Generation X and high culture
David Gregory Platt
etc.) is dead, and whether Generation X has a place in it. Or has pop
culture completely erased all distinctions of culture? Discuss.
Dave
Daniel B Case
Oh stop-you sound like the stuff I sometimes have to read for English.
This question has led to the creation oall cultural artifacts can be studied as
part of the same continuum-i.e., there is no distinction made between what is
worthy of study and what isn't.
My view is that literature will survive and even flourish. At the begninning of
the modernist period, people had the same feeling-that popular culture had
defeated high culture, and culture was therefore dead. But T.S. Eliot and
James Joyce worked a good deal of pop culture into "The Waste Land" and
"Ulysses" respectively, and the result was the most enduring English language
novel and poem of the twentieth century.
We, too, will find such solutions. I am more firmly convinced than ever that
the modern world is not beyond the limits of successful artistic and literary
representation-it may well, however, take a GenXer to do it. I hope that I
can fill that role to a degree.
Guru Aleph_Null
Culture in the classical sense is dead, because fast communications
are so widespread. What we have now are fads and homogeneality, and
fads and styles don't become cultures because they don't get time to
grow. Everyone approaches "the same style" because everyone's seeing
and creating the same media. Fads and styles undergo a very fast
evolution and never reach any form of maturity. Its part of the reason
why Generation Xers must realize how powerful the media and media
technology is, and start controlling it instead of the other way
around-- because if we don't we'll be doomed to be style-slaves to
whoever happens to get the highest ratings per sweeps period.
>Dave
--
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|Guru Aleph-Null s...@ukelele.gcr.com|% \ /| | | | |
`---------------------------------------'# \/ \_/ _|_ |__/
%#######################################% Where Prohibited.
Brian K. Yoder
>My view is that literature will survive and even flourish. At the begninning of
>the modernist period, people had the same feeling-that popular culture had
>defeated high culture, and culture was therefore dead. But T.S. Eliot and
>James Joyce worked a good deal of pop culture into "The Waste Land" and
>"Ulysses" respectively, and the result was the most enduring English language
>novel and poem of the twentieth century.
I completely disagree about those particular works. How do you define
"enduring"? Almost nobody reads those books (aside perhaps from being forced
to read them in school perhaps) and almost nobody actually likes them.
Personally, I would put Ulysses on my "10 worst books in history" list.
In what sense can you say that these books are "enduring" when they are
seldom read and when read seldom enjoyed?
I certainly agree with you that literature can flourish and I predict that
people will continue to write good books (including myself even!) but
your examples really don't fit. In another generation or two they will be long
forgotten.
--Brian
--
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Brian K. Yoder | "The children who know how to think for themselves, spoil |
| byo...@netcom.com| spoil the harmony of the collective society that is |
| US Networx, Inc. | coming, where everyone (would be) interdependent" -Dewey |
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Brian K. Yoder
I think that both have, can, and do exist here and now in the general
population. Of course among the less sophisticated members of the population
pop/folk culture is now and has always been most prominent and there is
nothing wrong with that. If you look at the traffic in this newsgroup
there are clearly a lot of people interested (and informed) about all
sorts high-cultural issues from classical music to literature (no thanks
to our educational experiences by the way). What I am frustrated by
is that the modern "art establishment" has all but stopped producing anything
of any cultural value or significance and has opted instead for splashes
of paint on canvas instead of painting, random noises instead of music,
piles of garbage instead of sculpture, and meaningless strings of words in
place of literature and poetry. The public is VERY interested in "real"
culture, the problem is that the artists are (for reasons I would he happy to
discuss/debate about) utterly uninterested in creating any. I suspect that
one of the positive impacts Xers are likely to have is that since we seem
in general to have a more acute sense of detecting hypocracy, Xer
artists and their customers will displace the nonsense-ridden culture we
have been left by the previous generation (what were they called again?).
It won't be easy for that change to come about, especially at first, but
it is already starting to happen.
David Gregory Platt
>In article <2efs68$3...@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca>, umpl...@ccu.umanitoba.ca (David Gregory Platt) writes...
>Oh stop-you sound like the stuff I sometimes have to read for English.
Well, I'm an English major, so sue me. The "discuss" was a little much, I
admit.
>This question has led to the creation oall cultural artifacts can be studied as
>part of the same continuum-i.e., there is no distinction made between what is
>worthy of study and what isn't.
>My view is that literature will survive and even flourish. At the begninning of
>the modernist period, people had the same feeling-that popular culture had
>defeated high culture, and culture was therefore dead. But T.S. Eliot and
>James Joyce worked a good deal of pop culture into "The Waste Land" and
>"Ulysses" respectively, and the result was the most enduring English language
>novel and poem of the twentieth century.
You're probably right, but the stakes are a lot higher these days. For
example, you couldn't even say bad words when "Ulysses" came out. I
haven't been impressed with many writers from generation x, at least
before Coupland. Remember when Bret Easton Ellis was "the voice of a new
generation?" Sheesh!
Dave
Carl Beaudry
> What I am frustrated by
> is that the modern "art establishment" has all but stopped producing anything
> of any cultural value or significance and has opted instead for...
> [critique of cultural artifacts deleted]
Hmm. Sounds like you're discribing a market failure to me.
> The public is VERY interested in "real" culture, the problem is that the
> artists are (for reasons I would he happy to discuss/debate about) utterly
> uninterested in creating any.
"Real" culture seldom sells. And everyone's gotta eat. The cutting edge of
art is by definition beyond the ability of most people to 'get it.' It's
only after art has been around for a while that people recognize genius in
that it has changed the way people think about certain things.
Most people are boring most of the time. 'Twas ever thus. Success is being
able to find the tiny fraction of people who are always looking for
something new for the sake of pushing things forward or who have the
ability to appreciate something clever.
> I suspect that
> one of the positive impacts Xers are likely to have is that since we seem
> in general to have a more acute sense of detecting hypocracy, Xer
> artists and their customers will displace the nonsense-ridden culture we
> have been left by the previous generation...
With more nonsense and stereotypes. The reason that GenX cultural artifacts
seem better to date is that the only people with the chance to produce them
are those clever enough to break into the market one way or another. That
is a selection bias if ever there were one. Soon art by Xers will be
mainstream and boring too. Just look at MTV and music where Xers first
penetrated the art market. Homogeneity and imitation is just the effect of
the free market doing its job, I'm afraid. People produce what sells. Not
what is good in and of itself.
After all, isn't it clear that the financial incentive lies with catering
to the lowest common denominator? And that exceptions are by definition,
niche markets with lower profitability?
I think that FZ hit it on the nose with this one.
Q: "Do you see the collapse of functional tonality and common
time to be the single most important development in modern
music?"
Zappa: "No. The single most important development in modern
music is making a business out of it..."
--Carl
Dave Mooney
Sorry, I don't do 'Discuss'es. 'Compare and contrast', maybe...
Actually, I think that the difference is that we are in the first era where
the 'Low' art is what defines the culture. In earlier eras, it is the art
of the Court that we think of as defining the culture. So we think of Bach,
Michaelangelo, and Donne as the creators of the culture -- the High Art, not
the anonymous folk artists who made the Low Art. Today, even the ruling
classes use references to the popular culture -- the Bushman saying that he
wanted more families like the Waltons and fewer than the Simpsons and Clinton
toxifying his Inauguation with geriatric has-been musicians.
dave
--
Dave Mooney d...@vnet.ibm.com
"When dreams don't become their people, people become their dreams"
Daniel B Case
>I completely disagree about those particular works. How do you define
>"enduring"? Almost nobody reads those books (aside perhaps from being forced
>to read them in school perhaps) and almost nobody actually likes them.
Huh? First of all, "The Waste Land", is hardly book length. It's quite readable
once you have Eliot's footnotes in hand.
And plenty of people like both of them apart from school. It just takes a
certain amount of intelligence to appreciate them.
>Personally, I would put Ulysses on my "10 worst books in history" list.
>In what sense can you say that these books are "enduring" when they are
>seldom read and when read seldom enjoyed?
Brian: Have you actually read all of "Ulysses"? (Yes, I have. It helps to have
a good book of notes handy). OK, it's not exactly my first choice for a plane
trip, but...to my point. "Ulysses" was important not just in and of itself, but
because Joyce a) perfected techniques of portraying the inner lives of ordinary
people, b) depicted the full range of human activity, leading to censorship
problems, and c) completely reinvented the novel. Its influence-at all levels-
trickled down to many other works that are more accessible. That you found
reading it a drudge is probably the fault of the way it all too often gets
taught.
When we taught an undergraduate course on "Ulysses" last fall here at UB, it was
overenrolled-we had to find a way to get all these people on the class roster.
Imagine that! And everybody enjoyed reading it. We had as many people in the
last class as in the first-few people dropped out. Some of us are even reading
"Finnegans Wake" now.
>I certainly agree with you that literature can flourish and I predict that
>people will continue to write good books (including myself even!) but
>your examples really don't fit. In another generation or two they will be long
>forgotten.
Gee, and I thought some of the political radicals I know were anti-canonical!
Canons get revised but the breakthrough works of 1922 have endured for eighty
years. We still read Sterne, and he was in a sense the Joyce of his day. We
still read and admire Flaubert, without who there might not have been a Joyce.
We still read Proust (or at least say we have) because he was just as innovative
and influential. If "The Waste Land" and "Ulysses" were going to be forgotten,
they would have been so by now.
Daniel Case State University of New York at Buffalo
Prodigy: WDNS15D | GEnie: DCASE.10
Ceci n'est pas une pipe
V140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu dc...@acsu.buffalo.edu
Daniel B Case
>In <CHyA6...@acsu.buffalo.edu> v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
>
>>In article <2efs68$3...@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca>, umpl...@ccu.umanitoba.ca (David Gregory Platt) writes...
>>Oh stop-you sound like the stuff I sometimes have to read for English.
>Well, I'm an English major, so sue me. The "discuss" was a little much, I
>admit.
And I'm doing master's work in English. Believe me, this question comes up a
*lot* nowadays.
>You're probably right, but the stakes are a lot higher these days. For
>example, you couldn't even say bad words when "Ulysses" came out.
Shock was one thing. Trying to depict the modern world was another. That stake
never changes. Man always creates new challenges for himself even as he
surmounts old ones.
>I
>haven't been impressed with many writers from generation x, at least
>before Coupland.
Coupland has a wonderful sense of irony, and I'm hopeful for him and "Life
After God" but he hasn't yet set himself the challenge of writing a real novel.
Remember when Bret Easton Ellis was "the voice of a new
>generation?" Sheesh!
I know, I know-I was initially disheartened, too. But time will be a little
nicer to him (at the risk of playing to his self-styled similarities to
F. Scott Fitzgerald, I should note that "The Great Gatsby" got really bad
reviews when it came out, and at that time Fitzgerald was thought of the same
way people think of Ellis now). He's perceptive enough to write something
really good, he just hasn't gotten the chance. "Less Than Zero" may be
overrated, but "The Rules of Attraction" is underrated and would have gotten
the credit it deserved if Ellis had been willing to let go with the dark humor
that is constantly beneath its surface (They could both stand a little editing).
He was the first to get some public attention for thinking about himself as
part of a distinct generation, and for taking the first hacks at the underbrush
he deserves some credit, even if his efforts failed.
(Sulu, Master of Navigation)
[Ruthless editing]
:Canons get revised but the breakthrough works of 1922 have endured for eighty
:years. We still read Sterne, and he was in a sense the Joyce of his day. We
:still read and admire Flaubert, without who there might not have been a Joyce.
Geez, consider Hemingway and his short stories (ok some people may not
like Hemingway but I really like his brief style even if it is mocked ;),
Nabakov's LOLITA, F. Scott Fitzgerald, JD Salinger... Hey, GEORGE ORWELL!!!
1984 and Animal Farm were, to me, terribly effective along with Huxley's Brave
New World. Consider Catch-22... There's a treasure trove of 20th cent
"literature" that's alive and accessible to anyone! the 20th century is
certainly NOT merely a period of unenduring fads, it's just that with TV and
instant entertainment people just don't look beyond them. There's a whole
world of reading if you just turn off the tv and take a leisurely walk to the
library (if it hasn't closed due to lack of funds)
(just a concerned History major who advises you all to read Paul
Johnson's MODERN TIMES at least once...)
:V140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu dc...@acsu.buffalo.edu
--
Mathew A. Hennessy, because life's too short for cheap beer.
henn...@acsu.buffalo.edu ITCMATT@UBVMS [bitnet]
I speak for everyone and if you don't like it you can lump it.
ubax vs lbh pna ernq guvf...
Christopher L. Stamper
>I'm beginning to wonder whether high culture (i.e. "real" literature, art,
>etc.) is dead, and whether Generation X has a place in it.
Sorry to use an example which is unknown to you in Canada:
Does the A&E Network count as high culture?
Chris Stamper
clst...@mailbox.syr.edu
Brian K. Yoder
>In article <byoderCH...@netcom.com>, byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes...
>>I completely disagree about those particular works. How do you define
>>"enduring"? Almost nobody reads those books (aside perhaps from being forced
>>to read them in school perhaps) and almost nobody actually likes them.
>Huh? First of all, "The Waste Land", is hardly book length. It's quite readable
>once you have Eliot's footnotes in hand.
If it doesn't stand on its own, what is so good about it?
>And plenty of people like both of them apart from school. It just takes a
>certain amount of intelligence to appreciate them.
Oh come on, that's a cheap shot. I'm plenty intelligent, and I'm also honest
enough to point out that despite the supposed popularity, they are awful.
Just like Pollack's "paintings", Cage's "music", and so on.
>>Personally, I would put Ulysses on my "10 worst books in history" list.
>>In what sense can you say that these books are "enduring" when they are
>>seldom read and when read seldom enjoyed?
>Brian: Have you actually read all of "Ulysses"?
It was a long time ago. I think I read all of it, but it is possible that I
got disgusted before finishing. I really can't believe that anyone could
enjoy such nonsense.
>(Yes, I have. It helps to have
>a good book of notes handy). OK, it's not exactly my first choice for a plane
>trip, but...to my point. "Ulysses" was important not just in and of itself, but
>because Joyce a) perfected techniques of portraying the inner lives of ordinary
>people,
What is so good about that? That is a big part of what I hated about it. Who
cares about the mental ramblings of an average person? What do you get
out of that?
>b) depicted the full range of human activity, leading to censorship
>problems, and
So? This is the same idea that leads people to make "movies" of 24 hours of
the sidewalk outside the Empire State Building. So what? That's not
art, it is just meaningless nonsense.
>c) completely reinvented the novel.
I suppose that is true, but only in the sense that a car crusher reinvents
a car. Just because he wrote something in a new way in no way makes that
new thing any good.
>Its influence-at all levels-
>trickled down to many other works that are more accessible. That you found
>reading it a drudge is probably the fault of the way it all too often gets
>taught.
Nope. I wasn't "taught" it, I read it on my own. Through my education I don't
recall him ever being mentioned. I heard about him on my own, read him
on my own, and drew my own conclusions.
>When we taught an undergraduate course on "Ulysses" last fall here at UB, it was
>overenrolled-we had to find a way to get all these people on the class roster.
>Imagine that! And everybody enjoyed reading it. We had as many people in the
>last class as in the first-few people dropped out. Some of us are even reading
>"Finnegans Wake" now.
That is very strange. Who were these people? And why did they want to take
the class? None of the reasons you mentioned could serve as reasons for a
typical student to take such a course.
>>I certainly agree with you that literature can flourish and I predict that
>>people will continue to write good books (including myself even!) but
>>your examples really don't fit. In another generation or two they will be long
>>forgotten.
>
>Gee, and I thought some of the political radicals I know were anti-canonical!
>Canons get revised but the breakthrough works of 1922 have endured for eighty
>years. We still read Sterne, and he was in a sense the Joyce of his day. We
>still read and admire Flaubert, without who there might not have been a Joyce.
>We still read Proust (or at least say we have) because he was just as innovative
>and influential. If "The Waste Land" and "Ulysses" were going to be forgotten,
>they would have been so by now.
Do "we" still read those books?
Greg Wesson
>Sorry to use an example which is unknown to you in Canada:
>
>Does the A&E Network count as high culture?
Do you really think that we are that backward in Canada that we don't even
get A&E? How could I survive without my nightly fill of "In Search Of..." or
"Lovejoy"? It's the only high culture I get! (snicker... ;-)
I believe that by high culture he was refering to Opera and Art that hangs on
gallery walls. And I do not think it is dead, at least anymore dead then it
was in any other generation. I don't think that you had people flocking to
galleries twenty years ago to look at the latest "piece du resistance" (my
apoligies to anyone who speaks, reads, writes, or is in any way connected to
the french language). As was pointed out to me recently, at the time
Shakspere was writing deep and meaningful literature like "Richard III" or
"King Lear", more people were interested in seeing vadvillian-like (my
apologizes to anyone who speaks, reads, writes, or is in any way connected
to the English language) plays with baudy limericks and such.
Therefore, I conclude that high culture is not dead, just (as always) only for
the high of mind. The rest of us can be found in the local movie theatre
watching "Home Alone XII"
Greg
--
***************************************************************************
* Greg Wesson, Dept 7H63 * PDE Support * These are my opinions, *
* lanp...@bnr.ca * Esn (39)3-9193 * and not BNRs *
***************************************************************************
Peck
CS> In article <2efs68$3...@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca>
CS> umpl...@ccu.umanitoba.ca (David Gregory Platt) writes:
>> I'm beginning to wonder whether high culture (i.e. "real"
>> literature, art, etc.) is dead, and whether Generation X has a
>> place in it.
CS> Sorry to use an example which is unknown to you in Canada:
CS> Does the A&E Network count as high culture?
um. no. Not unless endless broadcasts of "Hitler's Nose Picking Dogs of
Nazi Opression" and the "Weapons of War" is your idea of high culture.
Steve Conley
Brian K. Yoder <byo...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Oh come on, that's a cheap shot. I'm plenty intelligent, and I'm also honest
>enough to point out that despite the supposed popularity, they are awful.
>Just like Pollack's "paintings", Cage's "music", and so on.
Um... If you're going to argue for Rand's definition of art, then argue
for Rand's definition of art. Everything else you're saying rests on that
definition, which she never gave sufficient reason for accepting. If you
can, I'd love to hear it. It was the stuff in _The Romantic Manifesto_
that made me decide she was just plain loopy, in spite of having some good
political and ethical insights.
I don't like Pollack's paintings or Cage's music either, but I see no
reason why someone else couldn't see some good in them. I'm also willing
to recognize that Cage's use of noise is what led to a lot of music I *do*
like. By the same token, I really hated "The Waste Land", but if someone
can demonstrate how it led to something I enjoy now, I'll acknowledge it
for that reason (and that reason only--like I said, I really hated it).
[mucho deletia]
>Who cares about the mental ramblings of an average person? What do you
>get out of that?
Depends on what those ramblings are, Brian. "Selective representation of
reality", remember?
[oops, lost the attribution]
>>b) depicted the full range of human activity, leading to censorship
>>problems, and
>So? This is the same idea that leads people to make "movies" of 24 hours of
>the sidewalk outside the Empire State Building. So what? That's not
>art, it is just meaningless nonsense.
Or 24 hours on the streets and in the bars, coffeehouses, and apartments
of Austin, Texas. If you're going to say that _Slacker_ is lousy art, I
don't think you'll find many people here who will agree with you.
Even by Rand's definition, your "Empire State Building" example *is* art,
because all representations of reality are selective. It may not be *good*
art, but art it is.
>>c) completely reinvented the novel.
>I suppose that is true, but only in the sense that a car crusher reinvents
>a car. Just because he wrote something in a new way in no way makes that
>new thing any good.
This is true, but by what standard is it "good" or "bad"?
Steve
--
st...@bronze.coil.com
steveconleyprodukt 1993 sco...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Life is short. Slack hard. Finger for PGP public key block.
Daniel B Case
>>Huh? First of all, "The Waste Land", is hardly book length. It's quite readable
>>once you have Eliot's footnotes in hand.
>
>If it doesn't stand on its own, what is so good about it?
Well, it's quite readable even without the footnotes. Maybe I should explain
Eliot's influence by the French Symbolists. Then maybe not. "The Waste Land"
is about a mood, a condition, not a story as such. Eliot was attempting to
depict what he felt was the state of Western civilization after World War I.
So you get the opening in the sanatorium, and then the disjointed meanderings
through London, the classical allusions, etc. There is strange power in some
of the images-which Eliot felt could speak for themselves, and speak more
strongly without being explicated.
The footnotes were to explain all the allusions, mainly (And there are quite
a few that are not so obvious that he didn't footnote).
> >>And plenty of people like both of them apart from school. It just takes a
>>certain amount of intelligence to appreciate them.
>
>Oh come on, that's a cheap shot. I'm plenty intelligent, and I'm also honest
>enough to point out that despite the supposed popularity, they are awful.
>Just like Pollack's "paintings", Cage's "music", and so on.
Pollock had a good idea, but only one person can do that. Ditto Cage.
Fortunately for Joyce, he was too good to emulate.
>>>Personally, I would put Ulysses on my "10 worst books in history" list.
>>>In what sense can you say that these books are "enduring" when they are
>>>seldom read and when read seldom enjoyed?
>
>>Brian: Have you actually read all of "Ulysses"?
>
>It was a long time ago. I think I read all of it, but it is possible that I
>got disgusted before finishing. I really can't believe that anyone could
>enjoy such nonsense.
What, specifically, disgusted you? The Nausicaa chapter (I thought that was very
funny).
>
>>(Yes, I have. It helps to have
>>a good book of notes handy). OK, it's not exactly my first choice for a plane
>>trip, but...to my point. "Ulysses" was important not just in and of itself, but
>>because Joyce a) perfected techniques of portraying the inner lives of ordinary
>>people,
>
>What is so good about that? That is a big part of what I hated about it. Who
>cares about the mental ramblings of an average person? What do you get
>out of that?
Well, I should have said that he perfected a technique of depicting the inner
life of *anybody*.
And a great deal of classic novels can be described as being about "the mental
ramblings of an average person".
>>b) depicted the full range of human activity, leading to censorship
>>problems, and
>
>So? This is the same idea that leads people to make "movies" of 24 hours of
>the sidewalk outside the Empire State Building. So what? That's not
>art, it is just meaningless nonsense.
If art is not about depicting human activity, is it about anything?
>>Its influence-at all levels-
>>trickled down to many other works that are more accessible. That you found
>>reading it a drudge is probably the fault of the way it all too often gets
>>taught.
>
>Nope. I wasn't "taught" it, I read it on my own. Through my education I don't
>recall him ever being mentioned. I heard about him on my own, read him
>on my own, and drew my own conclusions.
How much was your education focused on literature? What were your high school
English classes about? OK, I can understand not mentioning Joyce in high school
(I wouldn't have anybody touch even "Dubliners" until senior year).
But Joyce should usually be read in a group-and BTW, it is often said that
"Ulysses" canot be read, it can only be reread.
>>When we taught an undergraduate course on "Ulysses" last fall here at UB, it was
>>overenrolled-we had to find a way to get all these people on the class roster.
>>Imagine that! And everybody enjoyed reading it. We had as many people in the
>>last class as in the first-few people dropped out. Some of us are even reading
>>"Finnegans Wake" now.
>
>That is very strange. Who were these people? And why did they want to take
>the class? None of the reasons you mentioned could serve as reasons for a
>typical student to take such a course.
A typical student of what? Maybe people just like something that challenges them
as they read it, in the same way that we occasionally like something that
doesn't challenge us too much. I don't know why most of those people took it
(most, but not all, of them were English majors. That does not account for
interest from outside of the department).
>
>>>I certainly agree with you that literature can flourish and I predict that
>>>people will continue to write good books (including myself even!) but
>>>your examples really don't fit. In another generation or two they will be long
>>>forgotten.
>>
>>Gee, and I thought some of the political radicals I know were anti-canonical!
>>Canons get revised but the breakthrough works of 1922 have endured for eighty
>>years. We still read Sterne, and he was in a sense the Joyce of his day. We
>>still read and admire Flaubert, without who there might not have been a Joyce.
>>We still read Proust (or at least say we have) because he was just as innovative
>>and influential. If "The Waste Land" and "Ulysses" were going to be forgotten,
>>they would have been so by now.
>
>Do "we" still read those books?
By "we", I meant recreational readers, like, say, the rec.arts.books readership.
I grant that the man in the street does not go out of his way to read Sinclair
Lewis, and most people don't think about literature as something other than what
you have to read in English classes. That has always been the case (amusingly
enough, the theater was considered a form of low culture in Shakespeare's day).
But is has always been also been true that there are those who enjoy a good,
challenging read, and remember them well. No, we do not, as a society, have
"April is the cruellest month, breeding/ Lilacs from the dead land, mixing/
Memory and desire, stirring/ Dull roots with spring rain" etched on the inside
of our skulls. Whether we should or should not is another debate. But that
does not diminish in any way the effect that "we" get from that particular
sector of the cultural marketplace.
Daniel B Case
>the french language). As was pointed out to me recently, at the time
>Shakspere was writing deep and meaningful literature like "Richard III" or
>"King Lear", more people were interested in seeing vadvillian-like (my
>apologizes to anyone who speaks, reads, writes, or is in any way connected
>to the English language) plays with baudy limericks and such.
And Shakespeare himself was writing stuff like that, too-see some of his
bawdier comedies, like "The Taming of The Shrew". His tragedies, too, were part
of a genre that specialized in violence and gore-the action movies of their day.
Shakes himself did stuff of that nature-see "Titus Andronicus", which many
people consider his worst play (but I think is a hoot), filled as it is with a
crowd-pleasing thirteen on-stage deaths, a rape in which the victim's tongue and
hands are cut off to keep her, unsuccessfully, from naming her attackers who
themselves get their just desserts (literally) by having their heads baked into
pies and served to their mother.
But Shakespeare was younger then; he was older when he wrote Hamlet.
Daniel B Case
In article <2ekumn$7...@bronze.coil.com>, st...@bronze.coil.com (Steve Conley) writes...
>>So? This is the same idea that leads people to make "movies" of 24 hours of
>>the sidewalk outside the Empire State Building. So what? That's not
>>art, it is just meaningless nonsense.
>
>Or 24 hours on the streets and in the bars, coffeehouses, and apartments
>of Austin, Texas. If you're going to say that _Slacker_ is lousy art, I
>don't think you'll find many people here who will agree with you.
And 24 (well, actually, 19, but a day's a day) hours in the pubs, houses,
streets, and workplaces of Dublin on June 16, 1904, for that matter.
Daniel B Case
>Steve Conley wrote:
>
>> Um... If you're going to argue for Rand's definition of art, then argue
>> for Rand's definition of art. Everything else you're saying rests on that
>> definition, which she never gave sufficient reason for accepting. If you
>> can, I'd love to hear it.
She did give a reason: "I like it, so therefore, since I am a rational person,
there must be some rational reason why it's good. Reverse that for what I don't
like"-basically the same rationale she had for why she smoked heavily, and why
everybody else who wanted to be an Objectivist should also smoke, or start if
they didn't (Not smoking was "anti-life"). She kept on believing that until
they told her she had lung cancer, whereupon, to her credit, she quit cold
turkey. You'd think someone who so vigorously promoted reason and science
would have taken seriously the mounting evidence between the mid-1950s and the
late 1970s that smoking often causes a lot of major health problems-but nobody's
perfect.
Aside before Brian flames the hell out of all of us: This example isn't meant
to completely trash Rand out (Despite her flaws, I think she was serious enough
as a thinker that time will be kinder to her and her ideas) but that she, too,
could be irrational and not recognize it.
Steve Conley
Daniel B Case <v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> wrote:
>>Steve Conley wrote:
>>> Um... If you're going to argue for Rand's definition of art, then argue
>>> for Rand's definition of art. Everything else you're saying rests on that
>>> definition, which she never gave sufficient reason for accepting. If you
>>> can, I'd love to hear it.
>She did give a reason: "I like it, so therefore, since I am a rational person,
>there must be some rational reason why it's good. Reverse that for what
>I don't like"-
[chop!]
I mean, a reason that makes some degree of sense.
>Aside before Brian flames the hell out of all of us: This example isn't meant
>to completely trash Rand out (Despite her flaws, I think she was serious enough
>as a thinker that time will be kinder to her and her ideas) but that she, too,
>could be irrational and not recognize it.
I agree. I think the key to appreciating Rand (or any other thinker) is
to recognize and understand their faults. This is why both Brian's total
support and Carl's total condemnation bother me.
Scott Glasser
In article <byoderCH...@netcom.com> byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>
> What I am frustrated by
>is that the modern "art establishment" has all but stopped producing anything
>of any cultural value or significance and has opted instead for splashes
>of paint on canvas instead of painting, random noises instead of music,
>piles of garbage instead of sculpture, and meaningless strings of words in
>place of literature and poetry.
I don't agree with this. In the first place, once any group can be called
The XXXX Establishment, it's a safe bet that you're going to have to go
elsewhere for cutting-edge creativity. Look into your local art/music/writing
scene to see what's really new. I mean, if you wait for them to bring it
to you, it's probably not new anymore - it's become a commodity at that
point.
Secondly, one thing made conspicuous by it's absence in this whole thread
(one of the best, IMHO) is that there is no such thing as instant high
culture. There is no way to say "This is a timeless classic" if it only
just appeared yesterday (unless you're in marketing). Time will be the
ultimate judge of everything. The most innocuous and seemingly forget-
table creation around us now may eventually be heralded as the beginning
of a new school. Only a precious few works are recognized, at the time,
as being "genius". Look at the entire Impressionist movement...
So, maybe the masterpiece of this generation is sitting around right now
but nobody will recognize it as such until we're all dead and gone.
Another example would be the "meaningless strings of words." Plug in Dada
there and trace it out. It was considered worthless then (and maybe you'd
say it still is) but it led to surrealism, Fluxus, and has had a huge
influence on us ever since. Now, Dada never claimed to be high culture
but it has definately passed the test of time.
-Scott
Brian K. Yoder
>In article <byoderCI...@netcom.com>,
>Brian K. Yoder <byo...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>Oh come on, that's a cheap shot. I'm plenty intelligent, and I'm also honest
>>enough to point out that despite the supposed popularity, they are awful.
>>Just like Pollack's "paintings", Cage's "music", and so on.
>Um... If you're going to argue for Rand's definition of art, then argue
>for Rand's definition of art.
That isn't what I was doing, I was arguing for my definition of art. Rand
had the same definition too, but rather than discussing her, I'd rather
keep things simple and just talk about art and leave who said what out of
the thread. What would it add to also argue about who had which ideas when
in this thread?
>Everything else you're saying rests on that
>definition, which she never gave sufficient reason for accepting. If you
>can, I'd love to hear it. It was the stuff in _The Romantic Manifesto_
>that made me decide she was just plain loopy, in spite of having some good
>political and ethical insights.
This discussion might be better held (again) in misc.arts.fine or something.
If we look at various human behaviors (work, sleep, play, etc.) we can see
that there are certain activities which share some common characteristics
(painting, sculpture, music, literature, dance, poetry, etc.). What is it
that makes these activities similar? What do they have in common? What
can one do my means of literature, painting, etc. that one can't do by means
of other methods like sleeping, cooking, etc. can't do? The various
art forms can be used to express ideas by means of manipulating words,
sounds, substances, or light. That is obviously a light brushing, but it
should make clear the general reasoning behind why it is that these things are
different from the other thing people do. With regard to why it is that
it is desirable to do this, it is necessary to consider the nature of
concepts and their role in life (which is a subject more extensive than
is possible to go into here) and the clarity with which it is possible to
understand them as abstractions. Abstract concepts like "love", "justice",
or "evil" can't be directly perceived in nature as can more direct
abstractions like "tree", "dog" and "ice". Through art it is possible
to express, communicate, understand, and discuss these abstract concepts
in a sort of "all at once" perceptual way that is very efficient and
direct. An artist accomplishes this clarity by means of including certain
concretes from his work and excluding other ones so as to make the message
clear. Actually, an artist has no choice about this. He can't include
everything in his works, so he must be selective. He must choose what
words, pictures, shapes, or sounds he will include and in doing so he is
implicitly saying "This is important.". Of course he could put nothing in
his works (such a Cage and others have done) which certainly tells us something
about what they think is important. They can also incude a mishmash of
unintelligible things, shapes, or words, and that is also reflective of what
he thinks is important.
To sum this up, works of art are:
Reflective of selective value judgements of the artist.
Expressions of conceptual integrations.
Psychologically helpful in the understanding and expression of abstract ideas.
Created by modification of some sensory medium such as sight, sound, language, etc.
Regarding your interpretation of Rand's aesthetic theory, since aesthetics
is dependent on metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, before one can
really understand the former, one must have a pretty firm grasp of the latter.
This is much like the fact that one can't really understand scientific
conclusions and justifications without first understanding the epistemology
of the scientific method. It is for this reason that many people "don't
get" Rand's aesthetics. I really can't blame them since it is the last
item in a long chain of reasoning, but I hope you can see why this must
be so and perhaps you should withhold your judgement until your have
fully evaluated what leads up to it.
>I don't like Pollack's paintings or Cage's music either, but I see no
>reason why someone else couldn't see some good in them.
Actually, whether they are generally good or bad things is a somewhat
separate issue from whether they are good or bad art (or non-art).
There are lots of non-artistic things which are plenty "good" (like a
good meal or a good hammer). Some art-like things can even serve a
decorative purpose and one may even enjoy looking at them, like one
may enjoy looking at a sunset or listening to a bird song. That doesn't
mean that they can serve the same purpose as "art" as I have described it
above, and I would hope you would agree that what I have described is
a good and valuable thing which is different in kind frm what people like
Cage and Pollack produced.
If you disagree, perhaps you would like to offer an alternative definition
of what art is, what purpose it serves, and why it is good. What most people
seem to come up with (or be taught in school) is that art is everything
and anything anyone wants to call art, and that it serves either any purpose
one desires or no purpose at all. Such a description is so broad as to
be meaningless. If the purpose of a definition is to distinguish some things
from other things, then that sort of definition really doesn't cut it.
Can you offer a better one?
>I'm also willing
>to recognize that Cage's use of noise is what led to a lot of music I *do*
>like.
That may or may not be true, but I should add a couple of things:
1. Just because you like something doesn't mean it is good or that it is art.
2. A thing is not necessarily art just because it influenced someone to
create art. A scientific invention like electronic synthesizers, or
a personal experience like the death of a friend might cause someone to
create a work of art, but that doesn't make them works of art themselves.
>By the same token, I really hated "The Waste Land", but if someone
>can demonstrate how it led to something I enjoy now, I'll acknowledge it
>for that reason (and that reason only--like I said, I really hated it).
Again, just because something is enjoyable doesn't mean it is art (or good).
Are you defining art as "anything that one enjoys"?
>If you're going to say that _Slacker_ is lousy art, I
>don't think you'll find many people here who will agree with you.
I have not seen it, so I have no particular opinions on that subject. It's on
my "list of movies I ought to see" though.
>Even by Rand's definition, your "Empire State Building" example *is* art,
>because all representations of reality are selective. It may not be *good*
>art, but art it is.
I would say that it is (barely) art, but to the extent that it is art it is
trivial, shallow, ineffective, and bad. It is art in the same sense that an
ant is a dump truck.
>>>c) completely reinvented the novel.
>>I suppose that is true, but only in the sense that a car crusher reinvents
>>a car. Just because he wrote something in a new way in no way makes that
>>new thing any good.
>This is true, but by what standard is it "good" or "bad"?
By the usual standard of rational egoism, whether it serves to promote your
self-interest. In this case I was concentrating on pointing out the
error in reasoning rather than offering an alternative proposition or
disproof. Now that you mention it though, because we know that art can be
useful for a particualr purpose (which is psychologically helpful in
living your life by helping to clarify certain conceptual abstractions)
it is possible to judge how well a particular "reinvention" according to
how well it serves that purpose, just like we can judge any other change
or alternative.
Carl Beaudry
>I think the key to appreciating Rand (or any other thinker) is
>to recognize and understand their faults. This is why both Brian's
>total support and Carl's total condemnation bother me.
My position needs to be clarified. To me, Rand is a mildly
entertaining novelist capable of a fair degree of articulation.
That is the full extent of my appreciation of her work.
I do *not* condemn her personally or as a writer.
I do condemn her shallow philosophic methods and the legacy of
intellectual dishonesty and cowardice which her work has created. In
fact, I went to school to learn how to formally do just that!
But this is not the proper newsgroup for a formal discussion of
Rand's philosophical inadequacies. I do not shy from that debate, but
neither do I wish to inflict it upon perfectly innocent Xers. So
therefore I only 'slam' Rand with precisely the same force and
tenacity as those using her views to justify positions with which I
disagree.
But for the record:
1. Rand is derivative. She admits as much when she appropriates the
Aristotelian tradition and certain mediaeval, renaissance and
enlightenment notions of rationality and self-interest. There is
nothing wrong with this, but she brings nothing *new* to an 1800 year
old discussion. IMHO, this is not praiseworthy because she never
answered the arguments which had led the academic mainstream to
reject the views which she championed so fiercely.
I offer to demonstrate this claim openly by finding a functional
equivalent of any concept that anyone believes to be uniquely hers
in the writings of a previous thinker.
2. Rand dismissed an entire philosophic tradition--Kantianism, which
she herself had not read sufficiently to characterize accurately. She
then ignored contemporary corrections of her mischaracterization as
well as the defenses offered for the dominant philosophic traditions
*since* Kant.
It is not closed minded in the least to dismiss an author who
*herself* so vapidly dismissed so many well honed arguments.
Rather it is the practice of free inquiry and critical thought
which denies Rand's philosophical significance.
3. She did not answer the arguments of contemporary philosophers
against her system. Real Philosophy(tm) demands this of everyone.
In fact, she dismissed philosophers as confused, self-interested
bigots, thus beginning a tradition of persecuting intellectual
dissent which all too often carries on in her disciples.
Anyone doubting this claim needs only to lurk for a while in
alt.philosophy.objectivism to see how her followers respond to any
articulated criticism of Rand. Follow the objections of John
Kress, among others and see what you find.
Furthermore, since Rand attacked the philosophic tradition which I
have spent much time studying, learning and defending, it is Rand who
is guilty of unjustified condemnation. I am merely defending
philosophy against this intellectual virus as all good thinkers
are required to do. According to Rand it is my duty.
4. Even were I to admit in arguendo the supposed value of her
thought, her system fails to explain the richness of human
experience--particularly desire. This insufficiency makes her writing
*improperly* influential in our time.
Though Rand is poorly regarded, to say the least, within academia, the
Book Of The Month Club surveys have pegged 'Atlas Shrugged' as #2
behind the Bible in its influence on large numbers of Americans.
IMHO, it is no certainly no more discriptive of the human situation
than the Bible is. And since I am critical of the Bible, it would be
inconsistent for me to allow Rand's popular misconceptions to go
unchallenged. But no one here tries to use the Bible to justify their
politics.
So, I appreciate certain stylistic elements of her work as a writer.
But she has not earned my respect as a *thinker* unlike others with
whom I disagree but who do not share her faults.
I will gladly take this matter up on alt.philosophy.objectivism
where it need not burden anyone here. Critical thought demands
no less of me. Or any Randians, for that matter.
--Carl
Carl Beaudry
> ...since aesthetics is dependent on metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics...
Please explain then why people desire beauty, if in fact they do. Is it
rational? Is it ethical? or is it ontologically given? Or is it something
else?
Please bear in mind that you also say that: 'the purpose of a definition is
to distinguish some things from other things' So a definition of beauty
which uniquely isolates beauty from everything else would be nice too.
--Carl (affecting the pose of one with a mind as open as the clear blue
sky)
Mike Thornton
Sorry Chris,
In Canada we get the A&E network, more affectionately known to my roomates and
me as the 'Carnage Network'. Only to be out done by CNN (,which we also get) , the
'Carnage News Network'.
Mike Thornton "...now back to Gershwin and Rachmaninov."
Topaz
>In article <CHzyF...@acsu.buffalo.edu> v140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) writes:
>>In article <byoderCH...@netcom.com>, byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes...
>>Huh? First of all, "The Waste Land", is hardly book length. It's quite readable
>>once you have Eliot's footnotes in hand.
>If it doesn't stand on its own, what is so good about it?
So why does a work of art have to stand on its own? A pleasurable aesthetic
reaction is no less real for having come about through footnotes.
--
(I whispered that Word on the roof of the Trans-Satellite Power Station,
and caused my hirelings to commit two murders. And you know? I didn't
feel a thing.):
to...@xmission.com
Brian Upton
I would argue that your definition is both too general and too limiting.
Selective value judgements are present in all forms of communication to a
greater or lesser degree. The argument of ubiquity can be made for the
"modification of a sensory medium" rule as well. Neither concept is of use
in discerning "art" from other types of communication.
Your other rules seem to be an attempt to clothe what is essentially an
irrational act (the participation of the viewer with the work) in the robes
of rationalism. Fundamentally, art does not argue its points; it does not
sway the viewer with the rigor of its research, or with the unity of its
vision. It *moves* us, pure and simple. It is the communication of
abstractions, true, but at a level that is unapproachable by the clamps
and forceps of reason.
This is not to say, however, that reason doesn't play a role in our interaction
with a work of art. For a communication to be effective, both the sender
and receiver must be speaking the same language. "High Art" demands
an audience fluent in its symbols and traditions, sensitive to the delicate
network of meaning and allusion that links together different works. "High
Art" is inacessable (in the best of worlds) not because of exclusionary
snobbishness, but because it requires the viewer to have knowlege (in some
cases a great deal of knowlege) about the works that preceded it to produce
its subtle effects. Thus Joyce's _Ulysses_ is practically unreadable
without a strong background in the whole of English literature and the
Classics (or a good guidebook), but when Joyce strikes a chord, the prepared
reader can hear it reverberate down the hallways of time all the way back to
Homer and the very roots of Western literature.
Some art is hard. That doesn't make it bad art. You wouldn't expect to
be able to sit down with a graduate text on quantum mechanics and puzzle
it out on your own. Why do you place such conditions on art?
[Art arguments deleted]
|> >Even by Rand's definition, your "Empire State Building" example *is* art,
|> >because all representations of reality are selective. It may not be *good*
|> >art, but art it is.
|>
|> I would say that it is (barely) art, but to the extent that it is art it is
|> trivial, shallow, ineffective, and bad. It is art in the same sense that an
|> ant is a dump truck.
(Just wanted to add that I like this analogy a lot.)
[More art arguments deleted]
|> --Brian
|> --
|>
|> +------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|> | Brian K. Yoder | "The children who know how to think for themselves, spoil |
|> | byo...@netcom.com| spoil the harmony of the collective society that is |
|> | US Networx, Inc. | coming, where everyone (would be) interdependent" -Dewey |
|> +------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
--
+-----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Brian Upton | "It's not the bullet that kills you, it's the |
| UNC Chapel Hill | hole" -Laurie Anderson |
+-----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
Rick Healy
'Round here us folks call A&E the 'Nazi Network.' The carnage is usually
the european sort from fifty years ago.
-Rick
--
Richard J. Healy <cd...@nasagiss.giss.nasa.gov> (212) 678-5572
Topaz
>In article <2ekumn$7...@bronze.coil.com> st...@bronze.coil.com (Steve Conley) writes:
>To sum this up, works of art are:
>Reflective of selective value judgements of the artist.
>Expressions of conceptual integrations.
>Psychologically helpful in the understanding and expression of abstract ideas.
>Created by modification of some sensory medium such as sight, sound, language, etc.
What does the *Mona Lisa* tell us about Da Vinci's "value judgements"? What
"abstract ideas" are we to draw from it? How about, say, a Cezanne landscape?
Monet water-lilies? Van Gogh's room at Arles? Satie's *Trois Gymnopedies*?
You've just reduced "art" to propaganda. Congratulations, I guess.
Carl Beaudry
> Selective value judgements are present in all forms of communication to a
> greater or lesser degree. The argument of ubiquity can be made for the
> "modification of a sensory medium" rule as well. Neither concept is of use
> in discerning "art" from other types of communication.
>
> Your other rules seem to be an attempt to clothe what is essentially an
> irrational act (the participation of the viewer with the work) in the robes
> of rationalism. Fundamentally, art does not argue its points; it does not
> sway the viewer with the rigor of its research, or with the unity of its
> vision. It *moves* us, pure and simple. It is the communication of
> abstractions, true, but at a level that is unapproachable by the clamps
> and forceps of reason.
> ..."High
> Art" is inacessable (in the best of worlds) not because of exclusionary
> snobbishness, but because it requires the viewer to have knowlege (in some
> cases a great deal of knowlege) about the works that preceded it to produce
> its subtle effects.
Great Post!
This is precisely the distinction that needs to be made. Wish I'd said it.
Perhaps I'll claim that I did....Remember, imitation is the sincerist form
of plagiarism!
> Thus Joyce's _Ulysses_ is practically unreadable
> without a strong background in the whole of English literature and the
> Classics (or a good guidebook), but when Joyce strikes a chord, the prepared
> reader can hear it reverberate down the hallways of time all the way back to
> Homer and the very roots of Western literature.
I'll add Thomas Pynchon's _Gravity's Rainbow_ to that list. It would have
been totally impossible except for it's inevitability. Not an easy read,
but an awful lot there.
--Carl
Brian K. Yoder
>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>
>>In article <2ekumn$7...@bronze.coil.com> st...@bronze.coil.com (Steve Conley) writes:
>>To sum this up, works of art are:
>>Reflective of selective value judgements of the artist.
>>Expressions of conceptual integrations.
>>Psychologically helpful in the understanding and expression of abstract ideas.
>>Created by modification of some sensory medium such as sight, sound, language, etc.
>What does the *Mona Lisa* tell us about Da Vinci's "value judgements"?
Well, there are some pretty obvious ones, such as his preference for certain
traits in women over others, a preference for beauty over ugliness, a lack
of a belief in the impotance of pain and despair. One of the things that
makes art necessary and effective is that it is hard to briefly sum up
all of the elements that make it good briefly. If you could, it wouldn't
be necessary to bother looking at the painting.
>What
>"abstract ideas" are we to draw from it?
I would say that femininity, happiness, beauty, and a certain variety of sly
wit were all part of what that painting expressed. Since we have both seen
the painting I can say "Sally was beautiful and mysterious like Mona Lisa."
and you would understand instantly what I meant wouldn't you? What if I
said that "Sally was beautiful and mysterious like Elvira Mistress of the
Dark."? Would you not understand the differences.
>How about, say, a Cezanne landscape?
That would depend on the landscape. Perhaps peacefulness, beauty, the
relationship between manand nature. I hould note that all landscapes are
not necessarily artistic.
>Monet water-lilies?
The same analysis as above applies. I don't think impressionism is
an especially good style of painting, but it can be put to good use.
>Van Gogh's room at Arles?
It is a much more negative painting, conveying a sort of loneliness,
claustrophobia, and drabness. I don't particularly like that painting, but
it is pretty effective.
>Satie's *Trois Gymnopedies*?
I'm not familiar with it (at least not by that name).
>You've just reduced "art" to propaganda. Congratulations, I guess.
Really? I don't think so. Propaganda is a political expression of ideas.
Of course art can express political evaluations as well as non-political
ones, but that just means that propaganda art is a legitimate sub-category
of art, not that all art is propaganda. (Of course not all propaganda
is art either, some is just journalism.)
--Brian
--
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Brian K. Yoder | "The children who know how to think for themselves, spoil |
| byo...@netcom.com| the harmony of the collective society that is coming, |
| US Networx, Inc. | where everyone (would be) interdependent" --John Dewey |
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Brian K. Yoder
>In article <byoderCI...@netcom.com>,
>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>|> To sum this up, works of art are:
>|> Reflective of selective value judgements of the artist.
>|> Expressions of conceptual integrations.
>|> Psychologically helpful in the understanding and expression of abstract ideas.
>|> Created by modification of some sensory medium such as sight, sound, language, etc.
>I would argue that your definition is both too general and too limiting.
>Selective value judgements are present in all forms of communication to a
>greater or lesser degree. The argument of ubiquity can be made for the
>"modification of a sensory medium" rule as well. Neither concept is of use
>in discerning "art" from other types of communication.
First, I should note that it is refreshing to have an intelligent thoughtful
reply to my postings unlike the recent petty sniping Carl has been flooding
the newsgroup with. Thanks.
Regarding your criticism, it is certainly true that art is a particular
kind of expression (which is more accurate than "communication" since
communication implies two people, and art merely describes what is
being expressed and how, not whether someone is "sending" or "receiving"
that expression), and perhaps my "suming up" list should have included
something about the differentia. What makes art differnet from
other expressions is that rather than being a direct description of either
concretes (like a news story) or an abstract description of a concept
or concepts (like this posting) is that art uses an artificial recreation of
some aspect of reality in order to illustrate the concept(s) being expressed.
Here are three examples of different kinds of expression:
JOURNALISTIC:
"When I was six months old I lived with my parents in a small farm house.
My parents fed and clothed me and loved me very much."
ANALYTIC:
"The bond between mother and child is one of the strongest emotions
most people experience. It is the most common justification for acts of
dangerous heroism among women, and as most parents can tell you, can often
change one's whole outlook on life."
ARTISTIC:
"Two pools stood a distance apart.
One fresh and bright, wide and blue,
a new well, depths unplumbed, just now filled.
One full, mature, dark and wise,
a placid pool, an endless source,
filled in a glance.
A single drop, a life of care,
falls with a pair of smiles.
A river runs through age after age,
an unbroken flow, old into new."
Do you think that the clearest way of differentiating between these three
would be that one refers to concretes, one refers to abstractions, and one
uses stylized/fictionalized metaphorical means of conveying a complex sum?
>Your other rules seem to be an attempt to clothe what is essentially an
>irrational act (the participation of the viewer with the work) in the robes
>of rationalism.
WHy do you say that it is "irrational" to look at a painting and recognize
a certain combination of elements as representing a concept or emotion?
Actually, my definition of art doesn't really require that there be a viewer.
If the purpose and form of the work is an expression of a certain kind then
it is art whether anyone ever experiences it or not.
>Fundamentally, art does not argue its points; it does not
>sway the viewer with the rigor of its research, or with the unity of its
>vision. It *moves* us, pure and simple.
Well, art can argue too (particualrly in literature) but I don't disagree
that it can express an emotion too (music is particularly adept at that).
What is wrong with that? Do you not think that my definition above would
include the expression of emotion?
>It is the communication of
>abstractions, true, but at a level that is unapproachable by the clamps
>and forceps of reason.
I would say that reason is the proper way to come to an understanding of
what the truth is, and that can be very difficult and time-consuming. That
problem in succinctly expressing what one knows through reason is why art
is good and useful. To express certain ideas through what I called the
"analytic" style of expression above can be dry and time-consuming. You
would have to write a whole book (well, a chapter at least) to convey the
same meaning as a good poem or painting. Those kinds of expression are just
good at expressing different things. I guess I don't disagree with you,
but I think you think I mean for art to somehow be limited to a style like
my "analytical" one above.
>Some art is hard. That doesn't make it bad art. You wouldn't expect to
>be able to sit down with a graduate text on quantum mechanics and puzzle
>it out on your own. Why do you place such conditions on art?
I don't. In some cases there are nice things buried in the subtlties, and
in such cases there can be some value derived from digging it up. My
complaints primarily fall into five categories:
1. There's really nothing there to dig up (such as in a Pollack painting)
2. What's there is trivial (ahhhh, I see, it is bigger here, and smaller here!)
3. What is there is unpleasant (Wasn't the dissonance exquisite?)
4. What's there is bad or wrong (Do fathers really have fangs?)
5. Does the subtlty add to the impact or is it just that way for snob appeal?
>|> >Even by Rand's definition, your "Empire State Building" example *is* art,
>|> >because all representations of reality are selective. It may not be *good*
>|> >art, but art it is.
>|> I would say that it is (barely) art, but to the extent that it is art it is
>|> trivial, shallow, ineffective, and bad. It is art in the same sense that an
>|> ant is a dump truck.
>(Just wanted to add that I like this analogy a lot.)
Thanks.
--Brian
--
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Brian K. Yoder | "The children who know how to think for themselves, spoil |
| byo...@netcom.com| the harmony of the collective society that is coming, |
| US Networx, Inc. | where everyone (would be) interdependent" --John Dewey |
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
David Gregory Platt
>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>In article <2ekumn$7...@bronze.coil.com> st...@bronze.coil.com (Steve Conley) writes:
>>To sum this up, works of art are:
>>Reflective of selective value judgements of the artist.
>>Expressions of conceptual integrations.
>>Psychologically helpful in the understanding and expression of abstract ideas.
>>Created by modification of some sensory medium such as sight, sound, language, etc.
>What does the *Mona Lisa* tell us about Da Vinci's "value judgements"? What
>"abstract ideas" are we to draw from it? How about, say, a Cezanne landscape?
>Monet water-lilies? Van Gogh's room at Arles? Satie's *Trois Gymnopedies*?
>You've just reduced "art" to propaganda. Congratulations, I guess.
AMen. NEVER try to define art. NEVER. It's nearly impossible.
Dave
Rick Healy
>>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>
>>>In article <2ekumn$7...@bronze.coil.com> st...@bronze.coil.com (Steve Conley) writes:
>
>>>To sum this up, works of art are:
>>>Reflective of selective value judgements of the artist.
>>>Expressions of conceptual integrations.
>>>Psychologically helpful in the understanding and expression of abstract ideas.
>>>Created by modification of some sensory medium such as sight, sound, language, etc.
>
>>What does the *Mona Lisa* tell us about Da Vinci's "value judgements"?
>
>Well, there are some pretty obvious ones, such as his preference for certain
>traits in women over others, a preference for beauty over ugliness, a lack
>of a belief in the impotance of pain and despair. One of the things that
>makes art necessary and effective is that it is hard to briefly sum up
>all of the elements that make it good briefly. If you could, it wouldn't
>be necessary to bother looking at the painting.
Everything you describe here is secondary to the work of art and does
not constitute a definition. Part of the definition of art is beauty,
preference aside.
>
>>What
>>"abstract ideas" are we to draw from it?
>
>I would say that femininity, happiness, beauty, and a certain variety of sly
>wit were all part of what that painting expressed. Since we have both seen
>the painting I can say "Sally was beautiful and mysterious like Mona Lisa."
>and you would understand instantly what I meant wouldn't you? What if I
>said that "Sally was beautiful and mysterious like Elvira Mistress of the
>Dark."? Would you not understand the differences.
>
Here you could say that art is an idea, divorced from our world.
You don't draw abstract ideas from artwork, the piece of art is an abstract
idea.
>>How about, say, a Cezanne landscape?
>
>That would depend on the landscape. Perhaps peacefulness, beauty, the
>relationship between manand nature. I hould note that all landscapes are
>not necessarily artistic.
>
And so you get lost, not realizing that the piece or art is an idea...
>>Monet water-lilies?
>
>The same analysis as above applies. I don't think impressionism is
>an especially good style of painting, but it can be put to good use.
>
>>Van Gogh's room at Arles?
>
>It is a much more negative painting, conveying a sort of loneliness,
>claustrophobia, and drabness. I don't particularly like that painting, but
>it is pretty effective.
>
>>Satie's *Trois Gymnopedies*?
>
>I'm not familiar with it (at least not by that name).
>
>>You've just reduced "art" to propaganda. Congratulations, I guess.
>
>Really? I don't think so. Propaganda is a political expression of ideas.
>Of course art can express political evaluations as well as non-political
>ones, but that just means that propaganda art is a legitimate sub-category
>of art, not that all art is propaganda. (Of course not all propaganda
>is art either, some is just journalism.)
>
If "propaganda art" is art then it succeeds only because the propaganda
fails as propaganda and becomes art.
Brian Upton
Your differentiation holds for the examples you provide, but would it
still if the final passage were from Dos Passos or Steinbeck or any of
the realists? Their prose is (in the short run) indistinguishable from
the Journalistic style you describe at first. My point is that what
separates art from non-art is not *means* but *effect*. Non-artistic
discourse (the dreaded D-word!) engages our heads first and our hearts
second. With art the opposite is true.
|> >Your other rules seem to be an attempt to clothe what is essentially an
|> >irrational act (the participation of the viewer with the work) in the robes
|> >of rationalism.
|>
|> WHy do you say that it is "irrational" to look at a painting and recognize
|> a certain combination of elements as representing a concept or emotion?
|> Actually, my definition of art doesn't really require that there be a viewer.
|> If the purpose and form of the work is an expression of a certain kind then
|> it is art whether anyone ever experiences it or not.
Oh, I wouldn't say such an act is irrational -- I would just argue that
that is *not* how we primarily interact with a piece of art. Rational
analysis of artwork is certainly useful, often pleasurable, but it is not
*essential*. The dialog that occurs between the piece of art and the
viewer at the irrational level is.
And I would also argue that without a viewer there is no art. A tree
that falls alone in the forest makes no sound (or so quantum mechanics
tells us). An expression without communication is empty, meaningless.
Writing poems and keeping them in a box under your bed may be theraputic,
but it's not art. Art requires two acts of creation: the first in the
mind of the author, the second in the mind of the reader. Eliminate the
second and you have a sunset, the first and you have masturbation. I've
nothing against either, but neither is art.
|> >Fundamentally, art does not argue its points; it does not
|> >sway the viewer with the rigor of its research, or with the unity of its
|> >vision. It *moves* us, pure and simple.
|>
|> Well, art can argue too (particualrly in literature) but I don't disagree
|> that it can express an emotion too (music is particularly adept at that).
|> What is wrong with that? Do you not think that my definition above would
|> include the expression of emotion?
I think your definition includes the expression of the *idea* of emotion
but not the expression of emotion itself. Thinking about the nature of
sadness and being sad are not equivalent, and I think your definition
provides for the first and not the second. I mean, this is the whole
idea behind catharsis. The work induces in the audience the pain of
tragedy and then by virtue of its unreality provides the release from the
pain. A good tragedy is not merely a succint description of pain, but
a distillation of pain itself.
|> >It is the communication of
|> >abstractions, true, but at a level that is unapproachable by the clamps
|> >and forceps of reason.
|>
|> I would say that reason is the proper way to come to an understanding of
|> what the truth is, and that can be very difficult and time-consuming. That
|> problem in succinctly expressing what one knows through reason is why art
|> is good and useful. To express certain ideas through what I called the
|> "analytic" style of expression above can be dry and time-consuming. You
|> would have to write a whole book (well, a chapter at least) to convey the
|> same meaning as a good poem or painting. Those kinds of expression are just
|> good at expressing different things. I guess I don't disagree with you,
|> but I think you think I mean for art to somehow be limited to a style like
|> my "analytical" one above.
Actually, I'm much more of a rationalist than I probably come across
in these posts. I believe there is such a thing as absolute truth and
that reason is the best tool we have to get close to it.
But (of course there's a but), reason is only that -- a tool. It can be
turned to a variety of ends, some of them quite nasty. Given the *proper
assumptions* it is quite reasonable conclude that, for instance, the
children of the poor should be slaughtered as a food source. This doesn't
mean that reason is evil or flawed, only that it is dependent on our own
*irrational* notions of humanity and decency to keep it from being turned
to evil or flawed ends.
(Just remember, kids, deductive proofs don't kill people -- people kill
people.)
|> >Some art is hard. That doesn't make it bad art. You wouldn't expect to
|> >be able to sit down with a graduate text on quantum mechanics and puzzle
|> >it out on your own. Why do you place such conditions on art?
|>
|> I don't. In some cases there are nice things buried in the subtlties, and
|> in such cases there can be some value derived from digging it up. My
|> complaints primarily fall into five categories:
|>
|> 1. There's really nothing there to dig up (such as in a Pollack painting)
|> 2. What's there is trivial (ahhhh, I see, it is bigger here, and smaller here!)
|> 3. What is there is unpleasant (Wasn't the dissonance exquisite?)
|> 4. What's there is bad or wrong (Do fathers really have fangs?)
|> 5. Does the subtlty add to the impact or is it just that way for snob appeal?
1. Agreement. Lots of stuff produced lately really has nothing
behind it but a sterile scholasticism. In short it's
symbol-juggling, high-concept vapor.
2. Again agreement.
3. Big disagreement. Sometimes it's a matter of learning to look
or listen differently. Harmony and dissonance are cultural
artifacts, not absolutes and there are some interesting
aesthetic experiences to be had by listening or looking at
something that makes you uncomfortable.
4. I'm not quite sure what you mean. Factually wrong? Factually
wrong can sometimes be metaphorically right. Sometimes
fathers do have fangs in a figurative sense.
5. Again agreement. Another problem with a great deal of
contemporary art.
|> --Brian
|>
|> --
|>
|> +------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|> | Brian K. Yoder | "The children who know how to think for themselves, spoil |
|> | byo...@netcom.com| the harmony of the collective society that is coming, |
|> | US Networx, Inc. | where everyone (would be) interdependent" --John Dewey |
|> +------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
ObGenX:
Are we as a generation less likely to produce "high art" because
we lack sufficient background in "the canon" to create and
appreciate work with historic depth and subtlety?
And, moreover, do we care?
Topaz
>In article <byoderCI...@netcom.com>,
> If "propaganda art" is art then it succeeds only because the propaganda
>fails as propaganda and becomes art.
I beg to differ. The success of a work of art as a work of art is absolutely
irrelevent as to whether it succeeds as propoganda. The two attributes
("artistic" value and "propaganda" value) are completely orthogonal.
Daniel B Case
>ObGenX:
>
>Are we as a generation less likely to produce "high art" because
>we lack sufficient background in "the canon" to create and
>appreciate work with historic depth and subtlety?
It's late enough that I thought I read "more" in your post instead of "less"
at first. parapraxis at its best.
Well, going where that misread led me, maybe a detachment from history and the
canon might be a plus. Malcolm Cowley wrote that his cohorts-Fitzgerald,
Hemingway, and most of the writers born in the late 1890s, felt apart from
history entirely-they did not feel they were in a position to be continuing
where Henry james, say, had left off. So they had to create their own tradition.
And we still read that today. I think a lack of familiarity with the canon could
be a plus for some people in today's world.
>
>And, moreover, do we care?
How would you know what caring is if you're ahistorical?
Topaz
>In article <2eotm7$j...@xmission.xmission.com> to...@xmission.xmission.com (Topaz) writes:
>>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>
>>>In article <2ekumn$7...@bronze.coil.com> st...@bronze.coil.com (Steve Conley) writes:
>>>To sum this up, works of art are:
>>>Reflective of selective value judgements of the artist.
>>>Expressions of conceptual integrations.
>>>Psychologically helpful in the understanding and expression of abstract ideas.
>>>Created by modification of some sensory medium such as sight, sound, language, etc.
>>What does the *Mona Lisa* tell us about Da Vinci's "value judgements"?
>Well, there are some pretty obvious ones, such as his preference for certain
>traits in women over others, a preference for beauty over ugliness, a lack
>of a belief in the impotance of pain and despair.
Really? I see a specific picture of a specific beautiful woman. I fail to
see how you extract those particular judgements from the picture itself. In
fact, it seems to me that insofar as these value judgements exist, they
are coming from you, not the painting.
Looking at the painting myself, the primary value judgement I see at work
is "flattering ones patron is a good idea".
>One of the things that
>makes art necessary and effective is that it is hard to briefly sum up
>all of the elements that make it good briefly. If you could, it wouldn't
>be necessary to bother looking at the painting.
Nonetheless, your definition of art insists that all art *can* be summed
up, whether briefly or not. Therein lies my biggest problem with your
definition.
Furthermore, I reject your notion that the quality of a work of art is
dependent on the Correctness of the value judgements the artist is
supposedly expressing. The fact that the palace of Versailles was
created for the express purpose of expressing certain value judgements
about absolute monarchy I find quite repulsive does not make it any less
successful as a work of art.
>>What "abstract ideas" are we to draw from it?
>I would say that femininity, happiness, beauty, and a certain variety of sly
>wit were all part of what that painting expressed.
So what is it about art that makes me draw these abstract ideas? If I see
a beautiful woman walking down the street, I'm just as likely to draw these
abstract ideas. It seems to me that insofar as I draw these abstract ideas
from the *Mona Lisa*, it is because it is a realistic picture of a beautiful
woman.
>Since we have both seen
>the painting I can say "Sally was beautiful and mysterious like Mona Lisa."
>and you would understand instantly what I meant wouldn't you? What if I
>said that "Sally was beautiful and mysterious like Elvira Mistress of the
>Dark."? Would you not understand the differences.
I'm not sure I understand your point. While it's certainly true that a
great number of people have been exposed to certain works of fine art, and
would thus understand your reference to the Mona Lisa, that's hardly a
defining characteristic of art. I could also say, "Sally is pretty and
superficial like Connie Chung", and I have no doubt that most people would
get the point.
>>How about, say, a Cezanne landscape?
>That would depend on the landscape. Perhaps peacefulness, beauty, the
>relationship between manand nature. I hould note that all landscapes are
>not necessarily artistic.
Again, what does this have to do with art? A sunset has the potential
of inspiring all these thoughts.
>The same analysis as above applies. I don't think impressionism is
>an especially good style of painting, but it can be put to good use.
Why don't you think that impressionism is "an especially good style of
painting"? Can you justify your opinion in terms of your definition of
art?
>>Satie's *Trois Gymnopedies*?
>I'm not familiar with it (at least not by that name).
They are three solo piano pieces, composed by a contemporary of Debussy.
Stunningly beautiful, I think.
>>You've just reduced "art" to propaganda. Congratulations, I guess.
>Really? I don't think so. Propaganda is a political expression of ideas.
>Of course art can express political evaluations as well as non-political
>ones, but that just means that propaganda art is a legitimate sub-category
>of art, not that all art is propaganda. (Of course not all propaganda
>is art either, some is just journalism.)
What I mean is that your definition (1) accepts as art only that which
has a message of some sort, and (2) implies that art is to be judged
according to the truth or falsehood of that message. Obviously, that
message doesn't have to be political, but as long as you insist on
treating that message as the raison d'etre of the work, then you run the
risk of being just as much a philistine as any government censor.
Brian K. Yoder
>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>In article <2eotm7$j...@xmission.xmission.com> to...@xmission.xmission.com (Topaz) writes:
>>>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>>>In article <2ekumn$7...@bronze.coil.com> st...@bronze.coil.com (Steve Conley) writes:
>>>>To sum this up, works of art are:
>>>>Reflective of selective value judgements of the artist.
>>>>Expressions of conceptual integrations.
>>>>Psychologically helpful in the understanding and expression of abstract ideas.
>>>>Created by modification of some sensory medium such as sight, sound, language, etc.
>>>What does the *Mona Lisa* tell us about Da Vinci's "value judgements"?
>>Well, there are some pretty obvious ones, such as his preference for certain
>>traits in women over others, a preference for beauty over ugliness, a lack
>>of a belief in the impotance of pain and despair.
>Really? I see a specific picture of a specific beautiful woman. I fail to
>see how you extract those particular judgements from the picture itself. In
>fact, it seems to me that insofar as these value judgements exist, they
>are coming from you, not the painting.
No they didn't. DaVinci had to decide what kind of woman to paint. He had
to decide what she would be doing, her clothes, her background, her hairstyle,
and a hundred other details. He had to also leave things out too. You may
note that he also left some things out too. That little scar on one of the
models. The cold sore he could have painted on her lip. The burning
giraffe he could have put in the background. ...and on and on. As I said
before, the artist's selectivity is something no artist can escape. He
has to choose to include some things and exclude others, and he has to
use some criterion to do this. It could be random, it could be by color,
by reference to some moral concept, time, or anything he can think of,
but he must do something even if that is shut off his brain and let the
paint fall where it may.
>Looking at the painting myself, the primary value judgement I see at work
>is "flattering ones patron is a good idea".
As I understand it, Mona Lisa was not a portrait of any one person, but
was a composite of several (6?) different women.
>>One of the things that
>>makes art necessary and effective is that it is hard to briefly sum up
>>all of the elements that make it good briefly. If you could, it wouldn't
>>be necessary to bother looking at the painting.
>Nonetheless, your definition of art insists that all art *can* be summed
>up, whether briefly or not. Therein lies my biggest problem with your
>definition.
I see two problems there. First, I didn't say that it was always possible to
"sum up" a work of art one way or another (although given enough time and
effort it ought to be possible to explain anything. It is specifically the
difficulty in "summing up" some ideas that leads to the need for art.
Second, why do you think that would be such a bad partof the definition?
Are you of the opinion that part of the definition of art is that it can't
be summed up? If so, why?
>Furthermore, I reject your notion that the quality of a work of art is
>dependent on the Correctness of the value judgements the artist is
>supposedly expressing.
Are you saying that two paintings of equal expressiveness, craftsmanship,
and so on are of equal quality if one expresses a true and good idea while
the other expresses a false or evil one? Why should one not evaluate that
aspect of the work as well?
>The fact that the palace of Versailles was
>created for the express purpose of expressing certain value judgements
>about absolute monarchy I find quite repulsive does not make it any less
>successful as a work of art.
I agree, but given two museums of equal expressiveness and so on wouldn't
you prefer one with inspiring heroic-looking statues of doctors, scientists,
and businessmen and another with inspiring heroic statues of Adolph Hitler,
which would you prefer?
>>>What "abstract ideas" are we to draw from it?
>>I would say that femininity, happiness, beauty, and a certain variety of sly
>>wit were all part of what that painting expressed.
>So what is it about art that makes me draw these abstract ideas?
The selections the artist made regarding what to include/exclude from the
painting. She's got a little smile, no braces, relaxed hair, etc. Where
else would you get them? The painting is full of choices made by the artist.
>If I see
>a beautiful woman walking down the street, I'm just as likely to draw these
>abstract ideas. It seems to me that insofar as I draw these abstract ideas
>from the *Mona Lisa*, it is because it is a realistic picture of a beautiful
>woman.
Nope. When you see a real woman on the street, you will evaluate her
on the basis of the choices she made in preparing her appearance as well
as various other things about her. One difference between a real woman
and a painting of one has to do with flaws. If you noticed that she had a
little run in her stocking it probably wouldn't change your interpretation
of what she was like. On the other hand, if a painter or sculptor
intentionally put a run on the stocking of a beautiful woman in his work
what would that say about his selection mechanism? It owuld be that he is
either a hyper-naturalist (and thus trying to portary concretes rather than
concepts) oe he's hung up on flaws somehow and can't bring himself to
create anything perfect.
>>Since we have both seen
>>the painting I can say "Sally was beautiful and mysterious like Mona Lisa."
>>and you would understand instantly what I meant wouldn't you? What if I
>>said that "Sally was beautiful and mysterious like Elvira Mistress of the
>>Dark."? Would you not understand the differences.
>I'm not sure I understand your point. While it's certainly true that a
>great number of people have been exposed to certain works of fine art, and
>would thus understand your reference to the Mona Lisa, that's hardly a
>defining characteristic of art. I could also say, "Sally is pretty and
>superficial like Connie Chung", and I have no doubt that most people would
>get the point.
They can, but what about things which are hard to point to examples of in
real life? Say, something like "serenity" or "terror". I should also
point out that communicating those ideas isn't the primary value of art, it is
the experiencing and understanding of them by a given individual. That it
can provide a common frame of reference is sort of a "bonus".
>>>How about, say, a Cezanne landscape?
>>That would depend on the landscape. Perhaps peacefulness, beauty, the
>>relationship between manand nature. I hould note that all landscapes are
>>not necessarily artistic.
>Again, what does this have to do with art? A sunset has the potential
>of inspiring all these thoughts.
I am not saying that art is the only thing that can either express an idea
(all kinds of non-artistic communication does that), or generate an emotional
reaction. Slapping someone in the face can generate a reaction, and a dry
essay on gardening can express an idea too.
>>The same analysis as above applies. I don't think impressionism is
>>an especially good style of painting, but it can be put to good use.
>Why don't you think that impressionism is "an especially good style of
>painting"? Can you justify your opinion in terms of your definition of
>art?
Basically because it offers less opportunities for expression of ideas.
I'm not saying that there are no good impressionist paintings or that I
dislike them all. I'm saying that it is a more limited medium than many
others.
>>>Satie's *Trois Gymnopedies*?
>>I'm not familiar with it (at least not by that name).
>They are three solo piano pieces, composed by a contemporary of Debussy.
>Stunningly beautiful, I think.
I still have no idea. I know someone who is has a massive collection of
classical discs, so maybe I'll check it out.
>>>You've just reduced "art" to propaganda. Congratulations, I guess.
>>Really? I don't think so. Propaganda is a political expression of ideas.
>>Of course art can express political evaluations as well as non-political
>>ones, but that just means that propaganda art is a legitimate sub-category
>>of art, not that all art is propaganda. (Of course not all propaganda
>>is art either, some is just journalism.)
>What I mean is that your definition (1) accepts as art only that which
>has a message of some sort, and
That's true. If not the expression of an idea, what is art good for?
(By the way, I am using the word "idea" in a very broad way, not just
meaning highly intellectualized ideas, but also "What a nice spring day is
like." or "That feeling of excitement when one first meets a potential
mate." or any number of things.)
>(2) implies that art is to be judged
>according to the truth or falsehood of that message.
That is just one of the criteria, and not a defining one, by the way. There's
a lot of good art out there which is absolutely wrong (for a look at a lot
of this (and some ameteurish stuff too) check out a book called "Art of the
Third Reich".
>Obviously, that
>message doesn't have to be political, but as long as you insist on
>treating that message as the raison d'etre of the work, then you run the
>risk of being just as much a philistine as any government censor.
I'm not sure what you mean by that? I have very specific standards which
I use to judge art works. In what way does that make me like a censor?
Of course there are folks out there who insist that there is nothing
about a work of art which makes it any better or worse than any other, and
according to that outlook one MUST never judge art, but just accept it
uncritically and describe how it effects you. Maybe I don't
understand your position.
Carl Beaudry
>What I mean is that your [Brians] definition (1) accepts as art only that
>which has a message of some sort, and (2) implies that art is to be judged
>according to the truth or falsehood of that message. Obviously, that
>message doesn't have to be political, but as long as you insist on
>treating that message as the raison d'etre of the work, then you run the
>risk of being just as much a philistine as any government censor.
I hope that I'm not accused of petty sniping when when I observe that this
is precisely what Marxists did to art in the name of thier own
rationality-fixated belief system. A paralell, but not identical situation,
IMHO.
--Carl
Rick Healy
Topaz <to...@xmission.xmission.com> wrote:
>ri...@paleo.giss.nasa.gov (Rick Healy) writes:
>
>>In article <byoderCI...@netcom.com>,
>
>> If "propaganda art" is art then it succeeds only because the propaganda
>>fails as propaganda and becomes art.
>
>I beg to differ. The success of a work of art as a work of art is absolutely
>irrelevent as to whether it succeeds as propoganda. The two attributes
>("artistic" value and "propaganda" value) are completely orthogonal.
>
Let's suppose that's true. Then of all the works of art that have survived
over the millenia there is at least one that succeeds as propaganda. Now
if I were to look at that work then after determining that it was a fine
piece of art I could also say that it makes fine propaganda, too? I propose
that in addition to orthogonality there is mutual exclusivity. Art transcends
nationalities and ideologies.
Brian Upton
Rick Healy
Brian Upton <up...@cs.unc.edu> wrote:
>In article <2ev8l1$c...@paleo.giss.nasa.gov>, ri...@paleo.giss.nasa.gov (Rick Healy) writes:
>|> In article <2eu574$a...@xmission.xmission.com>,
>|> Topaz <to...@xmission.xmission.com> wrote:
>|> >ri...@paleo.giss.nasa.gov (Rick Healy) writes:
>|> >
>|> >>In article <byoderCI...@netcom.com>,
>|> >
>|> >> If "propaganda art" is art then it succeeds only because the propaganda
>|> >>fails as propaganda and becomes art.
>|> >
>|> >I beg to differ. The success of a work of art as a work of art is absolutely
>|> >irrelevent as to whether it succeeds as propoganda. The two attributes
>|> >("artistic" value and "propaganda" value) are completely orthogonal.
>|> >
>|>
>|> Let's suppose that's true. Then of all the works of art that have survived
>|> over the millenia there is at least one that succeeds as propaganda. Now
>|> if I were to look at that work then after determining that it was a fine
>|> piece of art I could also say that it makes fine propaganda, too? I propose
>|> that in addition to orthogonality there is mutual exclusivity. Art transcends
>|> nationalities and ideologies.
>
>
>Guernica.
>
>
It's a historical painting about the Spanish Civil war but it transcends
it with the symbol of the bull and matador that has nothing to do with
propaganda. Can a work that has been identified as propaganda be
considered propaganda any longer? Can propaganda within a work of
art endure a millenia? Does propaganda from ancient Greece in art work
survive today? There's a certain lifetime to propaganda that does not
exist for art.
This is an interesting topic and you can discuss propaganda art from
the Russian revolution but how much of that work can be considered real
art and how much can be considered illistration? Are TV ads works of art?
I don't think so because they're trying to sell something; they make
you want to possess their merchandise. That's prostitution not art. Like-
wise when you try to sell an ideology.
Carl Beaudry
> Can a work that has been identified as propaganda be
> considered propaganda any longer? Can propaganda within a work of
> art endure a millenia? Does propaganda from ancient Greece in art work
> survive today? There's a certain lifetime to propaganda that does not
> exist for art.
> This is an interesting topic and you can discuss propaganda art from
> the Russian revolution but how much of that work can be considered real
> art and how much can be considered illistration?
Interesting slant.
It seems to me that to the extent that many of the artists in the early
days of the revolution really *were* utopians that it would be as sincere
an artistic expression as any.
But more interesting still is the way that some socialist illustrators
thought that their craft would finally come to its 'proper' use:
commemorating the glorious workers in the course of....blah....freeing the
minds of the enslaved.... blah....furthering the goals of
the....blah....blah...blah....
The notion of art as a tool is valid territory for artistic expression.
Dali's 'The Persistence of Memory' is an example of precisely that
conception of art--as a means for the artist to defeat time and mold it to
his purpose. Much like that early Russian poster art was attempting to do.
--Carl
Carl Beaudry
> Um... If you're going to argue for Rand's definition of art, then argue
> for Rand's definition of art. Everything else you're saying rests on that
> definition, which she never gave sufficient reason for accepting. If you
> can, I'd love to hear it.
At the risk of 'piling on.' It is Rand's *total* misunderstanding of
aesthetics that screws up her epistemology which screws up her concept of
reason and judegment and thus everything else down the line. So I would
love to hear an explanation which would 'educate' my extremely negative
judgement of her thought.
IMHO, as far as Rand is concerned, aesthetics is truly 'the nail that the
horseshoe wanted.'
--Carl
Carl Beaudry
> I'm also willing
> to recognize that Cage's use of noise is what led to a lot of music I *do*
> like.
According to alt.fan.frank-zappa, when asked for a contribution to a
collection of Cage compositions, Zappa chose to interpret Cage's: _4:33" of
Silence_.
He did it in 6:15" and explained that he felt that it sounded better as a
down tempo orchestration.
--Carl
FZ tribute era artifact #491
Guru Aleph_Null
Christopher L. Stamper <clst...@sunloan.syr.edu> wrote:
>In article <2efs68$3...@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca> umpl...@ccu.umanitoba.ca (David Gregory Platt) writes:
>Does the A&E Network count as high culture?
Didn't/doesn't A&E play old Letterman reruns and stand-up comedy?
Does it instead count as Noveau Culture, while the pay-service Bravo
counts as high culture becuase its a little more elitist? (You have to
pay more for it in other words.)
[Turning this into a cable rant.. becuase cable does have a major
effect on our culture.. just think of all the HBO jokes you have
heard...]
Did anyone notice how CBN changed their image, and stopped calling
themselves the Christian Broadcasting Network and instead became "The
Family Channel?" How many "inspirational" channels are there on your
cable system? How many "home shopping" channels? How many "air
arivals/departures" channels?
Now, just wait until 500 channel systems start hitting the market,
what will be there? Multiply all that by 10 and you'll have 80
inspirational channels, 100 home shopping channels, 80 "raw-data"
channels. 260 channels of crap out of 500.
>Chris Stamper
>clst...@mailbox.syr.edu
--
.---------------------------------------. \ //~\ ~|~ |~~\
|Guru Aleph-Null s...@ukelele.gcr.com|% \ /| | | | |
`---------------------------------------'# \/ \_/ _|_ |__/
%#######################################% Where Prohibited.
Rick Healy
Well, yes, of course art is a valid territory for artisitic expression.
The early years of the Russian revolution were a time for artistic
expression because of the newness and drastic changes happening. However,
I would argue that any state sanctioned art in the immediate pre-Gorbachev
years is unlikely to be art. There are exceptions just as there are
exceptions (few) to the television ads being art (very few, indeed). It
would be pure happenstance and unwittingness if a Madison Avenue type
were to produce such an ad. But these guys are geniuses who've sold out
and now prostitute their talents. It's been my experience that when
I've actually appreciated an ad I don't know it's trying to sell a product
until that plug at the end and then I say "Oh, it's just an ad. See the logo?"
The same can be applied to propaganda art: "Oh, it's just propaganda. See the
flag?"
Topaz
>rationality-fixated belief system. A parallel, but not identical situation,
>IMHO.
I don't think you're sniping at me. Disagreeing with an Objectivist does
not make one a Marxist.
And I do think the situations are basically identical. With both Marxism
and Objectivism you have a "rationality-fixated" belief system that is,
for the believer, so obviously true as to over-ride any other criteria for
evaluation.
Granted the historical situation is different--no Objectivist art critic has
ever had the power of life and death over the artists s/he criticizes. This
is something for which I am very grateful--I've seen nothing to indicate that
they would be any better behaved then the Marxists, given the opportunity.
Steve Conley
Brian Upton <up...@cs.unc.edu> wrote:
>And I would also argue that without a viewer there is no art. A tree
>that falls alone in the forest makes no sound (or so quantum mechanics
>tells us). An expression without communication is empty, meaningless.
>Writing poems and keeping them in a box under your bed may be theraputic,
>but it's not art. Art requires two acts of creation: the first in the
>mind of the author, the second in the mind of the reader. Eliminate the
>second and you have a sunset, the first and you have masturbation. I've
>nothing against either, but neither is art.
I agree, but would like to point out that the author and the reader can be
the same person. The roles, however, are quite different.
>ObGenX:
>
>Are we as a generation less likely to produce "high art" because
>we lack sufficient background in "the canon" to create and
>appreciate work with historic depth and subtlety?
>
>And, moreover, do we care?
I would say that we just have different source material. There's a lot of
information in all those thousands of hours of television and stacks of
pulp novels we've consumed. And there's always the news.
Steve
--
steveconleyprodukt 1993 st...@bronze.coil.com
Life is short. Slack hard. Customer Service
My opinions are not COIL's. Central Ohio Internet Link, Inc.
"GenX owned and operated."
Brian K. Yoder
>bea...@cc.swarthmore.edu (Carl Beaudry) writes:
>>I hope that I'm not accused of petty sniping when when I observe that this
>>is precisely what Marxists did to art in the name of thier own
>>rationality-fixated belief system. A parallel, but not identical situation,
>>IMHO.
>I don't think you're sniping at me. Disagreeing with an Objectivist does
>not make one a Marxist.
That's certainly true.
>And I do think the situations are basically identical. With both Marxism
>and Objectivism you have a "rationality-fixated" belief system
Would you prefer an irrational system? Or a haphazard collage of incompatible
ideas?
>that is,
>for the believer, so obviously true as to over-ride any other criteria for
>evaluation.
What is the other alternative? To have beliefs which don't overide other
beliefs?
>Granted the historical situation is different--no Objectivist art critic has
>ever had the power of life and death over the artists s/he criticizes. This
>is something for which I am very grateful--I've seen nothing to indicate that
>they would be any better behaved then the Marxists, given the opportunity.
On what grounds do you reach that conclusion? It seems that your reasoning is:
Objectivists think they are right.
Marxists think they are right.
Marxists kill their enemies.
Therefore Objectivists will kill their enemies.
Is this not what you are claiming? Is this not fallacious reasoning?
This posting and many others I have seen lately basically attack Objectivist
philosophy purely on the basis that it claims that there are proper and
improper methods of reasoning and that there are true and false conclusions
which can be reached. Is that really the worst criticism you can offer?
Carl Beaudry
> >>I hope that I'm not accused of petty sniping when when I observe that this
> >>is precisely what Marxists did to art in the name of thier own
> >>rationality-fixated belief system. A parallel, but not identical situation,
> Topaz wrote:
> >I don't think you're sniping at me. Disagreeing with an Objectivist does
> >not make one a Marxist.
Brian K. Yoder wrote:
> That's certainly true.
Which statement? The one about sniping or about Marxism? :^)
> >With both Marxism and Objectivism you have a "rationality-fixated"
> >belief system
>
> Would you prefer an irrational system? Or a haphazard collage of incompatible
> ideas?
This assumes that the irrational is 100% antirational. The non-rational and
the anti-rational are distinct kinds of irrationality. To recognize
non-rational desire does not make one an 'enemy' of reason, rather it makes
one who informs reason with other elements of reality as opposed to
defining those elements away. Beauty is such an element. It exists and it
should be acknowledged as such.
All Human beings should reject the epistemic genocide of non-rational
beauty which Objectivists profess when they term it to be 'irrational' and
unworthy of humanity's highest faculties. It is literally ontic
genocide--an attempt to remove from the world an entire kind of
thing--beauty.
> This posting and many others I have seen lately basically attack Objectivist
> philosophy purely on the basis that it claims that there are proper and
> improper methods of reasoning and that there are true and false conclusions
> which can be reached. Is that really the worst criticism you can offer?
Now that's not true. No one *here* who has expressly criticized Objectivism
has suggested that there are not "proper and improper methods of reasoning"
or that there are not "true and false conclusions."
However, there has been a wide open market in disputing the Objectivist
claim to sole possession, of either of those categories.
--Carl
Sheilagh M.B.E. O'Hare
Damn. I've been away too long. Pollack is no more crap than Rand, nor
thee, nor I. *You* Dont Like Him, so argue that he isnt art.. I might,
and ART is realative, as is beauty.. unless we're all doing our jobs.
See below. (I'm yelling at whomever reads this and applies it to them-
selves. If you dont think I am meaning you, then I ain't.)
Carl Beaudry <bea...@cc.swarthmore.edu> wrote:
>Brian K. Yoder wrote:
>> ...since aesthetics is dependent on metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics...
>
>Please bear in mind that you also say that: 'the purpose of a definition is
>to distinguish some things from other things' So a definition of beauty
>which uniquely isolates beauty from everything else would be nice too.
>
Beauty is Love,
Love is that attractive attracive force that repels,
see also Unified Force Theory.
Gravity keeps you sane.
If beauty attracts you, which my this deffinition anything that attracts
might find some level of beuty in it's qualities, then there it is. I like
Elliot, havent read any Joyce, and would argue that anyone who finds something
to not be art is wrong, even me. It just isnt art *to them*.
However, the purpose of all art is to show you as much as possible
about the most number of things in the best way. Sex is art, as is good food.
Great Zen mantras make you use your head well, thus are a form of beauty. The
very worst thing is that there are other people out there that are expierienc-
ing art in other ways, and you can't get in everyone else's head. However,
the collections of images at a museum, the word plays and references in some-
thing like The Wasteland, whatever holds various layers of meaning, can be
among the highest forms of art. There are ugly things that are beautiful.
A corpse oozing green slime might just be the treasure trove of a biologist,
and you just have to wait and see what images becomes the next mandelbrot sets
of bizarre graphics art. If you live in a world that lacks enough art to
make it appealing to yourself, much less attract the attention of anyone else,
that's no one else's fault. Make your world aesthetically appealing to you,
and when people see your house, your style, then *you* are art, and communicate
that which you have desired to. Science is art, communication is the only
thing that makes our Modern Science anything other than alchemy with a bunch
of inbred acedemia loser types. Cross pollinate from every field, that's one
of the best things about TSElliot's Wasteland.. images of Tarot cards and
ancient greek myths and new stuff of his own.. maybe you dont like that poem
in particular, but if it gets you to dig out your old mythology text and enjoy
Ovid again, then bully for TSE! You were made to think and live and enjoy and
feel the beauty of something that most of us forget in our daily carfilled-
computer generated lives. If you like Chaos and find that your junky closet
is agoodly altar for the sacrifice of future fashions, keep at it. Living,
loving, laughing, breathing, talking, seeking beauty. It's ok if you dont
like pollack, just hang up some Dali or Michealangelo or whomever.. and dont
try to devine for others that it is or isnt art. It's all art. Especially
finger painting to three year olds.
And as for whomever (Brian?) asked who cares about the ravings of the
mundane, normal working mind, why the hell are you reading this, eh!?!!?!?
Topaz
>In article <2euj01$c...@xmission.xmission.com> to...@xmission.xmission.com (Topaz) writes:
>>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>>In article <2eotm7$j...@xmission.xmission.com> to...@xmission.xmission.com (Topaz) writes:
>>>>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>>Well, there are some pretty obvious ones, such as his preference for certain
>>>traits in women over others, a preference for beauty over ugliness, a lack
>>>of a belief in the impotance of pain and despair.
>>Really? I see a specific picture of a specific beautiful woman. I fail to
>>see how you extract those particular judgements from the picture itself. In
>>fact, it seems to me that insofar as these value judgements exist, they
>>are coming from you, not the painting.
>No they didn't. DaVinci had to decide what kind of woman to paint. He had
>to decide what she would be doing, her clothes, her background, her hairstyle,
>and a hundred other details. He had to also leave things out too. You may
>note that he also left some things out too. That little scar on one of the
>models. The cold sore he could have painted on her lip. The burning
>giraffe he could have put in the background.
I'm not claiming that Da Vinci didn't make a great many choices when he
painted the *Mona Lisa*--of course he did. However:
1) The fact that he made choices, does not say anything about Brian Yoder's
(or anyone elses) ability to know what those choices are. I would be hard
put to derive *anything* useful from the fact that Da Vinci did not put a
burning giraffe in the *Mona Lisa*, let alone that he had a "belief in the
impotence of pain and despair".
2) There is no reason to expect that all the choices he made were aesthetic
or philosophical. Given what I know about human nature, I suspect that Da
Vinci's refusal to paint a cold sore on Mona Lisa's lip has more to do with
the fact that he couldn't afford to insult his patron than with any aesthetic
beliefs he might have had.
>As I understand it, Mona Lisa was not a portrait of any one person, but
>was a composite of several (6?) different women.
My memory was that it was a painting of a specific woman, and that it was
commissioned by her husband. Anyway, I did a little research, and what I
found out was that nobody is certain who (or if) the woman was, but that
the best guess is that is was a real person--one Mona Lisa Gherardini. The
wife of Florantine nobleman Francesco di Bartolommeo di Zanobi del Giocondo.
>>Furthermore, I reject your notion that the quality of a work of art is
>>dependent on the Correctness of the value judgements the artist is
>>supposedly expressing.
>Are you saying that two paintings of equal expressiveness, craftsmanship,
>and so on are of equal quality if one expresses a true and good idea while
>the other expresses a false or evil one?
This is precisely what I'm saying. Whether or not a work of art succeeds
>Why should one not evaluate that aspect of the work as well?
One should. In fact, I'd guess that everyone does--I certainly do. However,
I think it's important to seperate out the aesthetic evaluations (does it
"succeed" at whatever it sets out to do?) from non-aesthetic ones (do I
personally approve of what it's trying to do? can I, in good conscience,
financially support this?)_.
>I agree, but given two museums of equal expressiveness and so on wouldn't
>you prefer one with inspiring heroic-looking statues of doctors, scientists,
>and businessmen and another with inspiring heroic statues of Adolph Hitler,
>which would you prefer?
Given those two choices, I suspect I'd prefer the former, if only because
the giggle-factor would be greater. Further, various non-aesthetic factors
related to my real-world opinion of Hitler would probably interfere with my
appreciation of the latter.
That said, both choices seem pretty nauseating. My taste in art does not
tend towards the Inspiring or Heroic.
>>If I see
>>a beautiful woman walking down the street, I'm just as likely to draw these
>>abstract ideas. It seems to me that insofar as I draw these abstract ideas
>>from the *Mona Lisa*, it is because it is a realistic picture of a beautiful
>>woman.
>Nope. When you see a real woman on the street, you will evaluate her
>on the basis of the choices she made in preparing her appearance as well
>as various other things about her.
If you want to argue that a real woman on the street is a work of art (because
of those "choices"), I might be forced to agree with you. Although, you would
have a much harder time making that case with a landscape.
>One difference between a real woman
>and a painting of one has to do with flaws. If you noticed that she had a
>little run in her stocking it probably wouldn't change your interpretation
>of what she was like. On the other hand, if a painter or sculptor
>intentionally put a run on the stocking of a beautiful woman in his work
>what would that say about his selection mechanism? It owuld be that he is
>either a hyper-naturalist (and thus trying to portary concretes rather than
>concepts) oe he's hung up on flaws somehow and can't bring himself to
>create anything perfect.
Or maybe he doesn't believe that beauty has anything to do with such a
shallow conception of "perfection". Or maybe he's trying to capture
some facet of personality (something like "this is a beautiful woman
who has ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST in being a fashion model", or "this
is a beautiful woman who is charmingly unconcerned with her physical
appearence"). Again, I can get this from a picture, or I can get it
from real life.
>>(2) implies that art is to be judged
>>according to the truth or falsehood of that message.
>That is just one of the criteria, and not a defining one, by the way. There's
>a lot of good art out there which is absolutely wrong (for a look at a lot
>of this (and some ameteurish stuff too) check out a book called "Art of the
>Third Reich".
We may be closer together than I had thought, if you believe that art can
be "good" and "wrong" at the same time.
>Of course there are folks out there who insist that there is nothing
>about a work of art which makes it any better or worse than any other, and
>according to that outlook one MUST never judge art, but just accept it
>uncritically and describe how it effects you. Maybe I don't
>understand your position.
My position is that the statement "this is morally reprehensible" has nothing
whatever to do with the statement "this is successful as a work of art." I
don't really have any "standards" (i.e. I can't think of any objective
statement, that characterizes all and only those works of art that I have
a given opinion on), but I do have strong opinions about what I like and
what I don't like, and I spend a fair amount of time and effort thinking
about art and my reactions thereto.
I do not believe that the only alternative to a consciously articulated
critical framework of the sort that you espouse is pure uncritical
relativism.
Topaz
>In article <2f3rau$9...@xmission.xmission.com> to...@xmission.xmission.com (Topaz) writes:
>>bea...@cc.swarthmore.edu (Carl Beaudry) writes:
>>And I do think the situations are basically identical. With both Marxism
>>and Objectivism you have a "rationality-fixated" belief system
>Would you prefer an irrational system?
No. The ones we've had in the past have been as bad as the rational ones.
*Exactly* as bad.
>Or a haphazard collage of incompatible ideas?
Given a choice between a haphazard collage of incompatible ideas that is
known to provide workable solutions a lot of the time; and an over-arching
philosophical construct whose practitioners insist works ALL the time, even
when it doesn't?
>>Granted the historical situation is different--no Objectivist art critic has
>>ever had the power of life and death over the artists s/he criticizes. This
>>is something for which I am very grateful--I've seen nothing to indicate that
>>they would be any better behaved then the Marxists, given the opportunity.
>On what grounds do you reach that conclusion? It seems that your reasoning is:
>Objectivists think they are right.
>Marxists think they are right.
>Marxists kill their enemies.
>Therefore Objectivists will kill their enemies.
>Is this not what you are claiming? Is this not fallacious reasoning?
I'm not claiming that Objectivists will *necessarily* kill their enemies.
I'm claiming that there are enough similarities between Objectivists and
Marxists, that there is a real possibility (*not* a certainty) that given the
opportunity, Objectivists would behave in the same manner.
I could be wrong. I certainly hope so, for your sake, if nothing else.
>This posting and many others I have seen lately basically attack Objectivist
>philosophy purely on the basis that it claims that there are proper and
>improper methods of reasoning and that there are true and false conclusions
>which can be reached. Is that really the worst criticism you can offer?
I'd take this a little more seriously if I thought that more of the
conclusions reached by Objectivists were in fact correct.
Brian K. Yoder
>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>I agree, but given two museums of equal expressiveness and so on wouldn't
>>you prefer one with inspiring heroic-looking statues of doctors, scientists,
>>and businessmen and another with inspiring heroic statues of Adolph Hitler,
>>which would you prefer?
>Given those two choices, I suspect I'd prefer the former, if only because
>the giggle-factor would be greater. Further, various non-aesthetic factors
>related to my real-world opinion of Hitler would probably interfere with my
>appreciation of the latter.
>That said, both choices seem pretty nauseating. My taste in art does not
>tend towards the Inspiring or Heroic.
That's too bad. Why not?
>>>(2) implies that art is to be judged
>>>according to the truth or falsehood of that message.
>>That is just one of the criteria, and not a defining one, by the way. There's
>>a lot of good art out there which is absolutely wrong (for a look at a lot
>>of this (and some ameteurish stuff too) check out a book called "Art of the
>>Third Reich".
>We may be closer together than I had thought, if you believe that art can
>be "good" and "wrong" at the same time.
Certainly. I also think a thing can be beautiful or enjoyable without
being art (like a sunset for example).
That said, my overall preference is for art that is effective at expressing
some concept, that it be a good and true concept, and that it be beautiful.
That's not to say that there is no value in things which have only one or two
of these chraracteristics, but on those rare occasions when I see all of them
in one work I am very impressed.
>>Of course there are folks out there who insist that there is nothing
>>about a work of art which makes it any better or worse than any other, and
>>according to that outlook one MUST never judge art, but just accept it
>>uncritically and describe how it effects you. Maybe I don't
>>understand your position.
>My position is that the statement "this is morally reprehensible" has nothing
>whatever to do with the statement "this is successful as a work of art."
As I said before, I agree. It is also possible to say "I recognize that this
is a great work of art AND I don't like it."
>I don't really have any "standards" (i.e. I can't think of any objective
>statement, that characterizes all and only those works of art that I have
>a given opinion on), but I do have strong opinions about what I like and
>what I don't like, and I spend a fair amount of time and effort thinking
>about art and my reactions thereto.
Well, how's this. An work of art can posess the following virtues:
1) It can be effective to portraying an idea (according to my position this
one is mandatory in order for the work to be considered art at all since
the other items below can exist in non-artistic things)
2) It can exhibit excellent skill in execution
3) It can be attractive to the eye
4) It can portray a good/true idea
>I do not believe that the only alternative to a consciously articulated
>critical framework of the sort that you espouse is pure uncritical
>relativism.
What alternative(s) do you propose? I certainly think there are others,
but the ones that come to mind are wither silly or useless.
Carl Beaudry
> My memory was that it was a painting of a specific woman, and that it was
> commissioned by her husband. Anyway, I did a little research, and what I
> found out was that nobody is certain who (or if) the woman was, but that
> the best guess is that is was a real person--one Mona Lisa Gherardini. The
> wife of Florantine nobleman Francesco di Bartolommeo di Zanobi del Giocondo.
About two years ago therre was a computer analysis of the work and the
facial structure of the Mona Lisa was found to be indentical to Leonardo's
self-portrait once you stripped away the beard and stuff. Thus the idea
that it may have been a little bit of Renaissance cross-dressing.
The idea of Leonardo as a drag queen is intrinsically amusing for some
reason.
--Carl
Topaz
e-mail me a copy--otherwise, I won't see it.]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <2f65e3$k...@xmission.xmission.com> to...@xmission.xmission.com (Topaz) writes:
>>byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>That said, both choices seem pretty nauseating. My taste in art does not
>>tend towards the Inspiring or Heroic.
>That's too bad. Why not?
Mainly because I prefer art with a more psychological focus--art which
reflects the state of mind of the artist and/or captures what is going on
inside the subjects (if appropriate). Most "inspiring" and/or "heroic"
art strikes me as being more interested in telling me how I *should* feel,
as opposed to showing me how *it* feels.
I realize that this doesn't properly answer the question "why". As far as
I know, my aesthetic tastes don't reflect any prior philosophical beliefs.
If anything, I suspect that the reverse is more likely to be true.
>>I do not believe that the only alternative to a consciously articulated
>>critical framework of the sort that you espouse is pure uncritical
>>relativism.
>What alternative(s) do you propose? I certainly think there are others,
>but the ones that come to mind are wither silly or useless.
I think the best one can do is to start with subjective reactions (ones
own and other peoples), use those to construct (always) provisional
guidelines.
This doesn't provide any thing in the way of "objective" "certainty". On
the other hand, every attempt to provide that kind of certainty is either
woefully simple-minded, or turns out to be, when examined closely, an *ex
post facto* attempt to justify an individual's personal taste.