New theory of art; Beckett's STORY OF PAINTING
Archimedes Plutonium
Archimedes...@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:
> However, I will now correct her on some features of
> her presentation. Feel not bad about my correction for I corrected THE
> MECHANICAL UNIVERSE which is perhaps the best presentation of the
> history of physics.
Ms. Beckett did a great job on art history. But when she came to the US
and its modern art and pop art, she failed. For that is not even art. I
forget the names other than Pollack (spelling) and Kandinsky although
Russian and in a different episode. I remember that picture of just
some lines and all the rest white and that picture of a grid of red
bars with nothing else.
Ms. Beckett at this point has failed in that her definition of art has
failed. She defines art as a future hope. That is too vague. I should
state Ms. Beckett's definition word for word, and so must review her
series again.
A long time ago in my teens I had read what art is. It said art was
the "beauty parlor of civilization". That to is too vague.
I need to define art in terms of science and in particular to the Atom
Totality theory.
And the definition that I will reach for is one similar to what Dr.
Oden the scholar on religion did for a definition of religion. Only I
want a definition of art.
I have a definition in primitive form here and now, but must refine
it further.
Art is: The definition of Art in terms of science:
(1) Art is skill, a skill that most people do not possess to make
good art.
and
(2) Art is the ability to visually capture the past or present or
future for which a photograph is unable to capture.
The idea that I want to establish is that art is visual as opposed to
textual or audial. And that art is the historical photo camera when the
photo camera was not available. It is the past history when
photopictures did not yet exist.
The above, even though it is unrefined is powerful for its
implications. It implies immediately that art is somewhat dead. That
the modern camera and the computer and the motion-picture (film, movie)
have disposed of art for the most part. The movie picture PHARLAP is
far better of a piece of art than any painting with horses as a
subject. That is just one example. Another is the movie ANDREY RUBLEV
is a far better piece of art than is just Rublev's painting as shown in
that movie.
And another implication is that all so-called art that has no
historical view such as the Pollack or Kadinsky or the modern art of
just lines or thrown on paint, all of that is rubbish. Even the
impressionists paintings of flowers or bowl of fruit that have no
historical value, unless we lose all fruits and want to find out in the
future what a orange or apple looked like have no value.
Art is connected to history, in the fact that we had no picture
camera back then.
If I needed to fully research and write and display about Archimedes
of ancient Greek, well it would be nice to show what he looked like for
a full report on him. There was no picture camera back then. So,
artists through the centuries have dared with their imagination and
skill to render us something to show what Archimedes looked like. We
know those are imagination renderings, but that is better than nothing.
Thus, art pictures of Archimedes is art. Great art.
So, this new theory of art looks at art as an extension of science.
And it connects art with history and science. This theory defines art
and tells us what is art and what is good art. And unfortunately it
throws out most of what was considered art as not even being art.
I have used the term con-artist in connection to science, physics and
math. So I will not use that term with art itself. So I need a new term
that has the same meaning as con-artist. I will use the term "shyster"
--- quoting Amer. Herit. Dictionary ---
Word: shy*ster
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: (Slang An unethical, unscrupulous practitioner,
especially of law or politics. )
Etymology: Perhaps after Scheuster, an unscrupulous
19th-century lawyer.
--- end quote ---
So called art that is paint thrown on, abstract art, pop art, modern
art; those are not art but shyster. There is nothing in them to link to
history, and they require no skill.
In Ms. Beckett's presentation she talks at length about a painting
that is nothing but a few broad strokes of a paint brush and some
lines. Such a picture does not require skill. I, or anyone else can do
something similar. This is not art.
In the series where Ms. Beckett walks through Pompeii (spelling) and
she dismisses a few paintings except for the faces of a married couple
and remarks that the artist had some skill. Well, the paintings that
Ms. Beckett dismissed as low class artistic skill, are perhaps very
useful in telling us something of the history of that ancient period.
So, those dismissed pictures are art, and art of a high class according
to my definition because there were no photo cameras around in Ancient
Rome. So, those Pompeii pictures, all of them are art and valuable and
should be saved. However, all of those pictures that Ms. Beckett shows
and discusses in New York, all of them are not even art, they are
advertisements or comic strips or shyster.
In science we have shyster stuff. We have the geocentric theory. We
have the Ed Conrad human fossil in the Carboniferous geologic period.
And thousands of others. If science can have shyster stuff, art can be
loaded with shyster stuff.
What Ms. Beckett fails to realize is that modern art was perhaps
existant in all ages of the past, and is not just a recent occurence.
There were probably painters like Pollack and Kandinsky in each century
of the past, and none of those people were shystered into accepting
that as art. Only in modern times when people such as Ms. Beckett is
making a history of art, failing to realize that this is not even art,
wants to include it as art.
Much more about this new theory of art. The above is just the start.
Archimedes Plutonium
Archimedes Plutonium
> Ms. Beckett did a great job on art history.
But one of the places that I was disappointed with Ms. Beckett's
presentation was that of pointilism.
She did discuss Seurat and pointilism and the theory of the dot.
However, this was an important movement in art. Because at that time
period in science they were taking apart matter to its lowest
denominator. They were rediscovering and proving the atomic theory and
were probing into the atom. So pointilism was an important movement in
art that parallels the science quest to understand matter.
I had written a few days ago that a research should be undertaken to
show the Convergence of the three fields of endeavor of Art, Music, and
Architecture considering that the Atom Totality theory is the correct
theory of everything. So, art, music and architecture should converge
by the 1990s because the theory of the universe is that God is one atom
of 231Pu and so God's carpet is art, and God's trumpet is music, and
God's material comforts is architecture.
Archimedes Plutonium
Archimedes...@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:
> And the definition that I will reach for is one similar to what Dr.
> Oden the scholar on religion did for a definition of religion. Only I
> want a definition of art.
This is the definition that Dr. Oden gives of myth, but it is a
definition also, I think, although Dr. Oden and others will disagree,
is that it is a definition of religion itself. What sets religion apart
from physics is the element of supernatural or anti-physical. In other
words, religion has science fiction in it. This does not make religion
bad or meaningless, but it shows that religion is less than physics.
I will need to re-define religion with respect to the Atom Totality
theory. Religion, and all religions before the Atom Totality theory
were a stepping stone to the ultimate truth and the real God. The real
God is 231Pu. And all of these subjects come together, from religion to
art to architecture to music and every other subject converges on the
Atom Totality theory.
--- quoting in parts Dr. Robert Oden, The Hotchkiss School, Lecture 3:
Religious Heroes 1: Gilgamesh And The Dawn Of History, 1991 ---
The definition of myth that I find most plausible and most
defensible, is that that comes out of the work of a couple of
folklorists called William Bascom and Joseph Fontanrose (sp?)... came
up with the definition of myth, kind of myth that I am going to be
talking about goes something as follows
A myth is a traditional story about the dealings of superhuman
beings.
A myth is a traditional story that concerns the dealings of
superhuman beings.
Now that definition , pithy as it is contains as I predicted it would
...three important elements... here again I want to say that each one
of those elements bears some talking about.
First this says that to be a myth, something has to be a story
So this separates it from any other pieces of religious datum. The book
of Leviticus in the Hebrew bible at least most of it is not a myth
because it is a big collection of religious prescriptions. We need some
categories in order to talk about distinctive kinds of literatures
together and one of them is ... Let's say to be a myth has to be a
narrative, has to have a beginning , middle , and end. And that is all
we mean by a narrative essentially, a narrative tale. That begins
distinctively, has a long middle section and an end. That is the first
element.
Secondly to be a myth, I said it not only has to be a story but a
traditional story. A myth has to be traditional. And by traditional I
essentially mean. By traditional it has to be a product of a
communities inventiveness, combined inventiveness... Something that has
been transmitted almost always orally, over a great period of time
within a distinctive religious or other traditional kind of society.
Please remember what this means...
It means.. that you and I right here on this spot cannot invent a myth.
...
Strictly speaking you can't do that. .. You can write an interesting
story, but you cannot as an individual write a myth. A myth has to have
gone through the filtering the additions and subtractions that a
communities life projects upon it.
And finally to be a myth, something has not only to be a story and be
traditional, but contain an account of at least one being who does
something supernatural....
I just mean people who do things that ordinary people can't.
So if you got a traditional story and somebody turns water into wine.
If you got a traditional story and somebody turns into an animal and
then the animal turns back into the person. Got a traditional story and
someone like the
Buddha levitates and shoots fire and water out of his hands and feet.
Got a traditional story and somebody walks on water, then somebody in
that story is doing something superhuman... we are going to call it a
myth.
--- end quoting in parts Dr. Robert Oden, The Hotchkiss School, Lecture
3: Religious Heroes 1: Gilgamesh And The Dawn Of History, 1991 ---
Archimedes Plutonium
> (2) Art is the ability to visually capture the past or present or
> future for which a photograph is unable to capture.
I have not really given the new theory of art yet. I have mostly given
two elements of the definition of art. A definition is not a theory.
And in my definition I imply that art in the 20th century has been
replaced by Film-making and Movies. And this replacement of canvass and
a single picture by that of the camera and motion picture camera which
can have visual as well as sound and motion whereas the canvass picture
cannot, we also have the new technology of a computer generated motion
picture. So, in a strong sense, painting art retreated in the 19th
century and the camera took its place and that by the 1990s the
computer was ushered in.
Art is a human endeavor that tries to capture the truth and reality
on a material that is otherwise irretrievable. For the past 20,000
years that has been achieved by paint, ink and drawing on materials. By
the 19th century it has been the photocamera and by the 1990s the
computer had started.
I have not given this new theory of art yet. But I am leading into
it. I need to cover some ground here. Art is complex.
I need to discuss the quantum pairs. Math has the quantum pairs of
arithmetic/numbers as opposed to geometry. Communication has the
quantum pairs of the textual as opposed to the visual.
Poetry of textual is analogous to art of visual. And the various
forms of poetry are analogous to the various schools of art
(Renaissance, impressionistic, cubic, pointilism, etc). Do we call all
texts as poetry? Do we call all visuals as art?
Can we give a number fraction of how much text in human history is
poetry and can we give a number fraction of how much visual in human
history is art?
James Kibo Parry
Archimedes Plutonium (Archimedes...@dartmouth.edu) replied to himself:
>
> Archimedes Plutonium (Archimedes...@dartmouth.edu) writes:
> >
> > However, I will now correct her on some features of
> > her presentation. Feel not bad about my correction for I corrected THE
> > MECHANICAL UNIVERSE which is perhaps the best presentation of the
> > history of physics.
I think you need to get to work correcting other PBS programs.
I'm anxious to see you revise all the math on "Sesame Street" to conform
to your theories.
> Ms. Beckett did a great job on art history. But when she came to the US
> and its modern art and pop art, she failed. For that is not even art. I
> forget the names other than Pollack (spelling) and Kandinsky although
> Russian and in a different episode.
THAT proves it!
> I remember that picture of just
> some lines and all the rest white and that picture of a grid of red
> bars with nothing else.
Tragedy struck the Dartmouth campus today when a kitchen employee,
identified as Archimedes Plutonium, stared at the sun while high on 7-Up.
> Ms. Beckett at this point has failed in that her definition of art has
> failed. She defines art as a future hope. That is too vague. I should
> state Ms. Beckett's definition word for word, and so must review her
> series again.
>
> A long time ago in my teens I had read what art is. It said art was
> the "beauty parlor of civilization". That to is too vague.
You misspelled "That two is three vague." Hope this helps.
> I need to define art in terms of science and in particular to the Atom
> Totality theory.
You misspelled "I need to be confined in rooms of rubber where I will
be no particular danger to myself or others." Hope this helps! I wuv you.
> And the definition that I will reach for is one similar to what Dr.
> Oden the scholar on religion did for a definition of religion. Only I
> want a definition of art.
>
> I have a definition in primitive form here and now, but must refine
> it further.
>
> Art is: The definition of Art in terms of science:
>
> (1) Art is skill, a skill that most people do not possess to make
> good art.
GENIUS! BRAVO!
> and
>
> (2) Art is the ability to visually capture the past or present or
> future for which a photograph is unable to capture.
I... see. So time machines are art. As are all pictures of vampires.
> The idea that I want to establish is that art is visual as opposed to
> textual or audial.
You mispelled "textical or wingnut". Hope this helps.
> [...]
>
> If I needed to fully research and write and display about Archimedes
> of ancient Greek, well it would be nice to show what he looked like for
> a full report on him. There was no picture camera back then. So,
> artists through the centuries have dared with their imagination and
> skill to render us something to show what Archimedes looked like. We
> know those are imagination renderings, but that is better than nothing.
> Thus, art pictures of Archimedes is art. Great art.
Yeah, unless he wore a shirt with pictures of plutonium atoms drawn on
it in magic marker.
> So, this new theory of art looks at art as an extension of science.
> And it connects art with history and science. This theory defines art
> and tells us what is art and what is good art. And unfortunately it
> throws out most of what was considered art as not even being art.
AUGH! ARCHIE IS RE-ENACTING LEN CELLA VIDEOTAPES!
"If you or I painted dis it'd be inna dumper where it belongs." -- Len Cella
> [...]
>
> Much more about this new theory of art. The above is just the start.
MUCH MORE ABOUT
THIS NEW THEORY OF ART
THE ABOVE
IS JUST A START
MUCH MORE ABOUT
THIS NEW THEORY OF ART
THE ABOVE
IS JUST A START
BOIL THAT DUST SPECK!
FOIL THAT SUSPECT!
OOMPA, LOOMPA, LOOMPA-DEE-DEE,
PLUTONIUM ATOM TOTALITY...
-- K.
I can't wait until Archie moves on to
unifying art, physics, and spaghetti.
Archimedes Plutonium
It is practically on the Dartmouth campus, just across the street. It
is a smaller library from Dartmouth's libraries. But Howe library has
helped me a-lot in the years with materials that I could not have got
from Dartmouth. The STORY OF PAINTING films is one example. Another is
the "how to lawyer book" and the "how to file a patent" and the film
series on "Dinosaurs". And the many films I checked out from Howe. Howe
has been very helpful in my work through the years.
And one thing that is neat about Howe for a town library that I had
never seen before is that they allow you to check-out paintings, large
paintings to decorate your walls for a month and then return the
painting.
Archimedes Plutonium
Religious Heroes 1: Gilgamesh And The Dawn Of History, 1991 ---
> superhuman beings.
>
> Now that definition , pithy as it is contains as I predicted it would
> ...three important elements... here again I want to say that each one
> of those elements bears some talking about.
Along similar lines I aim to define Art. And I am going to give it
three important elements.
(1) art is a skill of drawing for which the common person does not
possess. Stand in front of an artist and he/she can draw you such that
everyone will recognize you from the drawing
(2) art is the capturing of history
(3) art is useful
So in my definition of art, I have three elements (1) skill above the
ordinary (2) capturing of history (3) utility
That definition as applied to Beckett's film series STORY OF
PAINTING, removes the impressionist school, and removes all of the US
modern school. It even removes Picasso and relegates him to that of a
nonartist, unless Picasso as well as Bosch and others are put in the
category of history mental illness and have utility in psychology.
So many of Beckett's New York paintings have "no skill" factor
involved.
And although Leonardo's Mona Lisa took alot of skill, its history and
utility are not as useful as say those paintings in Pompeii. The Mona
Lisa is art, but not important art as many other pieces of art for
there is little history or utility.
One ought to get the impression that art of the past was the ability
to take a picture of important events but without having a picture
camera available. Thus art of the past was a camera substitute.
And if a physicist were to make a film series titled Story of Physics
and gave a chapter to spoon benders by psychic powers, or Ed Conrad's
human fossil of the Carboniferous geologic time, would be comparable in
travesty to physics as what Beckett does for art. Just because you have
canvass and paint on a canvass does not mean it is art.
According to my definition, history is a major and important element
in a work of art. To give an example, suppose you had to do a report on
Democritus of ancient Greeks and the atomic theory. There were no
photographs of him. But there may have been a painting of him. Any
picture of Democritus is better than none should you have to produce
some picture of him. There is a art rendition of Democritus in
Raphael's SCHOOL OF ATHENS. And thus, this painting is a work of art in
that it has utility in history of offering us (even though not true) a
picture of Democritus.
The cave paintings that Beckett starts her series with is artwork
because it is historical and utilitarian and it has skill.
The Impressionist paintings of flowers or hills are nice to look at,
but have historical value and so are not art.
And the connecting of art to history makes sense in another
dimension in that in modern times, movies and films are the newest form
of art. A painting has only visuals, no sound and no action. A movie
has visuals and sound and action.
And I can apply the definition of art to movies as well. Just
yesterday I saw a movie that is one of the best movies I have seen in
my life. It has the three elements of art-- taking pictures skillfully,
and history, and utility. In less than 2 hours, this movie explains WW1
the best.
--- quoting the jacket of THE GUNS OF AUGUST, 1965 ---
1 hour 40 minutes black and white of actual WW1 scenes
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Barbara Tuchman, THE GUNS
OF AUGUST combines extraordinary filmed footage, photographs and
graphics to create one of the most absorbing, disturbing and candid
accounts of World War 1 ever made.
In the Europe of 1914, millions of peaceful and industrious people
were unknowingly catapulted into disaster by the folly of a few
all-powerful leaders. Under the cruel illusion that hostilities would
be over in four to six weeks, the people of Europe went to war.
Three years later, with the war in Europe still raging, President
Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that the United States had no alternative but
to join the Allies and "fight for a universal dominion of right by such
a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace to all nations."
On November 11, 1918, the Armistice was signed, and the Allies were
victors. But the price had been high: over eight million dead, over 21
million wounded, plus nearly eight million either missing or
imprisoned. The " War to End All Wars" had become an assault against
civilization and life itself.
This is the compelling story of those times, the years of World War 1,
one of the darkest, most chaotic periods in recorded history.
--- end quoting jacket on movie GUNS OF AUGUST ---
My definition of art and the theory that follows is closely
connected to history. History and art are intertwined.