire, artists working with highly contemporary subject matter, those employing some type of ironic twist to their work, those who "handle" the mass media well, many types of "retro" artists referencing past styles (but not totally or exclusively imitative of them), and those artists who "startle" the public though not necessarily with "shock art." In short, I would include all artists whose work utilizes whatever media best conveys their intended message. In effect, Postmodern artists are those who insist the message comes first, then the form, content, and media. I think it's easier and better to help the reader identify Postmodern artists than to provide a long list of them.

Picture Taormina, 2012, Jim Lane, an old world, yet Postmodern "touristy" townscape.
The hands, arms, and camera are rendered in low relief.

It might also help to mention what is not Postmodern art. We would include in this any work that is wholly identified as to style, movement, or subject matter with the era of Modern Art, especially minus any of the elements mentioned above. The same would be true of any work that is purely decorative (Kinkade?), any work bearing little or nothing in the way of a message, or any which is so involved in its own being as to contribute nothing outside the realm of art itself--art for art's sake--in other words. I would also include any art that is so esoteric in form or content as to be completely beyond the grasp of the average person. In essence, Postmodern art tends to use visual expression to lead the viewer to a better understanding of what the artist is trying to say. It endeavors to accept average viewers on their own level and to involve them in the work rather than to seek exclusivity or simply make the viewer feel stupid. In the computer age we might compare it to a good piece of software. It's art with purpose, but which also tries to be "user friendly."

Much, perhaps even most, of the art produced today is simply wall decoration--
not Postmodern.