Harry Potter and the Affliction of Tepid Modernism
Sunbeam the Deacon
on Harry Potter and Stephen King):
Which takes us to another phenomenon, one that gets glossed over in
oversimple discussions of "good" art vs. "bad": the cleavage that
occurred at the start of the modernist period, when "serious" artists
started creating for academics, critics, and one another, rather than
any kind of general audience, even a highly educated one. After that,
the serious artist developed -- indeed, was required to express --
contempt for their audience. When artists become bound up in academic
pretense, style drifts /away/ from quality. And as the audience falls
away, fewer develop the skills necessary to propagate the art. Thus
high modernism, which gave us so much that is genuinely wonderful,
gave way in the second half of the 20th century to the tepid modernism
which continues to afflict us today.
Oddly enough, a major Modernist, T. S. Eliot, noted a similar "cleavage"
and claimed that it happened around 1600 in English writing (IIRC) as
writing broke down into entirely different modes of discourse aimed at very
different audiences for very different reasons.
I suspect that while all sorts of cultures have all sorts of cleavages,
it is worth noting that in aesthetic discussions, one gets to select the
sorts of cleavages one wants. If some modernist project is to blame for the
current state of Bloom and confusion, I think it is the modernist aim of
confusing aesthetic analyses with more or less cultural choices; we may wish
to confuse them or think they are the same, but if we want to be clear about
why some work offers elements we like and another offers more of them or
less of them, then we should turn toward the wilds of aesthetics (where no
one has been except by accident since High Modernism rolled over and
flattened early Modernism in about 1930) and away from the mart of culture
with its many fluctuations and what not.
--
Then Pallas breath'd in Tydeus' sonne --to render whom
supreame
To all the Greekes at all his parts she cast a hoter beame
On his high mind, his body fild with much superiour might
And made his compleate armor cast a farre more complete light.
Dr Zen
> Joshua P. Hill has just noted (with reference to the Almond article on Bloom
> on Harry Potter and Stephen King):
>
>
> Which takes us to another phenomenon, one that gets glossed over in
> oversimple discussions of "good" art vs. "bad": the cleavage that
> occurred at the start of the modernist period, when "serious" artists
> started creating for academics, critics, and one another, rather than
> any kind of general audience, even a highly educated one. After that,
> the serious artist developed -- indeed, was required to express --
> contempt for their audience. When artists become bound up in academic
> pretense, style drifts /away/ from quality. And as the audience falls
> away, fewer develop the skills necessary to propagate the art. Thus
> high modernism, which gave us so much that is genuinely wonderful,
> gave way in the second half of the 20th century to the tepid modernism
> which continues to afflict us today.
>
You'll agree with me, though, Sunbeam, that this is well wide of the
mark. We are hardly suffering from "tepid modernism", although you
could certainly so describe the high literary style indulged in by the
UEA school.
> Oddly enough, a major Modernist, T. S. Eliot, noted a similar "cleavage"
> and claimed that it happened around 1600 in English writing (IIRC) as
> writing broke down into entirely different modes of discourse aimed at very
> different audiences for very different reasons.
I think that's a different question, though. Eliot might have noted,
but I'm presuming he did not, that English writing only really began
to *exist* not long before 1600, having seen off the main competitor,
Latin. Without means of dissemination, how can there be a written
literature of substance? The growth of written English of that time
must be seen as somewhat due to the decreasing cost of print.
Among many other things.
I think you're wrong, btw, about cultural hegemony. Material resources
buy hegemony - that's a truism. However, the hegemony is far more
diffuse than some think (there certainly is no Jewish cabal running
the entertainment business, for instance - TINC of any sort; Western
culture is far more a thing of consensus (everyone agreeing that the
greatest aim is to chase the dollar)). But I think it would be wrong
not to note that local cultural forms are being somewhat displaced by,
well, whatever we want to call it.
>
> I suspect that while all sorts of cultures have all sorts of cleavages,
> it is worth noting that in aesthetic discussions, one gets to select the
> sorts of cleavages one wants.
Well, of course, what we're discussing is rather more fractured than
we're giving credit. Think about colours, though. We call a band of
wavelengths of light "blue" and another "red" and this is arguably
arbitrary, but the wavelengths are there.
> If some modernist project is to blame for the
> current state of Bloom and confusion, I think it is the modernist aim of
> confusing aesthetic analyses with more or less cultural choices
Oh dear. Back to Modernism 101 with you, sonny. That's very much a
postmodernist critique of modernism. Modernism itself would claim that
aesthetics stands outside of culture. (Bell's extraordinary claim that
aesthetics lies solely in form is quite exquisite, but it's only the
extreme of a widely held view.)
Is deciding what is beautiful solely a cultural judgment? Is a
modernist incapable of appreciating Chinese calligraphy? Or can he or
she only appreciate it if it matches Western norms of beauty? Is our
judgment of calligraphy wrong? Is it really different to Chinese
judgment of it? (You might add the clinching question: am I really
expecting any of the halfwits who infest this group to even attempt an
answer to those questions?)
> we may wish
> to confuse them or think they are the same, but if we want to be clear about
> why some work offers elements we like and another offers more of them or
> less of them, then we should turn toward the wilds of aesthetics (where no
> one has been except by accident since High Modernism rolled over and
> flattened early Modernism in about 1930) and away from the mart of culture
> with its many fluctuations and what not.
I'm not convinced that that distinction in modernism really works (I
am assuming you are distinguishing a more sensual modernism from the
austere, mentalism of the 30s - Belle Epoque vs Bauhaus, if you like,
or at least the triumph of the transformative idea of modernism that
led, I suppose, to futurism, fascism and ultimately, the chaos of
WWII). In a way you are simply distinguishing "modernism" (the
programme of the Enlightenment) from "Modernism" (the artistic
movement of the early part of last century). I think they're the same
thing, with the big "M" simply being the cultural expression of its
day of the little "m" that began, possibly, with the English
translations of the Bible, and was definitely under way in 15th
century northern Italy (although it's easy to see that Cellini is
fleshy where Eliot is mindy).
Zen
Sunbeam the Deacon
"Dr Zen" <gol...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:5e7da04d.03102...@posting.google.com...
> "Sunbeam the Deacon" <braz...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:<jeAlb.31886$W77...@bignews6.bellsouth.net>...
> > Joshua P. Hill has just noted (with reference to the Almond article on
Bloom
> > on Harry Potter and Stephen King):
> >
> >
> > Which takes us to another phenomenon, one that gets glossed over in
> > oversimple discussions of "good" art vs. "bad": the cleavage that
> > occurred at the start of the modernist period, when "serious" artists
> > started creating for academics, critics, and one another, rather than
> > any kind of general audience, even a highly educated one. After that,
> > the serious artist developed -- indeed, was required to express --
> > contempt for their audience. When artists become bound up in academic
> > pretense, style drifts /away/ from quality. And as the audience falls
> > away, fewer develop the skills necessary to propagate the art. Thus
> > high modernism, which gave us so much that is genuinely wonderful,
> > gave way in the second half of the 20th century to the tepid modernism
> > which continues to afflict us today.
> >
>
> You'll agree with me, though, Sunbeam, that this is well wide of the
> mark. We are hardly suffering from "tepid modernism", although you
> could certainly so describe the high literary style indulged in by the
> UEA school.
Yes, I agree, tepid modernism is the least of our problems when it
comes to dealing with unraveling aesthetic from cultural analyses...rampant,
reckless, all-devouring post romantic all modernism in one monstrous brew is
the problem.
>
> > Oddly enough, a major Modernist, T. S. Eliot, noted a similar
"cleavage"
> > and claimed that it happened around 1600 in English writing (IIRC) as
> > writing broke down into entirely different modes of discourse aimed at
very
> > different audiences for very different reasons.
>
> I think that's a different question, though. Eliot might have noted,
> but I'm presuming he did not, that English writing only really began
> to *exist* not long before 1600, having seen off the main competitor,
> Latin.
Well...Latin or no...if Eliot really specified 1600 (and I'm not
sure he did) then, I think a very god case can be made that for some strands
of Western Civ, something very crucial happened at about that time and a
small fragment of that culture has been making amazing progress in analytic
methods since that time. The rest of the world (and the rest of Western
Civ) has been happy to wallow in whatever mess it has managed to enjoy
without much evidence of having the slightest idea that there are ways of
evaluating analytic methods (for example)....
Without means of dissemination, how can there be a written
> literature of substance? The growth of written English of that time
> must be seen as somewhat due to the decreasing cost of print.
Or the increasing sophistication of a broad cultural region.
>
> Among many other things.
>
> I think you're wrong, btw, about cultural hegemony. Material resources
> buy hegemony - that's a truism. However, the hegemony is far more
> diffuse than some think (there certainly is no Jewish cabal running
> the entertainment business, for instance - TINC of any sort; Western
> culture is far more a thing of consensus (everyone agreeing that the
> greatest aim is to chase the dollar)). But I think it would be wrong
> not to note that local cultural forms are being somewhat displaced by,
> well, whatever we want to call it.
Well...you can buy some sort of hegenomy, but it tends to be an exercise in
taxidermic culture rather than living growing culture. Sure there are times
when say a totalitarian regime forces culture to have a certain set of
limited modes/topoi whatever, but this is more a matter of enforcement than
real cultural life...
>
> >
> > I suspect that while all sorts of cultures have all sorts of
cleavages,
> > it is worth noting that in aesthetic discussions, one gets to select the
> > sorts of cleavages one wants.
>
> Well, of course, what we're discussing is rather more fractured than
> we're giving credit. Think about colours, though. We call a band of
> wavelengths of light "blue" and another "red" and this is arguably
> arbitrary, but the wavelengths are there.
>
> > If some modernist project is to blame for the
> > current state of Bloom and confusion, I think it is the modernist aim of
> > confusing aesthetic analyses with more or less cultural choices
>
> Oh dear. Back to Modernism 101 with you, sonny.
Hmmm.....no no so hasty...its back to Modernism 101 for everybody. We
don't have to believe the destructive gestures of High Modernism. What if
there is a real way to analyze and relate culture and aesthetics? Doesn't
High Modernism get its ghastly zombie bluff called at that point?
That's very much a
> postmodernist critique of modernism. Modernism itself would claim that
> aesthetics stands outside of culture. (Bell's extraordinary claim that
> aesthetics lies solely in form is quite exquisite, but it's only the
> extreme of a widely held view.)
Right...but if you deconstruct the High Modernist gesture of radical
detachment...it's a silly sham, with almost no analytic value or content.
--
William Penrose
<braz...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>... After that,
>the serious artist developed -- indeed, was required to express --
>contempt for their audience.
Golly Gosh, I haven't seen any of that on this newsgroup. Luckily
we're not a pretentious lot.
>....When artists become bound up in academic
>pretense, style drifts /away/ from quality.
Not to mention readability and relevance.
Bill Penrose
Sunbeam the Deacon
--
Then Pallas breath'd in Tydeus' sonne --to render whom
supreame
To all the Greekes at all his parts she cast a hoter beame
On his high mind, his body fild with much superiour might
And made his compleate armor cast a farre more complete light.
I don't think so and Kant doesn't seem to have thought so. I think
Wittgenstein and Husserl might also have had their doubts about whether the
question of what pleases and why is as cultural as it seems. Finding what
is not entirely explicable in cultural terms in these matters is a
problematical thing, but not unrewarding.
Is a
> modernist incapable of appreciating Chinese calligraphy?
Is the selective incorporation of non-western elements one of the
basic (and very misleading) strategies of Modernism?
Or can he or
> she only appreciate it if it matches Western norms of beauty?
Or do we get the Modernist answer: via the purity of Modernism you can
escape the norms of beauty into a special mode of pure experience and there
you can see the non-Western somehow or other?
Is our
> judgment of calligraphy wrong? Is it really different to Chinese
> judgment of it? (You might add the clinching question: am I really
> expecting any of the halfwits who infest this group to even attempt an
> answer to those questions?)
I don't know. Calligraphy is a good pick for a problematic
question. At the moment I have no idea.
> > we may wish
> > to confuse them or think they are the same, but if we want to be clear
about
> > why some work offers elements we like and another offers more of them or
> > less of them, then we should turn toward the wilds of aesthetics (where
no
> > one has been except by accident since High Modernism rolled over and
> > flattened early Modernism in about 1930) and away from the mart of
culture
> > with its many fluctuations and what not.
>
> I'm not convinced that that distinction in modernism really works (I
> am assuming you are distinguishing a more sensual modernism from the
> austere, mentalism of the 30s - Belle Epoque vs Bauhaus, if you like,
Or Mallarme from Eliot....yes.
> or at least the triumph of the transformative idea of modernism that
> led, I suppose, to futurism, fascism and ultimately, the chaos of
> WWII).
Modernism as a Cultural force posing as a way of letting people have
direct (ie properly romantic) experiences.
In a way you are simply distinguishing "modernism" (the
> programme of the Enlightenment) from "Modernism" (the artistic
> movement of the early part of last century). I think they're the same
> thing, with the big "M" simply being the cultural expression of its
> day of the little "m" that began, possibly, with the English
> translations of the Bible, and was definitely under way in 15th
> century northern Italy (although it's easy to see that Cellini is
> fleshy where Eliot is mindy).
To pick a cleavage or two: I would suggest that Romanticism warmed over
is the essence of the bad side of Moderism. I like to think that one can
isolate a more constructive strand in Western Civ...one that runs from the
speculative allegories of the 12th century (Alan of Lille), on to such late
Humanists as Chapman and Joseph Scaliger and thence through the
Enlightenment...almost wiped out by Modernism and Totalitarianism and now
coming back here and there.
But you never can tell......................................
Sunbeam the Deacon
"William Penrose" <wpen...@customsensorsolutions.com> wrote in message
news:qt6epvc63llalhbai...@4ax.com...
Well...that's me quoting Joshua P. Hill. The whole Hill extract goes:
> Which takes us to another phenomenon, one that gets glossed over in
> oversimple discussions of "good" art vs. "bad": the cleavage that
> occurred at the start of the modernist period, when "serious" artists
> started creating for academics, critics, and one another, rather than
> any kind of general audience, even a highly educated one. After that,
> the serious artist developed -- indeed, was required to express --
> contempt for their audience. When artists become bound up in academic
> pretense, style drifts /away/ from quality. And as the audience falls
> away, fewer develop the skills necessary to propagate the art. Thus
> high modernism, which gave us so much that is genuinely wonderful,
> gave way in the second half of the 20th century to the tepid modernism
> which continues to afflict us today.
And naturally.....I have my doubts that that's what's afflicting us
today.
Joshua P. Hill
<braz...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
The absolutes of aesthetics are, I think, a bit treacherous, because
while they are sensed and in some local or ad hoc applications clearly
understood, and while we have a rather interesting theoretical
understanding, we have no algorithm that can reliably rate a work on
the basis of aesthetic criteria: that would require a more
sophisticated understanding of mind than we now have.
Thus I can take as an indication of J S Bach's remarkable talent and
skill the fact that he was the only man ever to have improvised a
six-part fugue, and I can even apply information theory to his music,
and show on that basis that it's more sophisticated than the music of
another composer. I can compare Shakespeare's working vocabulary to
Stephen King's. And I can explain why these things are important. But
I cannot turn a crank and say that Hamlet, say, is a greater work than
All's Well That Ends Well, although most of us would probably agree
that it is.
So: theory tells us only so much; the human mind is the final arbiter,
and the best we can say is that those who are /more talented in and
more familiar with/ a given art are apt to prefer such-and-such a work
than those who aren't; that, in effect, is the canon, or are the
canons, since few find it practical to judge simultaneously (say)
Japanese and French literature.
But, that being said, I don't disagree with that aspect of Bloom's
argument. What we know of aesthetics -- and we do know a bit more
today than we did in 1930 -- supports him; so do matters ad hoc. But
only to a point; it's fairly easy to explain from the perspective of
aesthetics why serial music, for example, has a limited emotional
range. And really, one doesn't need sophisticated aesthetics to
understand that, or why the poetry of W S Merwin, say, appeals only to
the academic, while the poetry of T S Eliot has a broader range, and
of Robert Frost a broader range too.
Anyway, I agree that elements of social class and, really, sociology
are important here; Hegel, Carlyle, and Veblen are perhaps better
starting points for understanding what has happened than Aristotle,
Kant, or Derrida. It is the shift of judgement from the upper to the
middle class that is responsible for the shift in artistic
possibility. In primitive societies, there is no cleavage, as class
lines are not distinct. In aristocratic societies, art cleaves between
that which is created for the aristocracy and that which is created
for (and typically by) the peasantry. With the rise of the middle
class, art cleaves between the masses and the "improved" or educated
members of the middle class, but working against this is the ideal of
a classless meritocracy. The forces thus unleashed -- middle class
snobbery; the middle ideal of meritocracy and self-improvement through
education; the tendency of democracy, promoted by the middle class to
further its own interests, to "empower" disenfranchised groups; all
serve to create an art that places itself above its audience, appeals
largely to the educated specialist, and hides what it is behind
proletarian garb, much as today's upper middle and upper classes hide
overt displays of class in their dress, and express it instead through
subtle codes recognizable only by those in their own group.
--
Josh
To reply by email, delete "REMOVETHIS" from the address line.
Joshua P. Hill
>You'll agree with me, though, Sunbeam, that this is well wide of the
>mark. We are hardly suffering from "tepid modernism", although you
>could certainly so describe the high literary style indulged in by the
>UEA school.
And yet, you were the one who noted just a few days ago that there was
nothing much doing on the poetry front. Accurately, of course: we have
no Yeats or Eliot or Thomas, we have no Joyce, we have no Picasso, we
have no Stravinsky, and so forth. Do you claim otherwise?
>> If some modernist project is to blame for the
>> current state of Bloom and confusion, I think it is the modernist aim of
>> confusing aesthetic analyses with more or less cultural choices
>
>Oh dear. Back to Modernism 101 with you, sonny. That's very much a
>postmodernist critique of modernism. Modernism itself would claim that
>aesthetics stands outside of culture. (Bell's extraordinary claim that
>aesthetics lies solely in form is quite exquisite, but it's only the
>extreme of a widely held view.)
>
>Is deciding what is beautiful solely a cultural judgment? Is a
>modernist incapable of appreciating Chinese calligraphy? Or can he or
>she only appreciate it if it matches Western norms of beauty? Is our
>judgment of calligraphy wrong? Is it really different to Chinese
>judgment of it? (You might add the clinching question: am I really
>expecting any of the halfwits who infest this group to even attempt an
>answer to those questions?)
You could always ask your dog.
But Zen, these questions have been answered, and the answers are
obvious to those bright enough to transcend ideology. Of course the
post-modernists are wrong, insofar as they make sweeping
generalizations of the sort you mention. But then, the modernists
weren't entirely right, either.
Dr Zen
I wish that had made as much sense to me as it evidently did to you.
> >
> > > Oddly enough, a major Modernist, T. S. Eliot, noted a similar
> "cleavage"
> > > and claimed that it happened around 1600 in English writing (IIRC) as
> > > writing broke down into entirely different modes of discourse aimed at
> very
> > > different audiences for very different reasons.
> >
> > I think that's a different question, though. Eliot might have noted,
> > but I'm presuming he did not, that English writing only really began
> > to *exist* not long before 1600, having seen off the main competitor,
> > Latin.
>
> Well...Latin or no...if Eliot really specified 1600 (and I'm not
> sure he did) then, I think a very god case can be made that for some strands
> of Western Civ, something very crucial happened at about that time
Lots of crucial things happened at that time.
> and a
> small fragment of that culture has been making amazing progress in analytic
> methods since that time. The rest of the world (and the rest of Western
> Civ) has been happy to wallow in whatever mess it has managed to enjoy
> without much evidence of having the slightest idea that there are ways of
> evaluating analytic methods (for example)....
>
If you're saying that the triumph of western science has been based on
its reluctance to accept that its analytic method is just one of many,
that's true, but one ought not forget that it has been triumphant.
> Without means of dissemination, how can there be a written
> > literature of substance? The growth of written English of that time
> > must be seen as somewhat due to the decreasing cost of print.
>
> Or the increasing sophistication of a broad cultural region.
I'm not sure about that. If you had said that an elite began to
control popular expression, you'd be closer to the mark. We began to
stop being people who entertained one another (in a folk tradition)
and began to consume entertainment. Maybe you could call that
sophistication, maybe because it has something to do with improved
material conditions (and rising population, of course).
> > Among many other things.
> >
> > I think you're wrong, btw, about cultural hegemony. Material resources
> > buy hegemony - that's a truism. However, the hegemony is far more
> > diffuse than some think (there certainly is no Jewish cabal running
> > the entertainment business, for instance - TINC of any sort; Western
> > culture is far more a thing of consensus (everyone agreeing that the
> > greatest aim is to chase the dollar)). But I think it would be wrong
> > not to note that local cultural forms are being somewhat displaced by,
> > well, whatever we want to call it.
>
> Well...you can buy some sort of hegenomy, but it tends to be an exercise in
> taxidermic culture rather than living growing culture.
I don't agree. The one thing Easterbrook's bloggery did point up was
how much of film Disney has a finger in. And it's a truism that
Miramax helps itself to the Oscars year on year.
> Sure there are times
> when say a totalitarian regime forces culture to have a certain set of
> limited modes/topoi whatever, but this is more a matter of enforcement than
> real cultural life...
>
The democrats realised it was easier to run a place without
totalitarian methods. Just let everyone vote every four years and rob
the place in the interim.
> >
> > >
> > > I suspect that while all sorts of cultures have all sorts of
> cleavages,
> > > it is worth noting that in aesthetic discussions, one gets to select the
> > > sorts of cleavages one wants.
> >
> > Well, of course, what we're discussing is rather more fractured than
> > we're giving credit. Think about colours, though. We call a band of
> > wavelengths of light "blue" and another "red" and this is arguably
> > arbitrary, but the wavelengths are there.
> >
> > > If some modernist project is to blame for the
> > > current state of Bloom and confusion, I think it is the modernist aim of
> > > confusing aesthetic analyses with more or less cultural choices
> >
> > Oh dear. Back to Modernism 101 with you, sonny.
>
> Hmmm.....no no so hasty...its back to Modernism 101 for everybody. We
> don't have to believe the destructive gestures of High Modernism. What if
> there is a real way to analyze and relate culture and aesthetics?
What if there is? I don't know of one.
> Doesn't
> High Modernism get its ghastly zombie bluff called at that point?
Well, yes, it would, but it's something postmodernism has signally
failed to do.
>
> That's very much a
> > postmodernist critique of modernism. Modernism itself would claim that
> > aesthetics stands outside of culture. (Bell's extraordinary claim that
> > aesthetics lies solely in form is quite exquisite, but it's only the
> > extreme of a widely held view.)
>
> Right...but if you deconstruct the High Modernist gesture of radical
> detachment...it's a silly sham, with almost no analytic value or content.
On the one hand, modernism is not a good tool for cultural analysis.
On the other, it is the only show in town for aesthetics. It's a
difficult dichotomy. Postmodernism rejected the project, but didn't
replace it.
Zen
Davida Chazan - The Chocolate Lady
On 22 Oct 2003 15:03:40 -0700, gol...@hotmail.com (Dr Zen) wrote:
>But I think it would be wrong
>not to note that local cultural forms are being somewhat displaced by,
>well, whatever we want to call it.
Hegemony from those who worship gold?
--
Davida Chazan (The Chocolate Lady)
<davida @ jdc . org . il>
~*~*~*~*~*~
"What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of
chocolate."
--Katharine Hepburn (May 12, 1907 - June 29, 2003)
~*~*~*~*~*~
Links to my published poetry - http://davidachazan.homestead.com/
~*~*~*~*~*~
Joshua P. Hill
<braz...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> To pick a cleavage or two: I would suggest that Romanticism warmed over
>is the essence of the bad side of Moderism.
I tend to see them as antithetical movements, the latter reactive to
the former, both responding to the same basic social forces, e.g.,
industrialization and democracy.
Throcken Sie Morton?
news:<jeAlb.31886$W77...@bignews6.bellsouth.net>...
> > current state of Bloom and confusion, I think it is the modernist
aim of
> > confusing aesthetic analyses with more or less cultural choices
>
> Oh dear. Back to Modernism 101 with you, sonny. That's very much a
> postmodernist critique of modernism. Modernism itself would claim
that
> aesthetics stands outside of culture. (Bell's extraordinary claim
that
> aesthetics lies solely in form is quite exquisite, but it's only
the
> extreme of a widely held view.)
>
> Is deciding what is beautiful solely a cultural judgment? Is a
> modernist incapable of appreciating Chinese calligraphy? Or can he
or
> she only appreciate it if it matches Western norms of beauty? Is
our
> judgment of calligraphy wrong? Is it really different to Chinese
> judgment of it?
Not sure where you're going with this, but it would seem to me that
aesthetics is informed by culture, but also stands outside it. Some
things are more universally beautiful than others because they
embody elements that speak to many different levels of culture in
a harmonious way. Some things speak deeply to specific cultures
because they contain elements of great significance to them.
In the visual arts, the rise of modernism is commonly tied to the
invention of photography. Suddenly the element of aesthetic mastery
in rendering the visual form was taken away by a technology, and so
artist's has to go explore other elements, typically deciding that
"all great art was of this form", writing manifestos, or not.
I can't speak to literature, since I know nothing about it. But it
seems like there's a parallelism between painting paintings with
common appeal (typically somewhat realistic) and writing stories
with common appeal (typically more accessible, like Potter). And
there's probably a meta-ground where one can write stories which
are both accessible to the common masses and which speak to the
those that bathe in the tepid waters of critical theory.
The visual arts have always wavered between realism and
stylization. Is there any reason to believe it will cease
to do so?
> (You might add the clinching question: am I really
> expecting any of the halfwits who infest this group to even attempt
an
> answer to those questions?)
12. Penis. Cottage cheese!
-t
Davida Chazan - The Chocolate Lady
> (You might add the clinching question: am I really
> expecting any of the halfwits who infest this group to even attempt
> an answer to those questions?)
How did this one get past me?
(If you really think that there are only "halfwits who infest this
group" who won't even attempt to answer your questions, you can always
just put this up on your Blog instead.)
Alan Hope
>The visual arts have always wavered between realism and
>stylization. Is there any reason to believe it will cease
>to do so?
That's not true, as it happens. For millennia the visual arts were
nothing but stylisation. Take any pictorial representation from a acve
painting to a Grecian urn to a Gothic Annunciation and realism is of
no consequence whatsoever. Stylised elements are what make up the
picture, they're what people expect to see, and the picture is
worthless without its proper complement of elements.
The change came with Alberti's 1435 Della Pittura, which changed the
way artists looked at the world around them in pictorial terms. That's
when you start to see paintings of scenes that look realistic, and his
work on perspective is why you're looking at tiled floors, rows of
columns, the arrayed spears of Ucello and so on.
Pictures were realistic from then on, until you reach the time of
Braque and Picasso, although some would doubt the realism of Seurat,
Cezanne and other post-Impressionists. Are Monet's paintings of the
Parliament in London in fog realistic? I'd agree with his that they
are. Critics of the time disagreed.
And the Impressionists had, in turn, succeeded the Realists, like
Delacroix, Daumet, Courbet and others (including Manet, whose
inclusion among the Impressionists I've always resented). Like most
labels given to and later adopted by schools of art, Realism was
intended to be disparaging, not because their paintings looked more
like reality than others had, but because of their choice of
commonplace, quotidien, vulgar subject-matter, instead of the Arianes
and Susannas and Orphei of the Academy.
So you see ...
... I've forgotten what I was going to say.
--
AH
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Joshua P. Hill
>Throcken Sie Morton? goes:
>
>>The visual arts have always wavered between realism and
>>stylization. Is there any reason to believe it will cease
>>to do so?
>
>That's not true, as it happens. For millennia the visual arts were
>nothing but stylisation.
Conventional wisdom would have it that abstraction and realism are two
ends of a continuum, and that the ancient Greeks began with Egyptian
stylization, moved towards a classical mixture of realism and
abstraction, and then to progressively more realistic forms; with the
dark ages, stylization returned.
Too, the ancients had perspective, albeit it wasn't on a firm
mathematical basis, and so was flawed.
aesthete8
peruse an Aesthetic Criterion I once drafted:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/a_c
Joshua P. Hill <josh442R...@snet.net> wrote in message news:<lheepvgterb53qgq6...@4ax.com>...