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Bold and Brash is legit an interesting painting, and while Squidward is condemned as a narcissist, the truth is that the world simply hates those who unapologetically know their own value. https://twitter.com/kaialone02/status/1155059024095776769
Spongebob's art is technically polished, but ultimately superficial. A circle is a circle, a feeling is a feeling, a man is a man. There is no depth, no challenge to the viewer. Thus it is rewarded by the industry over Squidward's outsider art.
to his credit, Spongebob is an excellent art critic. He sees value and beauty in Squidward's challenging work where others don't, and he considers himself a failure not for his lack of technical ability, but for his inability to produce anything beyond superficial representation
Spongebob is incapable of possessing the kind of anguish, alienation and blues required to be an artist. He is content with low pay, fast production of identical pieces and little else, thus the art industry sees him as the "greatest artist in the world" by capitalist standards
the rich art dealer who demeans Squidward's outsider art is drawn to Spongebob for the same reason Mr Krabbs is drawn to him: he is earnestly exploitable.
Spongebob is drawn to Squidward because he is the only one to challenge his complacency. Remember when Squidward turned him into a communist for a day? The sponge is happy just to create patties and identical greek figures, but that is why he craves OTHER art to consume himself
Squidward is demeaned as "narcissist" due to him using himself as his subject so often, and yet that does his portfolio, containing a wide variety of mediums, styles, and moods. Not to mention its purpose of confronting Bikini Bottom norms of beauty and meaning.
this is a brilliant piece. Squidward takes Spongebob's empty reproduction of Michaelangelo's David and turns it on its head. He mars the western standard of beauty with his own features, challenging the viewer to question how they assign value and beauty
Squidward's art unapologetically stands before its hostile audience and shouts "I am here, you cannot look away." It takes all the pain & derision thrust on the artist from a world that sees only his flaws and "pretentions" above his assigned value and says "I am still beautiful"
Squidward's flaw is not his ego. No, his flaw is that he still seeks validation from those whose inability to understand his work DRIVE his work. Those who do nothing but tell others who is ugly and artless will only see vanity, but he can't help but chase them.
