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Mark Rothko's art is valid and genius.

Thanks to Treadsoftly for starting this debate. As my opponent has yet to post an argument in support of his resolution, I could go the "burden of proof on those making the claim" route for this round, but that would be a waste 1/3 of this debate. So I'll go with what I've got, which is the resolution itself. The use of the conjunction "and" in the resolution means that if I can successfully counter either my opponent's proposed descriptions of Mark Rothko's work, the resolution itself is countered. With that in mind, I concede "valid". I'm no big art guy, but I don't think a piece of creative work could ever really be defined as a valid or invalid piece of art. Or meh, perhaps it could, but I'm not the guy to do it. So yes, I will concede that the work this man created is valid as art, if he so chose to call it that. I will therefore focus my attention in this debate on "genius". My opponent has not specified any particular piece of work by Mark Rothko, so the resolution can be taken to mean that ALL of his works are works of genius. Or at very least the bulk of his work, the defining stuff. Basically, no singling out one or two gems he may have had here and there. Otherwise it would be akin to arguing outright that "Billy Ray Cyrus' music is popular" based on that one song he did in the 90's, and that's as nonsensical as the fact that Billy Ray's mullet was once envied by men and swooned over by women. Lest We Forget. Now to define "genius" (or, more formally, "ingenious", as we are referring to a thing and not a person): 1. (of a person) clever, original, and inventive. 2. (of a machine or idea) cleverly and originally devised and well suited to its purpose. [1] We are interested in the latter, as we are not arguing the genius of Mr Rothko himself, rather that of his work, his "ideas". Therefore, my opponent must show that the work of Mark Rothko is: i) Cleverly devised; ii) Originally devised; and iii) Well suited to its purpose These terms are subjective and unable to be proven absolutely one way or the other, so this debate will come down to who can better-convince the voters how well Mr Rothko's work stands up to these descriptions. For those unfamiliar with Mr Rothko's work, this page is representative enough for our purposes here: https://www.google.com.au... Again, I'm no scholar of the arts, but he essentially made a career painting a bunch of colourful rectangles. That is as kind as I can be in describing his work, because that is precisely what it is. There is not a four-year-old on Earth who could not reproduce it. I'm certain my nephew has even created a few just like that, didn't even warrant a spot on the refrigerator. As for our requisites for ingenuity: i) This work is not at all clever, regardless what Mr Rothko or my opponent would have to say about his methods and his inspirations, let alone the "underlying meaning" of the works and that sort of guff. That stuff is all beside the point. The works of MC Escher are clever, the colourful rectangles not so much. ii) The works are not at all original. My four-year-old nephew has done some very similar stuff indeed. My opponent may counter that the works of Mark Rothko were around before my nephew was, so perhaps my nephew stole Mr Rothko's artistic style and is now claiming it as his own to score chicks at daycare. I would counter that my nephew created these drawings unconsciously whilst half asleep and simultaneously watching TV. They really are just colourful rectangles placed in some sense of arrangement. iii) The works are not particularly well-suited to their purpose, presuming the purposes of art are to be adored, to make people think, to create emotions within people, etc. Again, they are just colourful rectangles, none of that stuff going on here. I will leave it there for now. Can I please ask those voting for spelling/grammar to keep in mind that I am from Australia and so my spelling of the word "colourful" is indeed correct, at least to me. Thanks. [1] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com...