A Comparison ...hot air v.s. the real deal
roac...@my-deja.com
artists are. You know, those contemporary bimbos who are making crappy
installations and conceptual art. Of course none of them really know how to
draw or articulate or plan a masterful, evocative piece of art because they
are all lazy fakers. Right folks?
Wrong. In fact, Mani is dead wrong.
Let's make a comparison (and I expect all of you interested in this topic to
do your homework please by following the links and studying the works on
these pages or don't bother commenting on this thread):
1) http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/Mani_rock1FLAT.jpg
Here we find a painting by Mr. Mani. Well-executed enough. Good perspective.
Good technique. But nothing extraordinary or fresh about the images or the
medium. Looks more like a work by someone living in their own art fantasy
world rather than something that is more evocative of contemporary life and
its aesthetics. Nothing too innovative ..artists have been painting this way
for centuries ... but competent enough I guess.
2) http://www.beakman.com/christo
Now here we find Christo. Now look thoroughly through all the project images
please and consider the realization of such ambitious projects like these.
Imagine experiencing them. Taking them in with your eyes and your body. The
prepatory drawings are excellent and show a very skilled and competent
artist. Compare how Christo's *objects or materials* enter the landscape in
comparison to Mani's toilet paper strip in his dreamscape. Can anyone truly
deny how much more interesting and evocative Christo's work is (including
quality, idea, execution and visual impact) compared to the painting Mani has
produced above? Christo's work speaks great volumes about contemporary
Western culture while creating an awesome sensory experience that is as
monumental and powerful as the churches and large paintings created in a time
gone by. These art installations or environmental works are not pieces of
slacker art that are being created by unskilled artists.
There ... I rest my case (but will happily supply more examples because there
are so many other stunning artists out there).
Roachgirl
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Alison A Raimes
>Mani writes at great length about how incompetent all the artzie fartzie
>artists are. You know, those contemporary bimbos who are making crappy
>installations and conceptual art. Of course none of them really know how to
>draw or articulate or plan a masterful, evocative piece of art because they
>are all lazy fakers. Right folks?
Right, but lets be realistic roachgirl. His exposure to this sort of art
is very limited. Strange that he should choose to regurgitate the same
critique that he posts on some mysterious and unnamed artist time and
time again. I presume it is because it is the only piece of installation
he has ever seen. His *recently* seen exhibition was written about over
six months ago incidentally.
>
>Wrong. In fact, Mani is dead wrong.
>
>Let's make a comparison (and I expect all of you interested in this topic to
>do your homework please by following the links and studying the works on
>these pages or don't bother commenting on this thread):
>
>1) http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/Mani_rock1FLAT.jpg
>
>Here we find a painting by Mr. Mani. Well-executed enough. Good perspective.
>Good technique. But nothing extraordinary or fresh about the images or the
>medium. Looks more like a work by someone living in their own art fantasy
>world rather than something that is more evocative of contemporary life and
>its aesthetics. Nothing too innovative ..artists have been painting this way
>for centuries ... but competent enough I guess.
Wrong. At first glance it looks like a nice illustration. But now go do
a little test. Take, for instance, the glass - cut and paste a copy of
it into something like CorelDraw, and then place a perspective grid
across it and see how badly it is executed. Of course, the natural eye
tells you this immediately. And then consider the way light is hitting
the apple. And so on. Its not in any way *competent*. I think the only
way that Mani is capable of the skill he advocates is through his
computer, which takes care of such things on his behalf.
>
>2) http://www.beakman.com/christo
>
>Now here we find Christo. Now look thoroughly through all the project images
>please and consider the realization of such ambitious projects like these.
>Imagine experiencing them. Taking them in with your eyes and your body. The
>prepatory drawings are excellent and show a very skilled and competent
>artist. Compare how Christo's *objects or materials* enter the landscape in
>comparison to Mani's toilet paper strip in his dreamscape. Can anyone truly
>deny how much more interesting and evocative Christo's work is (including
>quality, idea, execution and visual impact) compared to the painting Mani has
>produced above? Christo's work speaks great volumes about contemporary
>Western culture while creating an awesome sensory experience that is as
>monumental and powerful as the churches and large paintings created in a time
>gone by. These art installations or environmental works are not pieces of
>slacker art that are being created by unskilled artists.
What an amazing site ! Thank you ! Christo's work is drawing in space.
Pure and simply that. He uses a man made process to try and conquer
nature - and that is all that man ever does with art. But you know, the
photos in themselves are so magnificent, it kind of distracts from the
actual work - which is so breathtaking anyway. The photos have become
almost paintings of the work.
Now here is a good example of when the whole thing goes wrong. Outside
the Craft Council building in London, they have *wrapped* two trees in a
rather nasty pink material. I thought the trees were being treated for
some nasty disease, but no. Apparently it is a *work of art*. Poorly
executed and aesthetically distasteful.
>
>There ... I rest my case (but will happily supply more examples because there
>are so many other stunning artists out there).
>
>Roachgirl
well, you would do well to put your work up as an example ! I would
happily put it next to Cornelia Parker, Anya Gallachio, Daphne Wright,
or Rachel Whiteread. I dare you !
Alison A Raimes
>Mani writes at great length about how incompetent all the artzie fartzie
>artists are.
God yes, doesn't he droll on and on and on and on and on and on and on
and on and on and on and on. One wouldn't mind if he at least
occasionally had something new to contribute, but like his vocabulary,
his thoughts are very limited.
Alison
http://www.raimes.com
Thomas Ziorjen
Alison A Raimes wrote:
> [...]
>
> Right, but lets be realistic roachgirl. His exposure to this sort of art
> is very limited. Strange that he should choose to regurgitate the same
> critique that he posts on some mysterious and unnamed artist time and
> time again. I presume it is because it is the only piece of installation
> he has ever seen. His *recently* seen exhibition was written about over
> six months ago incidentally.
> >
Mani's critiques are *always* the same -- it is a clear case of 'fill in the
blanks' criticism. Same argument over and over. Just pull the string...
> Wrong. At first glance it looks like a nice illustration. But now go do
> a little test. Take, for instance, the glass - cut and paste a copy of
> it into something like CorelDraw, and then place a perspective grid
> across it and see how badly it is executed. Of course, the natural eye
> tells you this immediately. And then consider the way light is hitting
> the apple. And so on. Its not in any way *competent*. I think the only
> way that Mani is capable of the skill he advocates is through his
> computer, which takes care of such things on his behalf.
Even if he *had* the skill, his work is as full of *cheap shots* as his
'criticism' -- he would never be taken seriously.
>
> [...]
>
> What an amazing site ! Thank you ! Christo's work is drawing in space.
> Pure and simply that. He uses a man made process to try and conquer
> nature - and that is all that man ever does with art. But you know, the
> photos in themselves are so magnificent, it kind of distracts from the
> actual work - which is so breathtaking anyway. The photos have become
> almost paintings of the work.
>
> Now here is a good example of when the whole thing goes wrong. Outside
> the Craft Council building in London, they have *wrapped* two trees in a
> rather nasty pink material. I thought the trees were being treated for
> some nasty disease, but no. Apparently it is a *work of art*. Poorly
> executed and aesthetically distasteful.
Did you see the drawings of the wrapped trees on the Christo site?
http://www.beakman.com/christo/wt/wt1.jpg
Marvelous!
The wall of oil barrels really surprised me -- a real departure for them, but no
less dramatic. Reminds me a little of Oldenburg, who is also a wonderful
draughtsman.
>
>
> >
> >There ... I rest my case (but will happily supply more examples because there
> >are so many other stunning artists out there).
> >
> >Roachgirl
>
> well, you would do well to put your work up as an example ! I would
> happily put it next to Cornelia Parker, Anya Gallachio, Daphne Wright,
> or Rachel Whiteread. I dare you !
Go for it Roachgirl! : 0
Thomas
Cody
Roachgirl-
Thank you for so eloquently discrediting this Mani Dheli character, his
comments are crass and rude. If all art was created according to his
definition, the world would be so boring.
Alison A Raimes
writes
>Careful Roachspray, Alison has shit fits about these sort of comments.
No need to warn Roachgirl. She and I have known each other long enough
to have the sort of mutual respect where we can challenge each other's
ideas without either of us getting offended. She also knows that because
your arguments don't hold water, that you will soon try and plug the
holes of your bucket brain with any shit that lies available - usually
from your rear end, being the closest vicinity.
>About half the paintings on my web page were done before home
>computers. Check out Alison's grade school schmiers she calls drawings
>for competence.
Obviously. As I pointed out, and for anyone to do a simple test who is
unsure, your drawing is technically very poor, and you have no excuse
for your own incompetence. Learn to draw and then come back and see us
when you have.
Alison
http://www.alisonraimes.com
http://artlives.homestead.com
Alison A Raimes
<thomas_...@sunshine.net> writes
>Even if he *had* the skill, his work is as full of *cheap shots* as his
>'criticism' -- he would never be taken seriously.
That is why he has to come to places like this to get anyone to notice
him. Let's face it, in the real world no one would give him a second
thought. If they did, his books would be best sellers instead of
cluttering up his friend's front room. You can imagine him on the
streets trying to peddle his wares and a sign - help the needy, this
book cost all my savings to publish.
>Did you see the drawings of the wrapped trees on the Christo site?
> http://www.beakman.com/christo/wt/wt1.jpg
>Marvelous!
Beautiful ! that was a great site.
>
>The wall of oil barrels really surprised me -- a real departure for them, but no
>less dramatic. Reminds me a little of Oldenburg, who is also a wonderful
>draughtsman.
That was a collaboration, right ? Didn't get time to check out the text
and find out more. Later !
lake
what Christo does. The relation between them is tenuous at best. No one
could say (except maybe mdeli) that Christo lacks skill, but whether
his work qualifies as "art" is debatable, depending on your definition
of art. Certainly, it has little to do with painting.
- Lake
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Marilyn
rectilinear object.
At one exhibition at a contemporary gallery, there were 25 huge lemons made by
an artist in Southern California who was an activist for the itinerant farm
workers. The lemons laid on the floor. At the entrance there was a photograph of
the lemons sitting around a pool in S.Ca. One viewer was upset by the actual
lemons "They are not art" but he thought that the photograph was beautiful and
he accepted it as a work of art. This idea of people accepting the image but not
the reality is surely a postmodern phenom: virtual vs actual.
Marilyn
roac...@my-deja.com
one word to sum up both your comments:
idiotic.
And why either one of you is even posting on a *fine art* board directed at
the visual arts boggles my mind since it's obvious that neither one of you
knows how to look at or comprehend art on any serious or educated level.
Lake ...your silly argument that you can't compare painting to Christo's work
doesn't hold up. That is the absolute lamest excuse I have ever heard to
justify what is lacking in a lot of painting today. If you really know
anything about art then you most definately would know you CAN most
definately compare one art form with another. Much installation work comes
out of the history of painting (Jessica Stockholder or Judy Pfaff are two
good examples that come to mind) and can without a doubt be compared to the
discipline of painting. Christo's prepatory drawings alone prove that he
understands the structure of painting all too well and that he is brilliant
enough to move beyond this knowledge and translate it into the landscape. It
is you who is lacking in vision. If you can't see how Christo's work is art
than you shouldn't even be an artist.
Marilyn ..I am ashamed to call you a fellow Canadian.
One thing we can all be sure of is that it will NOT be Mani's, Lake's or
Marilyn's work that will be fondly remembered and celebrated in years to
come.
Roachgirl
In article <395642B6...@victoria.tc.ca>,
lake
something you disagree with, it doesn't neccessarily follow that I don't
"know how to look at or comprehend art on any serious or educated
level". If I express a perception that contradicts one of your own, it
doesn't mean automatically that I'm an uneducated idiot.
My argument was that you can't compare Christo's work to painting. Now
you might be able to refute that argument, and in fact I wish you would
try. But if you say it's just "silly", then you defeat the whole
purpose of a dialogue. Or if you resort to denegrating my
qualifications to even comment on the matter, again you defeat the
purpose of dialogue.
I'm all too well aware of the fact that most installation artists CLAIM
to have come out of the tradition of painting. I don't see much
evidence of it though. The fact that Christo can make halfways-decent
sketches of his architectural plans & dreams, to my mind does not
qualify him as an artist.
To say the truth, I find Christo's extravaganzas to be disrespectful of
nature. They are essentially monomanaical, wasteful, and pointless. As
such, perhaps they are an accurate "expression" of the prevailing
Zeitgeist. But I find it impossile to admire them.
lake
is well-framed - but I am not. In fact, the whole movement towards
"installation" art seems to hinge on the photographic documentation of
the proceedings. To me it looks like they're putting the cart before
the horse.
Marilyn
in a contemporary gallery. It was not my response. I like Christo's work and have
corresponded with his agent getting permission to use photographs of his work when I
worked at Emily Carr College.
Your comments are extremely unprofessional and not worth a response.
What's your real name? Maybe you will be remembered in the future for your fine art
work. Do you also want to be remembered for being rude and aggressive?
roac...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > - Lake
> > >
> > > * Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
> > > The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
> >
> >
>
mdeli
<ali...@raimes.com> wrote:
>> roac...@my-deja.com wrote
>>Here we find a painting by Mr. Mani. Well-executed enough. Good perspective.
>>Good technique.
Careful Roachspray, Alison has shit fits about these sort of comments.
>> But nothing extraordinary or fresh about the images or the
>>medium. Looks more like a work by someone living in their own art fantasy
>>world rather than something that is more evocative of contemporary life and
>>its aesthetics.
Is your work "evocative of contemporary life and
its aesthetics?" Is Alison's?
>> Nothing too innovative ..artists have been painting this way
>>for centuries ... but competent enough I guess.
>
Competent?
>Wrong. At first glance it looks like a nice illustration.
Even Alison can't help saying that. Shame on you.
>But now go do
>a little test. Take, for instance, the glass - cut and paste a copy of
>it into something like CorelDraw, and then place a perspective grid
>across it and see how badly it is executed. Of course, the natural eye
>tells you this immediately. And then consider the way light is hitting
>the apple. And so on.
Yes do and then what? And so on.
>Its not in any way *competent*. I think the only
>way that Mani is capable of the skill he advocates is through his
>computer, which takes care of such things on his behalf.
About half the paintings on my web page were done before home
computers. Check out Alison's grade school schmiers she calls drawings
for competence.
Mani DeLi
Modern Academic Art is incompetence in search of an idea.
...no skill no art
Tired of Modern Art? Check out my web page!
http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/
Peter H.M. Brooks
lake <lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> wrote:
> Some people are willing to accept photography as art - especially if
it
> is well-framed - but I am not. In fact, the whole movement towards
> "installation" art seems to hinge on the photographic documentation of
> the proceedings. To me it looks like they're putting the cart before
> the horse.
>
just this point over the last week or two here.
It makes no sense for the photographs of the installation to be the art.
I would have thought that even the people who thought that their
installation was art, would have though that it was it that was art, not
the record of it - if not, they are considerably more deluded than I
realised!
I don't see why an 'installation' need not be art. After all, what is a
bronze sculpture but an 'installation'? As far as I can see, the only
reason to coin the phrase 'installation' was to enable things that would
not normally be considered sculpture to be so. If somebody produced a
beautiful sculpture in the form of, say, a hologram, then I would have
no problem saying that it was both art and a sculpture. Of course,
exactly the same argument applies to most holograms as applies to
photographs, they cannot be art as they are simply mechanically produced
representations. However, in principle, a hologram could be produced
without their being an object of which it was the image, and this could
be a sculpture.
--
Peter H.M. Brooks
As the brief fires of youth die in him, the ageing trendy conceives a
growing aversion to
feeling in all its forms. His fastidious distaste for kitsch becomes a
prudish fear of anything
that could - in the wrong hands - be turned into kitsch.
- Roger Scruton Aesthetics & Criticism
Alison A Raimes
<wq...@victoria.tc.ca> writes
>I made an objective comment in response to Lake. He reminded me of a viewer's
>response
>in a contemporary gallery. It was not my response. I like Christo's work and
>have
>corresponded with his agent getting permission to use photographs of his work
>when I
>worked at Emily Carr College.
>
>Your comments are extremely unprofessional and not worth a response.
But she still does it. What the hell would Marilyn know about
*professionalism* ? Stick to knitting and women's institute tea parties,
Marilyn ..... in other words, if you can't stand the heat get out of the
kitchen.
>
>What's your real name? Maybe you will be remembered in the future for your fine
>art
>work. Do you also want to be remembered for being rude and aggressive?
>
>
Better than being remembered for being an absolute ninny.
Alison A Raimes
<lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> writes
>I have a problem comparing a painting - any kind of painting - with
>what Christo does. The relation between them is tenuous at best. No one
>could say (except maybe mdeli) that Christo lacks skill, but whether
>his work qualifies as "art" is debatable, depending on your definition
>of art. Certainly, it has little to do with painting.
What a stupid response. What exactly is it that you think art is - what
is this definition ? and why can Christo's work not be compared to
painting? You know, Pond, you have to learn how to justify your remarks
if you want anyone to take you seriously here. At the moment you blurt
out stuff that clearly you don't understand nor have really given a
second thought to. Your beliefs are riddled with holes. You can mend
them or end up at the bottom of the pond that you keep spurting out of.
Alison
http://www.raimes.com
Alison A Raimes
*The artist, Christo claims, used to be the man who put things together,
until the Victorian age, when they became specialists, like horse
painters. Today the art world manipulates all art into a make believe
reality. His own projects are far from specialized; they take place
outside the art world and often require environmental studies, legal
battles, material production in factories, and the mobilizing of
thousands of volunteer labor forces. Getting it all together is a
collaborative effort on the part of many people, and energy for the work
is drawn as much from the community as it is from the artist himself.
when *Running fence* was constructed in California, a twenty-four-and-a-
half-mile length of white nylon had to be stretched across land
belonging to the ranchers, most of whom were initially hostile to the
project. Part of Christo's *work* involved winning them over; it took
nearly a year to convince sixty families to let their land be used, but
in the end they gave him not only the desired permission but also
immense support, promoting press conferences themselves to defend the
project publicly*.
Now compare that to painting where the artist, working in isolation,
then presents his paintings to the *audience*. He enters the public
system to show his work, he places a value on it in monetary terms, and
in the process he tries to engage with the viewer with the intention of
inviting a response.
The sole intention of the artist is to engage with the viewer. Now if
you want to discuss the aesthetics of painting and Christo's work, the
argument of them being incomparable will collapse completely.
Larry Seiler
Ssheesh...is this still going on? I have been very active at an online
International Artist's community webzine, so have been absent here for
sometime. Perhaps a year ago...and still, Mani is ruffling feathers?
Well...I guess I have to say, "hats off to you Mani"...(seriously), you
really are earning your place in the arts world. Perhaps the newsgroup's
name ought to be changed from "rec.arts.fine" to "rec.mani.arts"
I would hope eventually people might recognize "fruitlessness" and move on.
Keep making art...and lots of it!
--
Larry Seiler
Landscape Paintings-
http://www.artistnation.com/members/lofts/lseiler/
Professional Plein Air Painters-
http://nhstudios.com/NAPAPAFrameSet.html
WetCanvas Artists pages- (shorter and quicker loading)
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Gallery/S/Larry_Seiler/index.htm
artist's personal site-
http://cwinc.net/larryseiler
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
iian_...@my-deja.com
> At one exhibition at a contemporary gallery, there were 25 huge
lemons made by
> an artist in Southern California who was an activist for the
itinerant farm
> workers. The lemons laid on the floor. At the entrance there was a
photograph of
> the lemons sitting around a pool in S.Ca. One viewer was upset by the
actual
> lemons "They are not art" but he thought that the photograph was
beautiful and
> he accepted it as a work of art. This idea of people accepting the
image but not
> the reality is surely a postmodern phenom: virtual vs actual.
This is hardly a postmodern phenomenon when you consider that for
hundreds of years artists and collectors have considered still-life
paintings to be art, but not the still-life arrangements themselves. Is
it so surprising that one viewer should find the photograph to be more
artistic than the installation? After all, photographs do have artistic
qualities to them, whereas a pile of lemons around a pool do not. This
isn't to say that the photograph is as artistic as a still-life
painting, but you get the idea.
-- Iian
Marilyn
I disagree with you wholeheartedly. I wanted to point out your perception
along with that of the man in the gallery. That is how you see it, whereas
I would see the huge lemons lying around as sculpture or as part of an
installation. I think it was Jasper Johns who had an experience in art
school of spending 1/2 hour arranging a still life set up. He decided that
the set-up WAS the art work. The drawing of it was anti-climactic.
Installation art involves more than just looking at a record of something
- you are invited into it. You would have to be "won over" to see it that
way and you have built a firewall of resistance against being won over. You
have every right to do that, but you're missing a lot of fun.
Marilyn
iian_...@my-deja.com
> > This is hardly a postmodern phenomenon when you consider that for
> > hundreds of years artists and collectors have considered still-life
> > paintings to be art, but not the still-life arrangements
themselves. Is
> > it so surprising that one viewer should find the photograph to be
more
> > artistic than the installation? After all, photographs do have
artistic
> > qualities to them, whereas a pile of lemons around a pool do not.
This
> > isn't to say that the photograph is as artistic as a still-life
> > painting, but you get the idea.
>
> I disagree with you wholeheartedly. I wanted to point out your
perception
> along with that of the man in the gallery. That is how you see it,
whereas
> I would see the huge lemons lying around as sculpture or as part of an
> installation. I think it was Jasper Johns who had an experience in art
> school of spending 1/2 hour arranging a still life set up. He decided
that
> the set-up WAS the art work. The drawing of it was anti-climactic.
With all due respect Marilyn, a gardener or interior decorator can
spend half an hour or more getting their bouquet just right, or
harmonizing the contrasting hues of their curtains. An artist like
Caravaggio or Vermeer, or even Cezanne, could spend two hours in
arranging the fruit so that it everything is perfect to paint from.
But this doesn't make the arrangement itself a work of art.
There is more to a work of art than the arrangement of objects in
certain positions. There is more to it even than taking into account
their contrasting hues, tonal values, mass and textural properties.
There is the searching through the picture plane for rhythms, lines of
stress, abstracted forms, that can only take place when drawing is at
the root of all art. The debt that painting owes to drawing is obvious,
but no less strong is the debt sculpture owes it as well. And it is the
creation of these abstract harmonies out of the raw materials - the
apples, pears, grapes, curtains - that is the art work. In all of the
arts - whether they be sculpture, painting or architecture - drawing is
the underlying basis that unifies them all. They are all different
expressions of the process of drawing.
Arranging apples, oranges and pears into pleasing patterns is not
drawing at any level; it does not employ the mind in a concentrated
effort to distill from the millions of sensory impressions those which
are necessary to construct a logically self-sufficient system.
Arranging fruit, flowers, and curtains is the raw material of an art
work. But it is the painting, drawing or sculpture that comes afterward
the represents the true artistic process.
It is entirely possible that the exhiliration Jaspar Johns felt when
he "realised" that the arrangement was actually art was the relief of a
man who doesn't have to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. It
is a mistake to assume that this is all it takes to create art.
> Installation art involves more than just looking at a record of
something
> - you are invited into it. You would have to be "won over" to see it
that
> way and you have built a firewall of resistance against being won
over. You
> have every right to do that, but you're missing a lot of fun.
I thank you for trying to extend my capability for enjoyment, but I
don't feel that this sort of aesthetic appreciation is for me.
lake
lake
of exactly what art is, or is not. It's extremely subjective; for some
people making a good pot of tea is art, for others, maintaining a
motorcycle is art.
Maybe they are both right, but still, you can't really compare
tea-making to motorcycle maintenance. In the same way, "installations"
are not even in the same ball-park with paintings. With
sculpture.....MAYBE - but there is a crucial difference between
sculpture and installation-type art: sculpture is permanent, and
installation is ephemeral.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that permanence is one of the defining
characteristics of sculpture. Installations are closer to theater than
to sculpture. They are staged events, one-time deals requiring audience
and media participation to be successful.
But for some reason installation artists and their supporters deny the
essentially theatrical nature of the form, an insist upon a close
relation with painting and sculpture.
That's why I think roachgirl's comparison of Christo to DeLi is unfair.
A comparison of DeLi with say, Jaspar Johns would have been more to the
point. Or a comparison of Christo with Giacometti maybe...... or better
yet, a comparison of Christo with Barnum & Bailey.
Marilyn
Once again, I tell you it is not that clear cut. Huge lemons lying around in the
setting of an installation, are sculpture within an installation. The lemons are
very well crafted and are not ephemeral. You've closed your mind against
accepting installation as art but you can't close your mind against its
acceptance by the art community at large. One of the beauties of installations
is that they are not objects for sale (with a few exceptions).
Marilyn
la_...@my-deja.com
> > I disagree with you wholeheartedly. I wanted to point out your
> perception
> > along with that of the man in the gallery. That is how you see it,
> whereas
> > I would see the huge lemons lying around as sculpture or as part of an
> > installation. I think it was Jasper Johns who had an experience in art
> > school of spending 1/2 hour arranging a still life set up. He decided
> that
> > the set-up WAS the art work. The drawing of it was anti-climactic.
>
> With all due respect Marilyn, a gardener or interior decorator can
> spend half an hour or more getting their bouquet just right, or
> harmonizing the contrasting hues of their curtains. An artist like
> Caravaggio or Vermeer, or even Cezanne, could spend two hours in
> arranging the fruit so that it everything is perfect to paint from.
>
> But this doesn't make the arrangement itself a work of art.
Yea, that's right....but then, the interior decorator and the gardener
aren't using the arangement in the same way as the installation artist.
You are comparing someone who is writing a shopping list to a novelist
You are claiming that, since all of the words written by each are
legible, spelt correctly and used to communicate, they must be equal, and
thus since the shopping list isn't art the novel must not be either.
> There is more to a work of art than the arrangement of objects in
> certain positions. There is more to it even than taking into account
> their contrasting hues, tonal values, mass and textural properties.
> There is the searching through the picture plane for rhythms, lines of
> stress, abstracted forms, that can only take place when drawing is at
> the root of all art. The debt that painting owes to drawing is obvious,
> but no less strong is the debt sculpture owes it as well. And it is the
> creation of these abstract harmonies out of the raw materials - the
> apples, pears, grapes, curtains - that is the art work. In all of the
> arts - whether they be sculpture, painting or architecture - drawing is
> the underlying basis that unifies them all. They are all different
> expressions of the process of drawing.
I love to draw. I love to paint. I do both very well. But art is not
limited to what we can create with our hands...and it hasn't been for
fifty years. All of the arts have a history based on drawing, but the
art world has evolved beyond this limitation. This evolution bothers
people like mani deli since it takes art out of the hands of people who
have struggled years to gain a degree of skill and now realize that those
skills are not as imperative as they once were to being part of the
conversations in art taking place in galleries and musuems.
As an aside, I do not think that there is any substitute for learning how
to draw. It is a incredibly efficient and effective way of
communicating, but it is not the only one.
> Arranging apples, oranges and pears into pleasing patterns is not
> drawing at any level; it does not employ the mind in a concentrated
> effort to distill from the millions of sensory impressions those which
> are necessary to construct a logically self-sufficient system.
> Arranging fruit, flowers, and curtains is the raw material of an art
> work. But it is the painting, drawing or sculpture that comes afterward
> the represents the true artistic process.
You are correct...to an extent. The arranging of fruit by an artist in a
gallery setting does not employ the part of the mind used to draw, but
then, it's not asking the viewer to use that part of their mind, either.
The artist is asking the viewer to think with them in a different way, to
experience a reality outside their own. This leap of logic and thought
leaves many people saying "I don't get it" or "This is Modern Academmic
Art crap." But just because you don't get it, doesn't make it any less
valid as art.
> It is entirely possible that the exhiliration Jaspar Johns felt when
> he "realised" that the arrangement was actually art was the relief of a
> man who doesn't have to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. It
> is a mistake to assume that this is all it takes to create art.
You may be correct. It is conceivable that Jasper Johns was a charlatan
who was merely trying to avoid work and to make a buck (mani deli and his
ilk would jump on that bandwagon and ride it to town). It is
concievable, anyways, by people who have excluded themsleves from the
greater conversation that is going on constantly in galleries around the
world, who nip in to see on artist's tiny comment added to the
conversation and missing the topic entirely.
The real mistake is to believe that you have all the answers to the
question "What is art?" To believe that drawing and its related
disciplines are the only form of art is closing yourself off from a wild
array of amazing creativity.
>
> > Installation art involves more than just looking at a record of
> something
> > - you are invited into it. You would have to be "won over" to see it
> that
> > way and you have built a firewall of resistance against being won
> over. You
> > have every right to do that, but you're missing a lot of fun.
>
> I thank you for trying to extend my capability for enjoyment, but I
> don't feel that this sort of aesthetic appreciation is for me.
>
> -- Iian
In that case, Iian, your mind is made up. I am not going to debate with
a closed door, and I doubt anyone here is going to take the time trying
to convince you to open it up. Enjoy your comfortably, carefully
deliniated little room!
LAboy
la_...@my-deja.com
lake <lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> wrote:
> It's hard if not impossible to make an accurately definitive statement
> of exactly what art is, or is not. It's extremely subjective; for some
> people making a good pot of tea is art, for others, maintaining a
> motorcycle is art.
>
> Maybe they are both right, but still, you can't really compare
> tea-making to motorcycle maintenance. In the same way, "installations"
> are not even in the same ball-park with paintings. With
> sculpture.....MAYBE - but there is a crucial difference between
> sculpture and installation-type art: sculpture is permanent, and
> installation is ephemeral.
>
> In fact, I'd go so far as to say that permanence is one of the defining
> characteristics of sculpture. Installations are closer to theater than
> to sculpture. They are staged events, one-time deals requiring audience
> and media participation to be successful.
I would agree with you up to this point.
> But for some reason installation artists and their supporters deny the
> essentially theatrical nature of the form, and insist upon a close
> relation with painting and sculpture.
Hmmm, well performance art is definitley a theatrical event, but it isn't
really installation art. Installation isn't theatrical simply because
there is no acting going on (assuming that a live person isn't involved,
and even then...). Installation is, similar to a painting, evoking an
experience or idea in the viewer, but doing it, unlike painting, by
changing the environment the viewer finds themsleves in and asking them
to consider what this reality means to them. Installation is based more
in conceptual art with a visual stimulus than theatricality.
> That's why I think roachgirl's comparison of Christo to DeLi is unfair.
> A comparison of DeLi with say, Jaspar Johns would have been more to the
> point. Or a comparison of Christo with Giacometti maybe...... or better
> yet, a comparison of Christo with Barnum & Bailey.
>
> - Lake
Actually, I think comparing any artist to any other artist is unfair.
How do you quantify an individual's ideas and compare their validity to
another's? Roachgirl's intent had less to do with the comparison of deli
and Christo and more to do with a personal attack on a stubbornly held
point of view contrary to her own.
Erik A. Mattila
> In article <12208e20...@usw-ex0106-044.remarq.com>,
> lake <lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> wrote:
> > It's hard if not impossible to make an accurately definitive statement
> > of exactly what art is, or is not. It's extremely subjective; for some
> > people making a good pot of tea is art, for others, maintaining a
> > motorcycle is art.
> >
> > Maybe they are both right, but still, you can't really compare
> > tea-making to motorcycle maintenance. In the same way, "installations"
> > are not even in the same ball-park with paintings. With
> > sculpture.....MAYBE - but there is a crucial difference between
> > sculpture and installation-type art: sculpture is permanent, and
> > installation is ephemeral.
> >
> > In fact, I'd go so far as to say that permanence is one of the defining
> > characteristics of sculpture. Installations are closer to theater than
> > to sculpture. They are staged events, one-time deals requiring audience
> > and media participation to be successful.
>
> I would agree with you up to this point.
Well, the 'what is art' debate is old and important, and it never seems to
get settled. Of course it can't get settled - but not for the reason that
Lake cites, i.e. 'subjectivity' but rather because the term 'art' itself has
never enjoyed any particular clarity. It's funny too, since a lot of people
on this newsgroup have expressed negative sentiment toward language,
linguistics, semantics, semiotics etc. and herein is a wonderful example of
how some language discipline could solve a problem that otherwise seems
unsolvable.
Whatever is or is not 'art' has to be a matter of agreement, even by a
minority. Let say a small group of people share an interest in nature, and
they collect and display found objects - pretty stones, driftwood, seashells
etc. They decide that these are much more aesthetic than the things of an
art museum, and they make this declaration. Further, they create their own
art gallery to display these found objects and sell them as 'works of art.'
When asked "if these are works of art, who is the artist?", the of course
respond that God is the artist - her paintbrush the wind, her canvas the
world. As fate would have it, each found object is intrinsically unique,
since there is no other anywhere on Earth that is exactly the same. While
most vistors of this new art gallery scoff at the idea, others find it
charming, life sustaining and indeed aesthetic, and purchase works from this
gallery. So there is a social consensus at play here -- a general agreement
between a group of people that these found objects are indeed works of art.
My view is that they are 'works of art' because I believe that the
definition of 'art' is in fact, a matter of consensus. While you could say
with certainty that the 'found objects' in this example are not held to be
'works of art' by a broad grouip of people, you could not say the same thing
with absoluteness to apply to all groups of people, since by the example
there is a group of people who agree to call this 'art.' What follows then
is a list of criteria that any one of us could evoke to either restrict or
expand the dimensions of the category 'works of art.' I think each of us do
this, in various ways, and one set of criteria is as valid as another, of
course. The problem with citing any criteria, such as 'permanence of
sculpture' is, of course, that someone could cite Ives Tingley's sculpture,
which was designed to self-destruct very rapidly, and back up the claim with
a citation with plenty of references from the journals and tomes that make
up the nuts and bolts of authority of the art world. So we just go around
in circles.
So the weakness in any argument about 'what is art' is that the debater may
be simply stating what he or she accepts as restrictions on the criteria of
what constitutes a work of 'art' -- but expressing it as a superpersonal
view. The only reason I'm arguing with Lake's 'subjectivity' is that the
individual's accepted criteria can just as easily be learned, trained,
authorized by any of a broad range of art criticism or theory, as well as
being a simple naive response to the things of the world. In other words, a
'criteria' held by an individual can be either objective or subjective.
> > But for some reason installation artists and their supporters deny the
> > essentially theatrical nature of the form, and insist upon a close
> > relation with painting and sculpture.
>
> Hmmm, well performance art is definitley a theatrical event, but it isn't
> really installation art. Installation isn't theatrical simply because
> there is no acting going on (assuming that a live person isn't involved,
> and even then...). Installation is, similar to a painting, evoking an
> experience or idea in the viewer, but doing it, unlike painting, by
> changing the environment the viewer finds themsleves in and asking them
> to consider what this reality means to them. Installation is based more
> in conceptual art with a visual stimulus than theatricality.
Of couse the category 'art' applies to all these activities -- it is a very
general term. If it's important to distinguish between painting,
installation, performance etc. there are useful analytical tools. Any and
every 'form' has its internal structure and rules, and you can locate and
identify these and create a completely objective discourse in which a
valuable comparative activity can be applied. Take 'time' for example. In
theory, we look at issues such as 'achronicity' and 'synchroniicity' which
speak to how an art form is experienced. Indeed "Performance" art shares
with "Theatre" a narrative time - which allows the story to be told. By
contrast, painting is an anti-narrative, in that it does not have a 'time
frame' in which the story is told. It is therefore 'achronistic.'
What's really interesting is to compare painting with sculpture in this
regard. Is sculpture achronistic? I don't think so. It needs to be
experienced 'in the round' and this involves time. Remember those Brancusis
that were displayed on a rotating table - the experience of the piece
involved one revolution, at least. So you can say that sculpture is less
'anti-narrative' than painting, but not as fully 'narrative' as a
performance piece.
An installation sort of bridges these concepts. It can be experienced as
sculpture, involving time. But photos of an installation, taken
individually, are anti-narrative, like painting. In terms of
achronicity/synchronicity, installation has achieved its own unique niche, I
think.
>
> > That's why I think roachgirl's comparison of Christo to DeLi is unfair.
> > A comparison of DeLi with say, Jaspar Johns would have been more to the
> > point. Or a comparison of Christo with Giacometti maybe...... or better
> > yet, a comparison of Christo with Barnum & Bailey.
> >
> > - Lake
>
> Actually, I think comparing any artist to any other artist is unfair.
> How do you quantify an individual's ideas and compare their validity to
> another's? Roachgirl's intent had less to do with the comparison of deli
> and Christo and more to do with a personal attack on a stubbornly held
> point of view contrary to her own.
>
> LAboy
Again, the legitimacy of the comparison entirely depends on what set of
criteria we are calling in. As I understand Roachgirl's intent, she was
making a point about 'content' which allows for all sorts of formal
frontiers to be breached, and remain a legitimate comparison. Christo's
work is very extroverted, for example, while the other's is very
introverted. What I mean by this is that Christo always operates in the
'public sphere', while Mani operates in the 'private sphere.'
And we would expect this. Mani argues for a very old idea about art, which
is connected to the history of collecting, the unique work of art,
capitalism, the whole complex of the 'classical' ideology. Christo, on the
other hand, argues against this sort of history, instread creating art as
ephemeral spectacle. So really, the comparison is about "art vs anti-art",
which we should be familiar with by recent art history. "Anti-art" isn't
'not art,' of course, but rather a challenge to our views about what is art.
Erik Mattila
lake
large has accepted installation art wholeheartedly. But you are asking
me to accept a huge lemon, well-crafted and non-ephemeral though it may
be, as art.......on its own? Independent of the theatrical event which
occasioned its creation?
You applaud installations by saying they are not "objects for sale" -
but they are very expensive all the same. Somebody ends up paying for
them. To think of installation art as being in some way an escape from
the capitalist system may get credence in certain rarified circles, but
to me it seems patently absurd.
lake
but please note that I have never attempted to define art. I'm not even
particularly interested in what people think of as art.
I'm interested in painting. Now painting over the course of time has
achieved a certain accepted status as "art" - I am neither affirming
the validity of this status this nor disputing it, but surely, there is
a significant consensus there.
Now along comes installation art - CLAIMING to be a successor to
painting, by overtaking the gallery spaces normally reseved for
painting, and in a sense attempting to de-legitimize painting.
Installation art is an offshoot of conceptual art, which questioned the
very walls on which it was displayed.
Painting never did that. Painting takes the wall for granted, assuming
there will always be a suitably anonymous wall somewhere to hang on, if
not to actually paint on. So, "The Wall" is one of the boundaries of
painting.
It could be that walls are becoming less important in modern life. I
doubt it, but if so, then paintings would also become less important.
The wall itself is an embodiment of what you call the "private sphere"
Erik; it is an archetypal reality, as a "vessel" for example is an
archetypal reality, so of course it will always be with us.
But if you associate painting with conservatism, with capitalism, with
"the whole complex of classical ideology" - whatever the hell THAT'S
supposed to mean - you are merely succumbing to fashionable cant.
Christo's idea of art as an ephemeral spectacle I find very hard to
swallow - even though it has been very well-recieved. Hollywood also
has been very well-recieved, and Walt Disney.................
Lauri Levanto
<.....>
> In fact, I'd go so far as to say that permanence is one of the defining
> characteristics of sculpture. Installations are closer to theater than
> to sculpture. They are staged events, one-time deals requiring audience
> and media participation to be successful.
>
> relation with painting and sculpture.
> - Lake
Definitions are tricky, there is always boudary cases. Dictionaries
try it by selecting examples from the safe middle ground.
So permanence I give up. Not only wood rottens, but I've seen
clearly sculptural works made in Ice and snow.
If adding paint and varnish to canvas is art
- why not newspaper clippings (collage).
If collage on canvas is art
- why not add tutu to a bronze like Degas
[Somewhere i claimed it was ready-made. No, it was tailor-made]
I have considered performance as theatre, and most installations
as theatre without actors, that is staging (an artistic venture itself).
-lauri
--
Theatre is life,
cinema is art
television is furniture
(source unknown)
Lauri Levanto
>
> lake <lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> wrote:
>> (...)
> > In the same way, "installations"
> > are not even in the same ball-park with paintings. With
> > sculpture.....MAYBE - but there is a crucial difference between
> > sculpture and installation-type art: sculpture is permanent, and
> > installation is ephemeral.
la_boy:
(...) Installation is, (...) by
> changing the environment the viewer finds themsleves in and asking them
> to consider what this reality means to them. (...)
lauri:
I don't have Webster or Abridged Oxford at hand
But for me the quote above is a good definition of drama.
-lauri
Peter H.M. Brooks
emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
>
> Of couse the category 'art' applies to all these activities -- it is a
very
> general term. If it's important to distinguish between painting,
> installation, performance etc. there are useful analytical tools. Any
and
> every 'form' has its internal structure and rules, and you can locate
and
> identify these and create a completely objective discourse in which a
> valuable comparative activity can be applied. Take 'time' for
example. In
> theory, we look at issues such as 'achronicity' and 'synchroniicity'
which
> speak to how an art form is experienced. Indeed "Performance" art
shares
> with "Theatre" a narrative time - which allows the story to be told.
By
> contrast, painting is an anti-narrative, in that it does not have a
'time
> frame' in which the story is told. It is therefore 'achronistic.'
>
popular pictures of the stations of the cross that are designed,
precisely, to tell a story.
>
> What's really interesting is to compare painting with sculpture in
this
> regard. Is sculpture achronistic? I don't think so. It needs to be
> experienced 'in the round' and this involves time. Remember those
Brancusis
> that were displayed on a rotating table - the experience of the piece
> involved one revolution, at least. So you can say that sculpture is
less
> 'anti-narrative' than painting, but not as fully 'narrative' as a
> performance piece.
>
takes time to see - your eyes don't take in the entire picture at one
go, but scan it over a period of time. So, by this argument, all art is
in time.
>
> An installation sort of bridges these concepts. It can be experienced
as
> sculpture, involving time. But photos of an installation, taken
> individually, are anti-narrative, like painting. In terms of
> achronicity/synchronicity, installation has achieved its own unique
niche, I
> think.
>
'anti-narrative' as I point out above. So there is nothing particularly
unique about installation, if these are the two bases for this claim.
--
Peter H.M. Brooks
As the brief fires of youth die in him, the ageing trendy conceives a
growing aversion to
feeling in all its forms. His fastidious distaste for kitsch becomes a
prudish fear of anything
that could - in the wrong hands - be turned into kitsch.
- Roger Scruton Aesthetics & Criticism
lake
compare Duke Ellington to Count Basie, or Rembrandt to Goya, or Van
Gogh to Gaugin. You can compare Ezra Pound to T.S. Elliot, or John
Lennon to Bob Dylan - and those comparisons can help you to understand
where it's at - it wouldn't be unfair..... But you CANNOT compare Harry
Belafonte with Frank Loyd Wright, or Sigmund Freud, and you cannot
compare mdeli with Christo.
You make a big distinction between performance-art, which you admit is
theatrical, and installation art which you say is not. Because there
are no actors? Maybe installation art should be called "a
set-design-waiting-for-the-actors-to-appear"
I don't see how installation-art is related to painting. How?? It
evokes an idea or an experience in the viewer, OK, but so does a kick
in the butt. What I fail to understand is why installation-art INSISTS
upon its relation to painting, when it is so obviously unrelated.
As for Christo, surely you don't deny the essential theatricality of
his enterprise. How anyone could concieve of his wrapping projects as
sculpture, rather than theatre, is beyond me.
lake
would sell it as quick as possible - and I'd do the same with a
Rockwell. But I'd hang on to my De Koonings though, and anything by
Dubuffet or Soulages.
How about you, DeLi? Which 20th-century painters would you trade? Would
you give me two Bacons for one Parrish? How about six Dufy watercolors
in exchange for one very good original Beardsley drawing?
Ah, if only we had the money DeLi. How many Jasper Johns would you give
me for a first-rate Andrew Wyeth?
As for your silly doors, well it's easy to go around panning the local
shows, whether they're door-schmierers or Dali-lookalikes. Doesn't
prove a thing. What takes courage and skill is to champion a young
painter of promise. Always takes more guts to be positive than negative.
lake
people like Madonna, lots of people like Van Gogh. So what's your point?
Marilyn Welch
There were 25 large lemons, the size of watermelons. They were beautiful!
The non-commercial aspect of installation art is a major statement. The
artists do get paid an exhibition fee which more than covers their
costs. I'm from Quebec where we see installations in many public places
and people are mostly entertained, amused, or inspired by them.
When I first brought up the subject of installations here on this ng, one
response was "would you consider a toilet an installation?" So in a
sense this ng has evolved to the point where we can at least have a
conversation about them. While installation art makes a statement about
the objectification and commercialization of Art, they are not exactly "an
escape from the capitalist system."
The lemons sold out @ $60. Cdn each. They originated as a statement about
itinerant farm workers and ended up as decorations on shelves and on
oriental rugs in homes. See what I mean about nothing being very
predictable about Art?
Marilyn
On Tue, 27 Jun 2000, lake wrote:
> You are right in one thing at least Marilyn - the art community at
> large has accepted installation art wholeheartedly. But you are asking
> me to accept a huge lemon, well-crafted and non-ephemeral though it may
> be, as art.......on its own? Independent of the theatrical event which
> occasioned its creation?
>
> You applaud installations by saying they are not "objects for sale" -
> but they are very expensive all the same. Somebody ends up paying for
> them. To think of installation art as being in some way an escape from
> the capitalist system may get credence in certain rarified circles, but
> to me it seems patently absurd.
>
Erik A. Mattila
> >
> Not quite true. You can, and do, have narrative pictures - look at the
> popular pictures of the stations of the cross that are designed,
> precisely, to tell a story.
Of course your example of the stations of the cross is a series of
painting, Peter, not 'a painting.' By way of reference, read Kirk
Varnedoe's essay in "High & Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture. [New York,
New York : Museum of Modern Art, 1990] [460] p. ill. (437 b&w, 193 col.)
But I like your example, since tis is just the point Varnedoe was making
about painting's "anti-narrative' aspect, compared with the comic strip's
'narrative' aspect. Varnedoe also points to the same difference in the
comic strip and the 'prototype' characature genre, which, like painting, is
'anti-narrative.' "This opposes David Kunzle, who argues that the
'caracature' form is the prototype of the comic (see Kunzle, David. "The
History of the Comic Strip: The Nineteenth Century". Berkeley: University
Press of California, 1990. ) By applying the rule of
narrative/anti-narrative, Varnedoe raises questions to Kunzle's idea that
the origin of comics is in characature ( political cartoons, social satire,
etc.)
I actually thought I should point out on my last post that the term
"narrative painting" is an entirely different animal than 'narrative time'
used in other diciplines (philosophy, poetics, narratology, semiotics,
literary criticism, as well as certain aspects art history). A painting
that art historians call a 'narrative painting' does not work in the same
way as a 'narrative' form that is studied by narratology, for example.
Narrative paintings only refer to an existing narrative, as opposed to a
form such as a comic strip, or the 'statiions of the cross' series that you
cite, which put forth a sequence of events in order to create a story in
time. So we can say that Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" refers to the
mythology, by capturing a moment, frozen in time, of the story, and because
it refers to a story it is called a 'narrative painting' to distinguish it
from a painting that doesn't refer to a story, such as a Holbien portrait.
> >
> > What's really interesting is to compare painting with sculpture in
> this
> > regard. Is sculpture achronistic? I don't think so. It needs to be
> > experienced 'in the round' and this involves time. Remember those
> Brancusis
> > that were displayed on a rotating table - the experience of the piece
> > involved one revolution, at least. So you can say that sculpture is
> less
> > 'anti-narrative' than painting, but not as fully 'narrative' as a
> > performance piece.
> >
> If you use the 'time to see a piece' as your criterion, then any picture
> takes time to see - your eyes don't take in the entire picture at one
> go, but scan it over a period of time. So, by this argument, all art is
> in time.
I don't think so. The power of a picture is that it is immediately
apprehended. There's probably some merit to the famous art historian
obsession with drawing triangles and speculating about the path of the eye,
but this says nothing about 'reading' meaning (the story) of a painting
(even though it may say something about the aesthetic experience.)
Sculpture has the need to be viewed 'in the round' which begins to extend
the time of apprehension. I wouldn't say to the time of a true narrative,
but somewhere between immediate apprehension and the extend time of
narrative. If this were not so, it would be possible to approach
Donatello's "Perseus" and experience a perfectly crappy piece, view from a
certain POV. Of course this doesn't happeen. That's the special burdern
placed on the sculptor - to resolve the aesthetics of the form consistently
through a time sequence -- something painters don't have to deal with. To
beg the point, a weak painting, in terms of composition, is 'immediately'
perceived as weak, before the viewer lets his/her eye travel over the art
historian's triangles and blocks.
> > An installation sort of bridges these concepts. It can be experienced
> as
> > sculpture, involving time. But photos of an installation, taken
> > individually, are anti-narrative, like painting. In terms of
> > achronicity/synchronicity, installation has achieved its own unique
> niche, I
> > think.
> >
> The chronological dichotomy is false. It is also false that painting is
> 'anti-narrative' as I point out above. So there is nothing particularly
> unique about installation, if these are the two bases for this claim.
Well, Peter, you've merely confused the term 'narrative art' with
'narrative time' and as such you have proved nothing. Thus the old 'like
begets like' inference rears it's ugly head. As terms, these arise in
discrete disciplines, so it's sort of like observing that Imanuel Kant's
'criticism' isn't the same as a wife accusing her husband of always
'criticizing' her, or visa versa. At any rate, I think you need to get
beyond the terms themselves and focus on the concepts they seek to
describe.
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
> Sure Erik, art requires consensus - and I'm glad you stepped in here -
> but please note that I have never attempted to define art. I'm not even
> particularly interested in what people think of as art.
I am innocent! I don't think I said you were trying to 'define art.' I was
disagreing with you a bit about it being totally subjective (whatever one's
definition is). But in another post you did mention how thie idea of
'individuality' was challenged in our modern lives -- I'm just saying that our
definition of 'art' can also be a consensus sort of thing, and objective even
if it isn't 'air-tight' and universal.
Erik
Alison A Raimes
<lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> writes
>Are you some kind of proprietor or something?
>
>- Lake
Your command of the English language is as bad as you knowledge of art
;-)
Alison A Raimes
<lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> writes
>
>You applaud installations by saying they are not "objects for sale" -
>but they are very expensive all the same. Somebody ends up paying for
>them. To think of installation art as being in some way an escape from
>the capitalist system may get credence in certain rarified circles, but
>to me it seems patently absurd.
To think that Installation work has no monetary value is as naive as
thinking that Installation work and Painting are not related. Now if you
were to say that Environmental art had no monetary value there might be
argument - one that artists could pull apart in an instance. The grants
and awards for such work are vast - artists profit from their work. And
do you think that the Tate Modern got works like Richard Long's that
take up an entire room, for free ? Lets face it, all art has become a
commodity. Baudrillard says there are two art markets now. *One is
regulated by the hierarchy of values* and the other * resembles nothing
so much as floating and uncontrollable capital in the financial market;
it is pure speculation, movement for movements sake, with no apparent
purpose other than to defy the law of value*. Apparently we should not
be scandalised by this, because, as JB says, *present day art is beyond
beautiful and ugly, the market, for its part, is beyond good and evil.*
Peter H.M. Brooks
emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" wrote:
>
> > >
> > Not quite true. You can, and do, have narrative pictures - look at
the
> > popular pictures of the stations of the cross that are designed,
> > precisely, to tell a story.
>
> Of course your example of the stations of the cross is a series of
> painting, Peter, not 'a painting.'
>
>
> By way of reference, read Kirk
> Varnedoe's essay in "High & Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture. [New
York,
> New York : Museum of Modern Art, 1990] [460] p. ill. (437 b&w, 193
col.)
> But I like your example, since tis is just the point Varnedoe was
making
> about painting's "anti-narrative' aspect, compared with the comic
strip's
> 'narrative' aspect. Varnedoe also points to the same difference in
the
> comic strip and the 'prototype' characature genre, which, like
painting, is
> 'anti-narrative.' "This opposes David Kunzle, who argues that the
> 'caracature' form is the prototype of the comic (see Kunzle, David.
"The
> History of the Comic Strip: The Nineteenth Century". Berkeley:
University
> Press of California, 1990. ) By applying the rule of
> narrative/anti-narrative, Varnedoe raises questions to Kunzle's idea
that
> the origin of comics is in characature ( political cartoons, social
satire,
> etc.)
>
simplistic.
>
> I actually thought I should point out on my last post that the term
> "narrative painting" is an entirely different animal than 'narrative
time'
> used in other diciplines (philosophy, poetics, narratology, semiotics,
> literary criticism, as well as certain aspects art history). A
painting
> that art historians call a 'narrative painting' does not work in the
same
> way as a 'narrative' form that is studied by narratology, for example.
> Narrative paintings only refer to an existing narrative, as opposed to
a
> form such as a comic strip, or the 'statiions of the cross' series
that you
> cite, which put forth a sequence of events in order to create a story
in
> time. So we can say that Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" refers to the
> mythology, by capturing a moment, frozen in time, of the story, and
because
> it refers to a story it is called a 'narrative painting' to
distinguish it
> from a painting that doesn't refer to a story, such as a Holbien
portrait.
>
referring to a story does not imply that the story is not itself told,
just as non-referral to a story does not imply that a story is not told
by the painting. I assumed that by using the term 'anti-narrative', it
was intended to imply that narration could not take place in a single
picture.
>
> > >
> > > What's really interesting is to compare painting with sculpture in
> > this
> > > regard. Is sculpture achronistic? I don't think so. It needs to
be
> > > experienced 'in the round' and this involves time. Remember those
> > Brancusis
> > > that were displayed on a rotating table - the experience of the
piece
> > > involved one revolution, at least. So you can say that sculpture
is
> > less
> > > 'anti-narrative' than painting, but not as fully 'narrative' as a
> > > performance piece.
> > >
> > If you use the 'time to see a piece' as your criterion, then any
picture
> > takes time to see - your eyes don't take in the entire picture at
one
> > go, but scan it over a period of time. So, by this argument, all art
is
> > in time.
>
> I don't think so. The power of a picture is that it is immediately
> apprehended.
>
which picture you are talking about. I have found that, to apprehend the
full power of many pictures, I have had to spend quite some time with
them.
>
> There's probably some merit to the famous art historian
> obsession with drawing triangles and speculating about the path of the
eye,
> but this says nothing about 'reading' meaning (the story) of a
painting
> (even though it may say something about the aesthetic experience.)
>
was a question of meaning.
>
>
> Sculpture has the need to be viewed 'in the round' which begins to
extend
> the time of apprehension. I wouldn't say to the time of a true
narrative,
> but somewhere between immediate apprehension and the extend time of
> narrative. If this were not so, it would be possible to approach
> Donatello's "Perseus" and experience a perfectly crappy piece, view
from a
> certain POV. Of course this doesn't happeen. That's the special
burdern
> placed on the sculptor - to resolve the aesthetics of the form
consistently
> through a time sequence -- something painters don't have to deal with.
>
same in this regard!
>
To
> beg the point, a weak painting, in terms of composition, is
'immediately'
> perceived as weak, before the viewer lets his/her eye travel over the
art
> historian's triangles and blocks.
>
examined it more closely, spent more time with it and decided that it
was not 'weak', in terms of composition, at all, but rather subtle.
Contrarywise, some 'strong' composition, on closer aquaintance shows
itself not to be at all - or at least only superficially.
>
> > > An installation sort of bridges these concepts. It can be
experienced
> > as
> > > sculpture, involving time. But photos of an installation, taken
> > > individually, are anti-narrative, like painting. In terms of
> > > achronicity/synchronicity, installation has achieved its own
unique
> > niche, I
> > > think.
> > >
> > The chronological dichotomy is false. It is also false that painting
is
> > 'anti-narrative' as I point out above. So there is nothing
particularly
> > unique about installation, if these are the two bases for this
claim.
>
> Well, Peter, you've merely confused the term 'narrative art' with
> 'narrative time' and as such you have proved nothing.
>
>
> Thus the old
'like
> begets like' inference rears it's ugly head. As terms, these arise in
> discrete disciplines, so it's sort of like observing that Imanuel
Kant's
> 'criticism' isn't the same as a wife accusing her husband of always
> 'criticizing' her, or visa versa. At any rate, I think you need to
get
> beyond the terms themselves and focus on the concepts they seek to
> describe.
>
being clear about what one means is entirely in order to arrive at a
better idea of what that means about 'reality'.
Anyway, on the subject of clarity. Maybe you can confirm exactly what
you mean by anti-narrative as counter pointed to narrative painting? If
it was the conventional meaning that you use in this posting, I would
expect you to have said non-narrative painting.
--
Peter H.M. Brooks
Beethoven was an innovator of form, Mozart an innovator of substance.
mdeli
>I love to draw. I love to paint. I do both very well. But art is not
>limited to what we can create with our hands...and
Visual art is created with hands among other things.
>it hasn't been for
>fifty years. All of the arts have a history based on drawing, but the
>art world has evolved beyond this limitation. This evolution bothers
>people like mani deli since it takes art out of the hands of people who
>have struggled years to gain a degree of skill and now realize that those
>skills are not as imperative as they once were to being part of the
>conversations in art taking place in galleries and musuems.
Doesn't do anything of the sort.
>As an aside, I do not think that there is any substitute for learning how
>to draw. It is a incredibly efficient and effective way of
>communicating, but it is not the only one.
It is in painting.
> The arranging of fruit by an artist in a
>gallery setting does not employ the part of the mind used to draw, but
>then, it's not asking the viewer to use that part of their mind, either.
Its asking the gallery owner to exhibit it.
>The artist is asking the viewer to think with them in a different way, to
>experience a reality outside their own.
So does a window dresser, only thing different is the bullshit.
> This leap of logic and thought
>leaves many people saying "I don't get it" or "This is Modern Academmic
>Art crap." But just because you don't get it, doesn't make it any less
>valid as art.
You don't get it!
It's valid as bullshit. That takes skill but not that of the visual
arts.
>You may be correct. It is conceivable that Jasper Johns was a charlatan
>who was merely trying to avoid work and to make a buck (mani deli and his
>ilk would jump on that bandwagon and ride it to town).
Yep!
>The real mistake is to believe that you have all the answers to the
>question "What is art?" To believe that drawing and its related
>disciplines are the only form of art is closing yourself off from a wild
>array of amazing creativity.
I suspect I know what isn't art.
Mani DeLi
Modern Academic Art is incompetence in search of an idea.
...no skill no art
Tired of Modern Art? Check out my web page!
http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/
mdeli
wrote:
>Lake,
>
>Once again, I tell you it is not that clear cut. Huge lemons lying around in the
>setting of an installation, are sculpture within an installation.
Of course horse apples in the gutter are also sculpture. Crappy
sculpture, but sculpture never the less. The art community should
definitely give a shit about this.
>The lemons are
>very well crafted and are not ephemeral.
How are they well crafted. Did you ever see a clumsy clod drop a bunch
of lemons in the super market?
> You've closed your mind against
>accepting installation as art but you can't close your mind against its
>acceptance by the art community at large.
>One of the beauties of installations
>is that they are not objects for sale (with a few exceptions).
Is that all it takes to make a bunch of crap lying on the floor
beautiful?
Marilyn used to be into rooms full of bananas I guess now its lemons
on the floor. How fashions change!
mdeli
The artzy fartzies here rate Christo's wrappings as art.
However Norman Rockwell's work isn't art its Commercial, Kitsch,
illustration.
In their book, the fact that people like it doesn't count.
mdeli
Some years ago I recall going to an opening of an exhibition where
this usual question came up among some viewers. The showing consisted
of a bunch of well patinaed old doors from a wreckage site standing
against the wall of the art gallery. Each door had a few politically
correct impasto schmiers of paint added here and there and of course
the artist's signature. In those days standing a bunch of stuff around
the gallery was still something new. "But is it art," I heard someone
ask.
There is a species of aesthete along with many critics who like
nothing more than to bring up the is-it-art question. This question
quickly leads to the question, what is art? In other words an
unanswerable quagmire. Strangely no one mentioned anything about
whether the works in question had any sort of value.
There are several views here:
搪verything is art
戢rt requires deep understanding in order to be properly evaluated
暗here is more here than meets the eye
In is in this vein that Duchamp in 1916 exhibited his critically
acclaimed urinal signed R. Mutt. Most Duchamp's works since then like
the exhibition of doors is really pure junkyard. Is it art? That is an
unanswerable question which pedantic modern academics continually
masturbate about. It is an ideal subject for inflated Artspeak.
However unbeknownst to average artzy-fartzy there is a continual
ever-changing 24-hour conceptual art exhibition taking place in your
neighborhood junk yard. But is it art?
No one need argue the point if we admit that art can also be a load of
crap. Instead getting into the, "it is or isn't art" question it is
wiser ask how the artwork compares with works universally accepted as
great art. One can claim that you can't compare artwork. But in fact
you can because one can always ask "why do you like this as opposed to
that?" and any answer always infers a comparison.
Even the "Duchamp's urinal is art" defender can't deny that he has a
preference. If you don't believe it ask him whether he would rather
have a Norman Rockwell or a Duchamp urinal and you will probably get
an answer.
Erik A. Mattila
> In article <3959CA7E...@tomatoweb.com>,
> emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
> > "Peter H.M. Brooks" wrote:
> >
> > > >
> > > Not quite true. You can, and do, have narrative pictures - look at
> the
> > > popular pictures of the stations of the cross that are designed,
> > > precisely, to tell a story.
> >
> > Of course your example of the stations of the cross is a series of
> > painting, Peter, not 'a painting.'
> >
> Indeed, and each painting is supposed to be a short story.
That's nonsense, Peter. Are you saying that you have read the story of
"Mobey Dick" by looking at the physical book? A 'narrative' always
involves time (sequence, of chain of events) and a series of five 'Stations
of the Cross' paintings operate in this way. The 'story' is in the
relationship between each frame, and the viewer fills in the gaps between
the pix to create the narrative.
It seem the opposite, for you at least. But let me backtrack to the
original context of my posting. I was saying that there is a method by
which various forms of art can be organized which would solve some of the
exasperating riddles such as 'is it art' etc. So it's a classification
problem, and as you know, any taxonomic structure must have a basis, or set
of rules, to make it functional and useful. Any methodology is of course
worthy of critique, and indeed it should be'tested' and 'challenged' as
much as possible to determine if it is useful.
Taxonomy is usually hierarchical, starting with broad distinctions between
the entities classified, and ending in fine distinctions. The old "20
Questions" word game is a good example. The person who thinks of the
problem must state if it is 'animal, vegetable, or mineral' and then the
guesser has twenty questions to narrow down the riddle and come up with an
answer.
So you are saying that "the division between narrative and anti-narrative
is too simplistic." Too simplistic for what? Is the division between
organic and inorganic in Linnean taxonomy also too simplistic? You
statement seems to be totally nonsensical to me. It's one thing to
challenge the criteria for classification, which you have done, but here
you are saying that there is no merit in classifying. Perhaps you meant
"the division between narrative and anti-narrative is not reasonable" or
something like that.
This is quite fantastic to me, Peter. By your reasoning if I say "Little
Red Riding Hood" you will know the story, without having heard it
previously or read it in a children's book. Or if Trobriand Islander views
"The Birth of Venus" he will know Greek mythology without ever having read,
studied, or been told Greek Mythology. This is utter nonesense. But yes,
'anti-narrative' does mean this. A painting cannot narrate - but it can
'signal' an existing narrative.
Well, you have to make the distinction between 'narrative time' and
'physical time.' 'Narrative time" simply means that something will happeen
before or after something else, so it is really a matter of sequence.
That's why I used the example of the comic strip, as it shows a series of
pictures which tell a story over time. So no matter how much physical time
you spend contemplating a painting, it won't reveal it's story in
'narrative time.'
> > There's probably some merit to the famous art historian
> > obsession with drawing triangles and speculating about the path of the
> eye,
> > but this says nothing about 'reading' meaning (the story) of a
> painting
> > (even though it may say something about the aesthetic experience.)
> >
> I agree, my point was against the idea that it took no time, not that it
> was a question of meaning.
> >
> >
> > Sculpture has the need to be viewed 'in the round' which begins to
> extend
> > the time of apprehension. I wouldn't say to the time of a true
> narrative,
> > but somewhere between immediate apprehension and the extend time of
> > narrative. If this were not so, it would be possible to approach
> > Donatello's "Perseus" and experience a perfectly crappy piece, view
> from a
> > certain POV. Of course this doesn't happeen. That's the special
> burdern
> > placed on the sculptor - to resolve the aesthetics of the form
> consistently
> > through a time sequence -- something painters don't have to deal with.
> >
> I am afraid that not all sculptors and not all sculpture are and is the
> same in this regard!
Are you talking about a bas relief, for example? Some examples would have
been useful. But consider Analytic Cubism, an attempt to plot out the
dynamics of an object in time/space on a two dimensional plane.
> To
> > beg the point, a weak painting, in terms of composition, is
> 'immediately'
> > perceived as weak, before the viewer lets his/her eye travel over the
> art
> > historian's triangles and blocks.
> >
> Again, up to a point. I have sometimes approached a 'weak' painting,
> examined it more closely, spent more time with it and decided that it
> was not 'weak', in terms of composition, at all, but rather subtle.
> Contrarywise, some 'strong' composition, on closer aquaintance shows
> itself not to be at all - or at least only superficially.
I think you need to work on developing some 'critical space' or
'reflexivity' (as in Habermas). Whatever your intimate relations and
experience with various works of art may be, there is never-the-less
general statements that can be made with some useful accuracy. Your two
hypothetical examples are a record of your changing your mind, Peter. My
point was addressing a generality, meant to demonstrate that the 'story' a
painting is alleged to say doesn't unfold over narrative time. You see,
the 'sequence' of a narrative isn't arbitrary, a product of the 'reader's'
discretion, but dictated by the narrative itself. If you read Milton like
this: page 1 -25 - 110 - 2 - 37 and so on you simply destroy the
narrative. However, if you look at a painting and your eye doesn't follow
imaginary triangles and pathways and weights and advancing/receding colors
etc. the painting remains intact, not at all debilitated by the reader's
discretionary exercise.
> > > > An installation sort of bridges these concepts. It can be
> experienced
> > > as
> > > > sculpture, involving time. But photos of an installation, taken
> > > > individually, are anti-narrative, like painting. In terms of
> > > > achronicity/synchronicity, installation has achieved its own
> unique
> > > niche, I
> > > > think.
> > > >
> > > The chronological dichotomy is false. It is also false that painting
> is
> > > 'anti-narrative' as I point out above. So there is nothing
> particularly
> > > unique about installation, if these are the two bases for this
> claim.
> >
> > Well, Peter, you've merely confused the term 'narrative art' with
> > 'narrative time' and as such you have proved nothing.
> >
> No, I haven't, as I point out above.
But you haven't pointed this out - you've merely underscored your
confusion.
> > Thus the old
> 'like
> > begets like' inference rears it's ugly head. As terms, these arise in
> > discrete disciplines, so it's sort of like observing that Imanuel
> Kant's
> > 'criticism' isn't the same as a wife accusing her husband of always
> > 'criticizing' her, or visa versa. At any rate, I think you need to
> get
> > beyond the terms themselves and focus on the concepts they seek to
> > describe.
> >
> The only point in using terms is to describe something! The point of
> being clear about what one means is entirely in order to arrive at a
> better idea of what that means about 'reality'.
> Anyway, on the subject of clarity. Maybe you can confirm exactly what
> you mean by anti-narrative as counter pointed to narrative painting? If
> it was the conventional meaning that you use in this posting, I would
> expect you to have said non-narrative painting.
A dictionary can do this for you, actually. One 'sense' definition of the
prefix 'anti-" is "1 a : of the same kind but situated opposite, exerting
energy in the opposite direction, or pursuing an opposite policy
<anticlinal> b : one that is opposite in kind to <anticlimax>" (Webster's).
The prefix "non-" simply means that something is not something. If I used
the term 'non-narrative painting' I would be refering to a painting such as
a Holbien portrait, that really doesn't reference a story or historical
event. If I used the term 'non-narrative' to describe painting, generally,
I think I would be excluding those borderline items, such as the "Stations
of the Cross" series, etc.
But I gave you a solid reference, in Kirk Varnedoe, and he's a first-class
Art Historian who uses the term 'anti-narrative' instead of
'non-narrative.' I believe he does this exactly for the sake of clarity,
since even 'narrative painting' 'exerts energy in the opposite direction'
than a comic strip does. BTW, I think you would really enjoy this book -
and I'm just saying this from looking at your paintings.
Erik
iian_...@my-deja.com
[..]
> What it takes in the first place is artistic skill for which
> conceptualists substitute bullshit. It doesn't take much of anything
> to conform to the prevailing view.
I have a saying like that:
"It's easy not to conform when everyone else is doing it to."
-- Iian
iian_...@my-deja.com
> Peter H.M. Brooks
> Beethoven was an innovator of form, Mozart an innovator of substance.
It's good to see that your line made it into your signature file after
all, Peter. Drop into <rec.music.classical> with that and you should
stir up some controversy. Try it on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Best regards,
-- Iian
Peter H.M. Brooks
emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
>
> > > > Not quite true. You can, and do, have narrative pictures - look
at
> > the
> > > > popular pictures of the stations of the cross that are designed,
> > > > precisely, to tell a story.
> > >
> > > Of course your example of the stations of the cross is a series of
> > > painting, Peter, not 'a painting.'
> > >
> > Indeed, and each painting is supposed to be a short story.
>
> That's nonsense, Peter. Are you saying that you have read the story
of
> "Mobey Dick" by looking at the physical book? A 'narrative' always
> involves time (sequence, of chain of events) and a series of five
'Stations
> of the Cross' paintings operate in this way. The 'story' is in the
> relationship between each frame, and the viewer fills in the gaps
between
> the pix to create the narrative.
>
picture tells a story. Consider 'Pictures at an exhibition', where a
tone poem is supplied in an attempt, failed inevitably, to render the
story represented in the pictures into a story in music.
I think that you are stumbling over the meaning of 'story'. I mentioned
the stations of the cross because the story is extended over a few
pictures, but, to claim that the story only lies between the pictures is
silly. Clearly each picture is part of the story, a sub-story, just as
each chapter in a novel is a sub-story. Clearly, for a sequence of
paintings to tell a story, each must have some narrative power too.
>
> > I think that the division between narrative and anti-narrative is
too
> > simplistic.
>
> It seem the opposite, for you at least. But let me backtrack to the
> original context of my posting. I was saying that there is a method
by
> which various forms of art can be organized which would solve some of
the
> exasperating riddles such as 'is it art' etc. So it's a
classification
> problem, and as you know, any taxonomic structure must have a basis,
or set
> of rules, to make it functional and useful. Any methodology is of
course
> worthy of critique, and indeed it should be'tested' and 'challenged'
as
> much as possible to determine if it is useful.
>
I am happy with that - taxonomy is important, though I think that too
much energy can ba wasted on minor taxonomic disputes.
>
> Taxonomy is usually hierarchical, starting with broad distinctions
between
> the entities classified, and ending in fine distinctions. The old "20
> Questions" word game is a good example. The person who thinks of the
> problem must state if it is 'animal, vegetable, or mineral' and then
the
> guesser has twenty questions to narrow down the riddle and come up
with an
> answer.
>
True, but taxonomy need not be heirarchical. A network structure is
perfectly possible too. I agree that heirarchies make it easier to set
up and understand - though you may lose something of reality in the
simplification.
In the case of art the multiple influences that operate in a lamarkian
manner suggest that a clean taxonomic structure is unlikely to be an
accurate one.
>
> So you are saying that "the division between narrative and
anti-narrative
> is too simplistic." Too simplistic for what? Is the division between
> organic and inorganic in Linnean taxonomy also too simplistic?
>
No, the organic/inorganic dichotomy is clearly reflected in reality. If
you don't define 'narrative' clearly enough (and I still haven't seen
quite what you mean by 'anti-narrative') then, even before you start
your taxonomy, you are going to have confused catagories. I would argue
that though the conventional definition of narrative as linked to a text
is clearer than 'tells a story', it is also a difficult one. Is a
persian carpet labelled with a verse from the Koran a narrative work?
>
> You
> statement seems to be totally nonsensical to me. It's one thing to
> challenge the criteria for classification, which you have done, but
here
> you are saying that there is no merit in classifying.
>
No, I am not. I am saying that the classification won't work because the
division is not clear and is too simplistic.
>
>Perhaps you
meant
> "the division between narrative and anti-narrative is not reasonable"
or
> something like that.
>
Exactly. Particularly as you now have used the old definition of
'narrative' as being 'linked to text' (and I show the difficulty with
this above), but you haven't shown what you mean by 'anti-narrative'. At
the moment, it would seem to me perfectly possible under your
classification for a picture not to be narrative or anti-narrative.
>
> > > it refers to a story it is called a 'narrative painting' to
> > distinguish it
> > > from a painting that doesn't refer to a story, such as a Holbien
> > portrait.
> > >
> > Indeed, as I say above. I am familiar with this usage. However,
> > referring to a story does not imply that the story is not itself
told,
> > just as non-referral to a story does not imply that a story is not
told
> > by the painting. I assumed that by using the term 'anti-narrative',
it
> > was intended to imply that narration could not take place in a
single
> > picture.
>
> This is quite fantastic to me, Peter. By your reasoning if I say
"Little
> Red Riding Hood" you will know the story, without having heard it
> previously or read it in a children's book.
>
That would be fantastic and isn't what I said. How, in any case, does a
phrase map exactly to a picture? What I am saying is that, if you see a
painting of a little girl next to a bed containing a wolf disguised as a
grandmother, then a story suggests itself.
>
> Or if Trobriand Islander
views
> "The Birth of Venus" he will know Greek mythology without ever having
read,
> studied, or been told Greek Mythology. This is utter nonesense.
>
Quite. This would be utter nonsense. I am not quite sure where you get
this strawman from, but it certainly is a man of straw!
>
> But
yes,
> 'anti-narrative' does mean this. A painting cannot narrate - but it
can
> 'signal' an existing narrative.
>
That use of the word signal in inverted commas has a suspicious look
about it - I hope that this isn't some semiotic bullshit!
Forgetting the possible bullshit, I don't see why you claim that a
painting can't provide a story. If you see a painting of a man hanging
from a gibbet, then, at the very least, you know that this man has been
hanged - a story in itself - other parts of the painting will help you
flesh out how, why and when, key parts of a story.
>
> > > I don't think so. The power of a picture is that it is
immediately
> > > apprehended.
> > >
> > Up to a point! It rather depends on what you mean by 'immediate' and
> > which picture you are talking about. I have found that, to apprehend
the
> > full power of many pictures, I have had to spend quite some time
with
> > them.
>
> Well, you have to make the distinction between 'narrative time' and
> 'physical time.' 'Narrative time" simply means that something will
happeen
> before or after something else, so it is really a matter of sequence.
> That's why I used the example of the comic strip, as it shows a series
of
> pictures which tell a story over time. So no matter how much physical
time
> you spend contemplating a painting, it won't reveal it's story in
> 'narrative time.'
>
Again, I think that this is a confusion. Stories don't have to be
sequential in the way you suggest. If you consider stories only to be
sequences of events, then I can understand your confusion!
If you consider early cave paintings, you will see that they clearly
intend to tell the story of the hunt (as most of them are about hunts),
and you can see the story in sequential form. However, many single
pictures of hunts give you the narrative just as clearly.
>
> > I am afraid that not all sculptors and not all sculpture are and is
the
> > same in this regard!
>
> Are you talking about a bas relief, for example? Some examples would
have
> been useful. But consider Analytic Cubism, an attempt to plot out the
> dynamics of an object in time/space on a two dimensional plane.
>
I wasn't actually thinking of bas relief, but it would clearly fit the
bill rather well. What should I consider of Analytic Cubism? I know that
the famous 'nude descending the stair' is such an attempt - and a good
one - but how is it relevant here?
> > >
> > Again, up to a point. I have sometimes approached a 'weak' painting,
> > examined it more closely, spent more time with it and decided that
it
> > was not 'weak', in terms of composition, at all, but rather subtle.
> > Contrarywise, some 'strong' composition, on closer aquaintance shows
> > itself not to be at all - or at least only superficially.
>
> I think you need to work on developing some 'critical space' or
> 'reflexivity' (as in Habermas). Whatever your intimate relations and
> experience with various works of art may be, there is never-the-less
> general statements that can be made with some useful accuracy.
>
Of course there are! We have been debating exactly what makes sense in
this regard - something that would be impossible if I didn't accept the
above.
>
> Your
two
> hypothetical examples are a record of your changing your mind, Peter.
My
> point was addressing a generality, meant to demonstrate that the
'story' a
> painting is alleged to say doesn't unfold over narrative time.
>
I disagree with this point. That has been the discussion.
>
> You
see,
> the 'sequence' of a narrative isn't arbitrary, a product of the
'reader's'
> discretion, but dictated by the narrative itself. If you read Milton
like
> this: page 1 -25 - 110 - 2 - 37 and so on you simply destroy the
> narrative. However, if you look at a painting and your eye doesn't
follow
> imaginary triangles and pathways and weights and advancing/receding
colors
> etc. the painting remains intact, not at all debilitated by the
reader's
> discretionary exercise.
>
This is true enough - though there have been experimental texts where
any reading will do, and today adventure type computer games are
designed to have a narrative that is random or driven by the reader.
Still arguing that a text must be read sequentially to make sense
(actually, thinking about it, something like the 'Alexandrian quartet'
does not have to be read in any particular sequence to make sense) is
not the same as arguing that a painting can't tell a story.
A painting may be read in different order by different people (vide my
example of a gibbet above), but the description of the story will be as
similar as that you would get if they had read a story and were
answering a comprenension.
> > >
> > > Well, Peter, you've merely confused the term 'narrative art' with
> > > 'narrative time' and as such you have proved nothing.
> > >
> > No, I haven't, as I point out above.
>
> But you haven't pointed this out - you've merely underscored your
> confusion.
>
I hope that my points above help you understand your mistake here.
>
> The prefix "non-" simply means that something is not something. If I
used
> the term 'non-narrative painting' I would be refering to a painting
such as
> a Holbien portrait, that really doesn't reference a story or
historical
> event. If I used the term 'non-narrative' to describe painting,
generally,
> I think I would be excluding those borderline items, such as the
"Stations
> of the Cross" series, etc.
>
Yes, of course I understood the semantics of it! What I am questioning
is if it is true that a portrait, as your example gives, that doesn't
reference a story or an historical event, may not tell a story. I am
arguing that there may be paintings that tell a story, but are not
narrative paintings. I am agreeing that there is a class of
non-narrative paintings that do no tell stories and don't relate to
them. I am not sure that I agree that there are anti-narrative
paintings.
Incidentally relating back to your discussion of taxonomy above. Most of
the interesting taxonomic divisions are arrived at by considering
'borderline items'.
>
> But I gave you a solid reference, in Kirk Varnedoe, and he's a
first-class
> Art Historian who uses the term 'anti-narrative' instead of
> 'non-narrative.' I believe he does this exactly for the sake of
clarity,
> since even 'narrative painting' 'exerts energy in the opposite
direction'
> than a comic strip does. BTW, I think you would really enjoy this
book -
> and I'm just saying this from looking at your paintings.
>
Yes, I have the reference, and will probably enjoy it.
Peter H.M. Brooks
iian_...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>
> > Peter H.M. Brooks
> > Beethoven was an innovator of form, Mozart an innovator of
substance.
>
> all, Peter. Drop into <rec.music.classical> with that and you should
> stir up some controversy. Try it on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
>
Though I would have to break with my tradition of changing my signature
once it has been discussed.
bruceattah
passage of time explicitly. They don't often, but they can.
Usually, we prefer to make and look at *scenes*, which may or
may not tell a story by implying past and the future events. But
this ain't what I came here for. It's not important, anyway,
rather it's one of those silly arguments that preoccupy "art
theory" at the expense of what matters.
What matters is this: Is Christo any good? Does he say lots of
important stuff about the modern world, as the launcher of this
thread alleges? And, more generally (because Christo was only
introduced as an example of a visually competent conceptualist,
after all), is conceptualism any good as art, when compared with
painting?
Here's what I think. Christo is a good draughtsman, which makes
him an atypical conceptualist. However, his reputation uis
founded on the audacity of the schemes he carries out with his
wife (wrapping bridges, etc.), not on his drawing. This is
perverse, because Christo's schemes are invariably silly, and
say nothing important about anything (not that saying anything
important about anything is absolutely necessary to good art).
Christo's schemes are amusing for their sheer Quixotic idiocy,
and impressive purely because they are huge. Like most
conceptualists, he is obsessively repetitive, but less boring
than some. In terms of cleverness, his works are on par
intellectually with a Gary Larson cartoon on a bad day - which
makes Christo an above-average conceptualist, slightly superior
to Claes Oldenburg (another husband-and-wife team known just by
the husband's name). NO conceptualist has ever achieved the
intellectual level of, say, Charles Schultz on a good day. But
that's conceptualism for you. At least his drawings aren't
conceptualist. Conceptualist drawing has to be the worst genre
of "art" ever devised in the entire history of art from the
Venus of Willendorf on.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
Up to 100 minutes free!
http://www.keen.com
lake
taxonomy, and it's interesting. But as you've already pointed out,
painting often does USE narratives by signalling them and commenting on
them - (not all painting, but much painting). So maybe "anti-narrative"
is not the best word to describe the polarity you have in mind.
Maybe "sequential/non-sequential"?
But I agree with you that essentially, paintings are meant to be seen
"all at once". In a sense, painting is atemporal, because one sees it
many times, each time "all at once", but each time differently. All the
parts of a painting are present simultaneously, at each viewing.
Theatre and music and poetry are obviously sequential arts
Sculpture and architecture, somewhere between.
And dance? Well dance seems to blow the whole system apart, because it
is both and neither!
- Lake
.
lake
anyone else. But I've noticed (correct me if I'm wrong) a sort of
holier-than-thou sentiment in the conceptualist camp, because they are
not actually dealing in "commodities"......
But that's really a side-issue.
I realize that installation-type work is generally ASSUMED to be
closely related to painting - that much is obvious Raimes, and there's
no need for you to reiterate it. What's not obvious is HOW it is
related. That was my question, or challenge, and that's precisely what
you've ignored.
- Lake
mdeli
<lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> wrote:
>Lots of people like Christo, lots of people like Rockwell. Lots of
>people like Madonna, lots of people like Van Gogh. So what's your point?
>
>- Lake
>
My point is that if you imply that anything can be art and then say
Christo produced art you can't then say that Rockwell is an
illustrator and not an artist.
mdeli
<lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> wrote:
>Yes, we all have our preferences. Personally, if I owned a Duchamp, I
>would sell it as quick as possible - and I'd do the same with a
>Rockwell. But I'd hang on to my De Koonings though, and anything by
>Dubuffet or Soulages.
>
>How about you, DeLi? Which 20th-century painters would you trade? Would
>you give me two Bacons for one Parrish? How about six Dufy watercolors
>in exchange for one very good original Beardsley drawing?
>
>Ah, if only we had the money DeLi. How many Jasper Johns would you give
>me for a first-rate Andrew Wyeth?
How many cigars would be worth a swan? That's the reason money was
invented.
Never said that lots of crap couldn't be worth lots of money, or that
lots of people wouldn'd like a lot of crap.
>As for your silly doors, well it's easy to go around panning the local
>shows, whether they're door-schmierers or Dali-lookalikes.
Name five Dali lookalikes.
>Doesn't
>prove a thing. What takes courage and skill is to champion a young
>painter of promise. Always takes more guts to be positive than negative.
What it takes in the first place is artistic skill for which
conceptualists substitute bullshit. It doesn't take much of anything
to conform to the prevailing view.
Mani DeLi
Erik A. Mattila
> I do take your point, but don't agree that it is nonsense to say a
> picture tells a story. Consider 'Pictures at an exhibition', where a
> tone poem is supplied in an attempt, failed inevitably, to render the
> story represented in the pictures into a story in music.
>
> I think that you are stumbling over the meaning of 'story'. I mentioned
> the stations of the cross because the story is extended over a few
> pictures, but, to claim that the story only lies between the pictures is
> silly. Clearly each picture is part of the story, a sub-story, just as
> each chapter in a novel is a sub-story. Clearly, for a sequence of
> paintings to tell a story, each must have some narrative power too.
Well, you may not acknowledge that there is a difference to 'telling' a
story and 'referring' to a story. If this is the case, we're in trouble,
since this discussion is about making these sorts of distinctions and
organizing them in a useful way, so that we could say with confidence that
while an installation may be art, it is not a painting, yadda yadda yadda.
By way of example, just take a simple word. It is a sound, and when it is
uttered it means something. But we need to locate where that 'meaning'
resides - in the word itself, or elsewhere. We get a clue if the word is
uttered and heard by a person who understands another language, and does
not understand the language to which the uttered word belongs. To this
person the word is simply a sound, and it doesn't mean anything. So it's
safe to say that 'meaning' does not reside in the word itself.
A visual icon, symbol or signal operates in the same way, i.e. produces
meaning. And like language, the 'meaning' resides somewhere else, not in
the icon, symbol or signal itself.
If we look at a comic strip, asking how it functions, we see the each
indivudal panel establishes a node which ushers the reader through the
narrative (or story). These nodes, if we take them apart, are composed of
a collection of symbols and icons which generate meaning. But to
experience the story, the reader must 'connect' these nodes into a
meaningful story with some internal cohesivness and believability. This
requires the reader to generate a large amount of the story itself. For
example, node 1 depicts Donald waking up in the morning. The telephone is
ringing. Node 2 shows Donald talking on the phone with Uncle Scrooge, and
the dialog tells us that Scrooge wants Donald to go with him to South
America. Node 3 shows Donald, Huey, Dewey and Louie arriving at the
Airport. Node 4 shows the four, and Uncle Scrooge, in the terminal in
South America....and so on. The reader connects all these nodes together,
and the reader provides all the material necessary to make the story
cohesive and believable. It is 'understood' that between node 1 and 2,
Donald got out of bed, walked to the telephone, picked it up, and answered
it. It is understood that between node 2 and 3, Donald woke up Heuy,
Dewey, and Louie, told them about Uncle Scrooge's request, and they all got
ready, packed, called a cab, and traveled to the airport.
This is probably why comics are so enormously popular, in fact. They
always become very personal, since the reader must fill in the narrative
gaps, thus 'writing' a significant part of the story.
Your example of the Stations of the Cross is similar, with an important
exception. To connect all the nodes into a cohesive narrative, the reader
must already know the story. Let's say a reader knows knothing about
Christianity or Christian symbolism, and reads this series of nodes like a
comic strip -- the 'story' that person would read is likely to be quite
different than the official 'Christian' story. (Actually, it would be a
fun experiment - since you could take each dilpected symbol or icon and
'misinterpret' it and come up with a genuine satire in the form of an
improbable narrative (improbably by constast with the overdetermined
meaning of these symbols).
I'm not at all confused about the term 'story.' A dictionary will show you
that 'narrative' and 'story' are generally interchanable, so there's no
problem with switching the terms around. What's really at issue here, in
my opinion, is where does 'meaning' reside. This is an old argument on
RAF, of course. Many believe that meaning is inherent in a picture, and
others, myself included, see it as part of the social life of the viewer.
What concerns me is that no one in the first group has ever been able to
explain how a picture could have 'meaning' as an inherent quality without
digressing to a metaphysical argument that cannot be treated with reason.
I think, so far at least, that you believe that the 'story' (i.e. meaning)
is a quality of the picture - so I would ask, how does this work? (without
resorting to metaphysics.)
> I am happy with that - taxonomy is important, though I think that too
> much energy can ba wasted on minor taxonomic disputes.
Then you are being wasteful, Peter. You've raised the issues about the
taxa I proposed, after all.
> True, but taxonomy need not be heirarchical. A network structure is
> perfectly possible too. I agree that heirarchies make it easier to set
> up and understand - though you may lose something of reality in the
> simplification.
I did acknowldege this - I said "taxonomy is USUALLY hierarchical." But
let's not lose sight of the specific issue at hand -- that is, to have a
useful taxonomy of works of art which would lead us out of the morass of
circular arguments about Installations being paintings, and paintings being
sculpture, and what is art. My proposal is that the element of 'narrative
time' is a useful criteria to use, as a matter of measurement and
definition. You are questioning this.
> In the case of art the multiple influences that operate in a lamarkian
> manner suggest that a clean taxonomic structure is unlikely to be an
> accurate one.
The decision you must make, however, is a matter of degree of focus.
Alfred Barr's "Family Tree" of modern art is a great joke, in many ways
(although Barr was dead serious about it.) But a coarser typology of works
of art can be very useful in deciding questions like "is performance art
really art?" I mean, if you go back and look at some of the RAF
'ping-pong' arguments on RAF about this, you can see that if there was an
acceptable criteria for classification the issue could be settled. Many
people here don't believe the issue could ever be settled. I tlhink it
could, so long as 'reason' was the guiding principle.
> No, the organic/inorganic dichotomy is clearly reflected in reality. If
> you don't define 'narrative' clearly enough (and I still haven't seen
> quite what you mean by 'anti-narrative') then, even before you start
> your taxonomy, you are going to have confused catagories. I would argue
> that though the conventional definition of narrative as linked to a text
> is clearer than 'tells a story', it is also a difficult one. Is a
> persian carpet labelled with a verse from the Koran a narrative work?
Peter, just because you've failed to grasp a pretty basic concept, doesn't
mean that I have a 'confused category.' I didn't invent the term
"anti-narrative" at all, so rather than having to defend it, I merely have
to provide a citation. I've done this, and it is a bit difficult in the
case in view of your views of semiotics. So the reference I've given are
'outside' semiotics. You can find more under the disciplines of
linguistics and narratology.
>
> >
> > You
> > statement seems to be totally nonsensical to me. It's one thing to
> > challenge the criteria for classification, which you have done, but
> here
> > you are saying that there is no merit in classifying.
> >
> No, I am not. I am saying that the classification won't work because the
> division is not clear and is too simplistic.
What could be clearer than saying "a narrative tells a story" and "an
anti-narrative doesn't tell a story?" "As for simplistic" I refer you to
Occam's Razor.
> >Perhaps you
> meant
> > "the division between narrative and anti-narrative is not reasonable"
> or
> > something like that.
> >
> Exactly. Particularly as you now have used the old definition of
> 'narrative' as being 'linked to text' (and I show the difficulty with
> this above), but you haven't shown what you mean by 'anti-narrative'. At
> the moment, it would seem to me perfectly possible under your
> classification for a picture not to be narrative or anti-narrative.
Where have I stated a narrative is "linked to text?" If I said this I
certainly misspoke, as I don't believe this is true. I don't think I have
said this, nor do I think that this is an "old definition." If it is an
"old definition," it's news to me.
>
> That would be fantastic and isn't what I said. How, in any case, does a
> phrase map exactly to a picture? What I am saying is that, if you see a
> painting of a little girl next to a bed containing a wolf disguised as a
> grandmother, then a story suggests itself.
Correct. I think you're beginning to grasp the issue at hand. The 'story'
is not in the picture, but the picture "evokes the story" which exists
elsewhere (in the mind of the viewer, of course.) In this way the picture
does not "tell the story" but merely refers to a story that is/has been
told elsewhere. By contrast, a 'narrative' tells the story. I can repeat
a story already told, or it can create a brand new story that has never
been told.
> > Or if Trobriand Islander
> views
> > "The Birth of Venus" he will know Greek mythology without ever having
> read,
> > studied, or been told Greek Mythology. This is utter nonesense.
> >
> Quite. This would be utter nonsense. I am not quite sure where you get
> this strawman from, but it certainly is a man of straw!
Strawman? While easily confuted, this example merely supports the idea
that you seem so resistant to - that Botticelli's painting does not "tell
the story" but merely refers to the story. You have repeatedly complained
that I am being unclear and not defining things properly - so why complain
when I make an earnest attempt to explain my point to you. I almost looks
like you really don't want to understand my point, Peter. When I make a
very honest effort to respond to your request for clarification, you shout
"Straw man!" Tsk, tsk, tsk...
> > But
> yes,
> > 'anti-narrative' does mean this. A painting cannot narrate - but it
> can
> > 'signal' an existing narrative.
> >
> That use of the word signal in inverted commas has a suspicious look
> about it - I hope that this isn't some semiotic bullshit!
Well, these 'inverted commas' are elipses or scarecrows, Peter. They only
signify that I'm emphasizing the term. Picture a teacher holding up flash
cards. "The next word, class, is "SIGNAL" - s-i-g-n-a-l. Say it, class,
"SIGNAL." You know, like that.
But I don't quite understand how you could associate semiotics with
genderized bovine feces if you really don't know if 'signal' is a semiotic
term or not.
But to put your soul at ease, it's not really. In fact, the only place I
know of that the term is used in semiotic literature is at the very
beginning chapters of Umberto Eco's "Theory of Semiotics" where he is
writing on the differences between symbols, signs, codes etc. For the sake
of clarity, if you know what a traffic signal is, you understand my use of
the term. I'm saying that a narrative painting functions as a signal,
refering the viewer to a story that exists elsewhere. Take history
painting, for example. My own experience is that I need the title to get
to the story "Napoleon at Waterloo" or "Champlaine in Quebec" since the
pictures themselves just look like generic battle scenes - and the time
period is revealed by costume and weapons.
> Forgetting the possible bullshit, I don't see why you claim that a
> painting can't provide a story. If you see a painting of a man hanging
> from a gibbet, then, at the very least, you know that this man has been
> hanged - a story in itself - other parts of the painting will help you
> flesh out how, why and when, key parts of a story.
It because a representation of a man hanging from a gibbet isn't a story,
it is just a picture of a man hanging from a gibbet. The reason it isn't a
story is because there is not 'time' in it - I'm not inventing these
things. Pick up a text on narratology and see for yourself, Peter. You'll
see at the beginning great attention is paid to defining the terms of the
discipline. What is and is not a narrative, and so on.
What you're doing in your example above is merely naming things that you
recognize in the picture and assigning significance to them. It's quite
arbitrary, really, althoug it's one of the things that makes paintings
popular. I'm just saying that it is not narrative, in a strict sense of
the term as it is used by those who study narratives.
> Again, I think that this is a confusion. Stories don't have to be
> sequential in the way you suggest. If you consider stories only to be
> sequences of events, then I can understand your confusion!
You're dead wrong about this. A story must have time. Give me an example
of a story that does not have narrative time - I challenge you.
> If you consider early cave paintings, you will see that they clearly
> intend to tell the story of the hunt (as most of them are about hunts),
> and you can see the story in sequential form. However, many single
> pictures of hunts give you the narrative just as clearly.
This is sheer speculation, and the evidence doesn't support it. No one has
been able to figure out what Soultrean art is 'about' - but we do know that
some modern tribal people have formalized an oratorial re-enactment of
hunting experiences. Pictures could be useful in this regard, but the
story itself is not the picture.
> > > I am afraid that not all sculptors and not all sculpture are and is
> the
> > > same in this regard!
> >
> > Are you talking about a bas relief, for example? Some examples would
> have
> > been useful. But consider Analytic Cubism, an attempt to plot out the
> > dynamics of an object in time/space on a two dimensional plane.
> >
> I wasn't actually thinking of bas relief, but it would clearly fit the
> bill rather well. What should I consider of Analytic Cubism? I know that
> the famous 'nude descending the stair' is such an attempt - and a good
> one - but how is it relevant here?
Well, the issue was whether sculpture could be considered 'narrative or
semi-narrative' because time was required to view it. I've decided that
it's a poor argument at any rate, since I've obviously confused 'narrative
time' with 'real time.'
> This is true enough - though there have been experimental texts where
> any reading will do, and today adventure type computer games are
> designed to have a narrative that is random or driven by the reader.
> Still arguing that a text must be read sequentially to make sense
> (actually, thinking about it, something like the 'Alexandrian quartet'
> does not have to be read in any particular sequence to make sense) is
> not the same as arguing that a painting can't tell a story.
Or you can look at a Quintain Tarantino screenplay. Manipulating time is
an old literary technique. But you need to acknowledge that my example
wasn't about any work, it was about Milton, something that exists in its
own form. So each work has it's own strategy about time (sequence) which
supports the story . As for the computer game example you provide, I
wouldn't consider this a narrative at all. There is a narrative referred
to, and even stated, but it is usually a little story that could be written
out on a page and a half by itself. How tlhe player navigates the maze has
no bearing on the underlying story at all. Granted, time is very pliable,
and can be used to all sorts of ends in terms of emplotment and outcome.
But still, time must exist in a narrative, and the intelligibility of the
story depends on proper sequence. You could actually experiment a bit with
editing videos. Change the time around and see how the story comes out.
> A painting may be read in different order by different people (vide my
> example of a gibbet above), but the description of the story will be as
> similar as that you would get if they had read a story and were
> answering a comprenension.
Again, this isn't a story. It is a representation.
>
> Yes, of course I understood the semantics of it! What I am questioning
> is if it is true that a portrait, as your example gives, that doesn't
> reference a story or an historical event, may not tell a story. I am
> arguing that there may be paintings that tell a story, but are not
> narrative paintings. I am agreeing that there is a class of
> non-narrative paintings that do no tell stories and don't relate to
> them. I am not sure that I agree that there are anti-narrative
> paintings.
You can always assign historical significance to a portrait. Art
Historians do this all the time. The issue is if this signification
resides in the picture or the mind of the art historian. The thing is,
Peter, that we can invent stories about anything (and often do). But in
doing so, it doesn't mean the story is 'in' the thing, or that the 'thing'
tells the story. This is the big difference between a narrative and
everything else that is not a narrative. A narrative IS the story.
>
> Incidentally relating back to your discussion of taxonomy above. Most of
> the interesting taxonomic divisions are arrived at by considering
> 'borderline items'.
Yes, the Bowerbird is classified with the Bird of Pardise because of a
similar structure of it's middle toe. The detractors argue that this is a
product of parallel-evolution and doesn't not prove a familial
relationship.
> > But I gave you a solid reference, in Kirk Varnedoe, and he's a
> first-class
> > Art Historian who uses the term 'anti-narrative' instead of
> > 'non-narrative.' I believe he does this exactly for the sake of
> clarity,
> > since even 'narrative painting' 'exerts energy in the opposite
> direction'
> > than a comic strip does. BTW, I think you would really enjoy this
> book -
> > and I'm just saying this from looking at your paintings.
> >
> Yes, I have the reference, and will probably enjoy it.
Be sure to underline 'anti-narrative' when you come to it :-)
Erik
Gonad2000
>Artsy Fartzy logic:
>
>The artzy fartzies here rate Christo's wrappings as art.
> However Norman Rockwell's work isn't art its Commercial,
Kitsch,
>illustration.
There are specific differences between art and illustration - it
isn't mysterious at all. Rockwell's work is illustration because
it depends on the outside world for validity - the people and
objects have to be imitations of reality, otherwise it fails.
Art, on the other hand, is self-referential: it doesn't depend on
outside references for its validity. (This is why distortion is
valid in art, but not in illustration.) I specifically exclude
cartooning, comics, and cariacture (sp?) from this.
Interestingly, a piece can be both an illustration and a work of
art - the old masters are good examples of this. They accurately
represent the outside world and, at the same time, supercede it,
creating an internal world that stands on its own. Many people
look at a classical work and think they are appreciating it as a
painting, but they are only seeing the qualities of illustration.
They are looking at pictures; they just don't know it. Rockwell
knew all this very well, and referred to himself as an
illustrator.
There is nothing wrong with good illustration. It is just
different from art.
>
>In their book, the fact that people like it doesn't count.
It doesn't - one way or another. It is very nice that people like
Rockwell and other illustrators. But reducing it all to a
popularity contest negates any assessment of quality, pro or con.
From what I have read in this group, I am expecting Mdeli's
critical response to revolve around words like 'stupid', and
'crap', 'artspeak,' and 'panties.' Surprise me, Mani: discuss my
points intelligently.
Gonad
>Mani DeLi
>
>Modern Academic Art is incompetence in search of an idea.
>....no skill no art
>Tired of Modern Art? Check out my web page!
> http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/
>
>
-----------------------------------------------------------
Alison A Raimes
<danfoxar...@yahoo.com.invalid> writes
>From what I have read in this group, I am expecting Mdeli's
>critical response to revolve around words like 'stupid', and
>'crap', 'artspeak,' and 'panties.' Surprise me, Mani: discuss my
>points intelligently.
>
>Gonad
I doubt Mani will indulge you just because you change your name
signature, Dan.
bruceattah
>...difference to 'telling' a story and 'referring' to a story...
Look, Erik, matey, you're right to say that what we
call "narrative painting" is not usually narrative in the sense
of telling a story, but rather that it refers to stories. But so
what? It is not true that painting cannot in principle tell
stories. Painting usually doesn't tell stories, that's all. It's
all about preference, history, convention. In your discussion so
far, you have been confusing "anti-narrative" with "non-
narrative". There is an anti-narrative tendency in painting in
that painters often desire to depict scenes naturalistically, so
as to maximize the viewer's involvement, but this militates
against the desire to represent multiple points in time.
However, painting is not necessarily non-narrative, because one
*can* represent multiple points in time in a painting, usually
by compromising naturalism.
> ...so that we could say with confidence that while an
installation may be art, it is not a painting...
An installation is a painting if it is a still picture on a flat
(ish) surface that has been made essentially by hand. If it is
not a still picture on a flat(ish) surface that has been made by
hand, then it is not a painting. Nothing to do with whether is
tells a story or not. As to whether it is art or not, this has
nothing to do with story-telling, either.
> If we look at a comic strip, asking how it functions, we see
the each indivudal panel establishes a node
> which ushers the reader through the narrative (or story).
> These nodes, if we take them apart, are composed of a
collection of symbols and icons which generate meaning.
> But to experience the story, the reader must 'connect' these
nodes into a meaningful story with some internal
> cohesivness and believability.
> This requires the reader to generate a large amount of the
story itself.
You seem to want to contrast this with what happens in written
stories, but you'd have to be nuts to claim that a novel
like "War and Peace" is not full of elisions or omissions which
the reader must imaginatively fill in. Comics DO TELL THE STORY -
and the omissions and elisions that occur in comics are
analogous to the omissions and elisions that happen in our own
memory when we recall sequences of events. It is no accident
that the same gaps occur in cinema and TV narratives.
> This is probably why comics are so enormously popular, in fact.
> They always become very personal, since the reader must fill
in the
> narrative gaps, thus 'writing' a significant part of the
story.
On the contrary, I would say that the popularity of comics, like
that of cinema, lies partly in the fact that they explicitly
convey the scenes that in written narratives would have to be
constructed in the reader's imagination. They thus make vivid
what might otherwise be vague, and shareable what would
otherwise be private.
> Your example of the Stations of the Cross is similar, with an
important exception.
> To connect all the nodes into a cohesive narrative, the reader
must already know the story.
> Let's say a reader knows knothing about Christianity or
Christian symbolism,
> and reads this series of nodes like a comic strip --
the 'story' that person would
> read is likely to be quite different than the
official 'Christian' story.
That's true, but it wouldn't be *just any* story. It would be a
story that reflected the sequence depicted. But then, if you
went & read the text of some of the stories in the New Testament
without any prior knowledge of Christianity, you'd probably come
out with an interpretation that was at odds with conventional
Christian understanding.
> What concerns me is that no one in the first group has ever
been able to explain how a picture could have 'meaning'
> as an inherent quality without digressing to a metaphysical
argument that cannot be treated with reason. I think, so
> far at least, that you believe that the 'story' (i.e. meaning)
is a quality of the picture - so I would ask, how does this
> work? (without resorting to metaphysics.)
You cannot discuss how things generally have meaning (not just
pictures) without entering metaphysics. The question of
what "meaning" means is very much a philosophical one, and what
answer you give is going to depend on what metaphysical position
(s) you take. That's not to say that you can't reason about the
meaning of "meaning".
BTW, let's just be clear that "meaning" is not synonymous
with "story", and pictures can be meaningful without telling
stories. I hope we're agreed on that.
>...My proposal is that the element of 'narrative time' is a
useful criteria to use,
> as a matter of measurement and definition...
From the foregoing, you'll see that I don't agree that the
presence or absence of an element of "narrative time" is useful
in saying what is or isn't a painting, what is or isn't art, or
where "installation" as an art form (if it is one) stands in
relation to other (actual or proposed) art forms. What you're
proposing is, I believe, an arbitrary classification that cuts
across genre and form.
> ..."As for simplistic" I refer you to Occam's Razor...
When someone accuses you of being simplistic, reference to
Occam's Razor will not serve as a defence. Occam's Razor, in
effect, advises you to be "as simple as possible, but not more
so". If you're being simplistic, then your being "more so" -
i.e., your theory is so simple that it does not fit reality.
>The 'story' is not in the picture, but the picture "evokes the
story" which exists elsewhere (in the mind of the viewer, of
course.)
> In this way the picture does not "tell the story" but merely
refers to a story that is/has been told elsewhere. By contrast, a
> 'narrative' tells the story. I can repeat a story already
told, or it can create a brand new story that has never been
told.
You are just plain wrong about your characterization of pictures
as being only capable of illustrating stories told elsewhere.
They can and do tell stories that are new in the picture itself.
Fairly obvious "fine art" (as opposed to comic-book or newspaper
cartoon) examples are found in the work of William Hogarth, and
of Dutch genre painters. Hogarth's Rakes Progress tells a story
entirely through a sequence of pictures. A sequence of separate
pictures, is not strictly necessary, though - chronological
sequence can be represented in single pictures.
> ...'anti-narrative' does mean this. A painting cannot narrate -
but it can 'signal' an existing narrative...
>...these 'inverted commas' ...only signify that I'm emphasizing
the term...
You can hardly blame anyone for misreading you, as you have
applied a common illiterate misuse of inverted commas in a
context where a different, grammatically correct, reading of
them is plausible. When you put a word in inverted commas, it
ought to mean either that you're talking about the word itself,
rather than what the word refers to ("dog" is a word; a dog is
an anmal), or that you're asserting that the word is a
quotation, i.e., it is something that someone else has said, or
would say, and you are not saying it on your own behalf. In the
quotation above, the inverted commas around "anti-narrative"
correctly signal that your are talking about the term itself,
whereas the the quotes around "signal" incorrectly imply that
you disavow the word - a possible paraphrase would be "A
painting cannot narrate - but it can 'signal' (as some would
say, though I would prefer some other term) an existing
narrative..."
In usenet, asterisks or underscore characters (*signal*, or
_signal_) usually serve to indicate text emboldened or
underlined for emphasis.
Your critics are right to accuse you of semiology, as the cruel
abuse of quotation marks, hyphens and parentheses is a
conspicuous symptom of that particular intellectual disease.
>...a representation of a man hanging from a gibbet isn't a
story, it is just a picture of a man hanging from a gibbet.
> The reason it isn't a story is because there is not 'time' in
it...
If ALL the picture depicts is a man hanging from a gibbet, then
it's not a story - but the picture might contain clues as to how
the man got to be hanging from the gibbet, and clues as to what
consequences might follow from the man's hanging. In such a
case, time is present, and a story is told.
> ...I'm not inventing these things. Pick up a text on
narratology and see for yourself...
If narratologists (Ooh, you've got an ology! You must be
clever!) seriously believe that paintings cannot represent
chronology and therefore cannot tell stories, then they're not
just wrong, they're blind, too!
>...merely naming things that you recognize in the picture and
assigning significance to them.
> It's quite arbitrary, really, althoug it's one of the things
that makes paintings popular...
It's not quite arbitrary. The significance, barring mistakes, is
a significance that was intended by the painter.
> ...This is sheer speculation, and the evidence doesn't support
it. No one has been able to figure out what Soultrean art
is 'about'...
It is a common nonsense to assert that we have no idea of what
prehistoric art is about. In fact, in broad terms, we have a
pretty clear idea. The reason some people love to pretend that
these pictures are beyond any interpretation is that they wish
to maintain the pretense that only words have meaning (they
suffer from logomania), and that all things are culturally
relative or personally subjective (they suffer from solipsistic
antirealism).
> Well, the issue was whether sculpture could be
considered 'narrative or semi-narrative' because time was
required to view it.
> I've decided that it's a poor argument at any rate, since I've
obviously confused 'narrative time' with 'real time.'
I'm glad you acknowledged that, as I was about to point it out.
But there's more: paintings take time to read, just as
narratives do, and what's more, the comprehensibility of any
narrative contained in a painting can depend on whether or not
the viewer scans the picture in the way the artist intended.
This is just the same as what happens with written narratives:
if you dip in at random to various pages of a novel, you may
fail to grasp the narrative.
> ...we can invent stories about anything (and often do). But in
doing so, it doesn't mean the story is 'in' the thing,
> or that the 'thing' tells the story. This is the big
difference between a narrative and everything else that is not a
> narrative. A narrative IS the story...
How do I know that the story of War and Peace is "in" a
particular physical book? The surest way is to read the book and
compare what I understand from reading it with what other
(trustworthy) people take to be the story of War and Peace.
Similarly, if I read a picture and find a story there, and also
discover that others have independently found the same story
there, it is reasonable for me to conclude that the story I
found is, indeed, in the picture. If the story is not there,
after all, what magic enabled us all to extract it therefrom?
..........
If you really, really, REALLY want a classification of
conceptualist art forms, here's one that's easy to understand,
and actually fits the facts:
Installation art is architecture for incompetent architects.
Video art is cinema for incompetent cinematographers.
Performance art is theatre for incompetent actors and directors.
Art photography is painting for incompetent painters.
None of them are real art, not because the media used are
inherently unsuitable for art, but because the artists
themselves aren't any good. The common failing of all the
artists who practise these forms is not primarily technical
(though they usually are technically inept), but intellectual.
Conceptualists are incapable of appreciating or understanding
the arts that they parody, which is why they parody them.
roac...@my-deja.com
bruceattah <bjaNO...@afang.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
> Here's what I think. Christo is a good draughtsman, which makes
> him an atypical conceptualist.
Prove this please. Have you seen the drawings of every
conceptually-based artist who ever lived? It's fine to make this claim
but you need to back it up please.
> However, his reputation uis
> founded on the audacity of the schemes he carries out with his
> wife (wrapping bridges, etc.), not on his drawing. This is
> perverse, because Christo's schemes are invariably silly, and
> say nothing important about anything (not that saying anything
> important about anything is absolutely necessary to good art).
Again, this is just your opinion you are asserting here ...merely
subjective reasoning. What is so silly about his work? How can you
justify that his works are saying *nothing*?
> Christo's schemes are amusing for their sheer Quixotic idiocy,
> and impressive purely because they are huge.
This definition is over-simplification at it's best. We could also then
say that most monuments including architecture are simply impressive
because they are so huge yet we know there is much more meaning
and skill involved than just their size.
> Like most conceptualists, he is obsessively repetitive, but less
boring than some.<
And like most *generalists* you make sweeping generalizations that do a
huge disservice to a great many artists. Do some research and see if
you can the same thing about artists like Ann Hamilton or Jessica
Stockholder or Ian Hamilton. One could also easily say *and like most
painters so and so is obsessively repetive ...* well ...that wouldn't
be fair or necessarily true now would it?
In terms of cleverness, his works are on par intellectually with a Gary
Larson cartoon on a bad day - which makes Christo an above-average
conceptualist, slightly superior to Claes Oldenburg (another
husband-and-wife team known just by the husband's name). NO
conceptualist has ever achieved the intellectual level of, say, Charles
Schultz on a good day.
This is only your opinion, and I beg to differ with it. Charles Schultz
is excellent in his own right but why do people find it necessary to
denigrate others as a way to lift up those they support? Is there not
room for all of these artists and why are we so close-minded that we
are not willing to see their brillance and talent even if we don't like
or agree with what they are doing?
> But that's conceptualism for you. At least his drawings aren't
> conceptualist. Conceptualist drawing has to be the worst genre
> of "art" ever devised in the entire history of art from the
> Venus of Willendorf on.
My point with showing people his drawings was to prove he was not as
unskilled as Mani the Manic claimed artzie fartzies to be. You are just
as bad as Mani. The only difference is you have a better grasp of the
english language.
Roachgirl
bruceattah
>hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
>>Artsy Fartzy logic:
>>
>>The artzy fartzies here rate Christo's wrappings as art.
>
>> However Norman Rockwell's work isn't art its Commercial,
>Kitsch,
>>illustration.
>
>There are specific differences between art and illustration - it
>isn't mysterious at all. Rockwell's work is illustration because
>it depends on the outside world for validity - the people and
>objects have to be imitations of reality, otherwise it fails.
>Art, on the other hand, is self-referential: it doesn't depend
on
>outside references for its validity. (This is why distortion is
>valid in art, but not in illustration.) I specifically exclude
>cartooning, comics, and cariacture (sp?) from this.
Gonad, your basis for distinguishing between art and
illustration is silly and confused and illogical and wrong.
First of all, illustration does not depend, any more than art
that is not illustration (except for strictly non-
representational art), on the outside world. The illustrations
of Dr. Seuss, for example, don't have a great deal of
correspondence to any world outside the imagination of Dr. Seuss.
Secondly, distortion is normal in illustration (including
Rockwell's - he elongates his figures), and is every bit as
proper there as it is in art that is not illustrative. You
specifically exclude "cartooning, comics, and cariacture (sp?)",
but that is a huge chunk of your supposed subject matter. What
excuse do you have for doing this, other than that they
obviously ruin your argument, and you don't know any way to get
around the fact?
Never mind, let's take illustration that is not in any of those
categories, then: technical illustration. Distortion is
pervasive in this field. In fact, distortion is pretty much its
raison d'etre. Publishers of anatomy textbooks, how-it-works
books, ornithologists' guidebooks etc., pay illustrators for
their painstaking drawings and paintings precisely because the
distortions inherent in their approach makes their pictures more
useful than photographs.
But, wait a minute, if the reason illustration cannot be art is
that it "depends on the outside world for validity", and for
that reason also distortion is not valid in illustration, what
happens to those forms of illustration that you have excluded
(namely, "cartooning, comics, and cariacture (sp)")? You haven't
given any reason why these cannot be art, so where do they
stand? Can a caricature be art? If so, and if Norman Rockwell
can be shown to have produced a caricature, can a caricature by
Mr. Rockwell be art? On your account, there's no reason why it
shouldn't be. Indeed, since caricature entails distortion and
distortion implies (according to your argument) not being
dependent on the outside world for validity, and such
independence is an important characteristic of art, there would
seem to be good reasons for thinking that a caricature by
Rockwell is indeed a work of art. Now, guess what? It turns out
that Rockwell used caricature a great deal (be it ever so
gentle) in his illustrations, so it seems very likely that
ACCORDING TO YOUR ARGUMENT, Norman Rockwell's illustrations are
art.
Wow. You just argued against yourself.
I guess this is what MDeli was talking about when he mocked
Artzy-Fartzy logic.
And we're not eve half-way done, yet:
>Interestingly, a piece can be both an illustration and a work of
>art - the old masters are good examples of this.
Nice to see you acknowledge this, though you are coming
dangerously close to contradicting yourself. If illustration
cannot be art because it is dependent on the outside world, then
illustration cannot be art. You're going to have to do a fairly
spectacular logical backflip in order to allow your favoured old
masters to produce illustration that is simultaneously art.
>They accurately
>represent the outside world and, at the same time, supercede it,
>creating an internal world that stands on its own.
Hmmm, so that's the trick! You create an accurate picture of the
outside world, but then supercede it, to create an internal
world that stands on its own. So, even when something is
illustration (and therefore not art), it can be art if it
supercedes reality. Let's see if we can figure out what that
means by thinking about some examples.
Now, Rockwell is reknowned for drawings and paintings that at
the same time as being naturalistic, accurate, precise and
correct, manage to convey a sunny, humorous and affectionate
vision of early-to-mid-20th century middle America - a world
that perhaps existed more in his and his audience's imagination
that it did in the outside world. Consider a slightly atypical
illustration, "The Curiosity Shop": In this, the two central
figures, an old man and a young girl (presumably the proprietor
and a customer) consider some dolls or puppets. They seem deeply
involved in the matter at hand, as their attitudes subtly
convey, so that the viewer is tempted to weave a tale about
them. In the background, numerous artefacts crowd around, each
painted with near-photographic precision, and the lighting
convincingly represents the brown half-gloom one expects in such
a shop. But wait! Aren't there some seriously odd things going
on in the picture? All the faces of the busts, engravings, dolls
and statues are turned towards the central figures - not so it's
very obvious, mind, but it is strange, once you notice it. And
those birds: are they flying, or just hanging there? Weirdest of
all though, is the little girl in the background, identical to
the foreground girl, but smaller. Is it a portrait? Is it a
model or a painting? We're looking at a fascinating picture that
once depicts familiar reality and dreamlike strangeness.
Clearly, though, that's not an example of being accurate and
simultaneously superceding reality, because we know already that
Mr. Rockwell is not an artist.
On the other hand, Rembrandt ven Rijn, the quintessential Old
Master, is an artist, because his illustration of the Bible
story of the Raising of Lazarus is true-to-life and at the same
time supercedes reality. Accuracy abounds in the acutely
observed attitudes and facial expressions - Lazarus looks
convincingly dead, the old and young witnesses persuasively
convey elderly and youthful variations of astonishment, and
Jesus himself looks rather weary and hard-done-by. (But what
about the odd-looking hand of that kneeling dark figure on the
left?) At the same time, it supercedes reality (because it
creates a world with a peculiar, moody atmosphere that you're
less likely to encounter anywhere in the real world than you are
in another painting by Rembrandt or one of his imitators, partly
a product of the tenebristic lighting, partly through the
stooped figures and characterful faces, and partly through the
anachronistic hodge-podge of costumes and artefacts chosen for
theatrical effect). I guess the difference is pretty obvious,
eh? No-one who thought Rockwell was an artist in the same way as
Rembrandt is could possibly persist in their error now!
>Many people
>look at a classical work and think they are appreciating it as a
>painting, but they are only seeing the qualities of
illustration.
Leaving aside the patronizing tone of that remark about "many
people", you're begging the question when you assume that
appraising a picture as illustration is different from
appraising it as a painting.
>They are looking at pictures; they just don't know it. Rockwell
>knew all this very well, and referred to himself as an
>illustrator.
So what? Norman Rockwell was an illustrator. That doesn't mean
he wasn't an artist.
>There is nothing wrong with good illustration. It is just
>different from art.
You haven't convinced me.
>>In their book, the fact that people like it doesn't count.
>
>It doesn't - one way or another. It is very nice that people
like
>Rockwell and other illustrators. But reducing it all to a
>popularity contest negates any assessment of quality, pro or
con.
Be that as it may, art IS a popularity contest. Work that is
liked by no-one is a failure. Work that is loved by everyone is
a success. It is the work that is liked by some and loathed by
others that we argue about.
bruceattah
>
>
> bruceattah <bjaNO...@afang.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>> Here's what I think. Christo is a good draughtsman, which
makes
>> him an atypical conceptualist.
>
>Prove this please. Have you seen the drawings of every
>conceptually-based artist who ever lived? It's fine to make
this claim
>but you need to back it up please.
I don't need to have seen drawings by every conceptualist who
ever lived. I said Christo's draughtsmanship makes
him "atypical", not "unique". Note the difference, and improve
your reading comprehension.
>Again, this is just your opinion you are asserting
Well, didn't I start the paragraph with "Here's what I think"?
What did you expect, given that warning, besides my opinion? (Or
is your reading comprehension letting you down again?)
>What is so silly about his work?
It's not silly to wrap a bridge or a large building or an island
in plastic? It's not silly to build a temporary fence many miles
long that separates nothing from nothing? It's not silly to
marshal vast resources to build immense structures that serve no
practical purpose, and then to dismantle the structures?
It's not silly to pretend you're not being silly when you do
these things?
>How can you justify that his works are saying *nothing*?
I can justify it by seeking, yet finding no message in the work.
I'm not the only one who doesn't know what he's trying to tell
us. If you look at criticism of Christo's work, from the early
stuff where he'd wrap small objects right up to the recent
stuff, there's no consensus as to any precise message that those
works convey.
If he is saying something, I'd like to hear from you WHAT he's
saying, HOW he's saying it, and how I can tell that you're not
just READING MEANING INTO his work, or even misinterpreting it.
How would I know, for instance, if a work in the same genre had
the opposite message?
>> Christo's schemes are amusing for their sheer Quixotic idiocy,
>> and impressive purely because they are huge.
>
>This definition is over-simplification at it's best. We could
also then
>say that most monuments including architecture are simply
impressive
>because they are so huge yet we know there is much more meaning
>and skill involved than just their size.
I disagree. Some big things are impressive for other reasons
besides their size. There's not much to Christo's wrapped
objects, however, and I suspect they would have become very
boring indeed had they not grown larger.
>> Like most conceptualists, he is obsessively repetitive, but
less
>boring than some.<
>
>And like most *generalists* you make sweeping generalizations
that do a
>huge disservice to a great many artists. Do some research and
see if
>you can the same thing about artists like Ann Hamilton or
Jessica
>Stockholder or Ian Hamilton. One could also easily say *and
like most
>painters so and so is obsessively repetive ...* well ...that
wouldn't
>be fair or necessarily true now would it?
It wouldn't be true of painters on the whole, but it would be
true of many famous contemporary painters. Obsessive repetition
has been the mark of sincerity in art ever since Freud's
misguided theories found their way into art criticism - but it
is simultaneously a great marketing tool (style as branding) and
a fine excuse for mental laziness.
>Charles Schultz
>is excellent in his own right but why do people find it
necessary to
>denigrate others as a way to lift up those they support?
I'm not denigrating Christo in order to lift up Charles Schulz.
The latter artist is in no need of such assistance. I'm
denigrating Christo because he deserves denigration in his own
right. His conceptual work, like all conceptual art, is grossly
overvalued by the art world. It is silly and trivial and has
nothing important to say. At VERY BEST, it is mildly
entertaining - a circus trick.
Conceptual artists on the whole are nothing more than purveyors
of side-show attractions. Going to an exhibition of contemporary
conceptualist art is like entering a time-warp and finding
yourself in a Victorian fairground, full of freaks and mirrors
and spurious shocks and ephemeral novelties. When conceptualists
are given extra funding, they betray their lack of imagination
by being unable to think of any way to improve on their work
except to make it bigger, bigger, BIGGER.
>Is there not
>room for all of these artists and why are we so close-minded
that we
>are not willing to see their brillance and talent even if we
don't like
>or agree with what they are doing?
There certainly is room for them all (Rockwell too - see other
threads), but quite as much as I am willing to recognize
brilliance and talent, I am also willing to recognize puffed-up
mediocrity.
It's not that I don't like the work of Christo (I don't
particularly hate it either); rather, it is that I don't believe
there are good reasons for admiring what he does.
>My point with showing people his drawings was to prove he was
not as
>unskilled as Mani the Manic claimed artzie fartzies to be.
The generalization that "artzie fartzies" are incompetent in
drawing is true, and a single exception (or even several
exceptions) won't alter that fact.
Cody Childers
bruceattah wrote:
I think Christo's work is interesting because no one has ever done
anything like that before. It's intriguing to see a huge wall of
different colored oil barrels. Christo IS unique because by the
definition of the word (to my knowledge) no one has ever done anything
like his work before. On top of the interestingness (couldn't think of
a better word), I think Christo is juxtaposing man made objects with
nature, and contemplating the comparison of the two by wrapping huge
islands and coast lines, and things of that nature. You also have to
admit that these are huge feats of technical skill as well. I mean, how
hard would it be to do some of the stuff that Christo does. It's really
amazing if you ask me.
bruceattah
>I think Christo's work is interesting because no one has ever
done
>anything like that before.
But someone has done it before: Christo has. He's been doing the
same things (barrels, wrapping, and curtains/fences) over and
over again for thirty or forty years. How long is the novelty
supposed to last?
>Christo IS unique because by the
>definition of the word (to my knowledge) no one has ever done
anything
>like his work before.
We're all unique in that sense, as we've all done things
(however trivial) that no-one has ever done before. If that's
not good enough for you, then all you need in order to be like
Christo is ONE SIMPLE IDEA, and not even an especially clever
one, either.
>On top of the interestingness (couldn't think of
>a better word), I think Christo is juxtaposing man made
objects with
>nature, and contemplating the comparison of the two by wrapping
huge
>islands and coast lines, and things of that nature.
Recently, I parked my car in a field, thereby juxtaposing man
made objects with nature. I was able to contemplate the
juxtaposition with far greater economy than that employed in one
of Christo's foolish projects.
>You also have to
>admit that these are huge feats of technical skill as well. I
mean, how
>hard would it be to do some of the stuff that Christo does.
It's really
>amazing if you ask me.
You mean how hard is it to get a municipal government to pay an
engineering firm to employ hundreds of skilled and unskilled
laborers to do this stuff? Or how hard is it to persuade
hundreds of bored art students to volunteer their time? Well,
it's kinda hard in a salesman-hard kinda way - but what makes it
not-so-hard for the guy is that rich and prestigious
organizations exist that WANT to spend their money on this sort
of thing.
Don't forget, either, that it's a lot harder to build a bridge
than to wrap one in plastic sheeting. Even as a sheer FEAT,
Christo's grandest projects pale into nothingness compared with
a lot of modern engineering projects.
mdeli
<danfoxar...@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote:
>There are specific differences between art and illustration - it
>isn't mysterious at all. Rockwell's work is illustration because
>it depends on the outside world for validity - the people and
>objects have to be imitations of reality, otherwise it fails.
Much illustraction is full of abstraction.
>Art, on the other hand, is self-referential: it doesn't depend on
>outside references for its validity.
How is de Kooning "self-referential?" what ever that means. Rothko,
Pollock? Explain.
> (This is why distortion is
>valid in art, but not in illustration.) I specifically exclude
>cartooning, comics, and cariacture (sp?) from this.
Why? Take a look at Illustrators Annual and you'll see all the
distortion you want. Abstract Depressionism isn't distortion.
>
>Interestingly, a piece can be both an illustration and a work of
>art -
Just like the best illustrators today!
> -- the old masters are good examples of this. They accurately
>represent the outside world and, at the same time, supercede it,
>creating an internal world that stands on its own. Many people
>look at a classical work and think they are appreciating it as a
>painting, but they are only seeing the qualities of illustration.
Shocking!
>They are looking at pictures; they just don't know it. Rockwell
>knew all this very well, and referred to himself as an
>illustrator.
>
>There is nothing wrong with good illustration. It is just
>different from art.
Its only different from the politically correct bullshit that is
allowed in the modern sections of museums.
> It is very nice that people like
>Rockwell and other illustrators. But reducing it all to a
>popularity contest negates any assessment of quality, pro or con.
In the long run it is a popularity contest. Art is called art because
of a particular consensus which ultimatly assesses quality.
>
>From what I have read in this group, I am expecting Mdeli's
>critical response to revolve around words like 'stupid', and
>'crap', 'artspeak,' and 'panties.' Surprise me, Mani: discuss my
>points intelligently.
You forgot bullshit
mdeli
<bjaNO...@afang.demon.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>Here's what I think. Christo is a good draughtsman, which makes
>him an atypical conceptualist.
He knows perspective as well as any architect. This excites artzy
fartzies who only know the miserable drawing modern Academic Art has
to offer. In fact Christos early paintings show knowledge. competence
and taste. Nothing great but far better than Picassso.
>However, his reputation is
>founded on the audacity of the schemes he carries out with his
>wife (wrapping bridges, etc.), not on his drawing.
That's the key point.
> This is
>perverse, because Christo's schemes are invariably silly, and
>say nothing important about anything (not that saying anything
>important about anything is absolutely necessary to good art).
>
>Christo's schemes are amusing for their sheer Quixotic idiocy,
>and impressive purely because they are huge. Like most
>conceptualists, he is obsessively repetitive, but less boring
>than some. In terms of cleverness, his works are on par
>intellectually with a Gary Larson cartoon on a bad day - which
>makes Christo an above-average conceptualist, slightly superior
>to Claes Oldenburg (another husband-and-wife team known just by
>the husband's name). NO conceptualist has ever achieved the
>intellectual level of, say, Charles Schultz on a good day.
-or Mad Comics.
> But
>that's conceptualism for you. At least his drawings aren't
>conceptualist. Conceptualist drawing has to be the worst genre
>of "art" ever devised in the entire history of art from the
>Venus of Willendorf on.
>
Erik A. Mattila
Wow, Bruce, you right with quite a bit of authority. But I can't find
much to back up your points, other than the implied understanding that
you just 'know' these things go be true. Which is OK, mind you. But
how am I too respond. If I take your tac, and simply respond with
declaration that I know what I have said to be true, then we are two
kids in a sandlot, nose to nose, saying "Oh, yea!" "Yea!" "Oh, yea!"
"Yea!" "Is too!" Is not!" "Is too!" Is not!" Do you know what I mean?
But I'm always happy to defend my thesis. I've always found theory,
expecially when it involves a lot of conceptual work, to be challenging
- and I don't think I'm terribly good at it -- that is, understanding
these concepts on a theroetical level. I've found that I have to put
the ideas to work in order to get a handle on them, so you could say I
lean toward 'applied theory.' I'm just saying this here because it's
quite possible to be wrong about something, when you attempt to apply it
in a real word context. Thus, there is a very great value to debate and
reveiw - indeed the whole idea of having to 'defend' a thesis.
But when you write things like "If narratologists (Ooh, you've got an
ology! You must be clever!)" it raises a red flag for me. Can you
understand why? Just consider the central issue of this branch of this
thread, whether the dichotomy "narrative/anti-narrative" has any merit.
Just consider how this would be defensable in any of several formal
venues such as academic discourse, argumentation and debate, or even a
court of law. Key to defending the thesis would be an agreement by the
parties of the debate that there is some legitimacy in citing
authorities. And of course in an academic debate it is also very
legitimate to question the merit of citied authority, as we see in a
court room when the credentials of an expert witness are brought to
question. But I'm sure that you've seen enough courtroom drama to
understand that the way in which an expert witness's 'authority' is
brought to question is from within the field to which the witness claims
authority. The cross-examiner must prove, or at least cast a shadow of
a doubt, a medical expert's incompetence in the field of medicine, for
example. The argument that "Doctors are full of it" just won't fly. So
I have to ask myself what you mean, or better yet, what position are you
taking, when you write something like the quoted line above. So we have
to make a decision right here: are we two kids in a sand-lot nose to
nose in a psychological confrontation, or are we intelligent persons who
are able to reason, measure, and consider the nature of this issue?
> Erik A Mattila:
>
> >...difference to 'telling' a story and 'referring' to a story...
>
> Look, Erik, matey, you're right to say that what we
> call "narrative painting" is not usually narrative in the sense
> of telling a story, but rather that it refers to stories. But so
> what? It is not true that painting cannot in principle tell
> stories. Painting usually doesn't tell stories, that's all. It's
> all about preference, history, convention. In your discussion so
> far, you have been confusing "anti-narrative" with "non-
> narrative". There is an anti-narrative tendency in painting in
> that painters often desire to depict scenes naturalistically, so
> as to maximize the viewer's involvement, but this militates
> against the desire to represent multiple points in time.
> However, painting is not necessarily non-narrative, because one
> *can* represent multiple points in time in a painting, usually
> by compromising naturalism.
Here's "so what?" I don't know how carefully you've read this thread,
but the issue arose about thinking that 'narrative painting' is an
example of how a painting could be a 'narrative' in the sense of the
technical meaning of the term 'narrative' from various disciplines-
linguistics, narratology, semiotics, semantics etc. The "so what" is
that a narrative painting is not a "narrative" since if refers to a
story rather than telling a story.
If you're interested, you can get a handle on 'narratology' here:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.htm . This should be interesting to
you, since it does list a 'painting' as a narrative form, which is
something I do not agree with. This only says, like all academic
disciplines, there are disagreements and contentions. This page
nevertheless is an excellent intro into this filed of study.
But still, you're not understanding the term 'anti-narrative.' Let me
try another tac. Joyce's "Ulysses" is called an 'anti-narrative' by
literary critics. The reason is that it is a story told 'out of time.'
The same critics would not call "Ulysses" a 'non-narrative' because it
is obviously a story. If you look at the dictionary 'sense' that I
provided in a former post, the prefix 'anti' is "1 a : of the same kind
but situated opposite, exerting energy in the opposite direction, or
pursuing an opposite policy <anticlinal> b : one that is opposite in
kind to <anticlimax>." By extension, we say that "Ulysses" exerts
energy in the opposite direction that a "narrative" does, since it works
'against time.' Saying that "Ulysses" is a 'non-narrative' says
somethng different.
So it's not true to say that I am confusing "nonnarrative" with
"antinarrative." I have not said that "nonnarrative" would be a proper
term to use. Peter has said this, and now you are saying this. I'm
just telling you that in the context of academic studies, this would be
an incorrect and misleading term to use.
> > ...so that we could say with confidence that while an
> installation may be art, it is not a painting...
>
> An installation is a painting if it is a still picture on a flat
> (ish) surface that has been made essentially by hand. If it is
> not a still picture on a flat(ish) surface that has been made by
> hand, then it is not a painting. Nothing to do with whether is
> tells a story or not. As to whether it is art or not, this has
> nothing to do with story-telling, either.
I don't know of any art forms that are still pictures on a flat surface
that are called "Installations." Perhaps you can provide a concrete
example. But you're jumping out of the context of this thread a bit,
thus confusing things. The issue was whether or not it is 'art.' Or
more generally, how do we organize the many forms of art into a
meaningful structure.
> > If we look at a comic strip, asking how it functions, we see
> the each indivudal panel establishes a node
> > which ushers the reader through the narrative (or story).
> > These nodes, if we take them apart, are composed of a
> collection of symbols and icons which generate meaning.
> > But to experience the story, the reader must 'connect' these
> nodes into a meaningful story with some internal
> > cohesivness and believability.
> > This requires the reader to generate a large amount of the
> story itself.
>
> You seem to want to contrast this with what happens in written
> stories, but you'd have to be nuts to claim that a novel
> like "War and Peace" is not full of elisions or omissions which
> the reader must imaginatively fill in. Comics DO TELL THE STORY -
> and the omissions and elisions that occur in comics are
> analogous to the omissions and elisions that happen in our own
> memory when we recall sequences of events. It is no accident
> that the same gaps occur in cinema and TV narratives.
Did I claim that a novel is not diegetic? I don't think so. I was
contrasting a narrative, such as a comic book. with an antinarrative,
such as a painting. Any narrative discourse involves both the telling
of the story and the "reader's share," which is the material the reader
produces in order to make the narrative intelligible. Umberto Eco has a
terrific book on this subject, called "The Role of the Reader :
Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts" which I would not hesitate to
recommend if you're interested in this sort of thing. "Diegesis" is a
term which refers the role of the reader.
> > This is probably why comics are so enormously popular, in fact.
> > They always become very personal, since the reader must fill
> in the
> > narrative gaps, thus 'writing' a significant part of the
> story.
>
> On the contrary, I would say that the popularity of comics, like
> that of cinema, lies partly in the fact that they explicitly
> convey the scenes that in written narratives would have to be
> constructed in the reader's imagination. They thus make vivid
> what might otherwise be vague, and shareable what would
> otherwise be private.
Well, if you made this claim you would be wrong. Comics are heavily
dependant on the stereotype, which may appear to be explicit and vivid,
but if you analyze stereotypes you find that the are very broad and
general. Cinema and literature do not operate this way at all. While
certainly the reader 'fills in' the narrative gaps, in the comic strip
(which included comic books) the gaps are huge. But you can conduct a
little experiment to verify this for yourself. Just take a comic strip
and write it out in language. You'll find yourself adding a lot of
material that occurs to you that is not in the comic strip, such as
"Donald told Huey, Dewey and Louie that Uncle Scrooge has asked them to
come to South America" which is completely left up to the reader to
'write' in the comic strip. BTW, Britain's own Martin Barker is a
terrific source for understanding comics - check out his "Comics :
Ideology, Power and the Critics (Cultural Politics) " (Manchester Univ
Pr; ISBN: 0719025893 ). Stereotypes are particularly powerful because
they are so well-know in a given culture, without people realizing
overdetermined their meanings are, and they give the reader a sense of
familiarity and competence (which lies at the heart of 'popularity.')
> > Your example of the Stations of the Cross is similar, with an
> important exception.
> > To connect all the nodes into a cohesive narrative, the reader
> must already know the story.
> > Let's say a reader knows knothing about Christianity or
> Christian symbolism,
> > and reads this series of nodes like a comic strip --
> the 'story' that person would
> > read is likely to be quite different than the
> official 'Christian' story.
>
> That's true, but it wouldn't be *just any* story. It would be a
> story that reflected the sequence depicted. But then, if you
> went & read the text of some of the stories in the New Testament
> without any prior knowledge of Christianity, you'd probably come
> out with an interpretation that was at odds with conventional
> Christian understanding.
This is why I used the term 'signal,' Bruce. Christian symbolism is so
well circulated in Western culture, that nearly eveyone knows the
symbols, and when they 'read' any of these symbols, the association is
made. "Signal" is used because it operates much like the saliva of
Pavlov's dogs. When the bell rings, after the conditioned reflex has
been instilled, the dog salivates. Very few people in Wester culture
have any difficulty recognizing Christian symbols, and most are very
competent to distinguish between the symbols and icons associated with
the "Stations of the Cross" and other Christian narratives.
> > What concerns me is that no one in the first group has ever
> been able to explain how a picture could have 'meaning'
> > as an inherent quality without digressing to a metaphysical
> argument that cannot be treated with reason. I think, so
> > far at least, that you believe that the 'story' (i.e. meaning)
> is a quality of the picture - so I would ask, how does this
> > work? (without resorting to metaphysics.)
> You cannot discuss how things generally have meaning (not just
> pictures) without entering metaphysics. The question of
> what "meaning" means is very much a philosophical one, and what
> answer you give is going to depend on what metaphysical position
> (s) you take. That's not to say that you can't reason about the
> meaning of "meaning".
Well, you must speak for yourself, Bruce. I can discuss meaning without
resorting to metaphysics. Most philosophical discourses disscuss
meaning without resorting to metaphysical discourse, as well as
linguistics, structuralism, Russian Formalism, semiotics, semantics,
literary criticism, poetics, AI research, cognitive sciences, pychology,
critical theory, art criticism, anthropology, sociology and on and on
and on.
"Metaphysics" is only a small branch of philosophy, at any rate.
> BTW, let's just be clear that "meaning" is not synonymous
> with "story", and pictures can be meaningful without telling
> stories. I hope we're agreed on that.
Well, if you wan't to substantiate the idea that a painting tells a
story, you should keep 'meaning' alligned with the term 'story.' It's
because a painting can have meaning that many people say it tells a
story. I would say that myself, in fact. But for the purposes of this
discussion, I'm using a much more constrained definition of 'story' --
drawn from the academic fields that study these things. The critical
thing that is missing in the painting is the timed, sequencial
narrative. But you see, I'm approaching this from the pov of
'structuralism.'
> >...My proposal is that the element of 'narrative time' is a
> useful criteria to use,
> > as a matter of measurement and definition...
>
> From the foregoing, you'll see that I don't agree that the
> presence or absence of an element of "narrative time" is useful
> in saying what is or isn't a painting, what is or isn't art, or
> where "installation" as an art form (if it is one) stands in
> relation to other (actual or proposed) art forms. What you're
> proposing is, I believe, an arbitrary classification that cuts
> across genre and form.
No, it is just a structural classification. I'm unclear what you mean
by 'genre and form' however. To some extent, both terms mean 'style' -
so if that's what you mean, a structural classification isn't too
useful. In structuralism you look more at the function of a part - how
it relates and influences other parts. So you're really just looking of
general types of works of art. If you take 'time' or 'narrative time'
to be a functioning part, you can look at how various types of works of
art interact with 'narrative time.'
Look at one of the most overtly 'narrative paintings' of all time --
Breugel's "Netherlandish Proverbs." You can spend hours deciphering the
proverbs. But you see 'a man batting his head against a stone wall' and
a woman 'throwing a baby out with the bathwater' as 'anti-narratives' in
that they have no narrative time.
So the usefulness of this structural classification is only to
distinguish one type of a work of art from another. It's not arbitrary
because the presence or absence of narrative time is a real thing - a
form either has it or not. It's the same thing that allows you to say
Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" is not chronological, since the 'narrative
time' in the screenplay does not correspond with natural time. So 6:15
pm is experienced before 10:30 am. A film that does this sort of thing
by employing the device of a 'flashback' is different - it can be
chronological, since the viewer understand that that the flashback is a
remembering of an event that took place in another time, which the story
proceeds chronologically.
> > ..."As for simplistic" I refer you to Occam's Razor...
>
> When someone accuses you of being simplistic, reference to
> Occam's Razor will not serve as a defence. Occam's Razor, in
> effect, advises you to be "as simple as possible, but not more
> so". If you're being simplistic, then your being "more so" -
> i.e., your theory is so simple that it does not fit reality.
It works fine for me, Bruce. You're merely iterating Peter's idea. My
'defence' is that the dichotomy is in fact "as simple as possible, and
not more so." But if it pleases you, I'll say it without requesting
Occam's authority. It is not too simplistic. Do you like that better?
> >The 'story' is not in the picture, but the picture "evokes the
> story" which exists elsewhere (in the mind of the viewer, of
> course.)
>
> > In this way the picture does not "tell the story" but merely
> refers to a story that is/has been told elsewhere. By contrast, a
> > 'narrative' tells the story. I can repeat a story already
> told, or it can create a brand new story that has never been
> told.
>
> You are just plain wrong about your characterization of pictures
> as being only capable of illustrating stories told elsewhere.
> They can and do tell stories that are new in the picture itself.
> Fairly obvious "fine art" (as opposed to comic-book or newspaper
> cartoon) examples are found in the work of William Hogarth, and
> of Dutch genre painters. Hogarth's Rakes Progress tells a story
> entirely through a sequence of pictures. A sequence of separate
> pictures, is not strictly necessary, though - chronological
> sequence can be represented in single pictures.
Well, Hogarth's series is just that, a series, like the Stations of the
Cross series. In this case the story is a morality poem, John Breval's
(1680?-1738). ":The rake's progress : or, The humours of Drury Lane" ( :
a poem, in eight canto's, in Hudibrastick verse London : Printed for J.
Chettwood, 1735 ) which was very popular in its day. Functionally, it
operates like a comic strip, and in fact David Kunzle cites Hogarth's
work as a precursor of the modern comic strip. And of course, both
Breval's eight cantos and Hogarth's corresponding eight prints are
chronological, documenting key 'nodes' of the story of the downfal of
Tom Rakewell.
By the way, I'm not saying that a narrative or an antinarrative isn't
'fine art.' We're talking about possible strategies of creating
typologies of fine art. So to say that Rake's Progress operates like a
comic strip is a purely formal observation - it does not elevate a comic
strip to 'fine art' or lower Hogarth to a 'comic strip.'
I don't know what you are refereing to by 'Dutch Genre Painting' but
maybe with some examples we can find the same correspondence to popular
stories of the time. Aside from a broad definition, as 'style' (which
is a bit too general, I'll admit) the art history term "Genre" painting
mean the depiction of everyday life, ordinary folk and common
activities, as was popular in in 16th century Holland. But you may be
thinking of something more specific - I don't know.
> > ...'anti-narrative' does mean this. A painting cannot narrate -
> but it can 'signal' an existing narrative...
>
> >...these 'inverted commas' ...only signify that I'm emphasizing
> the term...
>
> You can hardly blame anyone for misreading you, as you have
> applied a common illiterate misuse of inverted commas in a
> context where a different, grammatically correct, reading of
> them is plausible. When you put a word in inverted commas, it
> ought to mean either that you're talking about the word itself,
> rather than what the word refers to ("dog" is a word; a dog is
> an anmal), or that you're asserting that the word is a
> quotation, i.e., it is something that someone else has said, or
> would say, and you are not saying it on your own behalf. In the
> quotation above, the inverted commas around "anti-narrative"
> correctly signal that your are talking about the term itself,
> whereas the the quotes around "signal" incorrectly imply that
> you disavow the word - a possible paraphrase would be "A
> painting cannot narrate - but it can 'signal' (as some would
> say, though I would prefer some other term) an existing
> narrative..."
I should think that you might want to consult some grammar primers
before you stick your foot in you mouth, Bruce. You can do it right on
the internet. Consider:
http://advertising.utexas.edu/research/style/index.html#Quo (University
of Texas)
"DO use quotation marks around exact words in a direct quote. -- "The
consumer is not an idiot, she is your wife," said David Ogilvy.
**** DO use quotation marks to indicate that a word has a special or
technical meaning. -- "Unfair" is not the same as "deceptive" under the
FTC Act.
DO use quotation marks for titles of book chapters, articles in
newspapers or magazines, songs, and poems. -- He wrote the article,
"Adverteasements." "
Or from Xavier University in Cincinatti
http://www.xu.edu/courses/clarktom/grammar.htm#Question marks
"4. Use quotation marks to indicate a word is being used in a unique or
unusual sense. -- The "corrected" version of the report contained
numerous errors of fact and interpretation.
Of from Perdue Unversity: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/Files/14.html
"Use quotation marks to indicate words used ironically, with
reservations, or in some unusual way. -- The great march of "progress"
has left millions impoverished and hungry."
Also, the Perdue English Department disagrees with your advice "When you
put a word in inverted commas, it ought to mean either that you're
talking about the word itself, rather than what the word refers to
("dog" is a word; a dog is an anmal)..." Perdue sez:
"For words used as words themselves or for technical or unfamiliar terms
used for the first time (and defined), use italics."
Of course we don't have italics here, so I would just use the quotation
marks as you reccommend. But it would actually be more correct to use
the asterisks or bottom-dashes, as klunky as they are.
But I don't understand why you call these "inverted commas." They have
neither a functional relationship to a comma, or a visual relationship.
Perhaps you just couldn't remember "quotation mark" or perhaps this is
the conventrion in Britain (Peter called them this also.)
> In usenet, asterisks or underscore characters (*signal*, or
> _signal_) usually serve to indicate text emboldened or
> underlined for emphasis.
Well, there's no problem following good form and using quotation marks
correctly on the usenet. I didn't intend to underline, boldface, or
italicize the term, but merely to indicate that it is a technical term,
somewhat distinct from common usage. As you can see by the above, this
is the proper form. Actually, what I learned is to call these quotation
marks, used to draw attention to a term, 'scarecrows.' The image is
standing there, saying a word, while your arms are held out to the
sides, palms forward, making little scratching movements with your index
and middle fingers. Scarecrow. "Pay attention to this term!"
But since you've said that my 'misuse' of this punctuation is an
indication of illiteracy and identified it as a source of confusing my
readers, now what? I've shown that it is quite literate and proper, as
I'm sure you agree. So now, since I am in good form, what could be the
source of the confusion?
At any rate, I appreciate your English lesson. However, I'm sure you
can understand why I will decline it's advice.
> Your critics are right to accuse you of semiology, as the cruel
> abuse of quotation marks, hyphens and parentheses is a
> conspicuous symptom of that particular intellectual disease.
My critics? How does one accuse one of 'semiology?'
A cruel abuse? You must be referring to Roland Barthes. Most
semiologists don't write this way. Personally, I am very happy with his
writing style. Whatever excessive puncuation he uses, it always has a
strategic importance. You know, D. H. Lawrence had a career-long battle
with his editors, because he wanted to push language to the limits, and
he kept encountering anal-retentive clerks in publishing houses who had
grammar books up their asses. Was this serious? Yes, it was. Now, in
critical studies, you can read Lawrence's works in their submitted form
next to the edited form, and the difference is enormous. Talk about the
destruction of art -- it's sort of like the group of moralists who
wanted to put a jock-strap on every marble or bronze penis in Florence
in the 1960s.
But if you don't like semiotics I'll put the same challenge to you as I
put to Peter - what's your beef? Do you know anything about it, to the
degree that you could submit a half-way intelligent critique? Or are
you just content to say "I don't know what it's about - but I know I'm
againt it!" Come one, show us your wares.
> >...a representation of a man hanging from a gibbet isn't a
> story, it is just a picture of a man hanging from a gibbet.
> > The reason it isn't a story is because there is not 'time' in
> it...
>
> If ALL the picture depicts is a man hanging from a gibbet, then
> it's not a story - but the picture might contain clues as to how
> the man got to be hanging from the gibbet, and clues as to what
> consequences might follow from the man's hanging. In such a
> case, time is present, and a story is told.
But they are only clues. "Signals' and overdetermined messages. This
is not a narrative. One thing that hampers this discussion is that I
cannot talk about 'codes' without framing this discussion in semiology,
which I don't think you could handle, all things considered.
> > ...I'm not inventing these things. Pick up a text on
> narratology and see for yourself...
>
> If narratologists (Ooh, you've got an ology! You must be
> clever!) seriously believe that paintings cannot represent
> chronology and therefore cannot tell stories, then they're not
> just wrong, they're blind, too!
See, when it gets down this kind of language, I have no choice but to
believe that you are getting desperate, and that you've run out of ways
to discuss or debate. It's very snide language, and it speaks to a kind
of anti-intellectual posture that is very unglamorous. So consider what
there is that I can learn from the above paragraph. Number one is that
any authority there is to establish credibility to a claim is
trivialized, and number two you think that the idea is wrong. You
haven't given your argument any substance. What am I supposed to say?
"No, they are right!" Kind of pointless, isn't it?
So to go over it again, if the 'definition' of a narrative is a story
told within 'narrative time' (sequence) and this definition is held true
by narratologists, then they wouldn't classify an achronic form as
narrative. There's no 'right or wrong' about it. But you've messed it
all up. "Chronological" is but one type of 'narrative time' in the
first place. A narrative, or story, does not represent time, but rather
uses time as a functional element. So it is nosense to speak of a
novel, a folktale, or whatever as "representing time", chronologically
or narratively, when speaking in the context of structural elements.
The distinction is one of form over content. Structural semantics, for
example, ignores content altogether, and classifys by formal traits.
An example of this is Vladimir Propp's "Morphology of the Folktale."
Before Propp, folklorists classified myths and folklore by systems such
as tales involving kings where put here, tales involving woodcutters
there, tales about princesses were put there etc. What resulted were
huge, complex 'trees' that were so full of contradictions, exceptions,
and sheer numbers that the classification system itself was useless.
Propp took all this material and reclassified it acccording to what
function the characters in a story performed, and reduced 10,000
categories to just 13. (Myths and Folktales are very redundant). So
this is the advantage of structuralism (although Propp was
pre-structuralist). By looking at formal elements only there is no risk
of misinterpretation and complexity.
> >...merely naming things that you recognize in the picture and
> assigning significance to them.
> > It's quite arbitrary, really, althoug it's one of the things
> that makes paintings popular...
>
> It's not quite arbitrary. The significance, barring mistakes, is
> a significance that was intended by the painter.
Many would like it to be so, but every artist I know has a story about
how another person has completely misunderstood the work. This
'misunderstanding' is so pervasive, in fact, that interpretation outside
of the artist's intent is the rule rather than the exception. But your
correct that it's not 'quite arbitrary' because there always seems to be
a range of possible interpretation, which concurs with culture.
> > ...This is sheer speculation, and the evidence doesn't support
> it. No one has been able to figure out what Soultrean art
> is 'about'...
>
> It is a common nonsense to assert that we have no idea of what
> prehistoric art is about. In fact, in broad terms, we have a
> pretty clear idea. The reason some people love to pretend that
> these pictures are beyond any interpretation is that they wish
> to maintain the pretense that only words have meaning (they
> suffer from logomania), and that all things are culturally
> relative or personally subjective (they suffer from solipsistic
> antirealism).
And your agument is...? Examples...? Theories...? Come on, you must
have something, to make such declarations.
Well, maybe I can compensate for you. There's an archaeologist who has
recentely published a theory about the numerous "Mother Goddess"
figurines that have been found, from paleolithic times, that have been
interpreted as 'fertility' fetishes. You know the examples, I'm sure.
the so-called "Venus of Wallendorf" is a famous example. So for years,
the popular understanding of the nature and function of these works of
art were as stated - Mother Goddess conceived by primative matriarchial
cultures. The new theory, in contrast, says that all of these are
representations of pyschedillic mushrooms, which were important to these
paleo-societies. The man's no fool, and has done a full body of
research to argue his thesis. The problem is in what he has to work
with. He has collected everything that looks like it could be a
mushroom, and has even gone to the extent of comparing these forms with
actual mushroom species with psychogenic properties. And it look good
-- taking by itself, a very compelling argument. But it can never enjoy
anything beyond a possibility that it was true, since there are too many
altermative and contradictory arguments that are equally compelling, and
seem by themselves to be true. The problem is that we will never know
for sure. Here we are faced with a very fundamental decisions - do we
look at the Venus of Wallendorf and see a a female form with enormous
breasts and buttox, or do we see an anthropomorphized mushroom. Or do
we see both? Do we see a Mother Goddess or do we see pornography
created in the Men's cave? There is no way to answer these questions,
of course. If you do not agree, then you should publish your theory,
and if it is correct fame and fortune will be yours.
A later example is from Laurette Sejournne, a famous Teotihuacan
Scholar. Her method was to take what we do know, from historical
records, about the art and iconographly of the Aztecs, as Cortes and the
16th Century Spaniards explerienced them, and project that back a
thousand years in time to explain the art and iconography of
Teotihuacan. She was attacked strongly by another scholar, George
Kubler, for doing this. Kubler's critique was on Sejournne's method,
and the fact that she was time traveling and therefore unscientific. I
prefer Sejournne's work to Kublers, but I think that Kubler is right.
There is little reason to expect that the function and meaning of the
art and iconography of Teotihuacan was the same as the function and
meaning of the art and iconography of Tenochitlan a thousand years
later. Yet, the art looks similar, so why isn't its meaning and
function similar? The big reason is that there was no cultural
continuity between Teotihuacan and Tenochitlan. For another, The
Tenochas (Aztecs) were culturally distinct from even the remnants of the
Teotihuacanos that survived in the Valley of Mexico when the Tenochas
arrived in AD1250. A third reason was that the Tenochas, after a while
in the Valley of Mexico, appropriated the local Nahuatl culture as there
own, claimed ficticious lineage to Teotihuacan, and copied much of the
art and iconography of the older cultures and put it to their own use.
So you can see that there is no basis to assume with any accuracy that
the functions and uses of the two periods of art and iconographly were
similar, based on the fact that you could see the same forms in
Teotihuacan or Tenochitlan. It would be like saying that Early
Christians were pagan people because their churches were appropriated
from the Roman Public Building. the Basilica.
So consider this, and tell me how we would know the use and function of
artforms that are 35,000 old, created by a people who we know next to
nothing about, other than a tiny amount of the artifacts they created,
some bones and campfires. Why does a bison picture have to be
associated with hunting magic? Why can't it just have been created as
'art for art's sake,' for example.
> > Well, the issue was whether sculpture could be
> considered 'narrative or semi-narrative' because time was
> required to view it.
> > I've decided that it's a poor argument at any rate, since I've
> obviously confused 'narrative time' with 'real time.'
>
> I'm glad you acknowledged that, as I was about to point it out.
> But there's more: paintings take time to read, just as
> narratives do, and what's more, the comprehensibility of any
> narrative contained in a painting can depend on whether or not
> the viewer scans the picture in the way the artist intended.
> This is just the same as what happens with written narratives:
> if you dip in at random to various pages of a novel, you may
> fail to grasp the narrative.
Of course I don't buy this. There is no 'narrative time' in a painting.
> > ...we can invent stories about anything (and often do). But in
> doing so, it doesn't mean the story is 'in' the thing,
> > or that the 'thing' tells the story. This is the big
> difference between a narrative and everything else that is not a
> > narrative. A narrative IS the story...
>
> How do I know that the story of War and Peace is "in" a
> particular physical book? The surest way is to read the book and
> compare what I understand from reading it with what other
> (trustworthy) people take to be the story of War and Peace.
> Similarly, if I read a picture and find a story there, and also
> discover that others have independently found the same story
> there, it is reasonable for me to conclude that the story I
> found is, indeed, in the picture. If the story is not there,
> after all, what magic enabled us all to extract it therefrom?
Give me an example. There are thousands of paintings. Read one as a
narrative, then, and show me how it all plays out. But you need to at
least honor the assumption that a narrative must have a sequence - or
time.
> If you really, really, REALLY want a classification of
> conceptualist art forms, here's one that's easy to understand,
> and actually fits the facts:
>
> Installation art is architecture for incompetent architects.
> Video art is cinema for incompetent cinematographers.
> Performance art is theatre for incompetent actors and directors.
> Art photography is painting for incompetent painters.
Very cute. Or are you serious?
> None of them are real art, not because the media used are
> inherently unsuitable for art, but because the artists
> themselves aren't any good. The common failing of all the
> artists who practise these forms is not primarily technical
> (though they usually are technically inept), but intellectual.
> Conceptualists are incapable of appreciating or understanding
> the arts that they parody, which is why they parody them.
Well, this is why I suggested some classification in the first place.
You're merely selecting and deselecting works of art to fit your idea,
or preference, about what is and is not art. Anyone can do that, and it
gets you nowhere, in terms of understanding or broadening your
perspective. Personally, I can't imagine how it would be worth the
energy of even saying "this is art and this is not art "- it's so
pointless. It's a very basic exercise to show beyond any shadow of
doubt that the term 'art' is quite dysfunctional, when it is presented
as personal preference. Then there is the "real art" utterance. That
one's beyond me.
Erik Mattila
iian_...@my-deja.com
It's been interesting sitting in the corner and watching how this
debate unfolds, but there's a couple of things I'm not sure about on
your side, and I hope you wouldn't mind clearing them up for me ...
> Well, if you wan't to substantiate the idea that a painting tells a
> story, you should keep 'meaning' alligned with the term 'story.' It's
> because a painting can have meaning that many people say it tells a
> story. I would say that myself, in fact.
What are your thoughts on Early Renaissance paintings which included
several time sequences in the one picture? Sorry for not having a name
ready to hand, but I remember that Mantegna produced a few of these -
paintings showing Christ on the way to the cross, at the cross, etc.,
all in the one picture. Then there is Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel
Ceiling, although a solid case could be made for considering each of
its panels as separate entities in themselves. (The same could be said
for and against other frescos, like the Giotto's in the Arena Chapel,
etc.) In these cases the artists have deliberately opted to represent
multiple points in time, and obviously want them to be read in a
certain sequence, to create the effect of "telling a story".
Do you accept this analysis?
Taking the argument to different territory, how might we approach
paintings like Jean-Leon Gerome's "The Death of Caesar"
(http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/galliano/293/g/Gerome_Jean-
Leon/page1.html) which, while depicting the aftermath of the famous and
brutal betrayal, provides the viewer with enough information to
reconstruct the story, supposing he has a superficial knowledge of it.
While this isn't the same kind of story telling that you would find in
a comic book, there is the FEELING that something has just transpired,
and if one scratches the enamelled veneer you will often find enough
there to stimulate in your imagination the EFFECT of the story. Another
way of putting it is that the Gerome painting - and by extension any
painting in a similar narrative tradition - gives us enough clues in
which to reconstruct the story. If this wasn't so, much of the power of
narrative painting would be lost; it's power to stimulate thoughts, to
communicate ideas, criticisms, etc., to juxtapose symbols and meaning-
rich objects together and create an intellectual impression as well as
an aesthetic one. (Incidentally, it is precisely this intellectual
quality that is lost to abstract expressionist painting as it forgoes
the use of culturally accepted symbols. There are no mental connexions
to perform, no "meanings" to extract from them. A painting can't be
said to have any meaning if it means something different to everyone on
such an explicit level as "what is going on in there?")
Any thoughts, Erik?
-- Iian
Marilyn Welch
Oh that's so shocking! Don't you know you will upset her now and she will
defame you and end up getting kicked off yet another server like she
just got kicked off demon.co.uk by Peter Brooks. Poor little cyber-Alison.
On 1 Jul 2000, Dan Fox wrote:
> Mani did indulge me. And it's you I'm poking fun at, not him. I've been
> making fun of you for a year, and you never get it. Too subtle, I guess. I
> posted my transparent spoof at 9:49 a.m, and your response came at 10:19
> am, my time. It's fun to watch you vigilantly spending your days tracking
> down posters.
>
> I did get an unexpected bonus: a genuine Bruce Attah response. They're fun
> to read to friends.
>
> I promise to give you more silly posts to practice your web-detective
> skills on. In the meantime, don't you have some toilets to clean, you silly
> twat? (Oops! I mean, twit, of course. Ignore that typo.)
>
> Alison A Raimes <ali...@raimes.NOSPAMTHANKYOUcom> wrote:
> > In article <265430be...@usw-ex0102-014.remarq.com>, Gonad2000
> > <danfoxar...@yahoo.com.invalid> writes
> >
> > >From what I have read in this group, I am expecting Mdeli's
> > >critical response to revolve around words like 'stupid', and
> > >'crap', 'artspeak,' and 'panties.' Surprise me, Mani: discuss my
> > >points intelligently.
> > >
> > >Gonad
> >
> > I doubt Mani will indulge you just because you change your name
> > signature, Dan.
>
> --
> Dan
>
> 'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.' - Blake
> http://www.danfoxart.com
>
>
lake
you write 77 pages of detailed rebuttal, you're actually contributing
to a forum? Really, it gets kind of boring for many other people.
Shape up fellas! You've both got first-rate minds, so please try to be
more concise and more progressive.
Erik A. Mattila
> Hello Erik,
>
> It's been interesting sitting in the corner and watching how this
> debate unfolds, but there's a couple of things I'm not sure about on
> your side, and I hope you wouldn't mind clearing them up for me ...
>
> > Well, if you wan't to substantiate the idea that a painting tells a
> > story, you should keep 'meaning' alligned with the term 'story.' It's
> > because a painting can have meaning that many people say it tells a
> > story. I would say that myself, in fact.
>
> What are your thoughts on Early Renaissance paintings which included
> several time sequences in the one picture? Sorry for not having a name
> ready to hand, but I remember that Mantegna produced a few of these -
> paintings showing Christ on the way to the cross, at the cross, etc.,
> all in the one picture. Then there is Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel
> Ceiling, although a solid case could be made for considering each of
> its panels as separate entities in themselves. (The same could be said
> for and against other frescos, like the Giotto's in the Arena Chapel,
> etc.) In these cases the artists have deliberately opted to represent
> multiple points in time, and obviously want them to be read in a
> certain sequence, to create the effect of "telling a story".
>
> Do you accept this analysis?
Yes, I do. By the way, I was wracking my brain also trying to remember the
terms for the parts of Renaissance Paintings. I once remembered them, but
it has slipped away. The side panels, the small pictures at the bottom.
If you have a book around that tells....
Peter offered up this example of 'narratives' and I agree completely. The
reason is that these 'nodes' do tell a story in time, and the whole thing
functions like a comic strip. The story which backs it up and makes it
intelligible is of course biblical narratives. The story backing up the
comic stip, however, is a little different. It's not so specific, but
exists in culture. I mean if you analyze the narratives in Disney Comics,
you find an array of very familiar stories that appear in all sorts of
forms - social relations and values, popular entertainment, and so on. But
this is just a comparison made on a functional level, I wouldn't want to
compare Carl Barks with Mantegna on other grounds.
As for the individual panel, taking as a work of art, it loses it's
narrative quality. Going back to comics, individual panels, framed and
hanging on your wall are often very nice, but the 'narrative' is no longer
preserved. It's sort of like saying "It was the best of times, the worst
of times" at a cocktail party. It't a nice quote, but it is no longer part
of the "Tale of Two Cities" except by reference. So someone hears it who
is totally unfamiliar with Dickens, and it still has a nice sound to it.
> Taking the argument to different territory, how might we approach
> paintings like Jean-Leon Gerome's "The Death of Caesar"
> (http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/galliano/293/g/Gerome_Jean-
> Leon/page1.html) which, while depicting the aftermath of the famous and
> brutal betrayal, provides the viewer with enough information to
> reconstruct the story, supposing he has a superficial knowledge of it.
> While this isn't the same kind of story telling that you would find in
> a comic book, there is the FEELING that something has just transpired,
> and if one scratches the enamelled veneer you will often find enough
> there to stimulate in your imagination the EFFECT of the story. Another
> way of putting it is that the Gerome painting - and by extension any
> painting in a similar narrative tradition - gives us enough clues in
> which to reconstruct the story. If this wasn't so, much of the power of
> narrative painting would be lost; it's power to stimulate thoughts, to
> communicate ideas, criticisms, etc., to juxtapose symbols and meaning-
> rich objects together and create an intellectual impression as well as
> an aesthetic one. (Incidentally, it is precisely this intellectual
> quality that is lost to abstract expressionist painting as it forgoes
> the use of culturally accepted symbols. There are no mental connexions
> to perform, no "meanings" to extract from them. A painting can't be
> said to have any meaning if it means something different to everyone on
> such an explicit level as "what is going on in there?")
>
> Any thoughts, Erik?
>
> -- Iian
Sure, plenty of thoughts. But the kind of latitude we have in reading this
painting (an a wonderful painting, I might add) is enormous. I mean I can
mentally put myself in the position of not knowing anything about the
Ceasar story and come up with some very creative interpretations. For
example, the chairs remind me of a lecture hall at an ancient University,
so the picture is that of students revolting against an unpopular and
unreasonable professor. But the painting does not involve time and
sequence, so by the very narrow criteria I am pushing here, it would be an
'antinarrative' in this technical, structural sense.
It's pretty difficult to separate yourself from the known and popular
narratives of your culture. Often this kind of competence operates
subliminally, and you are not necessarily aware that you are referencing a
story that circulates in culture. Just take the image of a rose for
example. A rose has a lot of meaning in western cultue, it 'stands for' a
lot of things that we are very familiar with. So when a painter uses the
image of a rose, all this material is accessed, embuing the painting with a
multitude of significance. That's one of the reasons I enjoy Salon
painting so much, even though I might be ideologically opposed to it in
other venues. It's so full of images and ideas, and it does read like a
history book of its times. Just because the French Academy endorsed a
particular aesthetic, and perhaps discouraged alternatives, really doesn't
mean that 'official' aesthetic was faulty.
But I'm glad you cited A&E as a contrast. While I agree with you that the
certain 'intellectual quality' that you are citing is lost to A&E, I would
argue that it was replaced with another 'intellectual quality.' I
personally look at the beginnings of abstractions, in a way, as occuring
during the age of the French Academy, and I believe the key impetus for
change was the philosophy of French Naturalism. As much as possible,
French Naturalism attempted to ground itself in objective science, and
somewhere along the line it was observed that the paintings of the Academy
were not 'natural' at all, when measured against certain sciences such as
optics and psychology and so on. My suspicion is that this is where the
term 'idealized' emerged - you may know more about this than I, but my
guess is that in the language of art criticism the term 'idealized' came
with the challenge to Salon neo-classicism etc. At any rate, we don't
witness the natural visual field the way Gerome paints, due to the
properties of the human eye. Our eyes have a remarkably short depth of
field, for example, much shorter than any camer lens. But we have a
lightnening fast focus system, so in terms of raw experience, it seems like
we see everything in focus. But you can try it out, and if you are aware
of the short depth of field, you can actually feel your iris' focusing as
you gaze jumps for depth plane to depth plane. So painters who were
influenced by French Naturalism, begin to depict the representation of
vision, frozen in a split-second of time, by making most of the depth of
field of a scene out of focus, fuzzy, unresolved, as a means of being
'scientific' about the whole matter. I believe that that was the
beginning, on an important scale, of the trend of portraying the world
explicitly and in focus. From there all sorts of strategies were pursued,
as we can see by art history.
At least in the states, the demise of culturally accepted symbols was
actually a replacement, I think. Even A&E began with an investigation into
so-called 'ethnic art' and painters like Pollack and Rothko were very much
influenced by the then popular ideas of 'primative art." The ideology
behind this was the complete 'break with tradition' for the purpose of
creating new forms, which was a basic component in the Avant Garde
strategy. As we know, all sorts of 'isms' were invented, as strategies,
and each one quickly exhausted itself. Finally, all that was left was art
making itself, since one by one all references to a world beyond painting
had been eliminated. So the 'painting' itself became the symbolic material
that Abstract Painting dealt with, in lieu of the older 'culturally
accepted symbols' you speak of. I'm trying to desribe this historical
process in non-judemental terms, of course, since evaluation of this is
another matter entirely. So for better or for worse, art became
self-referential. So I would disagree, there is a 'mental connection' to
perform, but that is to regard the work of art in terms of 'art' itself.
Yet the older forms are pervasive and influencial, so when we regard
abstract art its not surprising that many try to find something in the
image that refers to something outside the painting itself.
The older forms are pervasive, I think, because the ideas are still in
circulation. Cinema, for example, owes more of its lineage, in terms of
the portrayal of the world, to Salon Painting than it does to A &E. TV
also. Certainly advertising design and imagery, not to mention of survival
of older forms in the art gallery.
I had promised myself not to get carried away with these posts, but here I
go again. At any rate, this is my response. Very nice hearing from you,
and as usual you've done a bang-up job with the Geromes. Very nice work,
Iian, and I thank you.
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
I forgot to ask you if you're willing to give up your font secrets. I'm
interested in how you did the title fonts - the 3d "Gerome" etc. Did you
use a 3d application? What is the name of the font. I think it's
extremely kewl.
Oh, yes, another thing that I forgot to mention insofar as the survival of
classic art is concerned is this. If I were going to use art history as a
reference to design a new 3d computer game world, I wouild certainly look
to Gerome. Now, with the emerging technology in graphic displays, it's
becoming more and more possible to pull this off. Did you ever see
Kurosawa's movie "Dreams" which showed in one episode a man entering a Van
Gogh painting? I thought that was very compelling.
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
> I did get an unexpected bonus: a genuine Bruce Attah response. They're fun
> to read to friends.
> Dan
>
> 'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.' - Blake
> http://www.danfoxart.com
Dan, I just sort of ignore all the identity projects - I mean I didn't even
realize that Gonad was you utnil Alison mentioned it. I just don't pay
attention. As far as I'm concerned, life mimics art anyway. It's all
simulacra to me.
But I am curious about your line above. Is this a fictional identity also?
Enlighten me! Indulge me!
Best regards,
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
> You guys - I'm talking about Matilla and Brooks here - you figure if
> you write 77 pages of detailed rebuttal, you're actually contributing
> to a forum? Really, it gets kind of boring for many other people.
>
> Shape up fellas! You've both got first-rate minds, so please try to be
> more concise and more progressive.
>
> - Lake
Heehehe. Did you ever come across the old put-down "One thing nice about a
radio, you can always turn it off!' This was meant to be said to a companion
who was so verbose that you couldn't stand it any longer.
But, Lake, the internet is like a radio - you can always shut it off. So I
have trouble understanding how, why, or even 'if' a person would read 77 pages
of stuff that she/he found boring.
These threads have a mind of their own, I think. I just plod along, taking it
as it comes. I like mentally handling the material.
Actually, the exchange between Peter and Iian was very interesting, albeit
long. I found myself not reading it for this reason (only parts and pieces)
even though I knew it was very interesting and indeed worthwhile reading. I
wouldn't dream of asking either, however, to 'shorten it up' because I felt I
didn't have time enough, or a long enough concentration span to digest it.
Erik
Alison A Raimes
Marilyn Welch <wq...@victoria.tc.ca> writes
>Your typo.
>
>Oh that's so shocking! Don't you know you will upset her now and she will
>defame you and end up getting kicked off yet another server like she
>just got kicked off demon.co.uk by Peter Brooks. Poor little cyber-Alison.
You silly little moaning woman. I did not get kicked off my other
server. I bought a domain name and now have it hosted by a business
account with another ISP - thus making the entire Internet access
completely tax deductible. The exercise immediately saved me money
because I no longer need to pay for a dial up account. In fact if you go
to my old web address you will see I still have that Demon account.
What Peter Brooks did was as pathetic as a low life here can go. He
complained to my server because I called him *names* and told them that
he would be taking me to court for serious *libel*. As any intelligent
person knows, libel can only be proved if you have damaged someone's
professional status thus causing them financial loss. I pointed this out
to Demon in my first response to them. By law, they still have to
respond by asking me not to use their server when responding to the
maniac Brooks, which they rightly did and I applauded them for it. In
the process their lawyers spent several days dealing with Brooks
complaint against me, thus taking time away from the real cyber
problems. Brooks' ego boosting campaign cost Demon a lot of money.
Don't you have any knitting to do ?
Alison A Raimes
<danf...@yahoo.com> writes
>Mani did indulge me. And it's you I'm poking fun at, not him. I've been
>making fun of you for a year, and you never get it. Too subtle, I guess. I
>posted my transparent spoof at 9:49 a.m, and your response came at 10:19
>am, my time. It's fun to watch you vigilantly spending your days tracking
>down posters.
>
>to read to friends.
>
>skills on. In the meantime, don't you have some toilets to clean, you silly
>twat? (Oops! I mean, twit, of course. Ignore that typo.)
>
Hahahahahha ! I've been waiting for you to crack ! Dan The Fraud Fox Mr
oh-not-so-Cool. It amazes me how much time you spend with these spoofs
accounts. I can see you racing through cyber finding ways to fool me.
But you are as transparent as your plagiarised paintings.
Incidentally, I no longer have to clean toilets for a living, though
would do so again if the need arose. I currently make my living from
selling my work and may it long continue.
Its a great day in cyber ;-)
iian_...@my-deja.com
> I forgot to ask you if you're willing to give up your font secrets.
I'm
> interested in how you did the title fonts - the 3d "Gerome" etc. Did
you
> use a 3d application? What is the name of the font. I think it's
> extremely kewl.
Thanks. It took me a while to find a font I thought looked suitable,
but when I saw this Art Deco "Haman Bold" font on the 'net, I had to
grab it. It has that old cinematic look which seems to suit the Salon
artists.
Oh, and the programme used to render the titles was Xara 3D, a trial
version of which you can download at <http://www.xara.com>. You can
rotate the text, control the lighting, spacing of the letters, as well
as map the text with any texture you desire. I used one of the marble
textures that appear in the table below the titles.
> Oh, yes, another thing that I forgot to mention insofar as the
survival of
> classic art is concerned is this. If I were going to use art history
as a
> reference to design a new 3d computer game world, I wouild certainly
look
> to Gerome. Now, with the emerging technology in graphic displays,
it's
> becoming more and more possible to pull this off.
Jean-Leon Gerome is an artist who has become increasingly appealing to
me over the years. He is an artist that doesn't seem to fit into the
standard Academic stereotype; even despite his opposition to the
Impressionist exhibitions. To begin with his work has an extraordinary
range, far more than your average Impressionist, Naturalist or even
Academic. He mastered both painting and sculpture and often referenced
works from one medium to the other. I find this sort of interplay
endlessly fascinating. There is, just ocassionally, even a Symbolistic
aura around some of his works, and in the sign he painted for an
optomestrist he was acknowledged to have foreshadowed Surrealism. He
was even known to make a political statement now and then, as shown in
his "The Death of Marshal Ney", or to introduce a breath of fresh air
into Crucifixion scenes in "Golgotha" (which shows only the shadow of
the crucified Christ). This has to have been one of the most innovative
treatments of that theme in centuries.
>Did you ever see
>Kurosawa's movie "Dreams" which showed in one episode a man entering a
Van
>Gogh painting? I thought that was very compelling.
Was this the movie "What Dreams May Come" ... ? I haven't actually seen
it, but it was strongly recommended to me, particularly a scene set in
heaven that involves an artist walking into a painting. Sounds just
like this Kurosawa film. I must remember to drop by the video store ...
Alison A Raimes
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>Dan, I just sort of ignore all the identity projects - I mean I didn't even
>realize that Gonad was you utnil Alison mentioned it. I just don't pay
>attention. As far as I'm concerned, life mimics art anyway. It's all
>simulacra to me.
WEell it didn't take much to notice that Gonad was posting from
danf...@yahoo.com !!! Anyway, I'm surprised you take so little notice,
Erik - especially with your interest in the culture of cyber. I find it
fascinating to see Dan changing identities as many times as his
underwear. He must now have more ISP accounts than anyone else on
Usenet. I find it even more fascinating when two of his spoof posters
pat each other on the back. Remember when he posted those photographs of
himself here and then took three of his spoof characters to praise
himself and his work ? No one else bothered ! But the most interesting
part was when Mattison was accusing him of stalking her. Its pretty
obvious that it was him, of course. A psychiatrist would have a field
day with someone a compulsive Usenet user like Dan Fox - especially when
they took a look at his work and see his *Tapies*, *Klines* and
*Rothkos* with him proudly standing there claiming authenticity for the
work. Imagine if he took all that time he wastes in cyber and focused on
his art and developing his own signature ?
>
>But I am curious about your line above. Is this a fictional identity also?
>Enlighten me! Indulge me!
>
I doubt someone like Dan Fox could ever know who his real identity is.
He will depend, for the rest of his life, on spoof identities and
copying other people's art. Its interesting, in its analysis, to relate
that to the rest of the world. Feelings of insignificance make people do
strange things. The nail bomber that just received 13 life sentences in
Britain, for murdering a pregnant woman, maiming her new husband and
killing their best man in a racist and homophobic, Nazi generated attack
in which a baby had a two inch nail embedded in his head, expressed no
remorse when sentenced. He said he wanted to be famous and to incite a
racist and homophobic war in Britain. Modern man has become obsessed in
getting attention in whatever way they can. In the aftermath of what
Baudrillard calls the *orgy of liberation*, the likes of Dan Fox or the
nail bomber feel, in their freedom, find their life is in fact,
inconsequent. They will resort to any means to get what Dan describes as
the satisfaction of making fun of someone. Interesting, no ?
Erik A. Mattila
> WEell it didn't take much to notice that Gonad was posting from
> danf...@yahoo.com !!! Anyway, I'm surprised you take so little notice,
> Erik - especially with your interest in the culture of cyber. I find it
> fascinating to see Dan changing identities as many times as his
> underwear. He must now have more ISP accounts than anyone else on
> Usenet. I find it even more fascinating when two of his spoof posters
> pat each other on the back. Remember when he posted those photographs of
> himself here and then took three of his spoof characters to praise
> himself and his work ? No one else bothered ! But the most interesting
> part was when Mattison was accusing him of stalking her. Its pretty
> obvious that it was him, of course. A psychiatrist would have a field
> day with someone a compulsive Usenet user like Dan Fox - especially when
> they took a look at his work and see his *Tapies*, *Klines* and
> *Rothkos* with him proudly standing there claiming authenticity for the
> work. Imagine if he took all that time he wastes in cyber and focused on
> his art and developing his own signature ?
Yea, but I just didn't read the address. But I like the sound of that -- "The
Culture of Cyber". It has a nice ring. "Nurse, nurse, have you seen the
culture of cyber around anywhere?" Identity shifts are interesting. Now there
working on "avatars" for cyber-communication, so you can choose your 'look'
when you communicate with others, with video. It will be a virtual you.
> >
> >But I am curious about your line above. Is this a fictional identity also?
> >Enlighten me! Indulge me!
> >
>
> I doubt someone like Dan Fox could ever know who his real identity is.
> He will depend, for the rest of his life, on spoof identities and
> copying other people's art. Its interesting, in its analysis, to relate
> that to the rest of the world. Feelings of insignificance make people do
> strange things. The nail bomber that just received 13 life sentences in
> Britain, for murdering a pregnant woman, maiming her new husband and
> killing their best man in a racist and homophobic, Nazi generated attack
> in which a baby had a two inch nail embedded in his head, expressed no
> remorse when sentenced. He said he wanted to be famous and to incite a
> racist and homophobic war in Britain. Modern man has become obsessed in
> getting attention in whatever way they can. In the aftermath of what
> Baudrillard calls the *orgy of liberation*, the likes of Dan Fox or the
> nail bomber feel, in their freedom, find their life is in fact,
> inconsequent. They will resort to any means to get what Dan describes as
> the satisfaction of making fun of someone. Interesting, no ?
Oh, I was unclear. I meant was this Bruceattah simulacra. I know Dan is,
that's what I admire about him.
Is it my imagination, or is everybody getting 'testy' on this newsgroups.
rec.arts.humbug
Abeer2u,
Erik
Marilyn
Well, this is an arts newsgroup so what's wrong with a "dramatis personae?"
Dan's cast of characters have been fun. Now if Mani would do the same instead of
the same old, same old. As a matter of fact, I believe that Mani is "no longer
with us" and that his computer is churning out the automatic responses.
Bruce has been posting here before Dan made his entrance. He may be on automatic
response as well.
Testy? This ng has a vicious corporate culture and it is fostered continually.
Not that we expect everyone to be "nice."
Are you sure that you are really Erik, or are you Dan responding to one of his
characters? So how come you didn't sign off "best" eh?
Happy Indy Day!
"Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
That would reduce these bloody days again,
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Let them not live to taste this land's increase,
That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again:
That she may long live here, God say amen!
Exeunt
FINIS"
Richard III
Peace,
Marilyn
"Erik A. Mattila" wrote:
> Dan Fox wrote:
>
> > I did get an unexpected bonus: a genuine Bruce Attah response. They're fun
> > to read to friends.
> > Dan
> >
> > 'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.' - Blake
> > http://www.danfoxart.com
>
> Dan, I just sort of ignore all the identity projects - I mean I didn't even
> realize that Gonad was you utnil Alison mentioned it. I just don't pay
> attention. As far as I'm concerned, life mimics art anyway. It's all
> simulacra to me.
>
> But I am curious about your line above. Is this a fictional identity also?
> Enlighten me! Indulge me!
>
> Best regards,
> Erik
Scarlett
Dan Fox wrote in message <20000701134905.685$n...@newsreader.com>...
(in response to Alison)
:Mani did indulge me. And it's you I'm poking fun at, not him. I've been
:making fun of you for a year, and you never get it. Too subtle, I guess.
Sometimes sublety is mistaken for an idea that just is ineffectual....
(snip)
:I promise to give you more silly posts to practice your web-detective
:skills on. In the meantime, don't you have some toilets to clean, you silly
:twat? (Oops! I mean, twit, of course. Ignore that typo.)
You would have been smarter to criticize her art as she did yours. As it is,
this post makes you look like a sexist pig and has no bearing on either your
art or Alison's. It read to me as a frustrated person who, having no
response simply calls someone a name. Next time, try calling her any of the
regular 4-letter words in most people's vocabulary. In that way, you won't
alienate the other's in the group of a different gender (with any
sensibilities). You fizzled.......... You made a loud noise but you shot
with blanks....
Ineffectual.
Scarlett
http://ScarlettDecker.homestead.com
Scarlett
Marilyn Welch wrote in message ...
:Your typo.
:
:Oh that's so shocking! Don't you know you will upset her now and she will
:defame you and end up getting kicked off yet another server like she
:just got kicked off demon.co.uk by Peter Brooks. Poor little cyber-Alison.
I'm still here, dirtbag :-D
Calling someone's ISP provider is an act of cowardice that shows the
frustration of the person who is unable to retaliate with words.
You are the proof.
Scarlett
Alison A Raimes wrote in message
(snip)
:WEell it didn't take much to notice that Gonad was posting from
:danf...@yahoo.com !!! Anyway, I'm surprised you take so little notice,
:Erik - especially with your interest in the culture of cyber. I find it
:fascinating to see Dan changing identities as many times as his
:underwear. He must now have more ISP accounts than anyone else on
:Usenet. I find it even more fascinating when two of his spoof posters
:pat each other on the back.
Ali, I admit to being enjoyably entertained at times because he often has
them get into flamewars with on another ;-)
Remember when he posted those photographs of
:himself here and then took three of his spoof characters to praise
:himself and his work ? No one else bothered ! But the most interesting
:part was when Mattison was accusing him of stalking her. Its pretty
:obvious that it was him, of course.
Dan Henderson is a common name in the South. Dan Fox is not. I think
Mattison was crazy but not stupid. I think she was correct.
A psychiatrist would have a field
:day with someone a compulsive Usenet user like Dan Fox -
I disagree. I think it is simply an extension of his love of the theater
which he is involved in. Nothing wrong with that. However, there are more
*quirks* they would definitely be interested in...
especially when
:they took a look at his work and see his *Tapies*, *Klines* and
:*Rothkos* with him proudly standing there claiming authenticity for the
:work. Imagine if he took all that time he wastes in cyber and focused on
:his art and developing his own signature ?
Making art is not only hard, it is sometimes frightening. Most here don't
bother. It is a big commitment after all.
Looking forward to this year's NEW Art in American guide to Galleries and
Artists. I know Dik will be in it, but I doubt if Dan will. Maybe under
Henderson?
(snipping you "nail-bomber" Alison, our mass murderers are better than
yours - big sickening grin)
Scarlett
http://ScarlettDecker.homestead.com
:Alison
:http://www.raimes.com
:http://artlives.homestead.com
Erik A. Mattila
> I'm still here, dirtbag :-D
Dirtbag? Wow, I haven't heard that one since the National Lampoon, circa 1979
or so, when Beirut was at war:
"Left Wing Muslim Whirling Dirtbags versus the Right Wing Christian
Gnostrils."
I just realized the Lampoon isn't PC, is it?
Erik
Scarlett
Erik A. Mattila wrote in message <395FAC31...@tomatoweb.com>...
Being a life-time fan of Lampoon (though it just doesn't measure up to Mad
Magazine), it crosses the boundaries but I haven't read the word "twat" in
it (or did I miss that issue?)
Must have been where I heard the word. It feels like the equivalent of the
English "bloody" which is quite ineffectual here in the US.
Do you get Monsoons in your desert Erik?
(watching my plants, cats and car wash away with the road)
Scarlett
http://ScarlettDecker.homestead.com
:
:
mdeli
>Mani did indulge me. And it's you I'm poking fun at, not him. I've been
>making fun of you for a year, and you never get it. Too subtle, I guess.
As usual Dan "Gonad" Fox turns out to be a regular prick. He's as
subtle as a pickled herring that's been out for three warm days. His
idea of fun is as stupid as his artwork.
Erik A. Mattila
> Being a life-time fan of Lampoon (though it just doesn't measure up to Mad
> Magazine), it crosses the boundaries but I haven't read the word "twat" in
> it (or did I miss that issue?)
I'm sure you missed that issue. This technical term must have been used in
the issue that published a scientific study, with charts and tables, about
'fits' of men and women of different races. By the way, this term has been
in use since 1656, according to my handy dandy Webster's online dictionary.
It adds that it's use is "usually vulgar." However, the Cambridge Dictionary
online gives two definitions:
1.twat (VAGINA) noun [C] AMERICAN TABOO the outer female sex organ; the
vagina
2. twat (PERSON) noun [C] BRITISH AND AUSTRALIAN TABOO SLANG a stupid person
I think here in the states the term has the connotation of "you're
unsufferable!" or something like that. You know, ornery, contradictiory,
hard to get along with. Is that just my imagination?
> Must have been where I heard the word. It feels like the equivalent of the
> English "bloody" which is quite ineffectual here in the US.
>
> Do you get Monsoons in your desert Erik?
Nope. Those mountains between here and San Diego create a "rain shadow."
This is a 'real desert." (brag, brag)
Erik
Peter H.M. Brooks
lake <lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> wrote:
> I think see what you're getting at with your 'narrative/anti-narative
> taxonomy, and it's interesting. But as you've already pointed out,
> painting often does USE narratives by signalling them and commenting
on
> them - (not all painting, but much painting). So maybe
"anti-narrative"
> is not the best word to describe the polarity you have in mind.
>
I think that this is fair. Eric is back pedalling anyway, pointing out
that it is not his coinage.
>
> Maybe "sequential/non-sequential"?
>
That gets closer - though the Bayeux tapestry presents a sequential
story, to give one example.
>
> But I agree with you that essentially, paintings are meant to be seen
> "all at once". In a sense, painting is atemporal, because one sees it
> many times, each time "all at once", but each time differently. All
the
> parts of a painting are present simultaneously, at each viewing.
>
Up to a point. I agree that it is a nice point, but it does take time to
see a painting, even a small one, granted the time is short, but it
isn't true to say that you see it at once.
>
> Theatre and music and poetry are obviously sequential arts
>
Music yes. A Zen Koan?
>
> Sculpture and architecture, somewhere between.
>
I think that the argument that it takes longer to see a sculpture so it
is sequential is a little forced. A very complex painting could take
longer to see than a simple statue.
>
> And dance? Well dance seems to blow the whole system apart, because it
> is both and neither!
>
It depends on the dance. Thai dancers appear, to the untrained eye, to
be timeless, you can walk into a Thai dance at any stage, and not know
if it is about to end or has just begun.
--
Peter H.M. Brooks
Beethoven was an innovator of form, Mozart an innovator of substance.
Peter H.M. Brooks
lake <lakeNO...@plateautel.net.invalid> wrote:
>
> And dance? Well dance seems to blow the whole system apart, because it
> is both and neither!
>
always tell where you are by how pink the dancers faces are.
Peter H.M. Brooks
emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
>
> Actually, the exchange between Peter and Iian was very interesting,
albeit
> long. I found myself not reading it for this reason (only parts and
pieces)
> even though I knew it was very interesting and indeed worthwhile
reading. I
> wouldn't dream of asking either, however, to 'shorten it up' because I
felt I
> didn't have time enough, or a long enough concentration span to digest
it.
>
Sometimes I split a long post into multiple short ones, sometimes it is
more difficult to do that. I agree, though, sometimes it does take a
while to make a point and being shorter may mean that you are
misunderstood.
Peter H.M. Brooks
emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
>
> I had promised myself not to get carried away with these posts, but
here I
> go again.
>
Anyway, after a good long weekend, here is a Monday thought, or a Monday
theory, on the subject of narrative painting.
It has been claimed (I don't support or deny the claim, but only offer
it as a possible axiom) that there is only a small finite number of
stories. It has been said that the Bocaccio’s Decamaron contains all the
plots known to man, all other stories are simply variations on this
theme. Now, assuming that this was true, you can imagine somebody
looking at a painting (narrative [in the standard sense] or not) and
mentally trying to match the action to one, or more, of the plots as a
type of pattern matching. So, as a sort of variation on the Jungian
universal unconscious, one could argue that the underlying plots are
shared by everybody, so all paintings are either decorative, or
narrative.
Peter H.M. Brooks
bruceattah <battahN...@datametrics.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>
> Your critics are right to accuse you of semiology, as the cruel
> abuse of quotation marks, hyphens and parentheses is a
> conspicuous symptom of that particular intellectual disease.
>
>
> >...a representation of a man hanging from a gibbet isn't a
> story, it is just a picture of a man hanging from a gibbet.
> > The reason it isn't a story is because there is not 'time' in
> it...
>
> If ALL the picture depicts is a man hanging from a gibbet, then
> it's not a story - but the picture might contain clues as to how
> the man got to be hanging from the gibbet, and clues as to what
> consequences might follow from the man's hanging. In such a
> case, time is present, and a story is told.
>
of the end of a lynching in the Southern US.
>
> It's not quite arbitrary. The significance, barring mistakes, is
> a significance that was intended by the painter.
>
simple, commonsense and obviously true point - not just in painting, but
also in literature. I wonder at the spinlessness of all those
undergraduates who hear this horseshit and don't point out that the
emperor has no clothes on.
>
> Installation art is architecture for incompetent architects.
> Video art is cinema for incompetent cinematographers.
> Performance art is theatre for incompetent actors and directors.
> Art photography is painting for incompetent painters.
>
> inherently unsuitable for art, but because the artists
> themselves aren't any good. The common failing of all the
> artists who practise these forms is not primarily technical
> (though they usually are technically inept), but intellectual.
> Conceptualists are incapable of appreciating or understanding
> the arts that they parody, which is why they parody them.
>
parody, though. I would imagine that parody requires conscious intent.
Erik A. Mattila
> In article <395EA35B...@tomatoweb.com>,
> emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
> >
> > I had promised myself not to get carried away with these posts, but
> here I
> > go again.
> >
> This is, of course, the danger of talking about something interesting!
> Anyway, after a good long weekend, here is a Monday thought, or a Monday
> theory, on the subject of narrative painting.
>
> It has been claimed (I don't support or deny the claim, but only offer
> it as a possible axiom) that there is only a small finite number of
> stories. It has been said that the Bocaccio’s Decamaron contains all the
> plots known to man, all other stories are simply variations on this
> theme. Now, assuming that this was true, you can imagine somebody
> looking at a painting (narrative [in the standard sense] or not) and
> mentally trying to match the action to one, or more, of the plots as a
> type of pattern matching. So, as a sort of variation on the Jungian
> universal unconscious, one could argue that the underlying plots are
> shared by everybody, so all paintings are either decorative, or
> narrative.
I go along with that. As a matter during a seminar I attended the
professor referred to this 'catalogue of emplotments' that was in the
reference section of our library. I didn't take a look at it, though. But
I don't think it's a particular 'small' number of plots, unless you're
comparing it with something that approaches infinity in our imaginations,
like the number of stars in the sky.
It is this 'library' we have in our heads and experience that some social
scientists define as 'culture' (or visa versa). The technical term for it
in semiotics is 'lexia' -- sometimes called 'sociolects' or 'ideolects.'
Erik
Peter H.M. Brooks
emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
>
> "Metaphysics" is only a small branch of philosophy, at any rate.
>
This reminds me of 'Alice'; 'I have seen mountains so big as to make
those look like a valley'.
>
> > Your critics are right to accuse you of semiology, as the cruel
> > abuse of quotation marks, hyphens and parentheses is a
> > conspicuous symptom of that particular intellectual disease.
>
>
Semiotics, I think he meant.
>
> But if you don't like semiotics I'll put the same challenge to you as
I
> put to Peter - what's your beef? Do you know anything about it, to
the
> degree that you could submit a half-way intelligent critique? Or are
> you just content to say "I don't know what it's about - but I know I'm
> againt it!" Come one, show us your wares.
>
The problem with it is that it is a pseudo discipline, based on the
tradition of continental philosophy. It gives itself away by its use of
inflated language to communicate simple truisms (at best) and
tendentious nonsense (at worst).
>
> Propp took all this material and reclassified it acccording to what
> function the characters in a story performed, and reduced 10,000
> categories to just 13. (Myths and Folktales are very redundant). So
> this is the advantage of structuralism (although Propp was
> pre-structuralist).
>
This rather gives away the point! Propp made his contribution as part of
standard literary criticism. Structuralism can't claim any credit for
his work and it is unlikely that you will be able to produce anything
that structuralism has produced that is anything like as good as the
work Propp produced.
So you have really demonstrated how worthless structuralism is.
>
> Of course I don't buy this. There is no 'narrative time' in a
painting.
>
This is just a statement, not an argument.
>
> > Installation art is architecture for incompetent architects.
> > Video art is cinema for incompetent cinematographers.
> > Performance art is theatre for incompetent actors and directors.
> > Art photography is painting for incompetent painters.
>
> Very cute. Or are you serious?
>
I think that he is clearly serious.
I missed the section, but 'inverted commas' is indeed the English phrase
for the punctuation. Inverted commas may be used as quotation marks, or
they may not be.
Lauri Levanto
The Jungian concept of universal unconsciousness was invented
in a time when one was not bothered by the mechanisms of heredity,
as those were unknown.
Now it seems odd to believe that those archetypes
have genetic code in dna. There is, of course the cultural heredity.
We all know how wealth goes in families. Likewise the nursery rhymes,
not only in families but in social environment.
When my first-born entered the kindergarten, I asked the teachers
why all kids draw the sun as a quorter circle in the (usually) left
corner of the paper. She told me "There is nothing we can do for that,
they learn it from other kids within the first 3-4 weeks".
If the archetypes are not inherited as genetic transcrips,
then I asuume they are socially inherited. Then, what is the
propable mass of this indoctrination. When and how this
not "a particular 'small' number of plots" is transferred
to the new generation?
Just now I'm thinking that there are a limited set
of signs that have a kind of 'plottiness' (like grapecity).
We have a biological flair to apprehend stories
with these signs. They simply play our emotional strings.
One can compose an innumerable amount of plots
like endless music can be made with a handful of harmonies.
The 'lexia' or 'ideolects' are but a taxonomic attempt.
- lauri
Erik A. Mattila wrote:
>
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" wrote:
>
> > In article <395EA35B...@tomatoweb.com>,
> > emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
> > >
> > > I had promised myself not to get carried away with these posts, but
> > here I
> > > go again.
> > >
> > This is, of course, the danger of talking about something interesting!
> > Anyway, after a good long weekend, here is a Monday thought, or a Monday
> > theory, on the subject of narrative painting.
> >
> > It has been claimed (I don't support or deny the claim, but only offer
> > it as a possible axiom) that there is only a small finite number of
> > stories. It has been said that the Bocaccio’s Decamaron contains all the
> > plots known to man, all other stories are simply variations on this
> > theme. Now, assuming that this was true, you can imagine somebody
> > looking at a painting (narrative [in the standard sense] or not) and
> > mentally trying to match the action to one, or more, of the plots as a
> > type of pattern matching. So, as a sort of variation on the Jungian
> > universal unconscious, one could argue that the underlying plots are
> > shared by everybody, so all paintings are either decorative, or
> > narrative.
>
> I go along with that. As a matter during a seminar I attended the
> professor referred to this 'catalogue of emplotments' that was in the
> reference section of our library. I didn't take a look at it, though. But
> I don't think it's a particular 'small' number of plots, unless you're
> comparing it with something that approaches infinity in our imaginations,
> like the number of stars in the sky.
>
> It is this 'library' we have in our heads and experience that some social
> scientists define as 'culture' (or visa versa). The technical term for it
> in semiotics is 'lexia' -- sometimes called 'sociolects' or 'ideolects.'
>
> Erik
>
> >
> >
iian_...@my-deja.com
> > In these cases the artists have deliberately opted to represent
> > multiple points in time, and obviously want them to be read in a
> > certain sequence, to create the effect of "telling a story".
> >
> > Do you accept this analysis?
>
> Yes, I do. By the way, I was wracking my brain also trying to
remember the
> terms for the parts of Renaissance Paintings. I once remembered
them, but
> it has slipped away. The side panels, the small pictures at the
bottom.
> If you have a book around that tells....
Now you've gone and communicated to me that memory itch that seems
impossible to scratch. You know, I'm going to be grouchy all week now
because the term we're after is lingering on the fringe of my
consciousness, but refuses to come forward. It's too easy to say that
such a painting would be a diptych, triptych, quiptych, etc. There are
all sorts of fascinating variations on attachable panels. One of
Bosch's works - may have been the Garden of Earthly Delights - actually
folds out like a screen and has a front and back. Would this be a kind
of cabinet painting without the cabinet?
> The story which backs it up and makes it
> intelligible is of course biblical narratives.
How would Egyptian, Assyrian or Grecian frescos fit into all of this?
What about the Trajan Column? Would they also be said to use the comic
strip mode?
> As for the individual panel, taking as a work of art, it loses it's
> narrative quality. Going back to comics, individual panels, framed
and
> hanging on your wall are often very nice, but the 'narrative' is no
longer
> preserved. It's sort of like saying "It was the best of times, the
worst
> of times" at a cocktail party. It't a nice quote, but it is no
longer part
> of the "Tale of Two Cities" except by reference. So someone hears it
who
> is totally unfamiliar with Dickens, and it still has a nice sound to
it.
How do we approach those "socially improving" paintings of the
Victorians. Often they would cram their canvases with significant
detail in the attempt to tell a story. You know, spilt wine glasses to
indicate debauchery, an electricity bill left casually on the desk, a
glimpse of pornography on the computer screen. Well, maybe that's all a
tad anachronistic - or is it anti-chronistic? While this form of
painting could stretch one's patience and sympathy to the limit - we
can only bear so much lecturing from "our betters" - there was a clear
intent to call to mind a story and a moral for the art-audience.
I have trouble reconciling your argument with this type of painting.
Perhaps you could help me out.
> I mean I can
> mentally put myself in the position of not knowing anything about the
> Ceasar story and come up with some very creative interpretations. For
> example, the chairs remind me of a lecture hall at an ancient
University,
Or an audience storming out of the theatre in protest against this
particularly gruesome form of self-mutilation-as-art? Hey - who knows
how it will be interpreted in five hundred years!
> so the picture is that of students revolting against an unpopular and
> unreasonable professor. But the painting does not involve time and
> sequence, so by the very narrow criteria I am pushing here, it would
be an
> 'antinarrative' in this technical, structural sense.
Yet this picture manages to fuse together two different time sequences.
The corpse of Caesar sprawled unceremoniously on the floor suggests to
the informed viewer the aftermath of the bloody betrayal. It calls to
mind the betrayal itself and the implications of it. The crowd storming
out of the building points the way to a future time sequence that we
are invited to explore. In this sense, the painting has two distinct
time sequences heading in opposite directions. Certainly it isn't as
direct as a comic strip - it couldn't be - but there is that SUGGESTION
of past, future and present events. At least, that's my interpretation
of it and that tradition of narrative painting, and I believe that
other artists and critics also share a similar interpretation.
These paintings manage with great skill and subtlety to convey a kind
of cause and effect. And if that isn't the kernel of true narrative, I
don't know what is.
> It's pretty difficult to separate yourself from the known and popular
> narratives of your culture.
I don't think that it's important to do that here, Erik. In fact, we
should investigate these conventions and narratives more thoroughly,
rather than try and divest ourselves of them. We should read more - in
the case of "Caesar" - about ancient Rome and its politics. The more we
research the background behind the picture, the clearer the "causative
sequence" (to avoid the contentious "narrative") becomes. The more we
learn about Caesar, the Senate, his enemies, the importance of the
Roman Empire, the details of the betrayal itself, the deeper we will be
able to see into this painting. This is because the artist himself was
very scholarly and liked to imbue his paintings with his considerable
learning. Also, being a proponent of the narrative tradition, he could
not but help and try and suggest a story or "causative sequence".
It's not possible for paintings within the narrative tradition to tell
a story in the mode of a comic strip or a movie. These painters had to
become more subtle in the way that they suggested cause and effect,
past, present and future. They exploited the way that our eyes read the
paintings, they exploited the foreground and the background, they
exploited symbols and the convention meanings of objects. They combined
all of these devices in order that their narrative paintings would
indeed suggest a narrative to the culturally-indoctrinated viewer.
Maybe they won't make as much sense to outsiders, but the process is
valid in itself because it works.
> Often this kind of competence operates
> subliminally, and you are not necessarily aware that you are
referencing a
> story that circulates in culture. Just take the image of a rose for
> example. A rose has a lot of meaning in western cultue, it 'stands
for' a
> lot of things that we are very familiar with. So when a painter uses
the
> image of a rose, all this material is accessed, embuing the painting
with a
> multitude of significance.
This is just the sort of phenomenon painters exploit in order to layer
their pictures with meaning. And why can't they layer their pictures
with a suggestion of temporal depth as well? And if they manage to do
that, they're coming awfully close to narrative. At least, they've
reached my "causative sequence".
> Just because the French Academy endorsed a
> particular aesthetic, and perhaps discouraged alternatives, really
doesn't
> mean that 'official' aesthetic was faulty.
I think this analysis is dead right.
> But I'm glad you cited A&E as a contrast. While I agree with you
that the
> certain 'intellectual quality' that you are citing is lost to A&E, I
would
> argue that it was replaced with another 'intellectual quality.'
There's no doubt about that either. I should have qualified my
reasoning by saying that A.E. does have an 'intellectual quality' but
that this 'intellectual quality' had to become extraordinarily
specialised and narrow in range. It wasn't the sort of meaning-rich
work that could be read by any member of the culture. It required a
very particular and thorough indoctrination into the theories of
abstract expressionism. The same could be said of a lot of post-
modernist art as well, even where it uses symbols that are
conventional. There is often an ambiguity in how they are meant to be
interpreted - more importantly, how they are meant to be FELT. There
may be perhaps too much emphasis on the intellectual understanding of
these symbols and not enough on their psychological potency. It
requires a keen navigational mind to steer through the rocks of
conceptuality - just the sort of mind that was developed to its peak in
the narrative tradition. These artists were adept at using symbols both
popular and erudite, and combining them in ways that their works could
be read on many levels and still satisfy on all those levels. Satisfy
intellectually, aesthetically and emotionally.
> I personally look at the beginnings of abstractions, in a way, as
occuring
> during the age of the French Academy, and I believe the key impetus
for
> change was the philosophy of French Naturalism.
It's the old "abstraction came from a more earnest desire to represent
the real world argument", eh? I won't argue against that theories
obvious merits. I will say, though, that a sincere search after VISUAL
truth is a very different kind of search than that which went on in
A.E. The Impressionists and their preoccupation with coloured shadows,
plein air painting in broad daylight, cropping of canvases, etc., did
not lead inevitably to A.E. It only appears that way from our
historical perspective. A.E., in my opinion, owes more to Symbolism and
the Decadents than it does to Impressionism directly. There were
Academic painters who incorporated Impressionist techniques into their
works - Alma-Tadema and Tissot are but two - without buying into the
Impressionist ethic, and without treading down the road of modernism. I
see Odilon Redon as being the really first modernist; the man who
deliberately placed the importance of ideas above technical clarity.
Cezanne may have had a strong stylistic influence on early modernism,
but it is, in my view, the work of Redon and others like him that went
furthest down the road of modernism. Cezanne, despite his technical
insufficiencies, was still firmly embedded in the real world.
Symbolists like Odilon Redon were ideologically contemptuous of the
real world and were unafraid to explore mystical themes using - for the
time - some very strange techniques. It is no surprise to me that an
artist like Franz Kupka began as a Symbolist - and a damned good one at
that; in terms of memorable Symbolist image-making he has the power of
a Gerome - and ended up painting abstracts. It's hardly even a step
from one to the other. More like a shuffle.
> As much as possible,
> French Naturalism attempted to ground itself in objective science, and
> somewhere along the line it was observed that the paintings of the
Academy
> were not 'natural' at all, when measured against certain sciences
such as
> optics and psychology and so on.
In a sense this urge to be more objectively scientific can be traced
back to writers like Flaubert and Zola. Neither was the urge unknown to
the Academics. Look at the pains that Gerome and Alma-Tadema went to in
their reconstruction of ancient worlds. This isn't the same as French
Naturalism. I tend to call it "Archaeological Realism".
> My suspicion is that this is where the
> term 'idealized' emerged - you may know more about this than I, but my
> guess is that in the language of art criticism the term 'idealized'
came
> with the challenge to Salon neo-classicism etc.
A very suggestive guess that is too. I hope you might explore it
further.
> At any rate, we don't
> witness the natural visual field the way Gerome paints, due to the
> properties of the human eye. Our eyes have a remarkably short depth
of
> field, for example, much shorter than any camer lens. But we have a
> lightnening fast focus system, so in terms of raw experience, it
seems like
> we see everything in focus. But you can try it out, and if you are
aware
> of the short depth of field, you can actually feel your iris'
focusing as
> you gaze jumps for depth plane to depth plane. So painters who were
> influenced by French Naturalism, begin to depict the representation of
> vision, frozen in a split-second of time, by making most of the depth
of
> field of a scene out of focus, fuzzy, unresolved, as a means of being
> 'scientific' about the whole matter. I believe that that was the
> beginning, on an important scale, of the trend of portraying the world
> explicitly and in focus.
This ignores the fact that a painting doesn't actually recede into the
wall. The background is as close to us as the foreground. By placing
the background slightly out of focus we do simulate the action of our
eyes - but only when we are looking at the foreground. As soon as we
turn our eyes to the background we are back in "unreality" again. When
our eyes focus on a background in real life, the image isn't blurred at
all. In the end such techniques of "relative focus" are no more
realistic than those of "consistent sharp focus" (those are the only
descriptions I can think of). In fact, consisten sharp focus adds an
extra edge to the realism in that when we choose to read either the
fore- or background we will be presented with a sharply focused image,
just as we are in real life. The "relative focus" paintings aim to
enhance both the immediacy of the picture and to direct our gaze to the
sharply focussed passages. Our eyes will automatically lock on to the
sharper passages and read them - depending on where they are - as being
closer or further away. "Consistent sharp focus" also has the benefit
of suggestion a kind of god-like vision of objectivity. Both the
microscopic and the macroscopic are seen at the same level of clarity.
I'm not arguing AGAINST the adoption of either system.
> From there all sorts of strategies were pursued,
> as we can see by art history.'
Again, I think that this is a modernist distortion (I don't mean this
in a judgemental way at all) of the development of art-history. When I
say distortion I mean that lingering around the analysis is the
assumption that history HAD to unfold in this way. I don't think of
history HAVING to unfold in any particular way, even if it DID unfold
that way. You might want to consider it in terms of parallel histories.
In this universe modernism - for whatever reason - developed to become
the official art of this century. In another universe, some blend of
Impressionism and Academism gained the upper hand and was taught in the
schools of this century. All of these possible histories exist in
potentia in the present. They are futures in flux. Sitting on our
branches in the year two thousand it is easy to say that everything has
evolved this way just say that we can live at the tops of trees. We
don't wonder whether Man might some day fall off the tree and take up a
cave for his home.
Right now all of the possible future styles in art are being fought in
potentia in the present. There are any number of little battles being
waged, the losses and victories of which are unknown to us, the
casualties are yet to be counted, the heroes yet to be rewarded.
Now, take this perspective of the present and apply it to the year
1890. What did the future look like from the perspective of the artists
back then? When Degas was asked by a reporter who he believed would be
the most famous artists from the nineteenth century in the year 1890,
he said Gerome, Meissonier and Bouguereau. A very telling remark from a
man who is conventionally supposed to have been an enemy of Academic
art. Yet I don't believe that Degas' remark was at all extraordinary in
the context of his time. The battle between modernism and academism -
the battle against impressionism was long over - was still being fought
fiercely. No one had any idea which side would claim victory. It so
turns out that modernism got there ... but that was not inevitable. It
opens up the tantalising question: What might have happened had things
gone otherwise? This sort of question isn't merely woolly speculation
either. It can help awaken in ourselves a more discriminating
historical sense, help us to avoid the assumption that history WILL
unfold in a certain way because it already HAS unfolded in a certain
way.
In a very real sense the past still hasn't happened.
> At least in the states, the demise of culturally accepted symbols was
> actually a replacement, I think.
Good analysis.
> So the 'painting' itself became the symbolic material
> that Abstract Painting dealt with, in lieu of the older 'culturally
> accepted symbols' you speak of. I'm trying to desribe this historical
> process in non-judemental terms, of course, since evaluation of this
is
> another matter entirely.
And I applaud your attempt.
> The older forms are pervasive, I think, because the ideas are still in
> circulation. Cinema, for example, owes more of its lineage, in terms
of
> the portrayal of the world, to Salon Painting than it does to A &E.
It's a conclusion hard to resist these days, particularly when you see
the influence that Gerome or Alma-Tadema exerted in a movie
like "Gladiators".
> I had promised myself not to get carried away with these posts, but
here I
> go again.
I'm delighted that you did get carried away. My most original thinking
is done in tangents.
> At any rate, this is my response. Very nice hearing from you,
> and as usual you've done a bang-up job with the Geromes. Very nice
work,
> Iian, and I thank you.
I'm really pleased that you enjoyed the new galleries. When you have
some free time, you might like to visit the new Alma-Tadema section as
well.
Best regards,
Iian
Peter H.M. Brooks
Lauri Levanto <lauri....@nokia.com> wrote:
> Good theories are so good that it is easy to make the facts fit in.
> The Jungian concept of universal unconsciousness was invented
> in a time when one was not bothered by the mechanisms of heredity,
> as those were unknown.
>
> Now it seems odd to believe that those archetypes
> have genetic code in dna. There is, of course the cultural heredity.
> We all know how wealth goes in families. Likewise the nursery rhymes,
> not only in families but in social environment.
>
notion. However, since we do have a genetically determined language
engine (vide 'The Lanugage Instinct' by Pinker), it isn't too fanciful
that this engine has some predeliction to architypes. It is true that
chimpanzees, raised in a lab from birth, will react with extreme fear to
a rubber snake, but not to other similar objects.
>
> Just now I'm thinking that there are a limited set
> of signs that have a kind of 'plottiness' (like grapecity).
> We have a biological flair to apprehend stories
> with these signs. They simply play our emotional strings.
> One can compose an innumerable amount of plots
> like endless music can be made with a handful of harmonies.
>
many sentences. However, since human stories are based on the themes of
human relationships, the number of plots can be reduced to a reasonably
manageable level. I don't know exactly how you define a minimal plot,
but complex plots are made up of multiple simple sub-plots, it is the
limited number of sub-plots for which the claim is being made, not for
complex plots made up of these simple sub-plots.
>
> The 'lexia' or 'ideolects' are but a taxonomic attempt.
>
--
Peter H.M. Brooks
Beethoven was an innovator of form, Mozart an innovator of substance.
Peter H.M. Brooks
iian_...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> Again, I think that this is a modernist distortion (I don't mean this
> in a judgemental way at all) of the development of art-history. When I
> say distortion I mean that lingering around the analysis is the
> assumption that history HAD to unfold in this way. I don't think of
> history HAVING to unfold in any particular way, even if it DID unfold
> that way.
>
income, nearly all of them support the expansion of the state (and hence
they hope their salaries) which makes them naturally left-wing. They
take Marx as their gospel and Marx was keen on the Hegelian
inevitability of history. So they are trapped into it too.
I have been interested in the recent spate of alternative histories (if
Hitler had decided not to copy Napoleon's mistake of invading Russia in
Winter, for example). Their existance suggests that the grip of
inevitability is weakening a bit, at least in some circles.
>
> Right now all of the possible future styles in art are being fought in
> potentia in the present. There are any number of little battles being
> waged, the losses and victories of which are unknown to us, the
> casualties are yet to be counted, the heroes yet to be rewarded.
>
One hopes so! The stasis that there has been in the offical art over the
past half century has been rather worrying.
>
> > I had promised myself not to get carried away with these posts, but
> here I
> > go again.
>
> I'm delighted that you did get carried away. My most original thinking
> is done in tangents.
>
I think that tangents allow interesting ideas to sidle up on one without
announcing their intention in the way that the immediate subject does.
--
Peter H.M. Brooks
Beethoven was an innovator of form, Mozart an innovator of substance.
burgyndie
> 1.twat (VAGINA) noun [C] AMERICAN TABOO the outer female sex organ;
the
> vagina
> 2. twat (PERSON) noun [C] BRITISH AND AUSTRALIAN TABOO SLANG a stupid
person
I think the slang for "a stupid person" that's supposed to say "twit,"
perhaps a misspelling in the dictionary.....
cheers,
burgyndie
join me at
www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/illustration_and_illumination