Plato's "Ion"
Erik A. Mattila
Project web site.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=plat.+ion+530a
In case that doesn't work the PP home page is here
Look for the blue bar (link) "Texts"
Careful, this stuff can be addictive!
Erik
John Haber
you see the glossy coverage of Martha Nussbaum in the NY Times Sunday
Magazine the other day? Amazing. She came off like a minor pop star,
very together and VERY sexy. And this for well, a scholar of Plato,
Aristotle, and liberal education.
Oh, sorry, I guess I didn't mean how that sounds. She IS sexy, and
"The Fragility of Goodness" is just an awesome book. Still, I want to
line up for Times coverage, too. I hope they've found Alison and you.
Erik A. Mattila
> Cool. I haven't read that in I don't know how long. BTW, Erik, did
> you see the glossy coverage of Martha Nussbaum in the NY Times Sunday
> Magazine the other day? Amazing. She came off like a minor pop star,
> very together and VERY sexy. And this for well, a scholar of Plato,
> Aristotle, and liberal education.
My God, John, don't you realize I'm in exile in the desert? What I "saw
the other day" was a desert iguana roll over while in hibernation. I
doubt if there's a New York Times within two hundred miles of here. I
can't even find a MacUser magazine in this county.
> Oh, sorry, I guess I didn't mean how that sounds. She IS sexy, and
> "The Fragility of Goodness" is just an awesome book. Still, I want to
> line up for Times coverage, too. I hope they've found Alison and you.
But maybe I can find something on W3, my lifeline to civilization.
I read "ION" last night - it is very 'cool.' It's hard for me to imagine
the character of Socrates, I mean to be able to hold that much tactic and
purpose while engaged in a long conversation that weaves in and out. I
actually thought the reference to the devine was going to be trap for the
unsuspecting Ion, but it wasn't - or at least I think it wasn't.
Best, Erik
mark webber
(snip)
> Careful, this stuff can be addictive!
Ok, I've read it. Now, where were we, and what shall we do with it?
Erik A. Mattila
(Mark wrote in another thread)
Nice point. But by this view, how do you distinguish Michelangelo from
Rockwell?
Socrates' first argument is about positions, I think. Ion profess
expertise in Homer, recognizes Homer as the best, and confesses that he
falls asleep during Hesoid, but wakes right up when Homer is mentioned.
Socrates goes to some length to argue that if Ion could love Homer on
the basis of 'art' he would also at least "know" Hesoid on that basis,
and not fall asleep, at least. It all ends up with Sacrates showing Ion
that his love of Homer, and also Ion's ability to say that Homer is
better than Hesoid, is based on something other than 'art' or 'knowledge
of art', i.e. divine inspiration as defined with Socrats metaphors about
the magnets.
Following this line, is the distinction between Michelangelo and
Rockwell possible on grounds other than 'art' (or whatever we think of
as 'art' at any given time)? I think Socrates (Plato) would say yes,
even if we didn't want to call it divine. We could discuss it in terms
of the social or cultural, in fact. But this means that both examples
have accumulated a lot of signification from sources other than their
standing as works of arts from the point of view of the narrowest idea
of what art is. I mean if we ask the question simply on the basis of of
art (skill, technique, accuracy of rendering, color use and so on) M and
R are liable to come up equal, or we couldn't make a solid argument that
one was better than the other. It seems very absurd to me, but it is
really fascinating to ask why it seems absurd.
Walter Benjamin spoke of the 'aura' of the work of art as a way of
generalizing about any of several contextual circumstances in which the
art appears. The idea of uniqueness and originality, the idea of value
(how much is the Sistine Chapel worth?), the biography of the artist and
so on. I think that these elements which collectively constitute the
'aura' would be, in Plato's aesthetics, belonging to the devine, that
power and love which starts in heaven, attaches to the artist and the
work of art, and attaches to the viewer.
So initially, I think this the the value of "ION" to the discussion on
aesthetics. It cleaves the subject into halves, one being 'art' the
other being the 'devine.' As this is one of the foundation pieces on
the philosophical inquiry of aesthetics, it sort of sets the stage for
the subsequent debate.
Now it's coming to us in the post modern where 'culture' is substituted
for Plato's 'divine.' What it really boils down to that there is the
work of art on the one hand, with its intrinsic qualities, and the
social context on the other hand, with it's extrinsic qualities.
Together they are 'art' and apart they are 'parts of art.'
So, on the strength of the evidence in ION, I submit that aesthetics
must consider both.
Erik
mark webber
Hi Erik,
There is quite a bit of bulk to your post, so I'll try to reply without
including it.
First, I don't know if we can really supplant the "divine" in "Ion" with
"context" in the "Postmodern world". Briefly, there was still context in
ancient Greece - and I think that is amply demonstrated in the discussions
of various types of expertise.
And it seems to me facile to infer that because the "divine" may concern
us less now than it *apparantly* did then, that the obvious substitution
is context.
Second, while I would never presume to point out flaws in Socrates, the
magnetic chain has no links named sensibility. It is hard for me to
believe that Socrates felt that inspiration was verbatim, and that Homer's
success was unrelated to word choice, selective focus, etc.
Third, Socrates is grilling an interpreter. This interpreter, Ion, may
believe that no one knows Homer better than himself (Ion) and he may be
wrong. Ion has made no statements proving an understanding of the beauty
of Homer - is it possible that what Socrates is doing is showing Ion that
not only does he not know Homer, he doesn't know himself?
That might explain some of Socrates' train of questioning in this
particular dialogue.
Let me stress that I'm not arguing that esthetics should ignor context.
But even including context, it shouldn't be difficult to see Michelangelo
as a brilliant artist and Rockwell as a crowd-pleasing illustrator.
In more direct response to your post, I'm sorry to say that I haven't read
any Walter Benjamin yet - the guy sounds fascinating and the world
surely lost a great gift in a train during his dramatic flight from the
Nazis. But the "Aura" as you describe it, could still be read very
differently by many people of many cultures. I confess that it is what
speaks across centuries, in Michelangelo, that impresses me. And that
would be those shapes and colors, and how they are arranged.
Thanks very much for directing me to the Perseus site, it is fascinating.
And I look forward to any possible further probing of this with you.
Mark
Erik A. Mattila
> Hi Erik,
>
> There is quite a bit of bulk to your post, so I'll try to reply without
> including it.
>
> First, I don't know if we can really supplant the "divine" in "Ion" with
> "context" in the "Postmodern world". Briefly, there was still context in
> ancient Greece - and I think that is amply demonstrated in the discussions
> of various types of expertise.
>
> And it seems to me facile to infer that because the "divine" may concern
> us less now than it *apparantly* did then, that the obvious substitution
> is context.
Well, it's obvious that post modernism and it's associated siblings have
gotten a bad rap, often for reasons that it earns. We've discussed that here
on the ng group is some detail. But when you sift through the chaff you'll
find some pretty substancial scholarship that ties directly into the
'tradition' of philosophic inquiry in Western civilization. For example, in
semiology and critical theory you find a lot of interest in the difference
between 'lang' and 'parole' (speech and writing), as coined by Lacan (a
psychiatrist) and when you jump into this discussion you'll find the
development of the idea is based on a chain of philosophic reasoning that
goes back to Plato's "Phadra," where the discussion of the difference between
speech and writing became part of the discussion of philosophy.
But the import of "Ion," in my opinion, is that whatever an aesthetic is to
be based on, it can go in two directions. So Plato is proposing this option,
the one being 'art' and the other, the 'divine.' So we need to decide what
direction a discussion of aesthetics would go, for our purposes. What I hear
from you is that you want to keep it on the 'art' side, which is ok, but
would require us to make sure we are talking about things that are clearly on
that side of the proposition.
So if I discipline myself to answer the question about Buonorotti vs.
Rockwell within the context of Ion, I would have to say that I favor
Buonorotti over Rocwell mostly on the side of the divine. On the side of
art, however, it's a bit of a draw. Rocwell was very skillful -- really a
very fine painter in my opinion. In this sense I would have a bit of a
problem expressing Michelangelo's 'superiority' in terms of 'art.'
> Second, while I would never presume to point out flaws in Socrates, the
> magnetic chain has no links named sensibility. It is hard for me to
> believe that Socrates felt that inspiration was verbatim, and that Homer's
> success was unrelated to word choice, selective focus, etc.
Well, at this point I don't understand what you mean by 'sensibility.' It
strikes me as one of those 'collector terms' (one that gathers in ideas and
presents them under one banner, like "art' that we used today. Incidentally,
did you notice that 'art' is a much more specific term in Plato?) So I would
need to know what's behind this term.
> Third, Socrates is grilling an interpreter. This interpreter, Ion, may
> believe that no one knows Homer better than himself (Ion) and he may be
> wrong. Ion has made no statements proving an understanding of the beauty
> of Homer - is it possible that what Socrates is doing is showing Ion that
> not only does he not know Homer, he doesn't know himself?
I don't see Ion as an 'interpreter,' at least beyond the idea that Issac
Stern is an interpreter of Mozart or Marlon Brando is an interpreter of
Tennessee Williams. But the whole dialogue begins with the fact that Ion has
won the contest and is regarded as the best there is in singing Homer. I
think that Plato included this to establish that Ion was the best, for the
sake of the argument he was about to make. But the whole dialogue was
exactly about how one would understand the 'beauty' of Homer, and I think
this is why "Ion" is considered a foundation piece for aesthetics generally.
But Socrates didn't show Ion that he didn't know Homer - he just showed Ion
that he knew Homer by means other that "art."
> That might explain some of Socrates' train of questioning in this
> particular dialogue.
>
> Let me stress that I'm not arguing that esthetics should ignor context.
> But even including context, it shouldn't be difficult to see Michelangelo
> as a brilliant artist and Rockwell as a crowd-pleasing illustrator.
I'm not sure that aesthetics couldn't be discussed strictly on the grounds of
'art' exclusive of any context. I just don't know how to do it.
> In more direct response to your post, I'm sorry to say that I haven't read
> any Walter Benjamin yet - the guy sounds fascinating and the world
> surely lost a great gift in a train during his dramatic flight from the
> Nazis. But the "Aura" as you describe it, could still be read very
> differently by many people of many cultures. I confess that it is what
> speaks across centuries, in Michelangelo, that impresses me. And that
> would be those shapes and colors, and how they are arranged.
Benjamin is difficult to read. It takes me a long time to get through any of
his writings. Each sentence seems to provoke quite a lot of reflection and
consideration. When I try to read his essays like I would read Theodore
Sturgeon, I whiz through a paragraph, barely 'getting it' but about four
paragraphs later the first one lingers and distracts me from number four, and
I find myself staring at letters, barely aware that I was reading in the
first place. I strangely get sleepy.
But there's no question that Benjamin was writing about art as it existed in
in early twentieth century European culture. He did slip off into some
anthropology speculation about 'primitive art' that I thought was silly, in
his "Work of Art..." paper, but it really had no significant bearing on his
argument. But I think he selected the term "Aura" as a generic term which
would translate well into other cultural situations. The Chinese may have
appreciated art in ways disimilar to the Europeans, but still the basis of
that valuation is found in the "Aura" of the work of art. By the way, skill
and craftsmanship and mastery, while they are concrete terms, may also become
part of the 'aura' -- which simply saying that a given culture may evaluate
skill and mastery highly -- more highly than other cultures. Take the US for
example. skill, craftmanship, and mastery of the intellectet may be less
esteemed here than in other cultures. We call these people 'eggheads,'
'nerds' and 'geeks,'you know.
> Thanks very much for directing me to the Perseus site, it is fascinating.
> And I look forward to any possible further probing of this with you.
Well, see if you can find other examples there that address aesthetics. I'll
read them. I really found Ion fascinating. I loved the speech patterns, my
wonderfully good Marcus. To tell you the truth, I couldn't understand why
Socrates spoke like that. Why didn't he just say "Wrong again, you stupid
twit - can't you grasp anything, you idiot!"
Erik
mark webber
> Well, it's obvious that post modernism and it's associated siblings have
> gotten a bad rap, often for reasons that it earns. We've discussed that here
> on the ng group is some detail. But when you sift through the chaff you'll
> find some pretty substancial scholarship that ties directly into the
> 'tradition' of philosophic inquiry in Western civilization. For example, in
> semiology and critical theory you find a lot of interest in the difference
> between 'lang' and 'parole' (speech and writing), as coined by Lacan (a
> psychiatrist) and when you jump into this discussion you'll find the
> development of the idea is based on a chain of philosophic reasoning that
> goes back to Plato's "Phadra," where the discussion of the difference between
> speech and writing became part of the discussion of philosophy.
Can you give me a pictorial analogy for lang and parole? I know what they
are, I'd just like to hear how, for you, they translate to visual art.
>
> But the import of "Ion," in my opinion, is that whatever an aesthetic is to
> be based on, it can go in two directions. So Plato is proposing this option,
> the one being 'art' and the other, the 'divine.' So we need to decide what
> direction a discussion of aesthetics would go, for our purposes. What I hear
> from you is that you want to keep it on the 'art' side, which is ok, but
> would require us to make sure we are talking about things that are clearly on
> that side of the proposition.
Ok, have I slipped to the other side? Let me know if I have.
> > Second, while I would never presume to point out flaws in Socrates, the
> > magnetic chain has no links named sensibility. It is hard for me to
> > believe that Socrates felt that inspiration was verbatim, and that Homer's
> > success was unrelated to word choice, selective focus, etc.
>
> Well, at this point I don't understand what you mean by 'sensibility.'
I've just written a post for Mani where I address this. Is it ok if I
direct you there for my response?
> > Third, Socrates is grilling an interpreter. This interpreter, Ion, may
> > believe that no one knows Homer better than himself (Ion) and he may be
> > wrong. Ion has made no statements proving an understanding of the beauty
> > of Homer - is it possible that what Socrates is doing is showing Ion that
> > not only does he not know Homer, he doesn't know himself?
>
> I don't see Ion as an 'interpreter,' at least beyond the idea that Issac
> Stern is an interpreter of Mozart or Marlon Brando is an interpreter of
> Tennessee Williams.
I think that's a good way to summarize it. Do we see Ion as an artist in
his own right? Brando and Stern I do. I don't know if we are meant to see
Ion that way. He is certainly a performer.
>
> I'm not sure that aesthetics couldn't be discussed strictly on the grounds of
> 'art' exclusive of any context. I just don't know how to do it.
Well I don't know for sure that we can remove all context from a
discussion of the relative merits of this or that painting. But I am
interested in varying degrees of stress. I have to say that I am a little
dissapoitned in the lack of discussion of pictorial qualities in a lot of
writing today - it is usually substituted with biographical or morality
writing.
Anyway, the thing that I am left with after all of this is that I'm not
sure Ion represents, for me, enough of what esthetics is about (again, see
my post to Mani) partly because I don't have much use for the Magnet
analogy and what it implies.
Also, are Ion's ability to sing and his understanding of Homer separate
issues - they seems so to me - and if so, does understanding of Homer
guarantee excellent performance? Could another singer perform Homer better
even if he lacked Ion's knowlege?
thanks,
Mark
mark webber
> Just a comment on the interesting dialogue below.
> I always wonder why we, visual artists, can't have
> a category like "Poetics" which would not be art
> crit, art theory, but something like poetics.
> Danto tries a philosophy of art and he comes
> close.
>
> What you are doing below
> comes pretty close to a
> "poetics of visual art"
>
> and I apologize for having previously used the word "form" interchangeably
> with "shape."
Hi Marilyn,
Thanks for your comments. I'm not sure how you mean poetics; if you like,
please give an example of Danto doing so.
Also, there isn't anything wrong using the word form to connote shape, or
the volume of shape. But for me it is that aspect of the arts that is less
closely tied to subject or content than structure, design, composition and
unity.
There are plenty of words in this lexicon that have differing meanings -
we all know that. But that doesn't make it easier to communicate. Again,
my copy of Webster's doesn't actually refer to form as "volumetric shape"
or anything that could be interpreted that way. But it does go to lengths
to give a variety of ideas about unity, design, rhythm, relationships
between parts and the like.
This is why we often hear of the distinction "Form and Content". Several
people I respect here use the word form to connote shape or depictive
aspects and so I undersand why I repeatedly see people here expressing an
inability to separate the two: of course content and its depiction are
difficult to separate.
But content and design, for example - that it is pretty easy to
distinguish. Or Content and Composition.
The "what" and the "how", you know....
And if we can accept this distinction, of form and content, then we might
ask ourselves which of these things has more to do with the success or
failure of a work?
It is hard to imagine judging the "message" or content or subject of a
painting. But how well a painting is made - that is a basic question for
critics.
Judging content, evaluating subject matter, this is a concern of politicos
or preachers or folks who don't look at paintings much. But I don't look
at a painting and say "Oh well this depicts the Virgin Mary in an
unflattering light so this is bad art."
I say,"This painting of the Virgin doesn't look good to me because the
form is static here and dynamic here; it is inconsistant; it lacks unity,
and the color doesn't hold my attention." Or "the dung is applied in a
way that only an amateur dung flinger flings. This dung has no rhythm. It
stinks."
Sometimes a painting seems so very much oriented to its subject that the
form is not considered, not felt (because that is what we are talking
about: felt form, felt space) and in this situation I dismiss the work as
"content-oriented." This is a personal opinion, of course. But one based
in a bit of experience.
For me, paintings that succeed do so not because they speak to me about
issues, or remind me of the pajamas I wore when I was eight, or sexually
arouse me.
They succeed because the painter has a command of form and has expressed
his/her sensibility, provided me with something to look at, to hold my
gaze. After that, if there is some metaphor or narrative, I'll enjoy that
too.
Or suppose there isn't narrative to speak of, or metaphor. Suppose
there is just a bowl of strawberries, like Chardin's, or a woman
reading, like Corot. Or a dark sky with patches of blue that illuminate
the zinc yellow fields below, like Ruisdale. Or waterlilies or haystacks.
The paintings I'm thinking of are great, great paintings, but they have
little to offer to people who can only interpret.
Or maybe there is no subject matter at all! Well, if it is a Dekooning it
is very likely that I'm transfixed by his color and, yes, skill, and the
incredibly off-handed way that he balances and directs shapes. But I'm not
going to stand there in front of this marvelous painting and start
thinking about Jung or Sartre or how Dekooning might be illustrating some
cultural trend. He may well have been talking Jung and Sartre to Kline
later that night in a bar, but the reason Dekooning is such a great
painter is that he wasn't illustrating anything. He was fucking painting
his ass off! I'm going to enjoy the visual. It is visual art.
No sensibility, no art.
Mark
Marilyn Welch
Responding to you Mark, reminds me of
Tony Huston speaking of his father the Director John Huston,
"You go over a thing twice before saying it in front of him."
comments interleaved below:
On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, mark webber wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, Marilyn Welch wrote:
>
> > Just a comment on the interesting dialogue below.
> > I always wonder why we, visual artists, can't have
> > a category like "Poetics" which would not be art
> > crit, art theory, but something like poetics.
> > Danto tries a philosophy of art and he comes
> > close.
> >
> > What you are doing below
> > comes pretty close to a
> > "poetics of visual art"
> >
> > and I apologize for having previously used the word "form" interchangeably
> > with "shape."
>
> Hi Marilyn,
>
> Thanks for your comments. I'm not sure how you mean poetics; if you like,
> please give an example of Danto doing so.
Danto describes his book "The Transfiguration of the Commonplace"
as _philosophical reflections_ on art. In that book he does not so much
discuss
form meaning "bringing into being" or "art for art's sake."
rather I think it could be called the poetics of
contemporary art. Here's an example from the chapter on Aesthetics and
the Work of Art speaking of the action of painting:
"(DeKooning's [since you mentioned him] contribution, incidentally may in
part have been that even these wildly anarchistic strokes which seemed to
be unintegrable into a representational structure, could in fact
be regimented to form images of - of all things - women
[at first glance, to me they were grotesque women of a misogynistic
imagination] Not Venuses and Madonnas or Mme Renoirs, but paint-ladies
of an almost ferocious character who seem to resent having been
given existence.)"
That kind of writing about art is not criticism or theory it is
like poetics.
Further there is Robert Henri whose art writing could be described the
same way - he talks about the essence of the subject which I think
parallels your "sensibility" in some ways.
"Here is an emotional landscape [I think immediately of Whistler's
Nocturnes.] It is like something thought, something remembered.
Reveal the spirit you have about the thing not the materials you
are going to paint. Reality does not exist in material things.
Rather paint the flying spirit of the bird than its feathers."
>
> Also, there isn't anything wrong using the word form to connote shape, or
> the volume of shape. But for me it is that aspect of the arts that is less
> closely tied to subject or content than structure, design, composition and
> unity.
No there is nothing wrong. I meant to emphasize that the form you
are discussing is the form in formalism, not the form as in shape.
>
> There are plenty of words in this lexicon that have differing meanings -
> we all know that. But that doesn't make it easier to communicate. Again,
> my copy of Webster's doesn't actually refer to form as "volumetric shape"
> or anything that could be interpreted that way. But it does go to lengths
> to give a variety of ideas about unity, design, rhythm, relationships
> between parts and the like.
Oxford: a bringing into being [I like that one].
>
> This is why we often hear of the distinction "Form and Content". Several
> people I respect here use the word form to connote shape or depictive
> aspects and so I undersand why I repeatedly see people here expressing an
> inability to separate the two: of course content and its depiction are
> difficult to separate.
>
> But content and design, for example - that it is pretty easy to
> distinguish. Or Content and Composition.
>
> The "what" and the "how", you know....
>
> And if we can accept this distinction, of form and content, then we might
> ask ourselves which of these things has more to do with the success or
> failure of a work?
>
> It is hard to imagine judging the "message" or content or subject of a
> painting. But how well a painting is made - that is a basic question for
> critics.
>
> Judging content, evaluating subject matter, this is a concern of politicos
> or preachers or folks who don't look at paintings much. But I don't look
> at a painting and say "Oh well this depicts the Virgin Mary in an
> unflattering light so this is bad art."
Let's say that the layman is subject-bound.
The cliche question to a painter:
Oh, you paint? What do you paint?
Usually I just say "paintings"
but I know what they want to hear:
people, landscapes, fruit, flowers.
> I say,"This painting of the Virgin doesn't look good to me because the
> form is static here and dynamic here; it is inconsistant; it lacks unity,
> and the color doesn't hold my attention." Or "the dung is applied in a
> way that only an amateur dung flinger flings. This dung has no rhythm. It
> stinks."
Dung:
Well, as I pointed out once before the earth colours or ochre pigments
are made from dirt. But look what Rembrant could do with dirt and soot!
Actually I saw the so called Piss Christ, from across a crowded room,
knowing nothing of the scandal. It was beautiful! Not just because I
am a born-again pagan but the colour was intense.
> Sometimes a painting seems so very much oriented to its subject that the
> form is not considered, not felt (because that is what we are talking
> about: felt form, felt space) and in this situation I dismiss the work as
> "content-oriented." This is a personal opinion, of course. But one based
> in a bit of experience.
Yes content-oriented is the same as subject-bound.
The subject can be really exciting when the artist has found the
perfect form for it. Thinking of Leon Golub's war paintings,
monumental, full of macho energy, perfect form for the subject.
> For me, paintings that succeed do so not because they speak to me about
> issues, or remind me of the pajamas I wore when I was eight, or sexually
> arouse me.
> They succeed because the painter has a command of form and has expressed
> his/her sensibility, provided me with something to look at, to hold my
> gaze. After that, if there is some metaphor or narrative, I'll enjoy that
> too.
>
> Or suppose there isn't narrative to speak of, or metaphor. Suppose
> there is just a bowl of strawberries, like Chardin's, or a woman
> reading, like Corot. Or a dark sky with patches of blue that illuminate
> the zinc yellow fields below, like Ruisdale. Or waterlilies or haystacks.
>
> The paintings I'm thinking of are great, great paintings, but they have
> little to offer to people who can only interpret.
or Who can only understand narrative work, or recognizable images.
> Or maybe there is no subject matter at all! Well, if it is a Dekooning it
> is very likely that I'm transfixed by his color and, yes, skill, and the
> incredibly off-handed way that he balances and directs shapes. But I'm not
> going to stand there in front of this marvelous painting and start
> thinking about Jung or Sartre or how Dekooning might be illustrating some
> cultural trend. He may well have been talking Jung and Sartre to Kline
> later that night in a bar, but the reason Dekooning is such a great
> painter is that he wasn't illustrating anything. He was fucking painting
> his ass off! I'm going to enjoy the visual. It is visual art.
No subject as in Rothko's work?
I think in the video Painters on Painting DeKooning talks about being
surprised by the lips that appeared like some commercial for lipstick
and then the women formed around them. He seemed as surprised by the
women appearing as the paint-ladies themselves look kind of shocked
by being discovered there.
>
> No sensibility, no art.
> Mark
i believe that with my 'Art and soul.'
Marilyn
>
> Mark
>
>
>
Erik A. Mattila
> On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, Erik A. Mattila wrote:
>
> > Well, it's obvious that post modernism and it's associated siblings have
> > gotten a bad rap, often for reasons that it earns. We've discussed that here
> > on the ng group is some detail. But when you sift through the chaff you'll
> > find some pretty substancial scholarship that ties directly into the
> > 'tradition' of philosophic inquiry in Western civilization. For example, in
> > semiology and critical theory you find a lot of interest in the difference
> > between 'lang' and 'parole' (speech and writing), as coined by Lacan (a
> > psychiatrist) and when you jump into this discussion you'll find the
> > development of the idea is based on a chain of philosophic reasoning that
> > goes back to Plato's "Phadra," where the discussion of the difference between
> > speech and writing became part of the discussion of philosophy.
>
> Can you give me a pictorial analogy for lang and parole? I know what they
> are, I'd just like to hear how, for you, they translate to visual art.
I guess it's possible that that argument could be made, but I wouldn't make it. I
don't think it does apply. But I was offering this as an example of how Critical
Theory is not disconnected from the historical development of philosophy in
Western Civilization.
> > But the import of "Ion," in my opinion, is that whatever an aesthetic is to
> > be based on, it can go in two directions. So Plato is proposing this option,
> > the one being 'art' and the other, the 'divine.' So we need to decide what
> > direction a discussion of aesthetics would go, for our purposes. What I hear
> > from you is that you want to keep it on the 'art' side, which is ok, but
> > would require us to make sure we are talking about things that are clearly on
> > that side of the proposition.
>
> Ok, have I slipped to the other side? Let me know if I have.
I don't really know, Mark. I'm referencing other discussions from a few months
ago. My impression was that you were advocating a position that was not part of
any social or cultural context, which would be meaningful when you grapple the
question "Why is one painting better than the other." I thinks its a very good
question, and I only suspect that it could be asked from the position you are
advocating. I'm just trying to understand what that position is. I mean, what
are we going to consider relevant to the question, and not. I don't think its a
bad idea to restrict a discussion this way -- but it's alway possible that once
you get the position defined, you discover that not much can be ascertained. I'm
not suggesting this is the case with the position you are advocating, since I
think that it is pretty well thought out in your mind.
So what we're doing now is akin to the three weeks of intense argument that go on
among participants of an International Peace Conference, where the debate is over
where each negotiator will sit at the table.
> > > Second, while I would never presume to point out flaws in Socrates, the
> > > magnetic chain has no links named sensibility. It is hard for me to
> > > believe that Socrates felt that inspiration was verbatim, and that Homer's
> > > success was unrelated to word choice, selective focus, etc.
> >
> > Well, at this point I don't understand what you mean by 'sensibility.'
>
> I've just written a post for Mani where I address this. Is it ok if I
> direct you there for my response?
Sure, I think I've already skimmed that, but missed the 'sensibility' issue. I'll
go back...
> > > Third, Socrates is grilling an interpreter. This interpreter, Ion, may
> > > believe that no one knows Homer better than himself (Ion) and he may be
> > > wrong. Ion has made no statements proving an understanding of the beauty
> > > of Homer - is it possible that what Socrates is doing is showing Ion that
> > > not only does he not know Homer, he doesn't know himself?
> >
> > I don't see Ion as an 'interpreter,' at least beyond the idea that Issac
> > Stern is an interpreter of Mozart or Marlon Brando is an interpreter of
> > Tennessee Williams.
>
> I think that's a good way to summarize it. Do we see Ion as an artist in
> his own right? Brando and Stern I do. I don't know if we are meant to see
> Ion that way. He is certainly a performer.
I think it's historical, and the conclusion I draw is to equate Brando and Stern
with Ion. For example, in the footnotes of "Ion" there was mention that the
"poetry" and "singing" were expressed by the same Greek word. I saw a very good
documentary several years ago about this, advancing the theory that the "Illiad"
and the "Odessy" were originally performances by a bard who sang these stories
(which Plato is calling a "rhapsode"). They filmed a contemporary bard
performing, I believe it was in the Cacauses, and it was incredibly cool, very
hypnotic and aesthetic even though I couldn't understand the language
(Armenian?). The thing is, this particular artist was reciting a story that took
three or four days to complete (with breaks, of course) and the local audiance
were held in deep attention while the piece was being performed. But this ancient
tradition is dying out -- I think Western Asia is the last place this is being
done. Originally, the Finnish epic, Kalevala, was performed this way. So like we
see in drama and music, the 'performers art' is a thing in itself that must
respond to aesthetic criteria which may not be part of the work performed.
> > I'm not sure that aesthetics couldn't be discussed strictly on the grounds of
> > 'art' exclusive of any context. I just don't know how to do it.
>
> Well I don't know for sure that we can remove all context from a
> discussion of the relative merits of this or that painting. But I am
> interested in varying degrees of stress. I have to say that I am a little
> dissapoitned in the lack of discussion of pictorial qualities in a lot of
> writing today - it is usually substituted with biographical or morality
> writing.
>
> Anyway, the thing that I am left with after all of this is that I'm not
> sure Ion represents, for me, enough of what esthetics is about (again, see
> my post to Mani) partly because I don't have much use for the Magnet
> analogy and what it implies.
I agree -- it's just a jumping off place. I don't know if you want to make a
claim of pure objectivity about aesthetics, but I do know I can't do this. For
example, I've posted the question a couple of times for that French word that is
used to represent that overpowering experience of entering Chartres Cathedral and
having your socks blown off, tears rolling down your cheeks, goosebumps and the
hair on your neck standing at attention. There is no English word for this, but
the French term is something like "fresonne" and I'm digging into my memory which
is often unreliable. There was no response, and it was even asked when there were
a few French speakers partiipating in RAF. Does this mean there is indifference
about this idea? Does it mean that no one knew (even the French speakers)? It's
remarkable to me that there is no English equivalent (although there seem to be
some rhetorical expressions, a bit clunky, like 'tears of joy' etc.)
> Also, are Ion's ability to sing and his understanding of Homer separate
> issues - they seems so to me -
Me too, as I think this was the point of the Dialogue itself.
> and if so, does understanding of Homer
> guarantee excellent performance? Could another singer perform Homer better
> even if he lacked Ion's knowlege?
Nix. I'm reading that Socrates is saying that Ion's excellence belongs to the
'divine.' The logical conclusion I would draw is that another could perform Homer
as well lacking Ion's knowledge. But Mark, wasn't it Socrates' argument that Ion
didn't "know" Homer that well (know 'art' that well) because if he did know 'art'
then his knowledge of Homer, Hesoid and the other artists mentioned would be
equal?
Personally, I see Plato's distinction between 'art' and 'divine' legitmately equal
to our more secular distinction between 'logic' and 'emotion.' I think that you
hesitate to make this equivalency, or at least question it. I would agree with
this hesitation if we were talking about history, but since we're talking about
aesthetics (and even the history of aesthetics) I feel it is ok to translate the
original terms into ones that are more useful to us. So maybe that's what we need
to do -- look at the aesthetics issue on those terms, the logical side addresses
the formal aspects of the work of art, while the emotional side addresses how the
formal elements can be arranged to produce the emotional response. I'm not
certain, but I think this is where the 'power' of a work of art resides that would
distinguish itself above others.
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
> Just a comment on the interesting dialogue below.
> I always wonder why we, visual artists, can't have
> a category like "Poetics" which would not be art
> crit, art theory, but something like poetics.
> Danto tries a philosophy of art and he comes
> close.
>
> What you are doing below
> comes pretty close to a
> "poetics of visual art"
>
> and I apologize for having previously used the word "form" interchangeably
> with "shape."
>
> Marilyn
Omygosh -- wirds, wirds, wirds -- when will it ever end?
There's some choice on how we understand that term, 'poetics.' I'm not sure how you
are using it. "Poetics" can refer 'poetic feelings or utterances' but I suspect
that Danto is using it in another sense, like Aristotle's 'Poetics' which is a
treatise on poetry and aesthetics. To further mess things up, the Prague School of
Linguistics produces Tzvetan Todorov who writes a wonderful book called
"Introduction to Poetics" which doesn't abandon Aristotle, but adds all sorts of
stuff, primarily linguistics, which would have really pissed Aristotle off, I'm
sure. But at any rate, it is 'art theory' so I don't understand what you mean by a
"Poetics" category for visual arts that would not be theory and criticism.
So what do you mean? It's an interesting idea, but I think you need to explain it
better.
Erik
Lauri Levanto
<...>
The "what" and the "how", you know....
And if we can accept this distinction, of form and content, then we
might
ask ourselves which of these things has more to do with the success or
failure of a work?
<...>
Just a loose association: When Tony Pittman published his
first version of Tiny Basic for homebrew computers,
the memory space allowed only two error messages:
"What" indicating that the interpreter could not parse
the meaning of a phrase, and
"How" referring to a situation where the phrase
filled formal criteria, but was impossible within
the rules.
I used to muse why Pittman left out the most
important "Why".
It is a question I often pose to an artwork.
F.ex. when What is Virgin Mary, (not an unworthy subject)
How is elephant dung (with certain skill and beaty),
the "why" is a key question, I think.
- lauri
mark webber
> mark Webber
> <...>
> The "what" and the "how", you know....
>
> And if we can accept this distinction, of form and content, then we
> might
> ask ourselves which of these things has more to do with the success or
> failure of a work?
> <...>
>
> Just a loose association: When Tony Pittman published his
> first version of Tiny Basic for homebrew computers,
> the memory space allowed only two error messages:
> "What" indicating that the interpreter could not parse
> the meaning of a phrase, and
> "How" referring to a situation where the phrase
> filled formal criteria, but was impossible within
> the rules.
Now that's beautiful.
> I used to muse why Pittman left out the most
> important "Why".
>
> It is a question I often pose to an artwork.
> F.ex. when What is Virgin Mary, (not an unworthy subject)
> How is elephant dung (with certain skill and beaty),
> the "why" is a key question, I think.
>
> - lauri
>
>
The point of art, to me, is "Why not?"
Marilyn Welch
>
> Omygosh -- wirds, wirds, wirds -- when will it ever end?
Don't you love them?
> There's some choice on how we understand that term, 'poetics.' I'm not sure how you
> are using it. "Poetics" can refer 'poetic feelings or utterances' but I suspect
> that Danto is using it in another sense, like Aristotle's 'Poetics' which is a
> treatise on poetry and aesthetics. To further mess things up, the Prague School of
> Linguistics produces Tzvetan Todorov who writes a wonderful book called
> "Introduction to Poetics" which doesn't abandon Aristotle, but adds all sorts of
> stuff, primarily linguistics, which would have really pissed Aristotle off, I'm
> sure. But at any rate, it is 'art theory' so I don't understand what you mean by a
> "Poetics" category for visual arts that would not be theory and criticism.
>
Danto calls it philosophical reflections.
My own idea of a poetics of visual art is my fantasy that one day
people will write about painting the way that they write about
poetry. Poetics to my mind goes way beyond theory.
Isn't art theory always attached to an historical context,
whereas poetics spans the years?
I thought the way Mark was writing about form and sensibility in painting
to be poetics. Poetics as in Seamus Heaney
(Government of the Tongue) or Gaston Bachelard (The Poetics of
Space & The Psychoanalysis of Fire.) more recent than Ari.
Thanks for your book tip, will try to get a hold of it.
> So what do you mean? It's an interesting idea, but I think you need to explain it
> better.
>
> Erik
>
I hope I explained it a little in my response to Mark. There's
a cat on my lap & I hate to kick her off, so I can't get at my references
and you know how I like to use quotes.
(hope you're not thinking, ya sure, like the dog ate my
homework.)
Marilyn
Marilyn Welch
Danto* disagrees with you in that he goes _against_
rules of modernist art crit like:
Don't talk about subject matter, artist's life & times
Don't use impressionistic language about feelings
Do give exhaustive account of work's physical details
Do pass judgement on its esthetic quality & historical importance
He wants art to be about more than itself.
Still I don't really think you are being a modernist in
your discussion of sensibility and form. You talk about
the reasons for the physical details etc.
Marilyn
*"About Art Criticism" by Terry Barrett
On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, mark webber wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, Marilyn Welch wrote:
>
> > Just a comment on the interesting dialogue below.
> > I always wonder why we, visual artists, can't have
> > a category like "Poetics" which would not be art
> > crit, art theory, but something like poetics.
> > Danto tries a philosophy of art and he comes
> > close.
> >
> > What you are doing below
> > comes pretty close to a
> > "poetics of visual art"
> >
> > and I apologize for having previously used the word "form" interchangeably
> > with "shape."
>
> Hi Marilyn,
>
> Thanks for your comments. I'm not sure how you mean poetics; if you like,
> please give an example of Danto doing so.
>
> Also, there isn't anything wrong using the word form to connote shape, or
> the volume of shape. But for me it is that aspect of the arts that is less
> closely tied to subject or content than structure, design, composition and
> unity.
>
> There are plenty of words in this lexicon that have differing meanings -
> we all know that. But that doesn't make it easier to communicate. Again,
> my copy of Webster's doesn't actually refer to form as "volumetric shape"
> or anything that could be interpreted that way. But it does go to lengths
> to give a variety of ideas about unity, design, rhythm, relationships
> between parts and the like.
>
> This is why we often hear of the distinction "Form and Content". Several
> people I respect here use the word form to connote shape or depictive
> aspects and so I undersand why I repeatedly see people here expressing an
> inability to separate the two: of course content and its depiction are
> difficult to separate.
>
> But content and design, for example - that it is pretty easy to
> distinguish. Or Content and Composition.
>
> The "what" and the "how", you know....
>
> And if we can accept this distinction, of form and content, then we might
> ask ourselves which of these things has more to do with the success or
> failure of a work?
>
> It is hard to imagine judging the "message" or content or subject of a
> painting. But how well a painting is made - that is a basic question for
> critics.
>
> Judging content, evaluating subject matter, this is a concern of politicos
> or preachers or folks who don't look at paintings much. But I don't look
> at a painting and say "Oh well this depicts the Virgin Mary in an
> unflattering light so this is bad art."
>
> I say,"This painting of the Virgin doesn't look good to me because the
> form is static here and dynamic here; it is inconsistant; it lacks unity,
> and the color doesn't hold my attention." Or "the dung is applied in a
> way that only an amateur dung flinger flings. This dung has no rhythm. It
> stinks."
>
>
> Sometimes a painting seems so very much oriented to its subject that the
> form is not considered, not felt (because that is what we are talking
> about: felt form, felt space) and in this situation I dismiss the work as
> "content-oriented." This is a personal opinion, of course. But one based
> in a bit of experience.
>
> For me, paintings that succeed do so not because they speak to me about
> issues, or remind me of the pajamas I wore when I was eight, or sexually
> arouse me.
>
> They succeed because the painter has a command of form and has expressed
> his/her sensibility, provided me with something to look at, to hold my
> gaze. After that, if there is some metaphor or narrative, I'll enjoy that
> too.
>
> Or suppose there isn't narrative to speak of, or metaphor. Suppose
> there is just a bowl of strawberries, like Chardin's, or a woman
> reading, like Corot. Or a dark sky with patches of blue that illuminate
> the zinc yellow fields below, like Ruisdale. Or waterlilies or haystacks.
>
> The paintings I'm thinking of are great, great paintings, but they have
> little to offer to people who can only interpret.
>
> Or maybe there is no subject matter at all! Well, if it is a Dekooning it
> is very likely that I'm transfixed by his color and, yes, skill, and the
> incredibly off-handed way that he balances and directs shapes. But I'm not
> going to stand there in front of this marvelous painting and start
> thinking about Jung or Sartre or how Dekooning might be illustrating some
> cultural trend. He may well have been talking Jung and Sartre to Kline
> later that night in a bar, but the reason Dekooning is such a great
> painter is that he wasn't illustrating anything. He was fucking painting
> his ass off! I'm going to enjoy the visual. It is visual art.
>
> No sensibility, no art.
>
> Mark
>
>
>
mark webber
> > Can you give me a pictorial analogy for lang and parole? I know what they
> > are, I'd just like to hear how, for you, they translate to visual art.
>
> I guess it's possible that that argument could be made, but I wouldn't make it. I
> don't think it does apply. But I was offering this as an example of how Critical
> Theory is not disconnected from the historical development of philosophy in
> Western Civilization.
I don't think we need to support that idea with examples because it seems
very sound to me. I do have real problems with the attempt to translate
ideas of lang and parole into visual art, because, as I've said before,
*language isn't art*.
>
> > > But the import of "Ion," in my opinion, is that whatever an aesthetic is to
> > > be based on, it can go in two directions. So Plato is proposing this option,
> > > the one being 'art' and the other, the 'divine.' So we need to decide what
> > > direction a discussion of aesthetics would go, for our purposes. What I hear
> > > from you is that you want to keep it on the 'art' side, which is ok, but
> > > would require us to make sure we are talking about things that are clearly on
> > > that side of the proposition.
> >
> > Ok, have I slipped to the other side? Let me know if I have.
>
> I don't really know, Mark. I'm referencing other discussions from a few months
> ago. My impression was that you were advocating a position that was not part of
> any social or cultural context, which would be meaningful when you grapple the
> question "Why is one painting better than the other." I thinks its a very good
> question, and I only suspect that it could be asked from the position you are
> advocating.
I think so. I wouldn't begin to know how to evaluate a painting in terms
of the divine. It wouldn't even interest me to try.
> I'm just trying to understand what that position is. I mean, what
> are we going to consider relevant to the question, and not. I don't think its a
> bad idea to restrict a discussion this way -- but it's alway possible that once
> you get the position defined, you discover that not much can be ascertained. I'm
> not suggesting this is the case with the position you are advocating, since I
> think that it is pretty well thought out in your mind.
What surprises me - really continuously surprise me - is that my position
seems so alien to most people here. It isn't a position I invented, and
all the painters I know, as well as a couple of critics, take the same
view. To articulate it again, it is: Let's look at the work and see
whether *it* merits looking into biographical, theoretical, contextual
questions, rather than the other way around.
Why should we, knowing what we all do about the gallery system, the
differing views of critics, the sort of corruption we see in the
"Sensation" monetary support, etc., why take the official view at it's
word and assume that if something is in a gallery it is worth discussing
and something not in a gallery is not worth discussing?
Otherwise, why not go from grade school to art fair to furniture store to
cafe, treating everything under the sun as of equal importance? There is
no reason not to - unless we begin with the question "is it good?"
>
> So what we're doing now is akin to the three weeks of intense argument that go on
> among participants of an International Peace Conference, where the debate is over
> where each negotiator will sit at the table.
There are definitly "camps" at this table - and they aren't always
alignments of attitude. A lot of people here argue simply because their
feelings have been hurt, not because there is a real difference in
philosophy. I don't feel part of any particular camp because the few
people who come on board and agree with what I have to say about form
seem to split before I can remember their names. (Which frankly makes me
wonder why my addiction to this place is so strong. But then it is so much
fun that I don't care.)
> > > Well, at this point I don't understand what you mean by 'sensibility.'
> >
> > I've just written a post for Mani where I address this. Is it ok if I
> > direct you there for my response?
>
> Sure, I think I've already skimmed that, but missed the 'sensibility' issue. I'll
> go back...
I hope you do, because it is fundamental to my understanding of process
and seems very much ignored by pomo points of view. I don't honestly see
what the value of art can be without seeing it as an expression of
sensibility - unless one doesn't really love art, but rather the idea of
being hip or seeming smart and sensitive for chicks.
> >
> > I think that's a good way to summarize it. Do we see Ion as an artist in
> > his own right? Brando and Stern I do. I don't know if we are meant to see
> > Ion that way. He is certainly a performer.
>
> I think it's historical, and the conclusion I draw is to equate Brando and Stern
> with Ion. For example, in the footnotes of "Ion" there was mention that the
> "poetry" and "singing" were expressed by the same Greek word.
(snip)
Well, forget about Brando and Stern then. Let's use Tony Curtis and Celine
Dion. Let's say one of them is telling Socrates that no one acts or sings
better. Certainly Dion thinks she is the greatest singer alive, but she
sucks. Curtis may have actually been, at times, aware that he was a lousy
actor, but who on earth is fully *aware* of their shortcomings?
I'm not sure I can accept "Ion" as a basis for critical discourse because
we don't know how effective Ion is at interpreting, singing, poetry or
anything. If we did know, however, that would completely change the
meaning of the text, wouldn't it?
> I don't know if you want to make a
> claim of pure objectivity about aesthetics, but I do know I can't do
> this.
No I do not. I embrace subjectivity. If art contained objective truths it
would be more like math. I may like this Titian, you may prefer that one.
But we are likely to agree he is a giant.
Black and white ain't so useful as relative assessments in art, I think.
> For example, I've posted the question a couple of times for that French
> word that is used to represent that overpowering experience of entering
Chartres Cathedral and
> having your socks blown off, tears rolling down your cheeks, goosebumps and the
> hair on your neck standing at attention. There is no English word for this, but
> the French term is something like "fresonne" and I'm digging into my memory which
> is often unreliable. There was no response, and it was even asked when there were
> a few French speakers partiipating in RAF. Does this mean there is indifference
> about this idea? Does it mean that no one knew (even the French speakers)? It's
> remarkable to me that there is no English equivalent (although there seem to be
> some rhetorical expressions, a bit clunky, like 'tears of joy' etc.)
Well, how about "awe"?
>
> > Also, are Ion's ability to sing and his understanding of Homer separate
> > issues - they seems so to me -
>
> Me too, as I think this was the point of the Dialogue itself.
Ok, then I'm not as stupid as I was a minute ago.
>
> > and if so, does understanding of Homer
> > guarantee excellent performance? Could another singer perform Homer better
> > even if he lacked Ion's knowlege?
>
> Nix. I'm reading that Socrates is saying that Ion's excellence belongs to the
> 'divine.' The logical conclusion I would draw is that another could perform Homer
> as well lacking Ion's knowledge. But Mark, wasn't it Socrates' argument that Ion
> didn't "know" Homer that well (know 'art' that well) because if he did know 'art'
> then his knowledge of Homer, Hesoid and the other artists mentioned would be
> equal?
Right, and by extension, Ion didn't know himself as well as he thought. He
doesn't know where is strengths are, if any.
But nix the divine, too. That is a device of Socrates' and I see no
foundation for it.
Try substituting the idea of sensibility for that of divine inspiration
and the magnet looses its power. There would be no mystic transference of
success from one artist to the next because each artist will inform their
work their own way - which is as it is in reality.
>
> Personally, I see Plato's distinction between 'art' and 'divine' legitmately equal
> to our more secular distinction between 'logic' and 'emotion.' I think that you
> hesitate to make this equivalency, or at least question it.
No I do question it: because there is both logic and emotion in art - that
is exactly what Nietzsche meant when he wrote of the antagonization
between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The divine plays no part.
> I would agree with
> this hesitation if we were talking about history, but since we're talking about
> aesthetics (and even the history of aesthetics) I feel it is ok to translate the
> original terms into ones that are more useful to us. So maybe that's what we need
> to do -- look at the aesthetics issue on those terms, the logical side addresses
> the formal aspects of the work of art, while the emotional side addresses how the
> formal elements can be arranged to produce the emotional response. I'm not
> certain, but I think this is where the 'power' of a work of art resides that would
> distinguish itself above others.
Whew! Here is my view: Arranging formal elements *is* form, and the
response elicited from such arrangements is a very large part of the
evaluative process. (As in "awe".)
My difficulty with your proposal is that you want to say esthetics is
about art and the divine. If you want to say that esthetics is about art
and the response to art then ok. Or if you want to say esthetics is about
two aspects of art, say, the Apollonian and the Dionysian, ok. But where
does this divine stuff come from? If it is a part of art, then update the
term to something that we, today, see as part of art.
If it isn't part of art then why is it part of esthetics?
with great enjoyment,
Mark
mark webber
>
> Responding to you Mark, reminds me of
> Tony Huston speaking of his father the Director John Huston,
> "You go over a thing twice before saying it in front of him."
Huston was once asked, "what's new?" and he replied, "well, I've
finally lost my sex drive and it is like getting off a bucking bronco."
For some odd reason I look forward to that phase of my life.
(snip to Danto)
> "(DeKooning's [since you mentioned him] contribution, incidentally may in
> part have been that even these wildly anarchistic strokes which seemed to
> be unintegrable into a representational structure, could in fact
> be regimented to form images of - of all things - women
> [at first glance, to me they were grotesque women of a misogynistic
> imagination] Not Venuses and Madonnas or Mme Renoirs, but paint-ladies
> of an almost ferocious character who seem to resent having been
> given existence.)"
A good example of why I don't care much for Danto. DeK.'s Women are among
his weakest paintings. I feel I understand why he made them but I won't
bore you with interpretation.
>
> That kind of writing about art is not criticism or theory it is
> like poetics.
No offense directed at you, Marilyn, because I'm glad you are contributing
to this, but it doesn't read to me as anything more than "This is how I
interpret DeKooning; am I not special and sensitive and smart? Look at
me!"
>
> Further there is Robert Henri whose art writing could be described the
> same way - he talks about the essence of the subject which I think
> parallels your "sensibility" in some ways.
> "Here is an emotional landscape [I think immediately of Whistler's
> Nocturnes.] It is like something thought, something remembered.
> Reveal the spirit you have about the thing not the materials you
> are going to paint. Reality does not exist in material things.
> Rather paint the flying spirit of the bird than its feathers."
That is very poetic, yes. My reservation is that it could apply equally
well to children and mature artists. But it is a beautiful sentiment.
> I meant to emphasize that the form you
> are discussing is the form in formalism, not the form as in shape.
Yes, that is right. I understand.
>
> >
> > There are plenty of words in this lexicon that have differing meanings -
> > we all know that. But that doesn't make it easier to communicate. Again,
> > my copy of Webster's doesn't actually refer to form as "volumetric shape"
> > or anything that could be interpreted that way. But it does go to lengths
> > to give a variety of ideas about unity, design, rhythm, relationships
> > between parts and the like.
>
> Oxford: a bringing into being [I like that one].
Yes, that is nice too.
>
> Let's say that the layman is subject-bound.
> The cliche question to a painter:
> Oh, you paint? What do you paint?
> Usually I just say "paintings"
> but I know what they want to hear:
> people, landscapes, fruit, flowers.
That is an excellent point. (Everybody listening?)
>
> Dung:
> Well, as I pointed out once before the earth colours or ochre pigments
> are made from dirt. But look what Rembrant could do with dirt and soot!
Exactly! The heart of the matter.
> Actually I saw the so called Piss Christ, from across a crowded room,
> knowing nothing of the scandal. It was beautiful! Not just because I
> am a born-again pagan but the colour was intense.
There you go! Bravo!
Thanks again,
Mark
Erik A. Mattila
> I don't think we need to support that idea with examples because it seems
> very sound to me. I do have real problems with the attempt to translate
> ideas of lang and parole into visual art, because, as I've said before,
> *language isn't art*.
But many don't accept this notion, Mark. They see contemporary theory as something
completely disconnected from tradition, rather than the extension of tradition into the
present. But the relationship between art and language is another issue entirely. You
know I'm always ready for that one, but I'll set it aside in this discussion, although
it may come back as we iron out these ideas about aesthetics. (as if we really
could???)
> > I don't really know, Mark. I'm referencing other discussions from a few months
> > ago. My impression was that you were advocating a position that was not part of
> > any social or cultural context, which would be meaningful when you grapple the
> > question "Why is one painting better than the other." I thinks its a very good
> > question, and I only suspect that it could be asked from the position you are
> > advocating.
>
> I think so. I wouldn't begin to know how to evaluate a painting in terms
> of the divine. It wouldn't even interest me to try.
I suspect the Greeks, or at least Plato, uses words like 'divine' as tropes, to signify
something else in a very general way. Like the idea of the visitation of the "Muse" to
an artist. I think you have to 'read' Plato as a rationalist who generalized the
things he thought were not 'logical' this way. This is just a supposition - I'm very
"Plato Challenged" in fact.
> What surprises me - really continuously surprise me - is that my position
> seems so alien to most people here. It isn't a position I invented, and
> all the painters I know, as well as a couple of critics, take the same
> view. To articulate it again, it is: Let's look at the work and see
> whether *it* merits looking into biographical, theoretical, contextual
> questions, rather than the other way around.
It doesn't seem 'alien' to me, insofar as I understand it, but it does seem weak to me
in some areas. But let me qualify that -- there's a bit of 'translation' required, and
that takes some work. So If you say 'x' I have to see how 'x' works in the way I put
the world together. But I'm studying your explanation of 'sensibility' and I'll get to
that, maybe in this post.
> Why should we, knowing what we all do about the gallery system, the
> differing views of critics, the sort of corruption we see in the
> "Sensation" monetary support, etc., why take the official view at it's
> word and assume that if something is in a gallery it is worth discussing
> and something not in a gallery is not worth discussing?
From my point of view the answer to that is because the arrival of the work in the
gallery is a very big part of what 'art' is. To belabor the point, Pop Art never would
have worked unless it was possible to change the environment that surrounded the object
to show that the 'meaning' also changed. Warhol, for all his fashionable public
phoneyness, was quite a bright fellow, in my opinion, and I also take him seriously as
an artist. But shucks, when Warhol caught the New York limelight Pop Art was already
passe in London -- having appeared ten years before Warhol anyway (and in many ways
British Pop art was 'superior').
So I think if you want to apply a rigourous aesthetic distinction that says you will
not consider art that can only manifest by its context, you have to eliminate a lot of
work from the category 'art' to make it fly. No problem with this on the face of it,
except that it is no longer a comprehensive account of aesthetics, and if you want to
make it work as a comprehensive accounting (notice I'm avoiding the word 'theory'), you
have to indulge in kicking out the forms of art that don't fit, saying, well, this
isn't 'art.'
> Otherwise, why not go from grade school to art fair to furniture store to
> cafe, treating everything under the sun as of equal importance? There is
> no reason not to - unless we begin with the question "is it good?"
Well, I tend to do that, actually (in some ways). I think comic books are very
important, for example. Jerry Springer is important (and this is an assumption made
from secondary sources, since I can't stand watching the program). The National
Inquirer is important. I wouldn't say that Jerry Springer is as important as Mona
Lisa, as art, but I might be inclined that comic books are as important as Mona Lisa.
You might be thinking that this is totally absurd -- but a good argument could be made,
which boils down to 'why is Mona Lisa' important in the first place. If you evoke the
'sensibility' of the artist idea, then I would have to ask (almost following Lauri's
idea) how is it that a certain composition, a certain curve of the foot or fluff of the
fabric, came to be valued and honored by the people who appreciate the Mona Lisa -- to
the degree that they hold it to be superior to other examples that don't quite attain
this level of excellence (fit the criteria). So of course, "Is it good?" is the
important question, but 'good' compared to what? I think if you want to say "good is
good" Plato would move this over to the 'divine' since there seems to be a metaphysical
assumption afoot in the concept.
> There are definitly "camps" at this table - and they aren't always
> alignments of attitude. A lot of people here argue simply because their
> feelings have been hurt, not because there is a real difference in
> philosophy. I don't feel part of any particular camp because the few
> people who come on board and agree with what I have to say about form
> seem to split before I can remember their names. (Which frankly makes me
> wonder why my addiction to this place is so strong. But then it is so much
> fun that I don't care.)
Yes, it is fun. But the word 'camps' connotates interpersonal relations to me, so I
would rather say 'positions' which could be held either by an individual, such as
yourself, or collectively by two or three. Also, if we look as 'aesthetics' as a
long-time discourse and become familar with that discourse, discrete 'positions' begin
to come into focus. So positions are more or less points of view, or the 'thing' seen
from a particular perspective, so I thought the analogy of the diplomat's meeting table
is useful.
> I hope you do, because it is fundamental to my understanding of process
> and seems very much ignored by pomo points of view. I don't honestly see
> what the value of art can be without seeing it as an expression of
> sensibility - unless one doesn't really love art, but rather the idea of
> being hip or seeming smart and sensitive for chicks.
I gave it a good shot, but I really can't see 'sensibility' as distinct from the more
common expression 'formalism' although I would say that 'formalism' is a broader and
more general term. But you're proposing that 'the good' of good art is independant of
'fashion and trends' yet go on to map out historical periods which differed. Differed
on what basis, if not fashion and trends. I think you are proposing a universal basis,
or at least it seems to me that you are, and if so, I would challenge that. I realize
that I am making the terrible 'relativist' argument, but frankly the alternative
doesn't make sense to me and my reading of the evidence.
Recently, some comments were raised about Chris' new paintings about composition. I
could read the critiques, look at the painting, and see immediately what was being
talked about. But Chris defended his composition successfully, in my view. True, the
painting violates a fundamental axiom about composition that we learn, either directly
by instution in a design and composition course, or indirectly by our experience in
visual, where the majority of the compositions we look at follow the rule. But Dan
Fox, in some ways, has used the same device, and strangely no one has critiqued his
painting on that ground. I'm talking about image/field relationships, where I see in a
couple of Dan's work to be sort of pushing the envelop of acceptability (by the
'standard') and I don't see it as a weakness of the work. Yet some critic could say
"Dan Fox doesn't understand composition because in such a such painting the image is
hanging in space in the bottom left of the canvas with no contrapuntal compensation",
or something like that. Really, Mark, Manet outraged a lot of critics and art
afficianados when he began to paint figures that were dissected by the edge of the
canvas, of looking the 'wrong way' -- i.e. in the consensual direction that valorizes
the composition itself. And why not? The Impressionists saw themselves as exponents
of that philosophical trend of their day, the cutting edge of intellectualism, French
Naturaism, and were fueled and inspired by the ideas of portraying the world as it
really is, which is certainly not tidily arranged into the compositional schemata that
is popular at any given time. How many Frenchmen walking through the Tuilleries really
cared if they were looking in the right direction? But now, after viewing Manet for
130 years, we don't even notice that the artist violated the popular aesthetic of his
time, and that his contemporaries saw his work as being very strange, ugly, and failed
as 'good painting.'
That's where 'sensibility' starts to fall apart for me. If you look at 'whatever is
correct' in the Middle Ages, Ancient Greek, Renaissance, or what ever, you see some
difference. At any given time, the formal aspects of a work of art can be regarded as
great art, above the rest, and the idea can even hold over centuries. But the
phenomenology of this rests in social consensus. You can't have good composition,
perfect colors, outstanding tweaks of posture and line, without a consensus. And you
can't keep this all in the 'artist' either, because an artist is also a human being who
has, like everyone else, learned about good and bad from culture. The excellence of
art is another of the many ideas that circulate in culture.
This doesn't make great art less great by any means. It merely explains why a
Trobriand Islander might walk right by Caravaggio with no particular interest, awe, or
sense of presence. So if you want to keep the aesthetic argument clearly inside the
compact between the artist and the work of art, you still need to explain the basis for
the good/bad art judgement (whether it's 'sensed' by the artist, or comes from
knowledge and practice) In either case, its an exercise of judgement, and 'judgement'
isn't something that materializes in thin air without a geneology of its own. If you
want to back this up with universals, have at it. (I think you'll end up with the
magnets if you attempt this).
> > > I think that's a good way to summarize it. Do we see Ion as an artist in
> > > his own right? Brando and Stern I do. I don't know if we are meant to see
> > > Ion that way. He is certainly a performer.
> >
> > I think it's historical, and the conclusion I draw is to equate Brando and Stern
> > with Ion. For example, in the footnotes of "Ion" there was mention that the
> > "poetry" and "singing" were expressed by the same Greek word.
> (snip)
>
> Well, forget about Brando and Stern then. Let's use Tony Curtis and Celine
> Dion. Let's say one of them is telling Socrates that no one acts or sings
> better. Certainly Dion thinks she is the greatest singer alive, but she
> sucks. Curtis may have actually been, at times, aware that he was a lousy
> actor, but who on earth is fully *aware* of their shortcomings?
We would go there, but you have to understand that "Ion" is a fiction. As such, it was
Plato's 'artistic license' to establish that Ion was the absolute best Homeric
Rhapsode. I suppose you could argue that Ahab was projecting his hatred for his father
on Mobey Dick, but that violates Melville's license. So once we start speculating that
Ion was something other than what Plato intended for the purpose of his dialogue, we
are completely leaving Ion and walking into new, undefined fictions.
But Curtis was a fine actor. How do you measure? If you replaced him with John
Gielgud or John Turturo in any of the classic Curtis/Doris Day films, they would fail
miserably. And they didn't fail at all -- they were quite successful. But look at the
ironies, Mark. Edward R. Murro and Orsen Welles went to bat for high brow culture,
even lobbying congress for Public Broadcasting, successfully. So today on PBS we can
see the Lawrence Welk Show. But Lawrence Welk is percieved now as a historical relic,
so it is very High Brow to count the champagne bubbles each Saturday evening. And we
have the endless repititions of River Dance (pop-irish culture) and that Greek Creep
Yana - the Pat Boone of the New Age great soooooooth. I'd take Tony and Kirk as
Vikings any day.
> I'm not sure I can accept "Ion" as a basis for critical discourse because
> we don't know how effective Ion is at interpreting, singing, poetry or
> anything. If we did know, however, that would completely change the
> meaning of the text, wouldn't it?
Come on, Mark, Ion is a fictional character -- Plato's invention. He has no dimension
other that that which Plato provided us. All you need to know is that he won the
contest and was therefore the best Homeric Rhapsode that could be.
> I don't know if you want to make a
> > claim of pure objectivity about aesthetics, but I do know I can't do
> > this.
>
> No I do not. I embrace subjectivity. If art contained objective truths it
> would be more like math. I may like this Titian, you may prefer that one.
> But we are likely to agree he is a giant.
Yes, I agree that he is a giant. But if Titian was teleported to the age of the Greek
Titans, he would be a shrimp.
> Black and white ain't so useful as relative assessments in art, I think.
I hope you're not saying that objectivity is always a black and white affair.
> > For example, I've posted the question a couple of times for that French
> > word that is used to represent that overpowering experience of entering
> Chartres Cathedral and
> > having your socks blown off, tears rolling down your cheeks, goosebumps and the
> > hair on your neck standing at attention. There is no English word for this, but
> > the French term is something like "fresonne" and I'm digging into my memory which
> > is often unreliable. There was no response, and it was even asked when there were
> > a few French speakers partiipating in RAF. Does this mean there is indifference
> > about this idea? Does it mean that no one knew (even the French speakers)? It's
> > remarkable to me that there is no English equivalent (although there seem to be
> > some rhetorical expressions, a bit clunky, like 'tears of joy' etc.)
>
> Well, how about "awe"?
Clunky, in my opinion. Like the way I'm understanding the French word, as it was
explained to me, is that you wouldn't experience 'fresonne' (if that's even the word)
watching "Friday the 13th" but you might experience awe. But I'm glad you brought it
up. I got a medal while I was in the Army, and there was this big parade with a whole
battalion marching in formation and all the pomp and circumstance one would expect from
such a ritual. It was quite thrilling, as much as I hate to admit it, and raised the
hairs on my neck. It may have been 'awe' inspiring, but it was quite a different thing
than what I experience after drinking a half a bottle of Johnny Walker and listening to
Beethoven's 7th or Miles Davis at Montraux. Know what I mean (sob sob)?
> > > Also, are Ion's ability to sing and his understanding of Homer separate
> > > issues - they seems so to me -
> >
> > Me too, as I think this was the point of the Dialogue itself.
>
> Ok, then I'm not as stupid as I was a minute ago.
Well, yes -- even some colleges give credit for 'experience.' A minute could be
significant.
> > > and if so, does understanding of Homer
> > > guarantee excellent performance? Could another singer perform Homer better
> > > even if he lacked Ion's knowlege?
> >
> > Nix. I'm reading that Socrates is saying that Ion's excellence belongs to the
> > 'divine.' The logical conclusion I would draw is that another could perform Homer
> > as well lacking Ion's knowledge. But Mark, wasn't it Socrates' argument that Ion
> > didn't "know" Homer that well (know 'art' that well) because if he did know 'art'
> > then his knowledge of Homer, Hesoid and the other artists mentioned would be
> > equal?
>
> Right, and by extension, Ion didn't know himself as well as he thought. He
> doesn't know where is strengths are, if any.
Yes, I got this from the reading. He was learning a great deal from Socrates.
> But nix the divine, too. That is a device of Socrates' and I see no
> foundation for it.
>
> Try substituting the idea of sensibility for that of divine inspiration
> and the magnet looses its power. There would be no mystic transference of
> success from one artist to the next because each artist will inform their
> work their own way - which is as it is in reality.
It can go either way for me. I can see 'sensibility' in either terrain, or both at the
same time.
> > Personally, I see Plato's distinction between 'art' and 'divine' legitmately equal
> > to our more secular distinction between 'logic' and 'emotion.' I think that you
> > hesitate to make this equivalency, or at least question it.
>
> No I do question it: because there is both logic and emotion in art - that
> is exactly what Nietzsche meant when he wrote of the antagonization
> between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The divine plays no part.
And Plato was placing 'emotion' outside 'art.' So this establishes a process, as
distinct from a 'thing.' The whole big idea, which I want to call 'art' (and Plato
doesn't) involves both, or rather is a relationship between the two.
> > I would agree with
> > this hesitation if we were talking about history, but since we're talking about
> > aesthetics (and even the history of aesthetics) I feel it is ok to translate the
> > original terms into ones that are more useful to us. So maybe that's what we need
> > to do -- look at the aesthetics issue on those terms, the logical side addresses
> > the formal aspects of the work of art, while the emotional side addresses how the
> > formal elements can be arranged to produce the emotional response. I'm not
> > certain, but I think this is where the 'power' of a work of art resides that would
> > distinguish itself above others.
>
> Whew! Here is my view: Arranging formal elements *is* form, and the
> response elicited from such arrangements is a very large part of the
> evaluative process. (As in "awe".)
>
> My difficulty with your proposal is that you want to say esthetics is
> about art and the divine. If you want to say that esthetics is about art
> and the response to art then ok. Or if you want to say esthetics is about
> two aspects of art, say, the Apollonian and the Dionysian, ok. But where
> does this divine stuff come from? If it is a part of art, then update the
> term to something that we, today, see as part of art.
Well, as W.C.Fields said "A woman is a woman, but a cigar is a good smoke." No,
seriously, I can accept your poles - with one modification:
"aesthetics is about the work of art and its response." Because I want to then say
"aesthetics is about art" which implys that "art is about the work and its response."
It's my way of championing the notion of context.
> If it isn't part of art then why is it part of esthetics?
That's easy. Maybe we'll have some more here on The Sublime. It is a very well
organized aesthetic theory. While it discusses art, it is not exclusive to art. The
direct experience of nature is cited as the experience of the sublime, the awe and even
terror, and further defined as an aesthetic experience. I realise that I'm only saying
that some people thought this to be part of aesthetics, and so I'm relying on the
authoritiy of fellows like Burke or Wordsworth. Now if we had time machines and Plato
could review the writings of The Sublime, I think he would move a lot of the material
over to his category, the Divine.
Good discussion, I think
Erik
>
>
> with great enjoyment,
>
> Mark
mark webber
On Tue, 7 Dec 1999, Marilyn Welch wrote:
> Well, actually Mark,
> Danto* disagrees with you in that he goes _against_
> rules of modernist art crit like:
>
> Don't talk about subject matter, artist's life & times
> Don't use impressionistic language about feelings
> Do give exhaustive account of work's physical details
> Do pass judgement on its esthetic quality & historical importance
> He wants art to be about more than itself.
I know, yes, and I personally don't care for this. I don't mean black and
white; I don't *forbid* discussion of subject or context - not at all. I
just don't address them unless the work is formally strong.
And the idea of wanting art to be about "more than itself" strikes me as
very disengaged. If a painting is good enough, I don't need it to be about
anything more than "lookin' good".
Maybe there is an answer there: maybe if one is looking at crap, and the
crap doesn't offer enough visually to engage one, one *needs* the art to
be about something beyond itself. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
>
> Still I don't really think you are being a modernist in
> your discussion of sensibility and form. You talk about
> the reasons for the physical details etc.
Well, first of all, I think you are refering to my response to a
Caravaggio, so I don't think that qualifies me as un-modern.
Second, the reasons for the physical details don't have to do with
depictive issues - that is, draw a nose to look like a nose - rather they
are formal issues - how much nose and where, to what visual effect.
But most important, I don't think Modernism is about breaking with
representation for the sake of rebellion. I think most successful
Modernism breaks with representation as a result of exploring new ways to
work with form.
If modernism means being a rebel for the sake of being a rebel, then, no I
am not a modernist. If modernism means allowing formal concerns to overide
representation concerns, at the expense of depiction, then yes, I am a
modernist. But not a very daring one, because I like making pictures
*of things*.
I'll tell you though, I don't put much stock in the popular notion that
an artist has to be daring or avant guard. A number of really excellent
painters this century have upturned that paradigm, thankfully.
thanks,
Mark
mark webber
> > Huston was once asked, "what's new?" and he replied, "well, I've
> > finally lost my sex drive and it is like getting off a bucking bronco."
> >
> > For some odd reason I look forward to that phase of my life.
> >
> That was premature in Huston because of illness,
> I have it on the authority of the Jesuits who got it from the Irish,
> that it doesn't stop until 10 minutes after you are dead.
What a nightmare.
> Danto wouldn't like you either, as I just found out.
That's ok. What I would like is the opportunity to piss him off. Maybe in
person.
> Objectivity:
>
> In his intro to "The Psychoanalysis of Fire" by Bachelard,
> Northrop Frye interpreting Thomas Huxley says
> that the process of perception could not nullify
> itself, by becoming objective to itself.
> But Gaston Bachelard has begin to isolate an angle
> of perception as a basis for a systematic development
> of the critical study of the arts.
>
That's a really bizarre coincidence. I just picked up Bachelard's "Poetics
of Space" about an hour before I saw this post of yours.
> The Poetics of Painting is coming soon.
>
Good!
Mark
mark webber
> I suspect the Greeks, or at least Plato, uses words like 'divine' as tropes, to signify
> something else in a very general way. Like the idea of the visitation of the "Muse" to
> an artist. I think you have to 'read' Plato as a rationalist who generalized the
> things he thought were not 'logical' this way. This is just a supposition - I'm very
> "Plato Challenged" in fact.
Well, I buy this idea that the Greeks had varying degrees of belief in
gods, dieties, etc, and I also buy the idea that P. and S. may well have
used the word divine as a "trope" or metaphor of sorts. But to me there is
an enormous difference between invoking "muse" and invoking "divine" - the
muses, while having their origins in religious myth, have come to mean,
for us, a part of the creative process and are closely affiliated with
art. As soon as we throw God into the mix it confuses things, in much the
same way as the "sublime" discussion became confused, because among
other things, we aren't just talking about human contributions
and responses any more.
I have to leave gods out of the discussion, and I don't really care to
partake in one that includes ideas of this sort. No offense - it just
isn't my thing.
(on my approach)
> It doesn't seem 'alien' to me, insofar as I understand it, but it does seem weak to me
> in some areas. But let me qualify that -- there's a bit of 'translation' required, and
> that takes some work. So If you say 'x' I have to see how 'x' works in the way I put
> the world together. But I'm studying your explanation of 'sensibility' and I'll get to
> that, maybe in this post.
That's kind of what I mean. I'm startled that the idea of sensibility
needs defining in an art discussion group. Really startled.
(snip)
> So I think if you want to apply a rigourous aesthetic distinction
> that says you will not consider art that can only manifest by its
> context, you have to eliminate a lot of work from the category 'art'
> to make it fly. No problem with this on the face of it, except that
> it is no longer a comprehensive account of aesthetics, and if you want
> to make it work as a comprehensive accounting (notice I'm avoiding the
> word 'theory'), you have to indulge in kicking out the forms of art
> that don't fit, saying, well, this
> isn't 'art.'
I think I have a solid record here of saying the question is not "Is it
art?" but "Is it *good* art?"
I have no need to kick anything out of the definition, nor do I take such
extreme a stance as saying that I will not consider art that only
manifests itself as such through context. I readily acknowlege that
Duchamp's ouevre, for example, all which manifests itself as art through
context, is in fact art.
The question for me is "how good is it?" And another question for me is,
"is it really preferable to be less interested in the relative success or
failure of individual works?" I'm wondering if there is a complacency of
sorts involved.
>
> > Otherwise, why not go from grade school to art fair to furniture store to
> > cafe, treating everything under the sun as of equal importance? There is
> > no reason not to - unless we begin with the question "is it good?"
>
> Well, I tend to do that, actually (in some ways). I think comic books
> are very important, for example.
I do too, but I don't have any difficulty seeing a difference in
importance between comic books and about two dozen alters in Venice. This
is where the idea of complacency begins to worry me. If we love art, we
can love popular culture and entertainment too, but if we love art, is
there a possibility that we are getting a bit lazy if we no longer
distinguish clearly between the above experiences?
> Jerry Springer is important (and this is an assumption made
> from secondary sources, since I can't stand watching the program).
Are we still talking about art here? Aside from the possibility - no the
surety - that someone will eventually exhibit a Springer video as art (and
then the act of doing so is the art, but nothing about the Springer
experience prior to this act is art - I fucking hope.)
(snip)
> You might be thinking that this is totally absurd -- but a good argument could be made,
> which boils down to 'why is Mona Lisa' important in the first place.
You know, Wolflin made such a convincing argument for why Mona Lisa is a
wonderful painting that that territory doesn't seem too challenging
anymore. I mean personally, I don't have it in my personal canon, but
do you really want to argue why this particular painting is more important
that comic books or Jerry Springer or are you playing devil's diddler.
> If you evoke the
> 'sensibility' of the artist idea, then I would have to ask (almost following Lauri's
> idea) how is it that a certain composition, a certain curve of the foot or fluff of the
> fabric, came to be valued and honored by the people who appreciate the Mona Lisa -- to
> the degree that they hold it to be superior to other examples that don't quite attain
> this level of excellence (fit the criteria).
What does this mean? Do you mean "invoke" or "evoke"? How does the
question relate to sensibility? Can you maybe rephrase this fo me?
> So of course, "Is it good?" is the
> important question, but 'good' compared to what?
Come on, spit your tail out of your mouth! Right this instant! You sound
like Clinton here: What do you mean by "and"? (I'm smiling with you,
buddy)
Good compared to something else that aint so good, of course. Like this:
Here we are in a chapel in Italy, you and me, and on this wall is a fresco
and on that wall another. You and I look for a little while and we both
agree that this one is better than that one. Or we disagree, which is just
as possible, especially if you think comic books are just as important.
Whether or not we agree isn't really the important thing, because as we
know, this stuff is subjective. But you can't tell me that that means that
everything is of equal importance, that some frescos aren't better than
others. You can't use "Ion" to support the idea that we needn't bother
evaluating art.
Come on, Erik, you know what I mean by good - you wouldn't have started
reading all this stuff, Plato, Danto, Pluto, if you hadn't at one time
said to yourself "this is good, and more important than that."
> I think if you want to say "good is good" Plato would move this over to
> the 'divine' since there seems to be a metaphysical
> assumption afoot in the concept.
If he does than I'm out of the picture. If we can't talk about the
relative importance of the expressions of the sensibilities of different
human beings without citing gods then I'm changing channels.
(on understanding my view of sensibility)
> > I hope you do, because it is fundamental to my understanding of process
> > and seems very much ignored by pomo points of view. I don't honestly see
> > what the value of art can be without seeing it as an expression of
> > sensibility - unless one doesn't really love art, but rather the idea of
> > being hip or seeming smart and sensitive for chicks.
>
> I gave it a good shot, but I really can't see 'sensibility' as distinct from the more
> common expression 'formalism' although I would say that 'formalism' is a broader and
> more general term.
I think formalism addresses sensibility. Sensibility is the part of the
artist from which his/her creative choices are made. Form is the structure
of art and part of the expression of this sensibility. Formalism is the
awareness of sort of expression.
> But you're proposing that 'the good' of good art is independant of
> 'fashion and trends' yet go on to map out historical periods which differed.
Not always - I think we have some notions of good that are tied to trends.
We tire of some experiences - whether art or entertainment. But we can
still see fleeting ideas whether popular or nor, as being of importance
and good.
Further, why are you pointing out my sketch of some historical periods?
That is meant to show that, in spite of fashion, certain visual
experiences remain vital, and that there are common threads throughout the
history of Western art. And I'm not saying "Baroque is bad, Classical is
good." In fact, I am saying some of each are good and some of each are
bad.
> Differed
> on what basis, if not fashion and trends. I think you are proposing a universal basis,
> or at least it seems to me that you are, and if so, I would challenge that.
God, I've worked very hard at not proposing a universal anything - I'm the
guy who likes individual sensibility, remember?
What seems universal about my point of view to you? I'm not saying
everyone will agree what quality is - I'm just saying it is an experince
we have. We know good movies, good meals, good sex, good looks - we don't
always agree on all of it, but we know what it is and don't sit there
saying, "Well frankly, I think my enjoyment of this fim is *entirely*
subjective and in no way supports an idea that "Grand Illusion" merits
more praise than Jerry Springer.
> I realize
> that I am making the terrible 'relativist' argument, but frankly the alternative
> doesn't make sense to me and my reading of the evidence.
>
Well, it's certainly worthwhile to me to try to iron it out. We may have
to ping with little hammers for a long time before it takes its proper
shape, but it can be achieved, I believe.
(snip)
> ...Yet some critic could say
> "Dan Fox doesn't understand composition because in such a such painting the image is
> hanging in space in the bottom left of the canvas with no contrapuntal compensation",
> or something like that.
I haven't seen Dan's paintings yet - although I look forward to them - but
what would be wrong with a critic saying the above if that critic had that
experience?
Now, I don't want you to confuse form with formula. There may be rules
about composition, but I've see those rules broken brilliantly by adept
sensibilities.
> Really, Mark, Manet outraged a lot of critics and art
> afficianados when he began to paint figures that were dissected by the edge of the
> canvas, of looking the 'wrong way' -- i.e. in the consensual direction that valorizes
> the composition itself. And why not?
Exactly - you are defining sensibility in spite of yourself. What is it
about Manet that makes him wonderful even as critics complain? Or Braques?
Or Pollock? And may I remind you that Caravaggio outraged the majority
quite a few times, too. And then, gradually, some of that objecting crowd
comes around, don't they? They come around to what? They adapt to the
sound of the voice - they navigate the new sensibility. Unless they have
grown complacent and lazy, that is.
> The Impressionists saw themselves as exponents
> of that philosophical trend of their day, the cutting edge of intellectualism, French
> Naturaism, and were fueled and inspired by the ideas of portraying the world as it
> really is, which is certainly not tidily arranged into the compositional schemata that
> is popular at any given time.
Another excellent way to distinguish between good form and obedient
composition. Good form does not come from obedient, studious compositional
rules - it comes form felt reponses.
(big snip of material hopefully addressed above.)
>
> But Curtis was a fine actor. How do you measure? If you replaced him with John
> Gielgud or John Turturo in any of the classic Curtis/Doris Day films, they would fail
> miserably. And they didn't fail at all -- they were quite successful. But look at the
> ironies, Mark. Edward R. Murro and Orsen Welles went to bat for high brow culture,
> even lobbying congress for Public Broadcasting, successfully. So today on PBS we can
> see the Lawrence Welk Show. But Lawrence Welk is percieved now as a historical relic,
> so it is very High Brow to count the champagne bubbles each Saturday evening. And we
> have the endless repititions of River Dance (pop-irish culture) and that Greek Creep
> Yana - the Pat Boone of the New Age great soooooooth. I'd take Tony and Kirk as
> Vikings any day.
>
Well, you touch on a lot of things here. Frankly, I think a young Gielgud
could have improved those films - and if you mean success at the box
office, you are talking pop entertainment. Those movies do not strike me
as great art. Not at all. Lawrence Welk, likewise, whether you find it
highbrow or not. It's pap. Sorry. I insist it is pap.
Now Curtis was in "Sparticus", and that was a fine film - but thanks to
Kubrick. Sometimes, actors who are not wonderful artists really on
directors. In these cases, actors are more like shapes than artists, to
me.
> Come on, Mark, Ion is a fictional character -- Plato's invention. He has no dimension
> other that that which Plato provided us. All you need to know is that he won the
> contest and was therefore the best Homeric Rhapsode that could be.
Ok fair enough - you are right about this.
> > No I do not. I embrace subjectivity. If art contained objective truths it
> > would be more like math. I may like this Titian, you may prefer that one.
> > But we are likely to agree he is a giant.
>
> Yes, I agree that he is a giant. But if Titian was teleported to the age of the Greek
> Titans, he would be a shrimp.
I don't know what you mean by this or how it relates.
>
> > Black and white ain't so useful as relative assessments in art, I think.
>
> I hope you're not saying that objectivity is always a black and white affair.
No, but some of what I say gets over-simplified to black and white - just
because I believe that some art is better than other art doesn't mean I
think all people will agree on it. Or always feel the same way. But these
experiences don't eradicate the idea of quality for me.
> > But nix the divine, too. That is a device of Socrates' and I see no
> > foundation for it.
> >
> > Try substituting the idea of sensibility for that of divine inspiration
> > and the magnet looses its power. There would be no mystic transference of
> > success from one artist to the next because each artist will inform their
> > work their own way - which is as it is in reality.
>
> It can go either way for me. I can see 'sensibility' in either terrain, or both at the
> same time.
Ok.
> > No I do question it: because there is both logic and emotion in art - that
> > is exactly what Nietzsche meant when he wrote of the antagonization
> > between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The divine plays no part.
>
> And Plato was placing 'emotion' outside 'art.' So this establishes a process, as
> distinct from a 'thing.' The whole big idea, which I want to call 'art' (and Plato
> doesn't) involves both, or rather is a relationship between the two.
>
I understand. That makes sense to me, yes. Do you have a word, besides
art, that means stuff like paintings, music, etc, but *not* the reponses
to them - just the stuff? I'm not saying you need to, I'm just wondering
if you do.
> >
> > Whew! Here is my view: Arranging formal elements *is* form, and the
> > response elicited from such arrangements is a very large part of the
> > evaluative process. (As in "awe".)
> >
> > My difficulty with your proposal is that you want to say esthetics is
> > about art and the divine. If you want to say that esthetics is about art
> > and the response to art then ok. Or if you want to say esthetics is about
> > two aspects of art, say, the Apollonian and the Dionysian, ok. But where
> > does this divine stuff come from? If it is a part of art, then update the
> > term to something that we, today, see as part of art.
>
> Well, as W.C.Fields said "A woman is a woman, but a cigar is a good smoke." No,
> seriously, I can accept your poles - with one modification:
>
> "aesthetics is about the work of art and its response."
> Because I want to then say "aesthetics is about art" which implys that
> "art is about the work and its response."
> It's my way of championing the notion of context.
So you want to leave out divine too, right? Is that what you are saying in
reponse to my question? I wish if you are implying that, that you could
come out and say it. We are trying to reply to each other and not write
seperate but co-existing threads right? (still smilin')
>
> > If it isn't part of art then why is it part of esthetics?
>
> That's easy. Maybe we'll have some more here on The Sublime.
Ohhhhhhh GGawwwwwd.
> It is a very well
> organized aesthetic theory. While it discusses art, it is not exclusive to art. The
> direct experience of nature is cited as the experience of the sublime, the awe and even
> terror, and further defined as an aesthetic experience. I realise that I'm only saying
> that some people thought this to be part of aesthetics, and so I'm relying on the
> authoritiy of fellows like Burke or Wordsworth. Now if we had time machines and Plato
> could review the writings of The Sublime, I think he would move a lot of the material
> over to his category, the Divine.
Yes, let's please play Plato and make that move. Don't you think we have
plenty here as it is?
>
> Good discussion, I think
Me too, thanks very much,
Mark
Erik A. Mattila
are 'they' and 'good' compared to what? (BTW, you like Jazz, I understand. Do you ever
listen to Les MacCann Ltd? My all time favorite is "Trying to make it real....compared to
what?")
mark webber wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Dec 1999, Erik A. Mattila wrote:
>
> > I suspect the Greeks, or at least Plato, uses words like 'divine' as tropes, to signify
> > something else in a very general way. Like the idea of the visitation of the "Muse" to
> > an artist. I think you have to 'read' Plato as a rationalist who generalized the
> > things he thought were not 'logical' this way. This is just a supposition - I'm very
> > "Plato Challenged" in fact.
>
> Well, I buy this idea that the Greeks had varying degrees of belief in
> gods, dieties, etc, and I also buy the idea that P. and S. may well have
> used the word divine as a "trope" or metaphor of sorts. But to me there is
> an enormous difference between invoking "muse" and invoking "divine" - the
> muses, while having their origins in religious myth, have come to mean,
> for us, a part of the creative process and are closely affiliated with
> art. As soon as we throw God into the mix it confuses things, in much the
> same way as the "sublime" discussion became confused, because among
> other things, we aren't just talking about human contributions
> and responses any more.
>
> I have to leave gods out of the discussion, and I don't really care to
> partake in one that includes ideas of this sort. No offense - it just
> isn't my thing.
God is going to be pissed-off at you, Mark (if she/he were still alive). I'm joking, but
I'll address this when you bring it back up way down at the bottom of this post.
> That's kind of what I mean. I'm startled that the idea of sensibility
> needs defining in an art discussion group. Really startled.
Why should you be startled. You've coined this term (to some degree). As you're using the
term, it departs from the common usage (to some degree). Some of the stuff I've said in
this thread wasn't understood that well -- we're sloppy about defining our terms -- it gets
too cumbersome, and we beging to think "why don't I just write a treatise of dissertation
about this." I'm not saying it's not a good term -- it seems to be a good term. Just
trying to understand what's behind it.
> I think I have a solid record here of saying the question is not "Is it
> art?" but "Is it *good* art?"
Well yes, you have. I'm just saying that I can't answer the question without consideration
of context. (and I mean 'answer' to my own, personal, satisfaction).
> I have no need to kick anything out of the definition, nor do I take such
> extreme a stance as saying that I will not consider art that only
> manifests itself as such through context. I readily acknowlege that
> Duchamp's ouevre, for example, all which manifests itself as art through
> context, is in fact art.
>
> The question for me is "how good is it?" And another question for me is,
> "is it really preferable to be less interested in the relative success or
> failure of individual works?" I'm wondering if there is a complacency of
> sorts involved.
Then, in terms of sensibility, how do you say if DuChamps' urinal is good or bad art? The
whole idea of the 'found object,' if it has any merit at all, is to challenge the concept of
'the artist's hand' and move the concept of 'art' itself to a higher order abstraction --
away from the work of art itself to the level of the social, where 'art' becomes the whole
process, which involves the artist, the work, the museum and gallery, the market, and the
very complex system of social evaluation that is the 'viewer's share' of art.
> > > Otherwise, why not go from grade school to art fair to furniture store to
> > > cafe, treating everything under the sun as of equal importance? There is
> > > no reason not to - unless we begin with the question "is it good?"
> >
> > Well, I tend to do that, actually (in some ways). I think comic books
> > are very important, for example.
>
> I do too, but I don't have any difficulty seeing a difference in
> importance between comic books and about two dozen alters in Venice. This
> is where the idea of complacency begins to worry me. If we love art, we
> can love popular culture and entertainment too, but if we love art, is
> there a possibility that we are getting a bit lazy if we no longer
> distinguish clearly between the above experiences?
I don't believe that evaulating George Harriman (Krazy Kat) as a significant art form,
comparable in some ways to Venitian altarpieces, is a matter of complacency -- in fact the
opposite, as you would have to do some pretty rigouous thinking to pull that off. But it's
obvious that the two forms are quite different. You could describe the Italian art as
narratives (biblical narratives), for example, but in comparison with a flim, novel, or
comic strip they are anti-narratives. But Harriman was regarded as an artist, in the
fullest sense of the word, by the other artist he hung out with in Taos (all the New York
Ash Can refugees).
> > Jerry Springer is important (and this is an assumption made
> > from secondary sources, since I can't stand watching the program).
>
> Are we still talking about art here? Aside from the possibility - no the
> surety - that someone will eventually exhibit a Springer video as art (and
> then the act of doing so is the art, but nothing about the Springer
> experience prior to this act is art - I fucking hope.)
Yes, I'm talking about 'art,' as absurd as that may sound. So the question settles in, is
mass media an art form? My answer is yes. That certainly was Benjamin's claim in "The Work
of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." But do you see what you're doing, Mark (and
there's nothing wrong with this, in my view)? You're saying that in order to even consider
Springer as 'art' you have to move it over to the gallery (...-that someone will eventually
exhibit a Springer video as art...). In our society, I think there is more or less a
consensus about this, i.e. that it isn't art unless it appears in a collection, museum,
gallery or 'artist's studio.' These four 'contexts' (and I would imagine we could think of
others) function as legitimizing agents that tell us what is and isn't art. "Art" is, as a
term, simply the designator of a category of 'things' and 'behavior about things.' And, Oh,
boy, is there a lot of disagreement about what the 'thing' and 'behavior' is. Personally, I
have no problem with keeping 'art' inside the gallery and museum, but at the same time I see
this as a social consensus issue in contrast to an absolute value. I think this attitude is
why the idea of 'post modernism,' where all the categories fall apart and we lose all our
bearings, is interesting - perhaps compelling.
> (snip)
> > You might be thinking that this is totally absurd -- but a good argument could be made,
> > which boils down to 'why is Mona Lisa' important in the first place.
>
> You know, Wolflin made such a convincing argument for why Mona Lisa is a
> wonderful painting that that territory doesn't seem too challenging
> anymore. I mean personally, I don't have it in my personal canon, but
> do you really want to argue why this particular painting is more important
> that comic books or Jerry Springer or are you playing devil's diddler.
Then I shall diddle. Around 1989 there was a fascinating paper published in "The Journal of
Aesthetics and Criticism" called "The Rat's Ass: (and I forget the subtitle). The idea was
that Mona Lisa became the principal icon of 'great art' is Western Culture because of it's
theft and subsequent media exposure. That brings us face to face with another possible
legitimizing agent of art, the press of mass media. Prior to the late fifties Van Gogh
museum blockbuster old Vincent was virtually unknown in mass culture, and now he is a
household word. I know this for sure because my mom got really pissed off about the
phenomena. Prior to the blockbuster, she treasured Van Gogh, and felt it was somehow her
private property to appreciate him, when others didn't even know who he was. Dad always
hung out with his 'intellectual friends' and Mom felt 'left out' because she didn't know
anything about Freud, philosophy or how to cross her legs just right and utter, holding the
hand out just right, "This is true..." But she had Van Gogh, she 'owned' Van Gogh, and she
could chuckle to herself thinking "those jerks doen't even know who he is, and when I show
them his works they just say ho hum, very nice and move on to the real important stuff."
After the blockbuster, things changed. Van Gogh's suffering and genius became the
compelling topic of cocktail parties, and Mom suffered because she has something valuable
stolen from her. Remarkably, Van Gogh became valorized and trivialized by the same act of
media.
> > If you evoke the
> > 'sensibility' of the artist idea, then I would have to ask (almost following Lauri's
> > idea) how is it that a certain composition, a certain curve of the foot or fluff of the
> > fabric, came to be valued and honored by the people who appreciate the Mona Lisa -- to
> > the degree that they hold it to be superior to other examples that don't quite attain
> > this level of excellence (fit the criteria).
>
> What does this mean? Do you mean "invoke" or "evoke"? How does the
> question relate to sensibility? Can you maybe rephrase this fo me?
Main Entry: evoke
Pronunciation: i-'vOk
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): evoked; evok·ing
Etymology: French évoquer, from Latin evocare, from e- + vocare to call -- more at VOCATION
Date: circa 1626
1 : to call forth or up: as a : CONJURE 2a <evoke evil spirits> b : to cite especially with
approval or for support : INVOKE c : to bring to mind or recollection <this place
evokes memories>
2 : to recreate imaginatively
synonym see EDUCE
I'm simply saying that there's something 'below' the idea of a well done foot or finely
rendered fabric. The good or bad about it is caused by other factors, like what we
generallly agree is good or bad, which comes to us through culture.
Let me give you an example that I have to deal with everyday in my design work. People are
incredibly competent in distinguishing a well designed page from a poorly designed page.
And in most cases the reader isn't even aware of this competence. I once made an argument
to a special interest group (radicals) about the need to produce a document that conformed
to the idea of 'good design' in order to get their message out. They resisted, because the
style of radicalism then (1968) was to cheaply grind out propaganda on a mimeograph machine
in a very shoddy fashion -- I guess as a testimony to marginalization. They went for my
suggestion, and scraped the money together to have the propaganda printed, and I designed
them an attractive phamplet with good graphics and type setting and all that. And we had an
opportunity to test the theory. A big demonstration in front of Richard Nixon's San
Clemente mansion -- maybe 15,000 people there. This group passed out two or three thousand
copies of their phamplet. When it was over, I told them to not leave right away --" Let's
see if I'm right." As the people left, there were mountains of paper on the ground, since
hundreds of special interest groups were handing out their mimeographed propaganda. "If I'm
wrong, we will find a lot of your phamplets here in the trash." After seven of us searched
the piles of trash for about a half hour, we were only able to find three copies that had
been thrown away.
But the basis of the public's competence is simply a matter of what they are used to looking
at -- in this case Time and Newsweek and Playboy and an enormous amount of advertising
presented in a printed format. This experience of 'seeing' becomes the essential ingredient
in distinguishing good print from bad. I'm just extending the same principle to the work of
art, and how we are able to say this is good and this is bad with a great deal of
competence.
> > So of course, "Is it good?" is the
> > important question, but 'good' compared to what?
>
> Come on, spit your tail out of your mouth! Right this instant! You sound
> like Clinton here: What do you mean by "and"? (I'm smiling with you,
> buddy)
>
Then I'm delightfully outraged at your comment. But Clinton asked "it depends on what your
mean by 'it' to my recollection, which is a legimate question, especially for a Rhoades
Scholar. I'm just saying, tail in mouth, that 'good' isn't at the bottom of the discussion
-- there's a lot of stuff below it that makes the concept of 'good' meaningful to us.
> Good compared to something else that aint so good, of course. Like this:
>
> Here we are in a chapel in Italy, you and me, and on this wall is a fresco
> and on that wall another. You and I look for a little while and we both
> agree that this one is better than that one. Or we disagree, which is just
> as possible, especially if you think comic books are just as important.
>
> Whether or not we agree isn't really the important thing, because as we
> know, this stuff is subjective. But you can't tell me that that means that
> everything is of equal importance, that some frescos aren't better than
> others. You can't use "Ion" to support the idea that we needn't bother
> evaluating art.
>
> Come on, Erik, you know what I mean by good - you wouldn't have started
> reading all this stuff, Plato, Danto, Pluto, if you hadn't at one time
> said to yourself "this is good, and more important than that."
No, I think we would probably agree on the good and bad of it in the Italian chapel. I know
what you mean by good, and you know I know what you mean by good. I make this kind of
judgement all the time. Sometimes it's based on very personal criteria -- simply what
catches my attention and says "Drink Me" and other times I exercise an external criteria,
like an art history thought - "Wow, this artist sure was mimiced a lot by others." I've
also had the experience of learning to like some art because it made it to an important
museum, and made me think that I was missing something. But my only argument here is that
there are reasons that I, or anyone else, think one thing is good and one thing is bad, that
the evaluative content of those reasons are not absolute. In orther words, I can imagine a
future where Decameron of Boccacio is seen as 17th century nasty pop-kitsch, rather than
litierature (not that I would support the idea, but rather that I'm looking at this through
the spectacles of my own time, place, and culture.
> > I think if you want to say "good is good" Plato would move this over to
> > the 'divine' since there seems to be a metaphysical
> > assumption afoot in the concept.
>
> If he does than I'm out of the picture. If we can't talk about the
> relative importance of the expressions of the sensibilities of different
> human beings without citing gods then I'm changing channels.
I had hoped that it was clear that I don't see this as having anything to do with God or
Gods. I see Plato's "divine" and Benjamin's "aura" as the same things. The question is,
how much (if anything) is discussable about these sorts of generalities. Benjamin goes into
the definition of the 'aura' of the work of art in detail, but Plato doesn't. In Benjamin,
it is a matter of how culture percieves and assigns values to the work of art (which he
hypothesized was changing radically under the influence of mass media). Whether we like it
or not, we have post modernism as a testimony to his accuracy.
> (on understanding my view of sensibility)
> > > I hope you do, because it is fundamental to my understanding of process
> > > and seems very much ignored by pomo points of view. I don't honestly see
> > > what the value of art can be without seeing it as an expression of
> > > sensibility - unless one doesn't really love art, but rather the idea of
> > > being hip or seeming smart and sensitive for chicks.
> >
> > I gave it a good shot, but I really can't see 'sensibility' as distinct from the more
> > common expression 'formalism' although I would say that 'formalism' is a broader and
> > more general term.
>
> I think formalism addresses sensibility. Sensibility is the part of the
> artist from which his/her creative choices are made. Form is the structure
> of art and part of the expression of this sensibility. Formalism is the
> awareness of sort of expression.
And the other part of sensibility is the contract between the artist and the work of art - I
mean the work of art becomes the mediator between the artist and his sensible judgements, or
the terrain in which the artist can ennact out his judgements? This is an honest question,
as this is what I think you are saying.
> > But you're proposing that 'the good' of good art is independant of
> > 'fashion and trends' yet go on to map out historical periods which differed.
>
> Not always - I think we have some notions of good that are tied to trends.
> We tire of some experiences - whether art or entertainment. But we can
> still see fleeting ideas whether popular or nor, as being of importance
> and good.
>
> Further, why are you pointing out my sketch of some historical periods?
> That is meant to show that, in spite of fashion, certain visual
> experiences remain vital, and that there are common threads throughout the
> history of Western art. And I'm not saying "Baroque is bad, Classical is
> good." In fact, I am saying some of each are good and some of each are
> bad.
But there are those who do say Baroque is bad and Italian Painting is a bunch of has been
crap foistered on us due to it's antique value. You know, they really hate it. So what I'm
asking is what is this transcendental quality that is able to manifest in all art that would
show these haters that they are wrong, in any absolute sense? I think Watteau is a good
example, for me at any rate, because I just can't get past the association with China
Painting when I look at his work, which I know is very good in all ways. China Painting has
completely destroyed my ability to like Watteau, except in a very abstract, academic way.
(or maybe I can't handle the idea of men in make-up and wigs and satin panties, eh?)
But I was saying, the mere presence of historical periods means that ideas about good and
bad art changes over time, and subsequently can't be regarded as absolute values.
> > Differed
> > on what basis, if not fashion and trends. I think you are proposing a universal basis,
> > or at least it seems to me that you are, and if so, I would challenge that.
>
> God, I've worked very hard at not proposing a universal anything - I'm the
> guy who likes individual sensibility, remember?
But the idea of universality lurks beneath the whole argument, in my mind. It's a clunky
term -- loaded with all sorts of negative connotations, that's why I'm substituting
'absolute value' for it. I think the later is a little more neutral and unloaded.
But if you say "come on, you know what 'good' is, and what 'bad' is," isn't this the same as
saying these are common sense values that everyone knows - end of argument - and therefore
the implication is that you are saying they are absolute values which are unimpeachable?
> What seems universal about my point of view to you? I'm not saying
> everyone will agree what quality is - I'm just saying it is an experince
> we have. We know good movies, good meals, good sex, good looks - we don't
> always agree on all of it, but we know what it is and don't sit there
> saying, "Well frankly, I think my enjoyment of this fim is *entirely*
> subjective and in no way supports an idea that "Grand Illusion" merits
> more praise than Jerry Springer.
This if funny to me. I once worked in a bar that was styled to the "Gay '90s" fashion that
was popular in the 60s. I had to keep the record player going at all times, and the records
there were all themed -- specifically "Sing Along With Mitch" -- Mitch Miller. I also had
to keep the movie projector going at all times. There was a slection of strip tease films
to draw from, but there was also a dusty pile of Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, Ben Turpin
etc. The strip films were stupid, once the original purience wore off (quickly) and they
became simply twisting around in the most obtuse postures to avoid displaying the vagina.
But when I put the comedies on, growls would soon crop up from the customers, who seldom
looked at the strip tease but had to know that it was going on in the background. I got so
sick of hearing the Mitch Miller pastiche over and over and over that one night I brought my
copy of "Three Penny Opera" (in the original German with Lotte Lenya et al) to work. My
reasoning was that maybe the customers wouldn't mind -- they would recognize "Mack the
Knife" at any rate, since Bobby Darin's version was on the top ten at the time. So I was
playing this beautiful music, much to my relief, and nobody seemed to notice that the music
had changed, or so I thought. Virginia, the local bar fly, had already sunk into her
nightly alcohol stupor, her nose delicately balanced on the edge of her mug of beer and
tomato juce coctail. But she slowly raised her head and came to consciousness and yelled
out "What the hell is this? Sing along with Otto?"
Face it, Mark, there are countless thousands who would chose Springer over Renoir any day,
everyday. Where we may differ is on saying both "Grand Illusion" and "Jerry Springer" are
works of art. In my mind, "Grand Illusion" is the better, the more gooder one, but that's
because I'm exercising my own values about what is interesting to me. I don't expect
everyone to share this value, and I'm not particulary concerned that most people don't share
this value. In our society today there are groups of people that collect wooden ice cream
spoons, and they debate over which spoon is better and worse than others.
<cut>
> I haven't seen Dan's paintings yet - although I look forward to them - but
> what would be wrong with a critic saying the above if that critic had that
> experience?
>
> Now, I don't want you to confuse form with formula. There may be rules
> about composition, but I've see those rules broken brilliantly by adept
> sensibilities.
>
> > Really, Mark, Manet outraged a lot of critics and art
> > afficianados when he began to paint figures that were dissected by the edge of the
> > canvas, of looking the 'wrong way' -- i.e. in the consensual direction that valorizes
> > the composition itself. And why not?
>
> Exactly - you are defining sensibility in spite of yourself. What is it
> about Manet that makes him wonderful even as critics complain? Or Braques?
> Or Pollock? And may I remind you that Caravaggio outraged the majority
> quite a few times, too. And then, gradually, some of that objecting crowd
> comes around, don't they? They come around to what? They adapt to the
> sound of the voice - they navigate the new sensibility. Unless they have
> grown complacent and lazy, that is.
My answer is that to a large degree that we, the viewing public, simply got used to Manet's
violations of the academic rules of composition, and his way simply migrated into the arena
of acceptability. Which entirely agrees with what you say above. But what about the
artists who violated the rules and subsequenty society didn't come around to adjusting to
their sensibility and they are called inferior artists who produced bad work? Gawd, look at
Odlion Redon -- he almost made it 20 years ago, I mean resurrection into the popular
aesthetic, but then faded back into the obscurity (almost) that he enjoyed in his lifetime.
But he did make it into some of the art books circa 1970, that's something. There's all
sorts of reason society favors on artist's sensibility over others, and it mostly boils down
to press, museums, dealers and other legitimizing agencies which has nothing to do with the
artist's sensibility. My claim is, of course, these systems which functions as
authorization of artistic achievment ultimately shape our ideas of the good and bad in art.
Also, the artist is as influenced by the criteria these cultural institution produced as the
viewers of art. That's what's so right-on about the (suspected) Shapiro quote "The theory
of modern art is a theory consumption disguised as a theory of production." My opinion, of
course, I just think it has a lot of merit. I think a lot of people don't like this idea
because it takes the idea of 'authorship' of the work of art away from the artist and gives
it to culture. Hence - the death of the author, the death of art, etc.
> Another excellent way to distinguish between good form and obedient
> composition. Good form does not come from obedient, studious compositional
> rules - it comes form felt reponses.
Thus we have art history (instead of a grey sameness stretch over time). But it is well to
know that it is not regarded as 'good' until it is digested and people get used to it. When
it is new, and shocking, it's regarded as bad. The French hated the Barbizon portrayal of
the common, vulgar working pasant -- saw it as low-brow, ignoble, and not legitimate as
great art. Today, we see such subjects as being quite noble.
> Well, you touch on a lot of things here. Frankly, I think a young Gielgud
> could have improved those films - and if you mean success at the box
> office, you are talking pop entertainment. Those movies do not strike me
> as great art. Not at all. Lawrence Welk, likewise, whether you find it
> highbrow or not. It's pap. Sorry. I insist it is pap.
I vehemently disagree. Gielgud is instinctively too fine an actor to have ever been able to
stand in for T. Curtis. He simply didn't have the sensibility to play a Curtis role, and I
mean this seriously. And yes, I'm talking pop entertainment, which I regard as art forms.
And why not - "High Art" cinema only appeals to intellectuals, or members of this sub
culture whose interest goes along the lines of literature, existential riddles, layers of
meaning, ambiguity. That's not a popular taste, to be sure, but why should we evaluate it
as more superior to low brow art forms (I'm aware that I'm using those judgemental terms -
high and low - but it's just for the sake of the irony of it all). After all, the thrill of
convincing ray gun blasts in Star Wars is as moving as the thrill of the ambiguities of Last
Year at Marienbad.
> Now Curtis was in "Sparticus", and that was a fine film - but thanks to
> Kubrick. Sometimes, actors who are not wonderful artists really on
> directors. In these cases, actors are more like shapes than artists, to
> me.
Yes, but by that time Curtis could only be Curtis, whether in a Long Ship or cute Roman
Toga. People liked him because Bernie Schwartz was still playing Tony Curtis, and they
really liked Tony Curtis. Kubrick could have made Jane Mansfield read as good as Anna
Magnani, I think. But I doubt if anyone could have made Magnani succeed as a blond bimbo,
which Mansfield was so good at. But I had better back-off here, since I really don't know
much about Curtis' carrer. I've been surprised before to find some pop-image actor that
seem hopelessly pastiche leading a secret life on off-Broadway productions that no one ever
heard of.
You know, that film "The Producers" was really brilliant. Do you remember it (Zero Mostel,
Gene Wilder). It seem relevant to our discussion here. They wanted a guaranteed failure,
since it was the only way they could pull off their scam without going to jail. So the play
was so incredibly bad that the audiance was totally confused (it was worse than bad). So
the audiance decided to like it, seeing it as a very campy musical satire of Hitler, and the
producers went to jail.
> > Yes, I agree that he is a giant. But if Titian was teleported to the age of the Greek
> > Titans, he would be a shrimp.
>
> I don't know what you mean by this or how it relates.
Feeble attempt at humor. Think nothing of it, except a 'giant' is only big next to
smallness.
> > > Black and white ain't so useful as relative assessments in art, I think.
> >
> > I hope you're not saying that objectivity is always a black and white affair.
>
> No, but some of what I say gets over-simplified to black and white - just
> because I believe that some art is better than other art doesn't mean I
> think all people will agree on it. Or always feel the same way. But these
> experiences don't eradicate the idea of quality for me.
Agreed. I think some art is better and worse, but I see it as little more than the exrecise
of my taste. And I have a problem with this -- I have a little painting that I've kept for
years. It's really ugly, and fails in every way that I would think about art. But when I
painted it I was thinking of a very moving experience of viewing one of the old Ray film
from India, I think it was "Lament of the Path." So I really like this painting, even
though I've never met anyone else that did. I would like to be able to make the argument
that it is a good art, but I really can't. I think it is a marvelous painting, however, and
it frustrates me that no one else agrees.
> I understand. That makes sense to me, yes. Do you have a word, besides
> art, that means stuff like paintings, music, etc, but *not* the reponses
> to them - just the stuff? I'm not saying you need to, I'm just wondering
> if you do.
Yes, I see it as 'form' in the form/content discourse. I realize that these terms are
debated, and mean some different things to different people, but that's ok. It's also ok
with me if you or anyone else want a better term for it, or to define form in certain ways.
But what I'm understanding about 'sensibility' is that it speaks exclusively to a
relationship between the artist and the work of art. It stays right there -- working
between these two agencies of the idea -- except where you say that the results of this
rather intimate dialogue cause others to be able to say this painting is good and this is
bad. Then it spills out of the containment vessel of the artist and the work - and,
frankly, opens up a can of worms. (not that our ungulate brothers and sisters are not
interesting).
> So you want to leave out divine too, right? Is that what you are saying in
> reponse to my question? I wish if you are implying that, that you could
> come out and say it. We are trying to reply to each other and not write
> seperate but co-existing threads right? (still smilin')
Yes, as God is my Witness, I'm willing to kick her out of the discussion.
> > > If it isn't part of art then why is it part of esthetics?
> >
> > That's easy. Maybe we'll have some more here on The Sublime.
>
> Ohhhhhhh GGawwwwwd.
But I thought we agreed to leave her out of this.
> Yes, let's please play Plato and make that move. Don't you think we have
> plenty here as it is?
Considering the length of this post, I say yes, we have enough. I was hoping others would
jump into this discussion, but the length of this almost dashes that hope. Maybe we could
shorten it up, divide it up, or something.
Onward,
Erik
mark webber
Hi Erik,
Yes, let's try to edit this down a little bit. It is very entertaining,
but to avoid losing points that might be important to us, why don't we try
sticking to some good faith replies and not rely on as much humor and
long stories meant to illustrate brief points. I mean no offense, I'm just
trying to see what we actually have here and when it gets as convoluted as
it presently is I get tempted to abandon it. Ok? No offense, just trying
to get back on track.
On Sat, 11 Dec 1999, Erik A. Mattila wrote:
...Do you ever listen to Les MacCann Ltd? My all time favorite is
frequently seen as an "entry" or "portal" tune, because it has enough
"hook" that it got a lot of airplay where most jazz doesn't always get
heard. It is pleasing music, no question. But most people who've listened
to a lot of jazz for a long time (is this beginning to sound familiar?)
will spin it less and less in favor of music with more substance or
inventiveness.
"Compared to what?", which is a remarkably appropriate title for this
thread as well, is closer to that elusive line between pop culture and
fine art - closer than Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" or Charlie Parker,
Miles, Monk, Mingus, etc.
I mention this, because what I glean from your post is that since quality
is a subjective value you aren't maybe as interested in it.
Let's, however, have a look:
> > The question for me is "how good is it?" And another question for me is,
> > "is it really preferable to be less interested in the relative success or
> > failure of individual works?" I'm wondering if there is a complacency of
> > sorts involved.
>
> Then, in terms of sensibility, how do you say if DuChamps' urinal is
> good or bad art?
That is an excellent question.
Is it worth questioning how we evaluate the relative merits of different
works in his oeuvre? And what criteria do we use when we do so?
I ask this because surely we can evaluate the relative merit in the oeuvre
in Corot or Renoir. Some Renoirs really suck, no?
Are we to abandon this evaluative system simply because it is subjective,
or simply because it doesn't *seem* to apply to some art?
To answer your question, by the way, I think Duchamp's sensibility was
much better expressed in "The Large Glass" than in "Nude Descending a
Staircase". I think in the latter we get badly painted cleverness and in
the former we get, inspite of what he may have claimed, remarkably
beautiful cleverness. I like the Large Glass in spite of Duchamp.
> The
> whole idea of the 'found object,' if it has any merit at all, is to challenge the concept of
> 'the artist's hand' and move the concept of 'art' itself to a higher order abstraction --
> away from the work of art itself to the level of the social, where 'art' becomes the whole
> process, which involves the artist, the work, the museum and gallery, the market, and the
> very complex system of social evaluation that is the 'viewer's share' of art.
And the desire to do so is a reflex of sensibility. And the satisfaction
of this desire, *by doing so*, is an expression of sensibility. Hence the
word "Art".
We can call it art for any reason we like, but I call it art because of
that reason - not because of the expansion of contextual elements.
> I don't believe that evaulating George Harriman (Krazy Kat) as a significant art form,
> comparable in some ways to Venitian altarpieces,
Mauvais Foi: you went from the genre "comic book", of which there are very
few geniuses and a lion's share of insipid, masturbatory pap to a genius,
Harriman, who rises above his genre. If you wanted to talk about Harriman
don't you think you should have begun with him and not made an argument
about comic books with him?
> You could describe the Italian art as narratives (biblical narratives),
> for example, but in comparison with a flim, novel, or comic strip they
> are anti-narratives.
So? What is your point? Do you want to say that the most enlightening
or dazzling thing about Italian art is that it has narratives? Or do you
want to say that the more narative the better? I honestly don't see what
you mean. (But I am still smiling with you.)
>
> Around 1989 there was a fascinating paper published in "The Journal of
> Aesthetics and Criticism" called "The Rat's Ass: (and I forget the
> subtitle). The idea was that Mona Lisa became the principal icon of
> 'great art' is Western Culture because of it's theft and subsequent
> media exposure.
I don't argue with the premise that mass media has given new meaning to
this and other works of art.
But, you know, this is my quarrel. We are discussing a really fine
painting, something of exceptional beauty. Have we really exhausted, for
all time, that particular aspect of this work, or is the really
significant thing about the Mona Lisa the fact that it has been
transformed by the media into a symbol of art? Any fool can see that the
media has changed the meaning. Many very bright people, however, can't
seem to get past the obvious and see the beauty of the thing. (Granted, it
is harder with this particular painting because the experience has been
sapped for us.)
What the fuck. Do you see why this bothers me? Something important is
slipping away, and a whole lot of people are ejaculating over the idea
that they can identify "how" it is slipping away. Don't you think it is a
little bit easier to see what the role of the media is than to see what
works well - all of what works - in the Mona Lisa?
> I'm simply saying that there's something 'below' the idea of a well done
> foot or finely
> rendered fabric. The good or bad about it is caused by other factors,
> like what we
> generallly agree is good or bad, which comes to us through culture.
I disagree. If that were true, I wouldn't respond to art of different
cultures. Also, my brother and I would respond the same way to all art - a
very unlikely thing.
The "thing below it all" which has an impact is the sensibility of the
individual. If cultures are solely responsible for art then there is no
great art and no lesser art. I don't believe you truly feel all
accomplishments are equal.
Some people have better ideas than other people, some articulate ideas
better than others. I doubt you disagree with this.
Likewise, some people have more refined sensibility and some people
understand how to access it, express it, better than others. How else do
you explain Mozart, F.L.Wright, Caravaggio?
(snip)
> But the basis of the public's competence is simply a matter of what they are used to looking
> at -- in this case Time and Newsweek and Playboy and an enormous amount of advertising
> presented in a printed format. This experience of 'seeing' becomes the essential ingredient
> in distinguishing good print from bad. I'm just extending the same principle to the work of
> art, and how we are able to say this is good and this is bad with a great deal of
> competence.
I can't account for the bad taste of anyone, nor am I interested in trying
to explain it. Talk to me about people who spend an equal amount of time
in museums. Even then we'll have a majority who are concerned with the
obvious: how pointillism differs from classicism, rather than the few who
will see what a good Seurat has in common with a good Raphael.
> I'm just saying, tail in mouth, that 'good' isn't at the bottom of the discussion
> -- there's a lot of stuff below it that makes the concept of 'good' meaningful to us.
Ok, shoot.
> > I think formalism addresses sensibility. Sensibility is the part of the
> > artist from which his/her creative choices are made. Form is the structure
> > of art and part of the expression of this sensibility. Formalism is the
> > awareness of sort of expression.
>
> And the other part of sensibility is the contract between the artist and the work of art - I
> mean the work of art becomes the mediator between the artist and his sensible judgements, or
> the terrain in which the artist can ennact out his judgements? This is an honest question,
> as this is what I think you are saying.
I guess you can put it that way if you like. For me, the relationship, or
contract, between the work and the artist is not part of sensiblility.
Sensibility is part of the artist. It is that thing that gets expressed -
the decision making process. Remember all that talk about art expressing
something? I can remember thinking that meant expressing "saddness" or
"loneliness" or "angst".
But these are verbal things. Visual artists aren't bound to words - they
are also capable of expressing visual things, and expressing their
sensibility. This is what I believe Piero, Chardin and Dekooning are
doing. What they share and what they succeed in.
> But there are those who do say Baroque is bad and Italian Painting is a bunch of has been
> crap foistered on us due to it's antique value.
So? They're wrong. What can I say? And not because all baroque is
wonderful or because all Italian painting is great. They are wrong to
dismiss by genre, for the same reason you pulled Harriman out of your hat.
They're wrong because they generalize and can't see. But we don't care
about them. They are philistines, right? I mean, who else fits the bill?
> > But I was saying, the mere presence of historical periods means that ideas about good and
> > bad art changes over time, and subsequently can't be regarded as absolute values.
No - look at what you are saying. You are wrong, Erik. All historical
periods provide great and not great art. Historical periods in art reflect
taste - not quality. There were great painters who painted pink-bottomed
nymphs well and mediocre painters who painted pink-bottomed nymphs not
well, in the Rococo period. A few decades later, pink-bottomed nymphs are
unfashionable - but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate how well
Fragonard painted.
> But the idea of universality lurks beneath the whole argument, in my mind. It's a clunky
> term -- loaded with all sorts of negative connotations, that's why I'm substituting
> 'absolute value' for it. I think the later is a little more neutral and unloaded.
I'm not talking about absolutes. I'm talking about individual
achievements and our ability to perceive them, appreciate them.
>
> But if you say "come on, you know what 'good' is, and what 'bad' is," isn't this the same as
> saying these are common sense values that everyone knows - end of argument - and therefore
> the implication is that you are saying they are absolute values which are unimpeachable?
No. I'm not saying we'll always agree. I'm not talking about absolutes.
I'm talking about an experience. Seeing something good, seeing why it is
good, celebrating it. You can see something else that is good - maybe I
don't think it is good, but you do. You have a response. That is what I am
talking about.
> Thus we have art history (instead of a grey sameness stretch over time). But it is well to
> know that it is not regarded as 'good' until it is digested and people get used to it. When
> it is new, and shocking, it's regarded as bad. The French hated the Barbizon portrayal of
> the common, vulgar working pasant -- saw it as low-brow, ignoble, and not legitimate as
> great art. Today, we see such subjects as being quite noble.
And you skirt the main issue again, because there are bad paintings of
peasants and good ones. You do see the distinction I am making, right?
> Agreed. I think some art is better and worse, but I see it as
> little more than the exrecise of my taste.
So Michelangelo was nothing special, but your taste is very refined? You
don't think Michelangelo contributed any more to his art than anyone else?
The word genius is not applicable?
My word!
(I wrote, in response to your choosing to use the word "art" to encompass
not just the work itself, but our responses to it)
> > Do you have a word, besides "art", that means stuff like paintings,
> > music, etc, but *not* the reponses to them - just the stuff? I'm not
> > saying you need to, I'm just wondering
> > if you do.
>
> Yes, I see it as 'form' in the form/content discourse. I realize that these terms are
> debated, and mean some different things to different people, but that's ok. It's also ok
> with me if you or anyone else want a better term for it, or to define form in certain ways.
So a picture hanging on a wall, with no one looking at it, is called form.
Ok. That seems like a waste of a very useful word to me, but this is your
lexicon. Who am I to question it?
>
> But what I'm understanding about 'sensibility' is that it speaks exclusively to a
> relationship between the artist and the work of art. It stays right there -- working
> between these two agencies of the idea -- except where you say that the results of this
> rather intimate dialogue cause others to be able to say this painting is good and this is
> bad. Then it spills out of the containment vessel of the artist and the work - and,
> frankly, opens up a can of worms. (not that our ungulate brothers and sisters are not
> interesting).
>
Well, what do you propose that we call this thing which we tap into when
we are in the zone and making the art we want to make, expressing our
decision-making process? Culture?
Look, all I'm saying is that individuals react differently to things,
including visual problems. This isn't my own idea. I didn't make up
sensibility. I am baffled that it is so challenging a notion. But I don't
see any evidence that cultures make art. Sensibilities make art.
Individuals make art. I am really baffled that this can even be argued
against, no matter what anyone has written.
> Considering the length of this post, I say yes, we have enough. I was hoping others would
> jump into this discussion, but the length of this almost dashes that hope.
Well, I've been forthright with some folks lately and there are some hurt
feelings in one camp. It does seem quiet here these days, doesn't it.
That's ok though.
best,
Mark
~Artist~
mark webber wrote:
> Well, I buy this idea that the Greeks had varying degrees of belief in
> gods, dieties, etc, and I also buy the idea that P. and S. may well have
> used the word divine as a "trope" or metaphor of sorts. But to me there is
> an enormous difference between invoking "muse" and invoking "divine" - the
> muses, while having their origins in religious myth, have come to mean,
> for us, a part of the creative process and are closely affiliated with
> art. As soon as we throw God into the mix it confuses things, in much the
> same way as the "sublime" discussion became confused, because among
> other things, we aren't just talking about human contributions
> and responses any more.
Since I have been through this expericence I can tell you it is Artist first then God
decides which ones to rock then you get rocked and the gift is the ability to Muse. You are
gifted in ways you won't expect....go read the Metro Article in my press section on the
site.http://www.rhinodev.com/M That articles expalins alot of my experinces at least to a
few years ago. The divine will change your work radically and you will know when it hits
you. No stopping it no going back. Since then I can say that the experience of God to you
or through you as an artist will be driving so you might never escape it and in the case of
my work it totally shows. Before I was this horrid sunday painter and now ... you can check
my site to see what has happened since the experience.
"The fruit is the experience and the flower has yeat to come..."
wi...@olympus.net
Mattison
Erik A. Mattila
> "Compared to what?", which is a remarkably appropriate title for this
> thread as well, is closer to that elusive line between pop culture and
> fine art - closer than Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" or Charlie Parker,
> Miles, Monk, Mingus, etc.
Thus I betray my interest in pop culture. I also favor Mingus' "Oh, Lord, don't let them drop
that atomic bomb on me" over some of his other works, other works which are obvously more
aesthetic (like "Eat that Chicken" he hee heehee).
> I mention this, because what I glean from your post is that since quality
> is a subjective value you aren't maybe as interested in it.
It amazes me that you can think this, Mark. Maybe I can't express ideas worth a damm. I think
the subjective/objective polarity is useful in some things, but not this one. I thought I was
clear in my claim on cultural determination, which can't be interpreted as 'subjective' in any
way. The opposite, if we learn aesthetic criteria from culture, then exercising it would not be
subjective at all, even though it may feel like it is our 'personal' opinion, taste, standards
etc. That's why I said a couple of times before on this n.g. that these kinds of discussions
inevitably require us to look at the idea of the 'individual' and start tracing back our ideas on
this (indeed, our convictions) and sort out the idea's geneology and history etc. At any rate,
subjective/objective isn't that useful in this arena, since it is difficult to argue that
culturally derived criteria is 'objective.' It's a sort of collective subjectivity. And I'm
aware that many people think it bunko, and I understand why they would. But just one other thing
before I move on -- there is room in all this for an individual judgement, thought, originality,
creative act and so on. We're talking about degrees here, and perhaps the influence of
'metanarratives' on individual actions.
> > Then, in terms of sensibility, how do you say if DuChamps' urinal is
> > good or bad art?
>
> That is an excellent question.
>
> Is it worth questioning how we evaluate the relative merits of different
> works in his oeuvre? And what criteria do we use when we do so?
>
> I ask this because surely we can evaluate the relative merit in the oeuvre
> in Corot or Renoir. Some Renoirs really suck, no?
>
> Are we to abandon this evaluative system simply because it is subjective,
> or simply because it doesn't *seem* to apply to some art?
Is this the baby and the bathwater idea? I think so, and I agree, let's keep the baby safe and
sound. On the other hand, it was the simply existence of of the 'exceptions' that caused me to
redefine art. I wanted an idea that covered all the territory - and what I found was it was hard
to stop at figures like DuChap and Warhol. But for the sake of argument, curiosity, art
appreciation or whatever, I am able to draw the line anywhere. I'm just trying to say that I can
look at 'art' and dig it even though I know that I am pointing at an arbitrary of socially
defined typological boundary and saying "Art stops here."
> To answer your question, by the way, I think Duchamp's sensibility was
> much better expressed in "The Large Glass" than in "Nude Descending a
> Staircase". I think in the latter we get badly painted cleverness and in
> the former we get, inspite of what he may have claimed, remarkably
> beautiful cleverness. I like the Large Glass in spite of Duchamp.
"Large Glass?" Is this the Bachelor/Chocolate Bride piece? It is a bit of a magnum opus.
Extremely ideological. But you know, one can do this -- I mean keep DuChamp outside of the 'art'
container and still love his work. That being the case, a lot of other things could be seen this
way, like comic books. Or, you could simply broaden the category "art" to allow other things to
enter. I would guess that where each of us choose to delimit 'art' says something.
> And the desire to do so is a reflex of sensibility. And the satisfaction
> of this desire, *by doing so*, is an expression of sensibility. Hence the
> word "Art".
That's a very good point -- I hadn't thought of it (therefore it must be good???). A reflex. So
we can always talk about something by not talking about it. I like that.
But I don't see the equivocation between 'sensibility' and 'art.' In my book, you are talking
about part of art only.
> We can call it art for any reason we like, but I call it art because of
> that reason - not because of the expansion of contextual elements.
>
> > I don't believe that evaulating George Harriman (Krazy Kat) as a significant art form,
> > comparable in some ways to Venitian altarpieces,
>
> Mauvais Foi: you went from the genre "comic book", of which there are very
> few geniuses and a lion's share of insipid, masturbatory pap to a genius,
> Harriman, who rises above his genre. If you wanted to talk about Harriman
> don't you think you should have begun with him and not made an argument
> about comic books with him?
E Pluribus Unum: Harriman is an obvious example, since he was overtly engaged with art issues
and the cognicenti cocktial party interest in Freud. For more (much earlier) Freud, look at
Windsor MacKay (Little Nemo in Wonderland). Is it art? I think so -- look how Peter Max
plagerized MacKay, thus influence and art history occurs even among the low brows. Seegar
invented the narrative panels and the first comic strip superhero, Popeye. Early Al Capp (before
he became a political reactionary) is on parr with Studs Terkel. Would you argue that Walt
Kelley wasn't an artist?
> > You could describe the Italian art as narratives (biblical narratives),
> > for example, but in comparison with a flim, novel, or comic strip they
> > are anti-narratives.
>
> So? What is your point? Do you want to say that the most enlightening
> or dazzling thing about Italian art is that it has narratives? Or do you
> want to say that the more narative the better? I honestly don't see what
> you mean. (But I am still smiling with you.)
I'd have to go back and read what you clipped, but I recall my point is that both comics and
italian painting can be comparable in ways that inside the term 'art.' In this case, painting
which is considered 'narrative' when viewed in a narrower definition of art can be seen as
'anti-narratives' when viewed in a broader definition. One form bounces off the others in the
group, and if the definition of the group broadens, the bouncing increase and rebounds in
directions you wouldn't have anticipated.
> But, you know, this is my quarrel. We are discussing a really fine
> painting, something of exceptional beauty. Have we really exhausted, for
> all time, that particular aspect of this work, or is the really
> significant thing about the Mona Lisa the fact that it has been
> transformed by the media into a symbol of art? Any fool can see that the
> media has changed the meaning. Many very bright people, however, can't
> seem to get past the obvious and see the beauty of the thing. (Granted, it
> is harder with this particular painting because the experience has been
> sapped for us.)
I must not be bright then, since I've never been particularly fond of the painting. I really do
see it as a hyped-up painting super-star. But because it has become an icon of good taste in
art, it's not surprising to me that so many are so moved by the painting. I'm sticking my neck
out a little bit here, but I suspect that the press on Mona Lisa before the theft valorized the
painting much less, even to the point that only a small group afficianado's would appreciate it
as the epitome of fine art.
> What the fuck. Do you see why this bothers me? Something important is
> slipping away, and a whole lot of people are ejaculating over the idea
> that they can identify "how" it is slipping away. Don't you think it is a
> little bit easier to see what the role of the media is than to see what
> works well - all of what works - in the Mona Lisa?
But I'm saying that the media is the determination of value in these matters, Mark (or by
extension, whatever mechanisms that circulates in society that create meaning). But why should
this concern you? It doesn't change the quality of the point of contact experience one iota. In
that arena, it doesn't really make any difference whatsoever why and how you came to love Mona
Lisa. Or does it? I'm playing a bit of trickery here, Mark. The why, where, and how of a work
of art does effect how the works 'means' to us, which just underscores what I've been saying --
there is so much more to the formula than 'sensibility.'
> > I'm simply saying that there's something 'below' the idea of a well done
> > foot or finely
> > rendered fabric. The good or bad about it is caused by other factors,
> > like what we
> > generallly agree is good or bad, which comes to us through culture.
>
> I disagree. If that were true, I wouldn't respond to art of different
> cultures. Also, my brother and I would respond the same way to all art - a
> very unlikely thing.
So you're saying that there is nothing beneath 'good and bad.' Is this not positing 'good and
bad' as absolute values? If not (and I don't think you are) what are the other alternatives?
Personally, I would think that whatever criteria we have to make evaluative judgements, that
comes from our culture, it would be quite diverse and complex. This provides us with a pretty
broad range of possibilities, which may explain the issues you've raised.
> The "thing below it all" which has an impact is the sensibility of the
> individual. If cultures are solely responsible for art then there is no
> great art and no lesser art. I don't believe you truly feel all
> accomplishments are equal.
You're wrong about that, because I can see all accomplishments as equal, depending on how I view
it. You're also wrong about there being no great art and lesser art if this is culture's
responsibility. After all, I'm claiming that the whole concept of great art is culture's work.
But you see, you keep implying a very interesting positon, and then denying it. You statement
makes sense if you define 'great art' as something that is beyond culture, which is my definition
of an 'absolute' value (i.e. a value that ALL art must address in order to achieve greatness.)
If you don't champion the absolute value, it doesn't follow that you would claim that a cultural
source of art would preclude any possibilites of greatness.
> Some people have better ideas than other people, some articulate ideas
> better than others. I doubt you disagree with this.
Yes, but compared to what? We have agreed against black and white, so that leaves us with the
image of a sliding scale, the good on one pole the bad on the other. My question addresses the
substance of the contents that occupy the two tendencies of the sliding scale. Where does this
substance come from? What is it? How does it work? It's easy to locate a work of art on the
sliding scale, but very difficult to get a handle on what the measure is all about. So we say
'oh, everybody knows that' which is a very standard response to the workings of cultural
materials in our thinking and world view. It is never blatantly transparent.
> Likewise, some people have more refined sensibility and some people
> understand how to access it, express it, better than others. How else do
> you explain Mozart, F.L.Wright, Caravaggio?
I think what you are calling 'refined' I would call the migration of interest. So I would say a
'different' sensibility, just so I could satisfy myself that I was being objective rather than
evaulative. I mean, Mark, everybody likes to hold their own interests up as paradigms, as
something cool, something that everybody should be interested in. High brow culture of OK, and
I'm glad there's a public interest there since this translates into a support base which allows
much of what interests me to come to be. But it doesn't bother me much that a lot of people
don't share my values, and I can't honestly argue that my values and interests are superior, more
noble, or more meaningful than other's. I haven't always felt this way, and I think my attitude
began to change when I began to study popular culture seriously. There's some things going on
there that are incredibly complex and profound, and warrant a lot of intellectual respect. But
popular culture is played out on very different terms than the 'fine arts.' It's not an
acquired competence in the sense that art appreciation is, but operates more at the gut level and
is quite opaque (and difficult to assess).
> (snip)
> > But the basis of the public's competence is simply a matter of what they are used to looking
> > at -- in this case Time and Newsweek and Playboy and an enormous amount of advertising
> > presented in a printed format. This experience of 'seeing' becomes the essential ingredient
> > in distinguishing good print from bad. I'm just extending the same principle to the work of
> > art, and how we are able to say this is good and this is bad with a great deal of
> > competence.
>
> I can't account for the bad taste of anyone, nor am I interested in trying
> to explain it. Talk to me about people who spend an equal amount of time
> in museums. Even then we'll have a majority who are concerned with the
> obvious: how pointillism differs from classicism, rather than the few who
> will see what a good Seurat has in common with a good Raphael.
Well, talk to me about people who spend ten thousands as much time intimately engaging 'visual
culture' as you will ever spend at the museum, Mark. Fine art is simply not interesting to a lot
of folks, it gets lost in the competition.
> > I'm just saying, tail in mouth, that 'good' isn't at the bottom of the discussion
> > -- there's a lot of stuff below it that makes the concept of 'good' meaningful to us.
>
> Ok, shoot.
I've already commented on this, remember. To sum it up, culture.
> I guess you can put it that way if you like. For me, the relationship, or
> contract, between the work and the artist is not part of sensiblility.
> Sensibility is part of the artist. It is that thing that gets expressed -
> the decision making process. Remember all that talk about art expressing
> something? I can remember thinking that meant expressing "saddness" or
> "loneliness" or "angst".
You mean like whoever it was who designed the yellow smiley face? But you're speaking a bit out
of both sides of your mouth (diplomacy) because you say that 'sensibility' is the cause of great
art. It's not the artist who determines this, is it? I mean, I think all my art works are
great, and since few other do, I guess their wrong, or blind. So given that every artist will
exercise her/his sensibility, and will eiter fail or succeed, there has to be some criteria that
can distinguish good sensibility from bad sensibility. Where does this come from?
> But these are verbal things. Visual artists aren't bound to words - they
> are also capable of expressing visual things, and expressing their
> sensibility. This is what I believe Piero, Chardin and Dekooning are
> doing. What they share and what they succeed in.
So you're saying that making decisions about a painting, implementing them, is a record of the
'expression' of those decisions. Almost a truism -- I can't disagree with that. But every
artist does this, right? Why is it good in some cases, and bad in others? It still doesn't
explain the natural history of good and bad to me.
> > But there are those who do say Baroque is bad and Italian Painting is a bunch of has been
> > crap foistered on us due to it's antique value.
>
> So? They're wrong. What can I say? And not because all baroque is
> wonderful or because all Italian painting is great. They are wrong to
> dismiss by genre, for the same reason you pulled Harriman out of your hat.
How can they be wrong? Aren't you also arguing for the priveleged status of the individual. If
we all function as discrete individuals, unaffected by cultural consensus, then one opinion is as
correct as the next. On what basis are they wrong (if not the cultural standard or a universal
law)? You know, compared to what...
> They're wrong because they generalize and can't see. But we don't care
> about them. They are philistines, right? I mean, who else fits the bill?
I never understood the term 'philistines' well. I've never read the bible. But to be fair,
anyone can say others generalize too much and can't see. It's a positioning statement. You
could say that about me, for example, and back it up with a very credible argument. Equally, I
could say that you 'can't see' Mickey Mouse (the way I do), and back it up. It's true, I've
spent thousands of hours studying the comc strip - and I don't think that you have.
> > > But I was saying, the mere presence of historical periods means that ideas about good and
> > > bad art changes over time, and subsequently can't be regarded as absolute values.
>
> No - look at what you are saying. You are wrong, Erik. All historical
> periods provide great and not great art. Historical periods in art reflect
> taste - not quality. There were great painters who painted pink-bottomed
> nymphs well and mediocre painters who painted pink-bottomed nymphs not
> well, in the Rococo period. A few decades later, pink-bottomed nymphs are
> unfashionable - but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate how well
> Fragonard painted.
Agreed, but it takes some discipline to get beyond the guilt by association. What I was saying
(confessing) was that I can't get past it with Watteau, even though I rationally recognize that
he was a very substantial and important painter. I suppose if I really concentrated on it I
could -- but there's a self-fullfilling prophecy type thing going on here, or a circular motif --
I can't generate the interest in Watteau that would cause me to defeat my bias because my bias
prevents me from generating the interest. What's wrong with that -- its a very factual thing.
But I've had the experience of hving something happen that did cause me to overcome my bias.
German Expressionism, for example. Formerly, it didn't interest me and I thought it was somewhat
repulsive, but I took a class and was forced to look at it and understand it, and subsequently I
am very fond of German Expressionism. There are others, like Early Christian Art, which played
out the same way.
But my point about Art History is valid, Mark. Style periodization, as a methodology, is based
on the assessment of changing fashions in art making within a particular cultural context. Dang,
artists are always trying to do something different -- they want to rise above the crowd, so to
speak. That's why I loved Charles Laughton's closing remarks in his old Rembrant film: "Vanity,
vanity, it is all vanity."
> > But the idea of universality lurks beneath the whole argument, in my mind. It's a clunky
> > term -- loaded with all sorts of negative connotations, that's why I'm substituting
> > 'absolute value' for it. I think the later is a little more neutral and unloaded.
>
> I'm not talking about absolutes. I'm talking about individual
> achievements and our ability to perceive them, appreciate them.
Then if you are not arguing for absolutes, anything goes, which you accuse me of. I'm saying the
opposite, i.e. that the criteria for good vs.bad art is inscribed in culture, not the individual,
and it is very rule bound. Anyway you shake it, bake it, rock it or roll it, the signs point to
a cultural consensus, or agreement, about good and bad. Without this anchor, exercise of taste,
judgement or preference would be meaningless beyond primary utterances such as "I like this" and
"I hate that."
> > But if you say "come on, you know what 'good' is, and what 'bad' is," isn't this the same as
> > saying these are common sense values that everyone knows - end of argument - and therefore
> > the implication is that you are saying they are absolute values which are unimpeachable?
>
> No. I'm not saying we'll always agree. I'm not talking about absolutes.
> I'm talking about an experience. Seeing something good, seeing why it is
> good, celebrating it. You can see something else that is good - maybe I
> don't think it is good, but you do. You have a response. That is what I am
> talking about.
OK, I'm getting a sense of a possible confusion we are dealing with here, Mark. We have to back
track a bit to unravel this. My position is that there are 'rules' about what is good and bad in
art, but these rules are the product of culture. I am understanding that you are saying there
are 'ruless' which govern this evaluation also, but you are saying that culture isn't responsible
for these rules. You've also suggested that these 'rules' can transgress cultural boundaries.
This is what I am describing as 'absolute values' which are more or less the idea of values which
apply to everyone, regardless of cultural context. But I would further claim that within a
specific cultural context, there is a plurality of values, which accounts for differences in
taste and judgement that members of a given culture might exhibit.
This might be unfair of me. But I can't imagine a third or fourth entity. It is, in my mind,
either that culture defines 'good and bad' or that 'good and bad' are universal ideas that all
humans share. I don't accept the validity of the latter proposition. But here's something to
consider: my whole attitude about what I've said about Watteau is flavored by my familiarity
with the issues involved (so I know that I could overcome my prejudice, if...). But I think
there are probably tens of thousands who don't like Watteau because it reminds them of China
Painting, but will never really become cognizant of this association. They simply don't like the
'look' and that's the end of it. So there's an example of culure at work in it's determination
of aesthetic criteria.
> > Thus we have art history (instead of a grey sameness stretch over time). But it is well to
> > know that it is not regarded as 'good' until it is digested and people get used to it. When
> > it is new, and shocking, it's regarded as bad. The French hated the Barbizon portrayal of
> > the common, vulgar working pasant -- saw it as low-brow, ignoble, and not legitimate as
> > great art. Today, we see such subjects as being quite noble.
>
> And you skirt the main issue again, because there are bad paintings of
> peasants and good ones. You do see the distinction I am making, right?
Sure, I see the distinction, but I don't see it as the main issue, since I see 'sensibility' as
being a part of the picture, but not the whole picture. But your provocation has caused me to
experience a minor joycean epiphamy here, and I'm trying to get a handle on it. Ah, yes, another
addition to my collection of the 'whys' that today, the artist is expected to produce 'a body of
work' and engage an 'artistic problem.' I'v always wondered about this, Mark. I mean why is
this valued above an artist who is perpetually eclectic, jumps from genre to genre and style to
style, like putting on fresh underwear every day? It seems to be a consensus in the 'art world'
that the singular focus on the problem and the production of a body of related works that address
this problem. It is a consensus, in fact, since most galleries will slam the door in your face
if you cannot demonstrate obedience to this principle. So what happens to artists who don't, who
can't, who don't care for, or who are such strong individualists that the refuse to accept
anyone's rules? Things being as they are, they are simply written off, and are never recognized
as 'artists' and they evaporate into obscurity. Other artists, who are willing to play the game
by its rules, reserve their cubic centimeter of chance to become 'important' artists. Well, I
was going to respond to your provocative question with the usual 'compared to what...' cliche.
But really, I think the idea of a body of work and the artist's problem came to be manifest in
art culture specifically for the purpose that you question addresses -- to provide a point of
comparsion. If it is a shared belief, in culture, that making art is a matter of self-expression
and the intimate interchange between the unique artist and art materials, it's reasonable to say
that the achievement, the success of failure, should be demonstrated by a context that the artist
creates, rather than external comparisons. It's because I wanted to start comparing Millet
Peasants with Gauguin Peasants with Rivera Peasants and so on, and I kept arriving at an idea
that it wasn't a valid comparison, since each example portrayed peasant life in different ways
(graphically) according to the strategy of the painting. So you could only say one depiction was
good and one was bad if you drew from examples a of paintings that had the same strategy
(addressing the same enigmatic 'artist's problem.') Mark, how far could this argument go? "Who
did shoes better - Vincent Van Gogh or Phillip Guston?"
> > Agreed. I think some art is better and worse, but I see it as
> > little more than the exrecise of my taste.
>
> So Michelangelo was nothing special, but your taste is very refined? You
> don't think Michelangelo contributed any more to his art than anyone else?
> The word genius is not applicable?
Nope, I often see my taste as being quite crude. But I have observed it's not a constant, but
varies greatly depending on what side of the bed I've fallen off of. You know, I'm that eclectic
artist I've described above. Maybe that's why I am happy as an independant contractor, as I
enjoy applying my skill and knowledge to a wide variety of problems. I've tried the series
painting, and tried to imagine an artist's problem to attack, but frankly, I get bored very
quickly.
I have no idea what Michelangelo was or wasn't. What I know is the Michelangelo industry that
exists today, which is a cultural production. It is a powerful force, and I understand that I
could never view the Sistine murals without its influence -- naively or innocently. So I am
unable to make an unbiased assessment of the man's achievments, because every glob of colored
plaster and polished marble surface is overdetermined by the mythos I have inherited by virtue of
my membership in culture. It's because of this, which I just accept as the way things are, that
I am always suspicious of the term 'genius.' Does this mean he had a larger brain than most, or
more folds and fissures, that he was better at math than I am, or what? His accomplihments could
aslo be explained by the workings of an obsessive compulsive personality, which is also capable
of making great art.
> My word!
>
> (I wrote, in response to your choosing to use the word "art" to encompass
> not just the work itself, but our responses to it)
Well, at least I'm not applying it to chariotteers, as Plato does.
> > > Do you have a word, besides "art", that means stuff like paintings,
> > > music, etc, but *not* the reponses to them - just the stuff? I'm not
> > > saying you need to, I'm just wondering
> > > if you do.
> >
> > Yes, I see it as 'form' in the form/content discourse. I realize that these terms are
> > debated, and mean some different things to different people, but that's ok. It's also ok
> > with me if you or anyone else want a better term for it, or to define form in certain ways.
>
> So a picture hanging on a wall, with no one looking at it, is called form.
> Ok. That seems like a waste of a very useful word to me, but this is your
> lexicon. Who am I to question it?
The 'form/content' idea is well documented -- in fact goes back to the Greeks and beyond.
There's not much mysterious or opaque about it. The best we could do arguing about it is to
recapitulate the old arguments. I know that you use the word 'form' to describe something else,
which is ok with me. But you have a long way to go to convince the lexicographers who write the
new 'senses' of words for the OED that your use should supplant the current conventions. One
thing, you would have to write some pretty serious art criticism that is well read just to get
into the race for language mutation. So it's not 'my lexicon' at all. You have coined a new
usage that differs from the convention -- fine. That doesn't mean that the meaning is up for
grabs. So even in Websters there are several choices of definition for the term, some of which
are opposed to how they have been used in the historical discourse on form and content. But one
sense directly applies:
10 a (1) : orderly method of arrangement (as in the presentation of ideas) : manner of
coordinating elements (as of an artistic production or course of reasoning) (2) : a particular
kind or instance of such arrangement <the sonnet is a poetical form> b : PATTERN, SCHEMA
<arguments of the same logical form> c : the structural element, plan, or
design of a work of art -- compare CONTENT 2c d : a visible and measurable unit defined by a
contour : a bounded surface or volume
I mean nothing else than this when I use the term. But it doesn't have what we would call a
picture hanging on a wall, observed or not. Why not just call that "a picture hanging on the
wall?" That's what I would do.
> > But what I'm understanding about 'sensibility' is that it speaks exclusively to a
> > relationship between the artist and the work of art. It stays right there -- working
> > between these two agencies of the idea -- except where you say that the results of this
> > rather intimate dialogue cause others to be able to say this painting is good and this is
> > bad. Then it spills out of the containment vessel of the artist and the work - and,
> > frankly, opens up a can of worms. (not that our ungulate brothers and sisters are not
> > interesting).
> >
>
> Well, what do you propose that we call this thing which we tap into when
> we are in the zone and making the art we want to make, expressing our
> decision-making process? Culture?
But 'sensibility' seems as good a term as any, perhaps better than most. I'm only arguing that
this is part of what makes a good or bad painting. But I would never call it 'culture' for a
couple of reasons. One is, I don't think there's any particularly advantage in 'naming' itself,
and the other is that nomnatives blur the idea of process. If anything, I'm taking a
structuralist approach to this, so process and structure are the most important components of the
idea of cultural intervention into art making. So while I would argue that cultural intervention
does determine the criteria that the artist uses for decisions, I would call the act itself,
well...decision making, just as you have.
> Look, all I'm saying is that individuals react differently to things,
> including visual problems. This isn't my own idea. I didn't make up
> sensibility. I am baffled that it is so challenging a notion. But I don't
> see any evidence that cultures make art. Sensibilities make art.
> Individuals make art. I am really baffled that this can even be argued
> against, no matter what anyone has written.
Agreed, but this does not discount the workings of culture. But what you have written can be
argued because you have not provided an account of how 'sensibility' is determined, either by the
individual artist, or by the viewers who see the art as good or bad on the strengths of the
traces of the artist's sensibiity retained in the work. It's just that the disccussion doesn't
ground at the level you have described -- there's something behind it, empowering it. What is
it? So when you say "sensibilities make art" and "individuals make art" I only ask, then, what
makes sensibilities and individuals? I propose that this is culture's playground, that's all. I
don't understand why this baffles you, even if you don't agree with my claim. You know, it's
possible that we can't get past this one point. Have you considered that? The only real value
that I can see in trying to flush out the source of ideas underlying fundamental concepts is a
matter of academic interest. The next time I pick up a paintbrush I know that I'll be an
indivual exercising my sensibilities, regardless of the whys, hows, and wherefors of it all.
> > Considering the length of this post, I say yes, we have enough. I was hoping others would
> > jump into this discussion, but the length of this almost dashes that hope.
>
> Well, I've been forthright with some folks lately and there are some hurt
> feelings in one camp. It does seem quiet here these days, doesn't it.
Really, I must have missed that. Anyway, sorry I couldn't keep it shorter. I just get carried
away.
Best,
Erik
mark webber
Sorry to have been away for a bit. What dog's breakfast do you offer me
today? Let's see:
On Sun, 12 Dec 1999, Erik A. Mattila wrote:
> > > Then, in terms of sensibility, how do you say if DuChamps' urinal is
> > > good or bad art?
> >
> > That is an excellent question.
> >
> > Is it worth questioning how we evaluate the relative merits of different
> > works in his oeuvre? And what criteria do we use when we do so?
> >
> > I ask this because surely we can evaluate the relative merit in the oeuvre
> > in Corot or Renoir. Some Renoirs really suck, no?
> >
> > Are we to abandon this evaluative system simply because it is subjective,
> > or simply because it doesn't *seem* to apply to some art?
>
> Is this the baby and the bathwater idea? I think so, and I agree, let's keep the baby safe and
> sound. On the other hand, it was the simply existence of of the 'exceptions' that caused me to
> redefine art. I wanted an idea that covered all the territory - and what I found was it was hard
> to stop at figures like DuChap and Warhol. But for the sake of argument, curiosity, art
> appreciation or whatever, I am able to draw the line anywhere. I'm just trying to say that I can
> look at 'art' and dig it even though I know that I am pointing at an arbitrary of socially
> defined typological boundary and saying "Art stops here."
Yes, this is Bathwater Revisited.
Alright, I'll say it again: if it is called art, it's art. I haven't ever
come here to try to define art vs. not art. (And by the way, I respect
your interest in pop culture too, but I'd like to try to focus this
discussion a bit - otherwise it isn't anything other than a couple of
colossal egos flapping in the vapor. Right?)
So, do you want to answer my fucking questions or do we get yet another
reminiscence about pajamas or redwoods or ad design? (I am most definitely
smiling warmly with you.)
(I wrote)
> > To answer your question, by the way, I think Duchamp's sensibility was
> > much better expressed in "The Large Glass" than in "Nude Descending a
> > Staircase". I think in the latter we get badly painted cleverness and in
> > the former we get, inspite of what he may have claimed, remarkably
> > beautiful cleverness. I like the Large Glass in spite of Duchamp.
>
> "Large Glass?" Is this the Bachelor/Chocolate Bride piece? It is a bit of a magnum opus.
> Extremely ideological. But you know, one can do this -- I mean keep DuChamp outside of the 'art'
> container and still love his work.
I'll say it again, Erik: If someone calls it art, it is art. Ok? I'm not
trying to define the container. I'm tasting what is in it. Remember? And
I'm telling you how I evaluate the taste. Want to try to stay within a
thread or shall we start rec.erik's.meanderings ? (Again, I warmly
smile. If you want me to play, you have to read me.)
You might recall that we were talking about what effect I think
sensibility has on art. I wasn't trying to delineate art's boundaries. I
don't maind if you want to do that, but I'd sure like to see you REPLY TO
MY POST!
(I wrote, regarding Duchamp)
> > And the desire to do so is a reflex of sensibility. And the satisfaction
> > of this desire, *by doing so*, is an expression of sensibility. Hence the
> > word "Art".
>
> That's a very good point -- I hadn't thought of it (therefore it must be
> good???). A reflex. So we can always talk about something by not
> talking about it. I like that.
Can you explain to me what you mean by this second-to-last sentence?
Rephrase it or something? I really don't understand what you mean.
>
> But I don't see the equivocation between 'sensibility' and 'art.' In my book, you are talking
> about part of art only.
That is correct. I haven't said otherwise Erik. Sensibility is expressed
in most art. It is a part of it. You know, if you want to probe this
further so that we are sure we understand each other, I am all in favor.
*********
But briefly: I think art is, among other things, an expression of an
individual's sensibility. I think sensibilities are shaped by cultural
influences and stimuli. I think any critical/evaluative process needs to
acknowlege sensibility and its role in art. I think there is a trend,
today, to deny this by saying that art is, by implications, solely the
product of cultures, and sensibility is a myth. I challenge this view.
*********
> > We can call it art for any reason we like, but I call it art because of
> > that reason - not because of the expansion of contextual elements.
This last remark of mine is now out of context, but do you remember where
it fits in?
(you wrote)
> > > I don't believe that evaulating George Harriman (Krazy Kat) as a significant art form,
> > > comparable in some ways to Venitian altarpieces,
> >
> > Mauvais Foi: you went from the genre "comic book", of which there are very
> > few geniuses and a lion's share of insipid, masturbatory pap to a genius,
> > Harriman, who rises above his genre. If you wanted to talk about Harriman
> > don't you think you should have begun with him and not made an argument
> > about comic books with him?
>
> E Pluribus Unum: Harriman is an obvious example, since he was overtly engaged with art issues
> and the cognicenti cocktial party interest in Freud.
I'm not intending rudeness or insult here, but do you understand the
concept of mauvais foi? Bad faith?
Ok, I've been a little ill, so I'm still looking for my center in some of
this. I apologize fo being absent and a little impatient. I hope you
understand. I'd just like to bounce ideas so bounce them with me, damn it.
Everyone else is too fucking afraid to play.
warmly,
Mark
mesken
<webb...@TIGER.UOFS.EDU> wrote:
>Ok, I've been a little ill, so I'm still looking for my center in some of
>this. I apologize fo being absent and a little impatient. I hope you
>understand. I'd just like to bounce ideas so bounce them with me, damn it.
>Everyone else is too fucking afraid to play.
>
Never fear, TechnoCrate is here ;-)
BTW probably none entered the thread because the articles were so darn
big. But it's your lucky day for my deltas need to regenerate after a
lengthy pumice stone session (even broke the darn thing) and this
article caught my attention because it was so much smaller than the
one it responded to (and it had lots of "fuck" and "damned" in it ;-)
> *********
>But briefly: I think art is, among other things, an expression of an
>individual's sensibility. I think sensibilities are shaped by cultural
>influences and stimuli. I think any critical/evaluative process needs to
>acknowlege sensibility and its role in art. I think there is a trend,
>today, to deny this by saying that art is, by implications, solely the
>product of cultures, and sensibility is a myth. I challenge this view.
> *********
>
But ofcourse sensibility sits in the center (it's so obvious it hardly
gets mentioned). Culture is an environment handing means and methods
but it also imposes its rules (and we're all, in varying degrees,
sensitive to these rules). Its influence is getting less and less
obvious since we nowadays are exposed to so many cultures. One can see
this in the enormous diversity in contemporary art. Ofcourse it's
interesting study material and one can fill big books with it (like
the Janson bible :-)
But it is the sensibility which does it all. The artist naturally
wants to express something that moves him/her deeply (else it's not
worth the trouble). Not just a show off of superior technique
(although I believe skill is a recquirement and John Moore gave a very
interesting view on the nature of the artist's skill).
The work of art is not the product of culture but of the artist's
sensibility. Ofcourse the artist is influenced by culture but I dare
to say: _not_ in any greater degree than any other experience
Now, I can hardly believe this isn't common knowledge but since you
bring it up, here's a typical example (there're much more scenarios):
Whenever I watch a movie it might happen that a single frame or a very
short period (the feeling given by a movement, unfortunately this is
often the case :-) catches my attention because it moves me deeply in
a certain way (sensibility you know). It's always visual (that's why
I'm in the painting business instead of music :-).
This ofcourse happens to all of us but painters don't stop here. They
want to make a work that will get them the very same feeling (that's
where artists are after: getting their work to evoke a certain
emotional response).
You can only describe an internal (emotional) response by describing
that what gave rise to that response. But one needs to investigate
what exactly it is in something which elicits the desired response. We
don't know this immediately because it isn't conveyed to us, only our
reaction to something is conveyed to us not what it is that triggered
this particular reaction.
So, we need to investigate and freeze the movie (and getting the
sketch book out). Angles, objects, shapes, form, composition, colors,
constellations, context, previous knowledge, associations, symbolism,
etc. etc. The cause of the particular feeling we're searching for can
come from a plethora of things. We will come to realize that most are
*not* in the single frame we freezed. We might have some clues but
they're not sufficient to get the picture.
Actually, the single frame or instance can only elicit that particular
response if we see it in the context of our own being which
encompasses memories, state of mind, etc. The snapshot is not the
painting we want to make. It's a part however because it triggered the
ideas which gave rise to the desired response. It's study material.
I always like to make visual statements about what I see and moves me.
Such a statement will be false if it will not elicit the feeling I
experience about that what I see, no matter how photographically
correct. Actually, none of my work is from photographs or movies but I
did do studies about them.
It's quite obvious that it is not the single frame we freezed telling
the whole story. It's only a split second which triggers ideas. We
didn't see it in full detail as we do now with the movie freezed. It's
not in the details, it's in the ideas associated with it. Ideas we
respond to with emotions.
Arnheim was very right that movement cannot be caught in a snapshot:
it will look like a walking person is suddenly paralyzed and frozen in
mid air in an awkward posture. Yet we need to produce a picture that
will convey the _idea_ of a walking person. Obviously there are
certain postures and movements we observe from a real walking person
which convey this idea (else our visual perception would be off :-) It
takes a little investigation to see what postures get the idea right
and unfortunately the photo or freezed movie is of doubtfull help for
often one will notice that no single frame conveys the idea of
walking. Photos will not convey movement but paintings can.
But this is only a very simple example. The observations are not
isolated, they are done by a mind that associates. Without
associations meaning disappears. I've once written a lengthy article
about fetishism, how certain objects and/or scenes are in the center
of certain feelings because they were the ones eliciting these
feelings for the first time (I've fond memories of my first encounter
with my own sadism, it turned into obsession showing in the bulk of my
drawings and paintings :-) But these objects or scenes can only serve
in the proper context. Just depicting a high heeled shoe (the most
well known fetish) isn't enough. What does this object convey to the
artist? What does it mean? It needs to be depicted in a context in
such a way that it is obvious how and why it can make the artist feel
in a certain way.
The artist must understand his/her own sensibility. It's about ideas
we have about objects and scenes. But these ideas are not instantly
revealed to us (only our reaction to them) The good thing is that our
sensibility tells us whether we hit the nail on the head or not.
Afterwards we can study the results and deepen our knowledge of our
own sensibilty. These theories will be an aid (but only our own
sensibility will tell us if these theories are right or wrong when we
put them in action). This is why painters sketch a lot, they try out
ideas so they can be judged by their own sensibility.
Sensibility will tell you if you should add some more red to the
cheeks, or to overexaggerate the arc of the arm, etc. But also bigger
things like the complete composition of the exact expression of a face
needed, etc. I always play the same music over and over again for one
piece of work to keep the same mood (I can never be working on the
same painting for more than about 3 days, I get out of touch with it)
The more you'll paint the more you will know the aleged "nuts and
bolts" of your sensibility in context with your favorit subjects (but
be warned: that what makes a marble beautifull is not that what makes
a girl's face beautifull :-) An artist can tell you what actually
makes the expression that is conveyed by the painting. Actually: it's
not magical at all, quite down to earth (as expected)
This is getting darn long BTW, perhaps we should focus to certain
instances about sensibility.
Erik A. Mattila
> On Thu, 16 Dec 1999 10:20:53 EDT, mark webber
> <webb...@TIGER.UOFS.EDU> wrote:
>
> >Ok, I've been a little ill, so I'm still looking for my center in some of
> >this. I apologize fo being absent and a little impatient. I hope you
> >understand. I'd just like to bounce ideas so bounce them with me, damn it.
> >Everyone else is too fucking afraid to play.
> >
> Never fear, TechnoCrate is here ;-)
>
> BTW probably none entered the thread because the articles were so darn
> big. But it's your lucky day for my deltas need to regenerate after a
> lengthy pumice stone session (even broke the darn thing) and this
> article caught my attention because it was so much smaller than the
> one it responded to (and it had lots of "fuck" and "damned" in it ;-)
I'm taking this personally. But really, it's a lot more work to make it
short. You have to actually comprehend what's you're talking about, rather
just spouting on in a stream of consciousness writing. Who want's to do that?
But it remind's me of some contemporary art talk. Group critiques at UC Davis
is a good example. A Student would put up the works, and make an Artist's
Statement, which was usually "I'm dealing with the ambiguity of space." The
critics would say "Awesome!" No that's a very trimmed down, economized
account of a lot of verbiage that was exchanged that I experienced. But you
know what. That is all that was ever said in these group critiques -- except
when I got the floor. I would begin to make comments and raise points on
'content' and this was met with a real resistance by the group, as if the
subject were verbotten, or that it was somehow wrong to discuss content. So
all that was left was the ambiguity of space - which is a very nice term --
it's sonic quality is very nice -- but since 'content' wasn't appreciated, no
one bothered to grapple with what 'the ambiguity of space' meant in the first
place. This reduced the whole 'group critique' down to level of a discourse
of approval/disapproval grunts, more of less.
<ruthless deletion of good stuff about the content side of 'sensibility.'>
> This is getting darn long BTW, perhaps we should focus to certain
> instances about sensibility.
Agreed. I'm trying to make this adjustment, because I want to be able to
consider Mark's reqest to limit things.
So I think Webber's 'sensibility' is directly tied to the to the term
'sensate.' I can accept this except for one bugaboo. And that is the decision
an artist makes that will ultimately make the painting good or bad is, in my
opinion, tied to other things besides that which would belong to to 'sensate'
issues. But I can do this on this basis -- and that is to accept that the
whole discussion will be played out in the arena of our culture -- accepting
that the foundation is in fact the general consensus of good and bad in the
art discourse of Western culture.
So whatever ideas circulate in Western culture about good and bad in art is
the basis. That takes a bit of discipline for me to do this, and I'm likely
to slip out of the constraints form time to time.
But thinking within this limit, I reach this impasse. I can't differenciate,
in terms of my response to a really well painted painting, between painting
and other things that are exquisitely crafted, involving the craftsman's
sensibility. I've mentioned this before. Looking at Armor in a museum, for
example, or flint-lock firearms with mother of pearl inlays that were created
for the wunderkammerns of the rich and famous.
I really liked that film "Empire of the Sun" and I was really disappointed
that it didn't even make the nomination for the Academy Award. Bertolucci's
"Last Emprorer" won that year, and as much as I love Bertolucci, I thought
Spielberg's film was more gooder. But I had to ask myself why - and the
answer I came up with was that the film was so technically perfect. It was
pretty low-key from the get-go -- never had the press that were used to with
block-buster films. The story was good (how can you go wrong with
J.G.Ballard) but it wasn't that good -- I mean to result in a 'great film.'
So to me, it's goodness was a matter to the professional competence of the
group who made the film -- which falls right into line with Mark's
'sensibility.' The film critic's were pretty ruthless in putting the film
down -- but all the criticisms were aimed at the story rather than the
production of the film. I liked the story idea that a kid would go through a
horrendous experience to learn, ultimately, that 'people will do anything to
get a potato" (almost pure Vonnegut, I think) but in terms of appreciation
this pales next to the qualities of the production itself.
I'll stop here...nice to have a third voice in this discussion, albeit a
sadistic one. (Do you have sadistic thoughts when you are operating the
drawbridge???)
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
> Sorry to have been away for a bit. What dog's breakfast do you offer me
> today? Let's see:
Various interesting condiments from the local midden, of course.
<ruthless editing in the interests of bandwidth conservation>
> You might recall that we were talking about what effect I think
> sensibility has on art. I wasn't trying to delineate art's boundaries. I
> don't maind if you want to do that, but I'd sure like to see you REPLY TO
> MY POST!
I thot I was...silly me.
<ditto>
> That is correct. I haven't said otherwise Erik. Sensibility is expressed
> in most art. It is a part of it. You know, if you want to probe this
> further so that we are sure we understand each other, I am all in favor.
Well, good, that's settled. But we started out on 'aesthetics' so you can't blame me for being
concerned about the scope we were addressing.
But see, I look at DuChamp as having tubes of cultural pigments in his art supply cabinet. So he's
manipulating this kind of paint like naples yellow, and certainly exercising sensibility about how he
does it. It's a 'content for content's sake' argument.
> *********
> But briefly: I think art is, among other things, an expression of an
> individual's sensibility. I think sensibilities are shaped by cultural
> influences and stimuli. I think any critical/evaluative process needs to
> acknowlege sensibility and its role in art. I think there is a trend,
> today, to deny this by saying that art is, by implications, solely the
> product of cultures, and sensibility is a myth. I challenge this view.
> *********
Then we agree about this. Like DuChamp, we are viewing culture as another artist's tool. Do you
agree with this?
> > We can call it art for any reason we like, but I call it art because of
> > that reason - not because of the expansion of contextual elements.
> This last remark of mine is now out of context, but do you remember where
> it fits in?
The context was my point about 'sensibility' being part of art, rather than a concept that explains
art - to be best of my recollection. If you agree that DuChamp uses culture as paint, I'm ok about
the idea. But it's like this, Mark. Biologists who study organisms in a test tube, rather in their
natural environments, only see organisms in an artifical environment, and the behavior observed is
just that, intereraction with the test tubes and petrie dishes and all that. Obviouly, a lot has been
learned, but it is felt that there was no 'truth ot nature' in this. My bias is that the same thing
happens when we look at art without context - we only see art as it responds to the artificiality of
our limits. But we can still learn things this way, so that's why I can say "Ok, let's do that."
> (you wrote)
> > > > I don't believe that evaulating George Harriman (Krazy Kat) as a significant art form,
> > > > comparable in some ways to Venitian altarpieces,
> > >
> > > Mauvais Foi: you went from the genre "comic book", of which there are very
> > > few geniuses and a lion's share of insipid, masturbatory pap to a genius,
> > > Harriman, who rises above his genre. If you wanted to talk about Harriman
> > > don't you think you should have begun with him and not made an argument
> > > about comic books with him?
> >
> > E Pluribus Unum: Harriman is an obvious example, since he was overtly engaged with art issues
> > and the cognicenti cocktial party interest in Freud.
>
> I'm not intending rudeness or insult here, but do you understand the
> concept of mauvais foi? Bad faith?
No, as a matter of fact I must have been elswhere when that lesson was taught. I'm all ears (eyes).
> Ok, I've been a little ill, so I'm still looking for my center in some of
> this. I apologize fo being absent and a little impatient. I hope you
> understand. I'd just like to bounce ideas so bounce them with me, damn it.
> Everyone else is too fucking afraid to play.
Paul's observation about long posts is well noted. Also, a lot of people aren't interested in
thinking about these things, while other's aren't interested in thinking.
Glad that you're feeling better
Erik
>
>
> warmly,
>
> Mark
Erik A. Mattila
> In article <38598636...@tomatoweb.com>, emat...@tomatoweb.com says...
>
> > when I got the floor. I would begin to make comments and raise points on
> > 'content' and this was met with a real resistance by the group, as if the
> > subject were verbotten, or that it was somehow wrong to discuss content. So
> > all that was left was the ambiguity of space - which is a very nice term --
> > it's sonic quality is very nice -- but since 'content' wasn't appreciated, no
> > one bothered to grapple with what 'the ambiguity of space' meant in the first
> > place. This reduced the whole 'group critique' down to level of a discourse
> > of approval/disapproval grunts, more of less.
>
> Aha. "Content" as a 90s synonym for "Literary" (70s), which both mean
> "something to avoid in ones artwork at all costs". My favorite instructor
> whom I idolized at the time used to look at our art projects and say
> "Literary" in the same way one would condemn the slaughter of innocents in
> Viet Nam in those days, or racismsexismhomohpobia these days.
>
> Off Topic ...
>
> I've just discovered that "Thomas Kincade painter of light" fellow, who is
> important enough to have galleries in every suburban mall across this great
> land of some of ours. I see his corporation deals in "limited editions",
> presumably limited to however many of each they print up, right? Am I so
> over-educated and effette that I can no longer see what it is that drives
> the masses to collect stuff like that? It's enough to make me want to
> put on a Julie Andrews record and stick Hummel figures up my arse.
>
> I also read today that Boy George was very nearly the victim of a huge
> disco mirror ball that suddenly left orbit and plunged Georgeward. ``It
> would have been both ironic and glamorous to be finished off by a four-
> foot glitter ball,'' he told the media. I am speechless.
God yes, the man (boy) missed his appointment with destiny and fabulous fame. What
an image. It's like when the President of the American Mycological Society died
after eating a poison mushroom.
Kincaid is a hard one, I think. I don't we have a good critical vocabulary handy
to take on the idea of 'sentimentality' in art. But I did read a terrific one many
years ago. It was a "Letter from..." series published in the New Yorker around
1960-61 written by James Baldwin. It was called "Letter from a region of my
Mind." I suppose you could say it was a milestone document in early Civil Rights
literature. In the essay, Baldwin took on Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's
Cabin) and by extension the very idea of 'sentimentality' in the arts. I've never
been able to find the essay since - I would love to read it again. At any rate, if
my memory serves me at all, the gist of Baldwin's critique of 'sentimentality' was
that it was always a cover-up for something very cruel and inhuman. An alibi, more
or less.
Maybe a brilliant exposition of this idea was the description of the underground
society in the film "The Boy and His Dog." The first close-up shot of these
benevolent, unthreatening faces (of middle america?) showed thick layers of make-up
which hid an essential uglyness, and slowly a heinous motive was revealed for their
unbearably polite and superfiical actions.
Erik Mattila
mark webber
On Fri, 17 Dec 1999, Erik A. Mattila wrote:
> > You might recall that we were talking about what effect I think
> > sensibility has on art. I wasn't trying to delineate art's boundaries. I
> > don't maind if you want to do that, but I'd sure like to see you REPLY TO
> > MY POST!
>
> I thot I was...silly me.
Well, there were some questions there. How will Socrates help Ion if Ion
won't answer the questions?
> > That is correct. I haven't said otherwise Erik. Sensibility is expressed
> > in most art. It is a part of it. You know, if you want to probe this
> > further so that we are sure we understand each other, I am all in favor.
>
> Well, good, that's settled. But we started out on 'aesthetics' so you can't blame me for being
> concerned about the scope we were addressing.
That's right, esthetics: the study of beauty and responses to art. (You'll
note that you're idea of art encompassing responses to it becomes, by
extension, an idea where art, the container, holds esthetics as well. I
have to say, I don't know why we bother with words if they become this
useless.)
> > *********
> > But briefly: I think art is, among other things, an expression of an
> > individual's sensibility. I think sensibilities are shaped by cultural
> > influences and stimuli. I think any critical/evaluative process needs to
> > acknowlege sensibility and its role in art. I think there is a trend,
> > today, to deny this by saying that art is, by implications, solely the
> > product of cultures, and sensibility is a myth. I challenge this view.
> > *********
>
> Then we agree about this. Like DuChamp, we are viewing culture as another artist's tool. Do you
> agree with this?
I don't, no. I think some artists might use some aspects of culture as a
tool. I don't want to believe we have to get a dictionary and agree on
definitions of every polysyllable we use her, but isn't culture something
awfully big, too big to be used as a tool?
And do all artists use it? And if so, do they all use it to the same
extent?
And how can you say we are in agreement on this? For cryin' out loud,
you've been disagreeing with this all along.
This is what I was talking about in that email we exchanged. You've been
saying that culture makes art and that sensibility is something so alien
to you that I have to define it every two or three paragraphs. (Mr.
Mesken, while taking so long a time to do so that I found myself drifting
away from his meanings, seems to understand exactly what it is and what
role it plays. Thanks, buddy. I'll spare you the limmerick, this time....)
But why would I be arguing that sensibility is what is beneath artistic
expression rather than cultural forces, if you felt the same way?
How can you suddenly change your viewpoint? And for what purpose?
> > I'm not intending rudeness or insult here, but do you understand the
> > concept of mauvais foi? Bad faith?
>
> No, as a matter of fact I must have been elswhere when that lesson was taught. I'm all ears (eyes).
Well, I wasn't a philosophy major (that must be obvious) but I was
introduced to it in discussions on Sartre and Camus. It is tied to the
idea that one is being dishonest with oneself or a dialogue partner when
one shifts meanings.
I was calling you on citing cartoons in general as art and then producing
Harriman to support it. There is a bit of bad faith in that line of
reasoning.
> Paul's observation about long posts is well noted. Also, a lot of people aren't interested in
> thinking about these things, while other's aren't interested in thinking.
Yeah, and some people's feelings are bruised, but maybe they need some
time to think about the implications of parading hobby/dilettent
sentiments as anything other than extended personal ads. I don't mind it,
but I'm not here trying to get laid. This stuff means a lot to me, and it
happens to be my line of work. So I've gotten a little impatient with some
peole I like. Sue me. (I'm not chewing you out Erik - not at the moment
anyway. And I haven't stopped smiling either. This is all in good fun, or
we shouldn't be here in the first place, right?)
>
> Glad that you're feeling better
>
Thanks. Now, you lazy idle loafer, go back to my previous post and answer
my fucking questions, or I'll start a thread about how you are stalking me
and crosspost it to ba.singles.
with great affection,
Mark
lake
Without a doubt! Always & undisputably!
But when we start trying to be more precise about what we MEAN by
"God", we run into communication problems. Pat Robertson might be hard
pressed to discern his Maker's hand in the marvelous scribbles of
'Artist'.
However, any painter who has ever had the pleasure of being "hooked
into" something good will surely agree that his/her ideas,or images
come from a source thouroughly outside the self. It is an amazing, a
humbling experience. To call this source "God", though maybe not
completely accurate, is at least more accurate than not acknowledging
it at all.
To say that it arises from some deep part of the "self" is even less
accurate, unless the concept of "self" is so radically redefined as to
be meaningless.
Please understand, I am not speaking of "inspiration", meaning some one
who suddenly gets a bright idea. I mean a compelling direction, where
one's abilities are literally taken over, fused with a strange and
wonderful purpose, which is not one's own.
Wittgenstein taught that we must be very attentive how and why we use
words. Especially words like "God". We should first walk all the way
around them, on tip-toe.
-Lake.
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Erik A. Mattila
> > Well, good, that's settled. But we started out on 'aesthetics' so you can't blame me for being
> > concerned about the scope we were addressing.
>
> That's right, esthetics: the study of beauty and responses to art. (You'll
> note that you're idea of art encompassing responses to it becomes, by
> extension, an idea where art, the container, holds esthetics as well. I
> have to say, I don't know why we bother with words if they become this
> useless.)
I see art as process, Mark, not as a 'thing.' If you don't like this idea, it seems reasonable that any
terms used to describe a process will fall short of the Mark (yuk, yuk, yuk). Sorry - obsessive
punsterism - can't help myself.
> > > *********
> > > But briefly: I think art is, among other things, an expression of an
> > > individual's sensibility. I think sensibilities are shaped by cultural
> > > influences and stimuli. I think any critical/evaluative process needs to
> > > acknowlege sensibility and its role in art. I think there is a trend,
> > > today, to deny this by saying that art is, by implications, solely the
> > > product of cultures, and sensibility is a myth. I challenge this view.
> > > *********
> >
> > Then we agree about this. Like DuChamp, we are viewing culture as another artist's tool. Do you
> > agree with this?
>
> I don't, no. I think some artists might use some aspects of culture as a
> tool. I don't want to believe we have to get a dictionary and agree on
> definitions of every polysyllable we use her, but isn't culture something
> awfully big, too big to be used as a tool?
Well, I'm trying to be agreeable, anyway. You're right though, 'culture' is a big thing, and I use the
term in a very general way. By the way, the term itself is as enigmatic as "art" so a dictionary isn't
that useful. I use the term in the sense of most of the theory I am familiar with, but I don't want to
bore you with an exposition on that. Suffice it to say, it's 'what people do,' collectively. When
several people agree that a painting is great, there is a basis for that agreement. The work of art
itself? Sure, you could say that. But there's something else, and that is that an agreement exists
among these people about what looks good and what doesn't look good.
I like traditional Chinesse opera. It took me a long time to like it. It sounded shrill and cacophanous
to me originally, but eventually I got used to it, got past those exotic barriers, familiarized the
quality of the sounds, and grew to like it very much. But I like it in a different way than the Chinese
do, I'm sure. However music 'means' I think my understanding of Chinese is dramatically different than
the understandings of members of the culture that produced this art form.
> And do all artists use it? And if so, do they all use it to the same
> extent?
No Man is an Island, as far as I am concerned. It's not so much a matter of using, as it is of being. I
would say all artists represent culture with their products, but some do it in a very overt way, like
DuChamp.
> And how can you say we are in agreement on this? For cryin' out loud,
> you've been disagreeing with this all along.
I thought that you were including DuChamp in'art' and by extension 'culture' as art materials.
Apparently you don't.
> This is what I was talking about in that email we exchanged. You've been
> saying that culture makes art and that sensibility is something so alien
> to you that I have to define it every two or three paragraphs. (Mr.
> Mesken, while taking so long a time to do so that I found myself drifting
> away from his meanings, seems to understand exactly what it is and what
> role it plays. Thanks, buddy. I'll spare you the limmerick, this time....)
This is not true, Mark. I've been saying that 'sensibility' doesn't explain the 'good and bad' in art,
since I am convinced that these values are inscribed in culture. I've been clear on that. I feel that I
understand what you mean by 'sensibility.' What we seem to be arguing about is whether or not culture is
'sensibility's' author. I think it is. You may be claiming it is the individual, which I disagree with
(depending on how you define the individual). Now we're having a meta-argument - an argument about the
arugment. That progress, (big grimmace).
> But why would I be arguing that sensibility is what is beneath artistic
> expression rather than cultural forces, if you felt the same way?
See above.
> How can you suddenly change your viewpoint? And for what purpose?
I haven't, not in the least. But I did agree to attempt to discuss aesthetics by only considering the
individual and the work, trying to leave culture out of it. I'm still not sure I could do this.
> > > I'm not intending rudeness or insult here, but do you understand the
> > > concept of mauvais foi? Bad faith?
> >
> > No, as a matter of fact I must have been elswhere when that lesson was taught. I'm all ears (eyes).
>
> Well, I wasn't a philosophy major (that must be obvious) but I was
> introduced to it in discussions on Sartre and Camus. It is tied to the
> idea that one is being dishonest with oneself or a dialogue partner when
> one shifts meanings.
>
> I was calling you on citing cartoons in general as art and then producing
> Harriman to support it. There is a bit of bad faith in that line of
> reasoning.
Then even though I didn't understand 'mauvais foi' my response was appropriate. I cited other artists
beside Harriman. No shift in meaning at all. Besides, I don't agree with the way you characterized
comics generally -- but that's an another argument. This gives me an idea for an interesting research
project. Statistical, no less. Catalog comics and judge them wonderful or horrible, and do the same
with paintings. Then compare the percentages of good and bad. We could find that there are more
paintings (artists) out there that we don't like than cartoonists. But we wouldn't describe painting
(generally) as low-brow, schluck sentimentalism, (I can't remember your terms you used to describe
comics). Is this a double standard (poke, jab, smile)?
> > Paul's observation about long posts is well noted. Also, a lot of people aren't interested in
> > thinking about these things, while other's aren't interested in thinking.
>
> Yeah, and some people's feelings are bruised, but maybe they need some
> time to think about the implications of parading hobby/dilettent
> sentiments as anything other than extended personal ads. I don't mind it,
> but I'm not here trying to get laid. This stuff means a lot to me, and it
> happens to be my line of work. So I've gotten a little impatient with some
> peole I like. Sue me. (I'm not chewing you out Erik - not at the moment
> anyway. And I haven't stopped smiling either. This is all in good fun, or
> we shouldn't be here in the first place, right?)
>
> >
> > Glad that you're feeling better
> >
>
> Thanks. Now, you lazy idle loafer, go back to my previous post and answer
> my fucking questions, or I'll start a thread about how you are stalking me
> and crosspost it to ba.singles.
But you're simply not accepting my answers, I think.
Erik
mesken
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>mesken wrote:
>> BTW probably none entered the thread because the articles were so darn
>> big. But it's your lucky day for my deltas need to regenerate after a
>> lengthy pumice stone session (even broke the darn thing) and this
>> article caught my attention because it was so much smaller than the
>> one it responded to (and it had lots of "fuck" and "damned" in it ;-)
>
>I'm taking this personally. But really, it's a lot more work to make it
>short. You have to actually comprehend what's you're talking about, rather
>just spouting on in a stream of consciousness writing. Who want's to do that?
>
That certainly is true, the simplest solutions (which are normally
also the best) are the hardest to get to. That especially goes for
compositions. After one finally gets the desired composition then it's
hardly believeable it took so much effort to arrive at something so
simple (hell! it's just a triangle :-)
>But it remind's me of some contemporary art talk. Group critiques at UC Davis
>is a good example. A Student would put up the works, and make an Artist's
>Statement, which was usually "I'm dealing with the ambiguity of space." The
>critics would say "Awesome!" No that's a very trimmed down, economized
>account of a lot of verbiage that was exchanged that I experienced. But you
>know what. That is all that was ever said in these group critiques -- except
>when I got the floor. I would begin to make comments and raise points on
>'content' and this was met with a real resistance by the group, as if the
>subject were verbotten, or that it was somehow wrong to discuss content. So
>all that was left was the ambiguity of space - which is a very nice term --
>it's sonic quality is very nice -- but since 'content' wasn't appreciated, no
>one bothered to grapple with what 'the ambiguity of space' meant in the first
>place. This reduced the whole 'group critique' down to level of a discourse
>of approval/disapproval grunts, more of less.
>
Ah yes, hype and buzzwords do sell ;-) I personally am interested in
what makes it "work", the content side. I'm of the opinion something
like "ambiguity of space" can be nothing more than an epiphenomenal
idea (I just love that word ;-) I have problems to believe that an
artist will sit down and says "Now, I'm going to do a work about the
ambiguity of space". Besides: it's hardly worthy as the subject.
><ruthless deletion of good stuff about the content side of 'sensibility.'>
>
>> This is getting darn long BTW, perhaps we should focus to certain
>> instances about sensibility.
>
>Agreed. I'm trying to make this adjustment, because I want to be able to
>consider Mark's reqest to limit things.
>
>So I think Webber's 'sensibility' is directly tied to the to the term
>'sensate.' I can accept this except for one bugaboo. And that is the decision
>an artist makes that will ultimately make the painting good or bad is, in my
>opinion, tied to other things besides that which would belong to to 'sensate'
>issues. But I can do this on this basis -- and that is to accept that the
>whole discussion will be played out in the arena of our culture -- accepting
>that the foundation is in fact the general consensus of good and bad in the
>art discourse of Western culture.
>
I touched this subject as well, that rules in a culture will have a
certain impact on the artist. But these rules work as an inhibitor,
restricting the artist. After all: artists are also humans and humans
want to be accepted, being examples of social animals.
But this impact happens in varying degrees. The most important factor
is whether the artist is creating towards the expression of
sensibility.
Take illustrators of medical books for example. Now these people are
very skilled but their work is only made to reach a functional goal,
that of providing medical information. Not because the illustrators
want to make an expression of their sensibility. Therefor it is not
art.
>So whatever ideas circulate in Western culture about good and bad in art is
>the basis. That takes a bit of discipline for me to do this, and I'm likely
>to slip out of the constraints form time to time.
>
From which viewpoint? Certainly you only mean the critical audience.
The artist makes use of the means (history, religion, symbols,
pigments, gesso recipies, linen, etc.) and methods (perspective,
science of visual system, styles) of culture(s) and might to some
degree be restricted by its aesthetics but in the end it's only used
to reach a goal which is only suggested by the artist's sensibility.
>But thinking within this limit, I reach this impasse. I can't differenciate,
>in terms of my response to a really well painted painting, between painting
>and other things that are exquisitely crafted, involving the craftsman's
>sensibility. I've mentioned this before. Looking at Armor in a museum, for
>example, or flint-lock firearms with mother of pearl inlays that were created
>for the wunderkammerns of the rich and famous.
>
Well, you know what my opinion about skill is: it's a trademark of an
artist. The artist needs to be both a great craftsperson and a
creator. John Moore pointed this very nicely out: skill is something
you pick up because you want to make a great work of art. My
sensibility isn't pleased by a lousy execution of a very moving idea.
>I really liked that film "Empire of the Sun" and I was really disappointed
>that it didn't even make the nomination for the Academy Award. Bertolucci's
>"Last Emprorer" won that year, and as much as I love Bertolucci, I thought
>Spielberg's film was more gooder. But I had to ask myself why - and the
>answer I came up with was that the film was so technically perfect. It was
>pretty low-key from the get-go -- never had the press that were used to with
>block-buster films. The story was good (how can you go wrong with
>J.G.Ballard) but it wasn't that good -- I mean to result in a 'great film.'
>So to me, it's goodness was a matter to the professional competence of the
>group who made the film -- which falls right into line with Mark's
>'sensibility.' The film critic's were pretty ruthless in putting the film
>down -- but all the criticisms were aimed at the story rather than the
>production of the film. I liked the story idea that a kid would go through a
>horrendous experience to learn, ultimately, that 'people will do anything to
>get a potato" (almost pure Vonnegut, I think) but in terms of appreciation
>this pales next to the qualities of the production itself.
>
Take another movie, like: "Babylon 5" , "Godzilla" or "Lost in space"
for example. The technology behind it was absolutely stunning but it
didn't do anything to me. Perfect execution without a soul. It's both
the skill and sensibility doing great art but sensibility has the
leading role. Skill is put to its use.
Now take Star Wars (all 4 of em) or Blade Runner or Dark Star (does it
show that I'm a SF fan? ;-) It's great, it's classical. Every scene or
action in these movies are conveying a certain feeling.
What are memorable moments of these movies? Take Rutger Hauer's dialog
for example, just before he dies. I can fill a 500 line piece about
this scene which only takes about 30 seconds but you really need to
see it: how angles work here, the light, the weather, the very way he
speaks to Harrison Ford (" I've.. seen _things_ ... you people
wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire on the shoulder of Orion... I
watched C beams glittering in the dark at Tannhauser gate... Now all
these moments will be lost.... like.. tears... in rain"), everything
in this scene expresses exactly that feeling Ridley Scott wanted to
convey. It's a masterpiece.
Ofcourse it takes a lot of skill to execute such scenes but one cannot
know how to use skills if one doesn't know what to convey, how to move
the audience (and ofcourse one cannot know what moves the audience,
only what moves oneself)
I still watch that great dialog of Luke Skywalker with Emperor
Palpatine. Ralph McDiarmid is such a great actor (with his slight
german accent, just enough) The decor with the emperor in the middle
of a circular window, the mask Ralph wears (you can see in the Phantom
Menace how he really looks like), etc. etc.
It takes great skill to execute these great things but it needs
sensibility to wield these skills else there're useless (as in
Godzilla, Lost in Space, etc.)
>I'll stop here...nice to have a third voice in this discussion, albeit a
>sadistic one. (Do you have sadistic thoughts when you are operating the
>drawbridge???)
>
Hell no, it would be much better if I were masochistic in that case
;-)
mesken
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>mark webber wrote:
>
>> > > *********
>> > > But briefly: I think art is, among other things, an expression of an
>> > > individual's sensibility. I think sensibilities are shaped by cultural
>> > > influences and stimuli. I think any critical/evaluative process needs to
>> > > acknowlege sensibility and its role in art. I think there is a trend,
>> > > today, to deny this by saying that art is, by implications, solely the
>> > > product of cultures, and sensibility is a myth. I challenge this view.
>> > > *********
>> >
>> > Then we agree about this. Like DuChamp, we are viewing culture as another artist's tool. Do you
>> > agree with this?
>>
>> I don't, no. I think some artists might use some aspects of culture as a
>> tool. I don't want to believe we have to get a dictionary and agree on
>> definitions of every polysyllable we use her, but isn't culture something
>> awfully big, too big to be used as a tool?
>
>Well, I'm trying to be agreeable, anyway. You're right though, 'culture' is a big thing, and I use the
>term in a very general way. By the way, the term itself is as enigmatic as "art" so a dictionary isn't
>that useful. I use the term in the sense of most of the theory I am familiar with, but I don't want to
>bore you with an exposition on that. Suffice it to say, it's 'what people do,' collectively. When
>several people agree that a painting is great, there is a basis for that agreement. The work of art
>itself? Sure, you could say that. But there's something else, and that is that an agreement exists
>among these people about what looks good and what doesn't look good.
>
Aha, so what we're actually argueing about is whether something is art
because it's accepted as art within a culture (and the rules of
aesthetics differ tremendously interculturally) or whether art is art
because it's a succesfull expression of the artist's sensibility
(according to the artist ofcourse but it should be evident in the work
viewed by any audience).
I'm ofcourse in favour of the sensibility variety. Everyone sees
Rembrandt as a great artist but this comes because of his use of his
skills. The ability to convey a certain feeling. It's clear his
paintings express more than just a portrait or a landscape, there's a
mood. This mood is the important thing, how to use lines, light,
texture, shadows, form and shape, knowledge, balance, etc. etc. in
order to get this mood.
>> And do all artists use it? And if so, do they all use it to the same
>> extent?
>
>No Man is an Island, as far as I am concerned. It's not so much a matter of using, as it is of being. I
>would say all artists represent culture with their products, but some do it in a very overt way, like
>DuChamp.
>
But ofcourse, the culture is evident. But it is evident in the
observable means and methods.
>> This is what I was talking about in that email we exchanged. You've been
>> saying that culture makes art and that sensibility is something so alien
>> to you that I have to define it every two or three paragraphs. (Mr.
>> Mesken, while taking so long a time to do so that I found myself drifting
>> away from his meanings, seems to understand exactly what it is and what
>> role it plays. Thanks, buddy. I'll spare you the limmerick, this time....)
>
>This is not true, Mark. I've been saying that 'sensibility' doesn't explain the 'good and bad' in art,
>since I am convinced that these values are inscribed in culture. I've been clear on that. I feel that I
>understand what you mean by 'sensibility.' What we seem to be arguing about is whether or not culture is
>'sensibility's' author. I think it is. You may be claiming it is the individual, which I disagree with
>(depending on how you define the individual). Now we're having a meta-argument - an argument about the
>arugment. That progress, (big grimmace).
>
This is very interesting (and food for flame wars ;-)
We now seem to have a second major argument in this thread: whether or
not sensibility is the product of culture.
I'm completely convinced that sensibility is not the product of
culture, it only manifests itself by the tools of a culture (like
symbols, style, etc. the "means and methods")
To get a little bit scientifical: when we're born we don't know what
behaviour to show (we can do anything). We also have feelings which we
do not understand. We will learn that some behaviour is satisfactory
to show in certain affective contexts. This is why we cannot show
behaviour without emotions and feelings, urges, etc. The behaviour
would simply not be reinforced by positive emotional feedback or
inhibited by negative feedback. Affect and behaviour will need to be
coupled. Without this we cannot know what behaviour is appropriate and
will feel insecure, not being able to do anything. Emotions are the
backbone of human behaviour and intelligence. But we need to observe
in order to learn. And we are in an environment in which culture is a
big factor.
But this culture is not the producer of sensibility. The sensibility
is based upon the emotions, knowing that you're affected and how. The
problem is ofcourse the "why" and left for the artist to find out.
This nicely fits my "fetishism" article. The high heeled shoe is a
cultural object. But the emotional experience of the artist with this
shoe is actually what he/she will express. The shoe was in the center
of the triggering stimulus of the response but it is that emotional
response which needs to be conveyed. Culture evokes responses but the
response is ours, not that of culture. Nevertheless the response is a
very human one and other people will see that a painting conveys
certain feelings they themselves experience. I will even go so far to
say that culture is the product of individuals. Succesfull artists
(either alive or posthumous) being a major exponent, building upon and
reshaping culture. This is ofcourse only possible by great acceptance
(or heated denial) of the people but all great individuals were
masters in evoking the desired response of the public. But artists can
only rely on their own sensibility for maximum effect.
>> > Glad that you're feeling better
>> >
>>
>> Thanks. Now, you lazy idle loafer, go back to my previous post and answer
>> my fucking questions, or I'll start a thread about how you are stalking me
>> and crosspost it to ba.singles.
>
He's kinda hard on you, me thinks ;-) I wouldn't even dream of
responding in such a way. Ah, darned expressionists (or was it
impressionists? ;-) Argh! I don't hope he comes after me, I'm
allergic to getting yelled at, and limericks as well, even when "stil
smiling with you" :-)
>But you're simply not accepting my answers, I think.
>
I've major troubles with them as well (but then again: I'm dutch, I
won't get angry with you because of different opinions :-) Besides:
I've learned many things by listening to other people's opinions,
giving me new insights. Not that I accept all ideas ofcourse, I can't
accept your idea of culture producing sensibility but I'm certainly
eager to hear your version. Perhaps my ideas need revision but in this
case I seriously doubt it (which makes it much more interesting since
it attacks a fundamental idea of mine)
I paint towards the goal of creating a scene that will evoke certain
ideas in me (one can also say that the scene incorporates certain
ideas) that will lead to a desired emotional response. Everything I
use can be argued to be part of culture (the paint, the symbols, the
perspective, the style, etc.). But all these things are orchestrated
by my sensibility (actually, I've never heard of the word, it's just
emotional responses to me)
It's quite obvious these ideas are not cultural. These ideas are in
terms of the innate visual system. Straightness is the same to
everyone, as is symmetry, redness, universal facial and body
expressions, the ideas of tension, etc. All very fundamental stuff but
here are the things that form the terms of the expressions of the
visual system and it is to these expressions that we react
emotionally. Ofcourse the system is enhanced by learning but culture
has a very weak influence in this. Back to nature in a way, the human
being itself instead of all the things made by him/her.
Now, I can go on for a while but I want to keep things verbose :-)
Erik A. Mattila
> That certainly is true, the simplest solutions (which are normally
> also the best) are the hardest to get to. That especially goes for
> compositions. After one finally gets the desired composition then it's
> hardly believeable it took so much effort to arrive at something so
> simple (hell! it's just a triangle :-)
But I don't see it this way at all, Paul. The tight, concise essay is not simple
at all. It is very difficult, and complex. Since I've been required to write
this way from time to time, I can say it takes longer to write concisely - a lot
of editing is involved. Not the kind of thing for email chats.
> Ah yes, hype and buzzwords do sell ;-) I personally am interested in
> what makes it "work", the content side. I'm of the opinion something
> like "ambiguity of space" can be nothing more than an epiphenomenal
> idea (I just love that word ;-) I have problems to believe that an
> artist will sit down and says "Now, I'm going to do a work about the
> ambiguity of space". Besides: it's hardly worthy as the subject.
How do you know it's not worthy, if no one knows what it means? But great word,
"epiphenomenal," I hope I can remember it.
> I touched this subject as well, that rules in a culture will have a
> certain impact on the artist. But these rules work as an inhibitor,
> restricting the artist. After all: artists are also humans and humans
> want to be accepted, being examples of social animals.
I don't see culture's hand so much as rules, but rather consensus and agreements.
Unless you want to take on Louis Altusser's "Ideological State Appuratus" (a term
he abandoned himself after hearing a lot of complaints.) Most of the basic things
we learn from culture are apprenhended as 'naturaiized concepts' - like when
someone spouts off about 'human nature' while disregarding the fact that many
humans don't behave in the way so described. By nature, then, these can be
difficult concepts to make, thus we have theory and criticism, which attempt
develop methods for peeling back the layers to see where these naturalized come
from. Such accounts, like in Foucault's "Order of Things" are very exciting, but
my own experience in reading Foucault was one of abandoning old ideas that didn't
work any longer, and accepting new ideas.
> But this impact happens in varying degrees. The most important factor
> is whether the artist is creating towards the expression of
> sensibility.
Why is this the most important thing? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you,
Paul, but just raising the question. I see this as an expression of culture
itself - or the expression of a cultural value. I can imagine many societies
where 'sensibility,' as it is defined here, would be of little interest. In some
religious art, say that has some supernatural value to people, what's important is
that all the parts of the religious are represented, and often how it appears is
inconsequential. This is one method art historians and archeologists cand
distinguishe between religious and social art forms.
> Take illustrators of medical books for example. Now these people are
> very skilled but their work is only made to reach a functional goal,
> that of providing medical information. Not because the illustrators
> want to make an expression of their sensibility. Therefor it is not
> art.
Yet if you did a detailed study of medical illustrations over time you would
discover that style conventions have developed, became popular, and evolved into
other styles, just as oil painting has. If information was ever the singular
goal, we would have a much more symbolic system of presenting anatonomical
information - much like the systems used by chemists to illustrate molecules. If
we only wanted to have the opportunity what something would look like once the cut
was made, photography would do just fine. But instead we have an art form, with
an art history, that both conveys scientific and aesthetic information. It's
'art' any way you look at it.
> >So whatever ideas circulate in Western culture about good and bad in art is
> >the basis. That takes a bit of discipline for me to do this, and I'm likely
> >to slip out of the constraints form time to time.
> >
> From which viewpoint? Certainly you only mean the critical audience.
> The artist makes use of the means (history, religion, symbols,
> pigments, gesso recipies, linen, etc.) and methods (perspective,
> science of visual system, styles) of culture(s) and might to some
> degree be restricted by its aesthetics but in the end it's only used
> to reach a goal which is only suggested by the artist's sensibility.
Disagree, entirely. The critical audiance has no authority to create ideas of
'good and bad' in culture. Criticism itself is only interested in where these
ideas come from.
> >But thinking within this limit, I reach this impasse. I can't differenciate,
> >in terms of my response to a really well painted painting, between painting
> >and other things that are exquisitely crafted, involving the craftsman's
> >sensibility. I've mentioned this before. Looking at Armor in a museum, for
> >example, or flint-lock firearms with mother of pearl inlays that were created
> >for the wunderkammerns of the rich and famous.
> >
> Well, you know what my opinion about skill is: it's a trademark of an
> artist. The artist needs to be both a great craftsperson and a
> creator. John Moore pointed this very nicely out: skill is something
> you pick up because you want to make a great work of art. My
> sensibility isn't pleased by a lousy execution of a very moving idea.
So then why isn't exquistly fashioned armor or flint locks art in the same sense
as painting is art? Surely the artists who made these 'expressed sensibility'
with materials which are actually horrendoulsy more difficult to control that
simple panels and pigments - thus attaining an even greater accomplishment that
painters.
> >I really liked that film "Empire of the Sun" and I was really disappointed
> >that it didn't even make the nomination for the Academy Award. Bertolucci's
> >"Last Emprorer" won that year, and as much as I love Bertolucci, I thought
> >Spielberg's film was more gooder. But I had to ask myself why - and the
> >answer I came up with was that the film was so technically perfect. It was
> >pretty low-key from the get-go -- never had the press that were used to with
> >block-buster films. The story was good (how can you go wrong with
> >J.G.Ballard) but it wasn't that good -- I mean to result in a 'great film.'
> >So to me, it's goodness was a matter to the professional competence of the
> >group who made the film -- which falls right into line with Mark's
> >'sensibility.' The film critic's were pretty ruthless in putting the film
> >down -- but all the criticisms were aimed at the story rather than the
> >production of the film. I liked the story idea that a kid would go through a
> >horrendous experience to learn, ultimately, that 'people will do anything to
> >get a potato" (almost pure Vonnegut, I think) but in terms of appreciation
> >this pales next to the qualities of the production itself.
> >
> Take another movie, like: "Babylon 5" , "Godzilla" or "Lost in space"
> for example. The technology behind it was absolutely stunning but it
> didn't do anything to me. Perfect execution without a soul. It's both
> the skill and sensibility doing great art but sensibility has the
> leading role. Skill is put to its use.
I don't see this as true. The films you've mentioned are very lacking in
perfection - the camera work, the cutting, sound engineering, the acting, the
casting, the directing. You can see some serious budget cutting going on - but
they wanted to put the beef in the special effects market, which is what people
really like. "Empire of the Sun" wasn't that popular at all.
> Now take Star Wars (all 4 of em) or Blade Runner or Dark Star (does it
> show that I'm a SF fan? ;-) It's great, it's classical. Every scene or
> action in these movies are conveying a certain feeling.
Come on, are you comparing Lucas with Ridley Scott? Really. You need to compare
Blade Runner with Metropolis - now there's an interesting comparison, especially
if you want to study the migration of codes in culture.
> What are memorable moments of these movies? Take Rutger Hauer's dialog
> for example, just before he dies. I can fill a 500 line piece about
> this scene which only takes about 30 seconds but you really need to
> see it: how angles work here, the light, the weather, the very way he
> speaks to Harrison Ford (" I've.. seen _things_ ... you people
> wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire on the shoulder of Orion... I
> watched C beams glittering in the dark at Tannhauser gate... Now all
> these moments will be lost.... like.. tears... in rain"), everything
> in this scene expresses exactly that feeling Ridley Scott wanted to
> convey. It's a masterpiece.
Excellent. I was just remembering that scene the other day, telling my wife that
final line "Time to die..." That was Hauer's magnum opus, I think. That's a
great film all the way around, in my opinion. But are you going to argue that
Bladerunner was a work of art that was created by a singular artistic achievment
(Scott's) and not a recapitulation of a long line of codes about 'the city',
mythological regurgitations, gender arguments and all these things which have
ciruclated in Western culture during this century?
By the way, Mr. knows the great movie soliquies, tell me what that fellow on the
freeway overpass was shouting at the cars in Wim Wender's "Paris, Texas."
(another work of art about culture).
> Ofcourse it takes a lot of skill to execute such scenes but one cannot
> know how to use skills if one doesn't know what to convey, how to move
> the audience (and ofcourse one cannot know what moves the audience,
> only what moves oneself)
Unless you are able to understand that the artist and the audience are of the same
culture, and in fact share sensibilities. That's what my argument is about. A
good example is the distortions that took place when de Laurentis started making
his speggitti westerns, and distorted further when Kurosawa began his noodle
westerns.
> I still watch that great dialog of Luke Skywalker with Emperor
> Palpatine. Ralph McDiarmid is such a great actor (with his slight
> german accent, just enough) The decor with the emperor in the middle
> of a circular window, the mask Ralph wears (you can see in the Phantom
> Menace how he really looks like), etc. etc.
>
> It takes great skill to execute these great things but it needs
> sensibility to wield these skills else there're useless (as in
> Godzilla, Lost in Space, etc.)
But Lucas found the goose that laid the golden egg when he met Joseph Campbell.
Popular culture still loves mythological regurgitations -- these forms are so well
worn that everyone knows what to expect beforehand. MacDonalds and Dennys and
advetisments operate the same way. The basis of popularity is familiarity. I
like to compare Star Wars with Nueremberg Stadium -- they both thrill the audiance
in the same way.
Erik Mattila
Erik A. Mattila
> Aha, so what we're actually argueing about is whether something is art
> because it's accepted as art within a culture (and the rules of
> aesthetics differ tremendously interculturally) or whether art is art
> because it's a succesfull expression of the artist's sensibility
> (according to the artist ofcourse but it should be evident in the work
> viewed by any audience).
More to the point, Paul, my position is that the artist's sensibility IS culture. That's why I keep
mentioning that we haven't successfully negotiation was the ideology of the 'individual' in culture. I think
our sense of the 'individual' is hegemonic and ideological, our inheritence from a long historical
development involving popular political events, circulations of political philosophies, religion etc. What
is 'real,' in my mind, is that we are just as 'culture bound' as a Trobriand Islander, with the difference
being that modern cultures have beccome very plural, and we have much more modeles of behavoir to learn from
than our ancestors did.
> I'm ofcourse in favour of the sensibility variety. Everyone sees
> Rembrandt as a great artist but this comes because of his use of his
> skills. The ability to convey a certain feeling. It's clear his
> paintings express more than just a portrait or a landscape, there's a
> mood. This mood is the important thing, how to use lines, light,
> texture, shadows, form and shape, knowledge, balance, etc. etc. in
> order to get this mood.
I love Rembrandt's work, but I see myself responding to the Rembrant Industry that exists in my culture.
Since I was a wee land, hardly able to talk, I've been learning that Rembrant is a great artist. Througout
my life I've had this notioned validated by books, museum, TV programs and so on. When I viewed his
paintings in person my learning was validated, for I saw evidence of what I had learned was skill, and that
skill was part of art's value. I even discovered that it was hard to paint like him, which further validated
the idea of skill (that's one attribute - it's hard to do). Additionally, I learned to evaluate other, less
known paintings, against his as a way I could form my idea of good and bad in art.
> >> And do all artists use it? And if so, do they all use it to the same
> >> extent?
> >
> >No Man is an Island, as far as I am concerned. It's not so much a matter of using, as it is of being. I
> >would say all artists represent culture with their products, but some do it in a very overt way, like
> >DuChamp.
> >
> But ofcourse, the culture is evident. But it is evident in the
> observable means and methods.
But you see, the "Bachelor's Bride" would have few assets outside of European culture - it would be quite
unintelligible to other people, and it's aesthetic merit seems to me to rest in the cultural riddle it
unfolds, all about desiring sturctures in industrial culture and such. That's the only reason I think
DuChamp uses culture as paint. "Venus on the Half Shell" might be more transferable -- even as an oddity --
to a Kung community, especiaally if Kung culture shared a sexual connotation to oysters.
>
> This is very interesting (and food for flame wars ;-)
>
> We now seem to have a second major argument in this thread: whether or
> not sensibility is the product of culture.
I hate to ride a dead horse, but I've said this was my argument all along.
> I'm completely convinced that sensibility is not the product of
> culture, it only manifests itself by the tools of a culture (like
> symbols, style, etc. the "means and methods")
Then you need to give me an account of what the human individule is. You seem to be evoking the popular
image of the artist, as a being who exists outside of culture, that is able to invent new ideas and turn
culture on to them. (Be creative). In my view this is ideological and utopian, but I'm all ears. My
question is where does this 'new stuff' come from, and what is it?
> To get a little bit scientifical: when we're born we don't know what
> behaviour to show (we can do anything). We also have feelings which we
> do not understand. We will learn that some behaviour is satisfactory
> to show in certain affective contexts. This is why we cannot show
> behaviour without emotions and feelings, urges, etc. The behaviour
> would simply not be reinforced by positive emotional feedback or
> inhibited by negative feedback. Affect and behaviour will need to be
> coupled. Without this we cannot know what behaviour is appropriate and
> will feel insecure, not being able to do anything. Emotions are the
> backbone of human behaviour and intelligence. But we need to observe
> in order to learn. And we are in an environment in which culture is a
> big factor.
>
> But this culture is not the producer of sensibility. The sensibility
> is based upon the emotions, knowing that you're affected and how. The
> problem is ofcourse the "why" and left for the artist to find out.
My understanding of 'sensibility' is that is the decision making process, or results, in an artist deciding
what goes where, how something could be rendered, what colors to use, and so on. Whether a painting is
regarded great or not is a matter that others agree that it is, for any of several reasons. Good artistic
sensibility then is that which accords to the consensus about good and bad. What else there?
> This nicely fits my "fetishism" article. The high heeled shoe is a
> cultural object. But the emotional experience of the artist with this
> shoe is actually what he/she will express. The shoe was in the center
> of the triggering stimulus of the response but it is that emotional
> response which needs to be conveyed. Culture evokes responses but the
> response is ours, not that of culture. Nevertheless the response is a
> very human one and other people will see that a painting conveys
> certain feelings they themselves experience. I will even go so far to
> say that culture is the product of individuals. Succesfull artists
> (either alive or posthumous) being a major exponent, building upon and
> reshaping culture. This is ofcourse only possible by great acceptance
> (or heated denial) of the people but all great individuals were
> masters in evoking the desired response of the public. But artists can
> only rely on their own sensibility for maximum effect.
Ugh. But I can't hold it against you for wanting to valorize your chosen profession.
> He's kinda hard on you, me thinks ;-) I wouldn't even dream of
> responding in such a way. Ah, darned expressionists (or was it
> impressionists? ;-) Argh! I don't hope he comes after me, I'm
> allergic to getting yelled at, and limericks as well, even when "stil
> smiling with you" :-)
Well, I always like to consider the alternative scenario. I could always say "Yea, groovey, we're really
tuned into the same station. All is one. Ohmmmm!
> >But you're simply not accepting my answers, I think.
> >
> I've major troubles with them as well (but then again: I'm dutch, I
> won't get angry with you because of different opinions :-) Besides:
> I've learned many things by listening to other people's opinions,
> giving me new insights. Not that I accept all ideas ofcourse, I can't
> accept your idea of culture producing sensibility but I'm certainly
> eager to hear your version. Perhaps my ideas need revision but in this
> case I seriously doubt it (which makes it much more interesting since
> it attacks a fundamental idea of mine)
Very egalitarian of you, I must say. But, hey, I might be just be a Habermasian ideologue, a true beliver.
But you'd never know without studying Habermas.
> I paint towards the goal of creating a scene that will evoke certain
> ideas in me (one can also say that the scene incorporates certain
> ideas) that will lead to a desired emotional response. Everything I
> use can be argued to be part of culture (the paint, the symbols, the
> perspective, the style, etc.). But all these things are orchestrated
> by my sensibility (actually, I've never heard of the word, it's just
> emotional responses to me)
>
> It's quite obvious these ideas are not cultural.
Then how come I've heard these ideas stated over and over and over all my life from a broad range of
sources? Of course they're cultural. Think about it this way. There are hundreds of human cultures who
only made anomynous art. The spirit of thought here was that art making was democratic and available to all,
and the idea of a 'special person' who had supernatural gifts and a heroic quest to transform society was
repugnant, if not silly. But this doesn't mean that some weren't better at it than others, or that others
didn't recognize that some were better. So the very essential foundation of the idea of an individual artist
as 'special' and 'gifted' and 'visionary,' in our society is a product of our culture.
> These ideas are in
> terms of the innate visual system. Straightness is the same to
> everyone, as is symmetry, redness, universal facial and body
> expressions, the ideas of tension, etc. All very fundamental stuff but
> here are the things that form the terms of the expressions of the
> visual system and it is to these expressions that we react
> emotionally. Ofcourse the system is enhanced by learning but culture
> has a very weak influence in this. Back to nature in a way, the human
> being itself instead of all the things made by him/her.
>
> Now, I can go on for a while but I want to keep things verbose :-)
No comment.
Erik
mesken
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>mesken wrote:
>>
>> This is very interesting (and food for flame wars ;-)
>>
>> We now seem to have a second major argument in this thread: whether or
>> not sensibility is the product of culture.
>
>I hate to ride a dead horse, but I've said this was my argument all along.
>
>> I'm completely convinced that sensibility is not the product of
>> culture, it only manifests itself by the tools of a culture (like
>> symbols, style, etc. the "means and methods")
>
>Then you need to give me an account of what the human individule is. You seem to be evoking the popular
>image of the artist, as a being who exists outside of culture, that is able to invent new ideas and turn
>culture on to them. (Be creative). In my view this is ideological and utopian, but I'm all ears. My
>question is where does this 'new stuff' come from, and what is it?
>
There's no real new stuff here. It's the same story all over again for
all art. The artist is affected in certain ways, finds out how this
happens and makes a painting with this knowledge. What is different is
that all individuals are affected in slighty different ways by ideas,
that slightly different ideas become their instances about certain
feelings, that the work is carried by the means and methods of a
culture which shows in such stuff as style and that the motorics of
the artists yield personal results (in the rennaissance they tried to
eliminate the "handwriting" of the artist), there's ofcourse also a
personal skill. What is different is how artists use these tools.
So, what does the individual encompass? Experiences with one's own
being exposed to the world. The ability to observe is not enough to
get meaning, one needs to be affected. Here's an example:
When I was about 7 years, me and my sister were walking to school and
on our trip we encountered a pitifull scene. A kid in my class went to
school on roller skates and kept on falling, crying with frustration
but struggling on. "How sad" my sister said, "Meiko keeps falling".
Now I was puzzled since I experienced feelings I didn't experience
before in such magnitude and I didn't know what it was but obviously
the scene evoked them in me (later on I came to know that I'm a
terrible sadist and have experienced more and more scenes which evoked
these feelings, the delivery room scene in "It's alive" blew me off my
socks for example and I now do quite some medical bondage stuff :-)
What were the visual ideas that triggered this feeling in me? What
other ideas where triggered by these visual ideas which also triggered
this feeling?
After more than 25 years I've a pretty good idea about them (it
actually boiled down to postures, expressions, virtual surfaces,
volumes, etc. I can write a book about it but it's easier to paint
them :-)
All these ideas don't come from culture, they come from experience. I
execute them by means and methods of culture, that is true.
So, what happens? The firm base of the feet is gone, the whole system
is unbalanced, the bulky mass of the body tries with violent movement
to restore its upright position but to no avail since the feet are
shooting away over virtual surfaces which can never yield a body
position in balance. Actually the body is such that it never could be
in balance (huge breasts and butt which state: the gravity center of
all of this is well outside the body). The legs are not strong, they
either appear as made out of jelly or a bunch of sticks which are
wobbly and weak in knees, hips and ankles. They are no longer the
mighty columns which keeps our bodies upright, they're the very things
in which we trusted but only produce a fall from much greater height.
In a way they betray us.
To what avail? Well, to express helplesness and falling ofcourse but
also as the source of braveness, frustration, hidden masochism, etc.
The predator/hunter in all of us immediately spots an opportunity
which recquires immediate action. At the same time we get feelings of
protection, we also want to help but at the same time we want to make
her trip. The clash of these feelings give a strong effect, are we
going to be saints or sinners?
What is the unfortunate subject? Well, a well crafted beautifull woman
whose whole body expresses fertility (I always make them as round as
aesthetically possible, there's no straight edge ever to be seen). The
body is warm and vulnerable. She's prey and I'm the hunter. There's
opportunity coz she can't get away. But she does this all to herself,
I'm merely someone who just happened to see this. While she looks
angrily at me because I see her like this, she's also only clothed in
a white shirt which she can hardly use (or wants to use) to hide that
what gets me up (yukyuk ;-) Her body expresses involuntary expressions
of sexual arousement while her mind tries to deny them. As a matter of
fact: she seduces me willingly to play the role of caveman. She plays
a sex game and wants me to play by doing what I'm good at, letting the
predator out (RAAAAOOW)
Any inhibitions I will have against behaving this way are in fact
eliminated by her. A man wants to rape and a man wants to take
advantage of his greater strength and to torture but at the same time
a man also wants to protect, to be good (this isn't a learned thing,
this is an innate thing). What's the difference between rape and
making love? Well, the first one is bad because you don't want to hurt
anyone by doing something they don't want you to do, the second one is
good because now you're allowed to do these things you always wanted
to do and you're pleasing another one with it as well. Rape is
unnatural and against the very nature of humans just like killing,
hurting, etc. Making love is OTOH very natural.
In my paintings women are strong, not ashamed of their body and
sexuality but using it, and show their willingness very subtle,
challenging the onlooker to give in to their darker feelings. Very
much like the real world actually :-) They want you and know how to
get you.
Ofcourse all these ideas like helplesness, falling, sexual arousel,
defyiance, played shame, etc. etc. all need to be expressed visually
and that takes quite some work to get all these pieces to function
just right. It is my sensibility alerting me that something is a good
visual expression of a certain idea. This is what my works are about,
succesfully conveying ideas which arouse me.
This has hardly anything to do with culture. My women are _women_
because I took a good look at what separates them from men and this I
enhanced by distortion of reality. I want them to be desireable in a
sexual way so I focus on butts, breasts, face, legs, shadows which can
hardly hide the candy inside ;-) I also want them to be strong in a
mental way so I investigated what exactly gives me that idea. The
roller skates all have high heels (actually I have a world of types
developed) and are made in such a way that they're completely off
balance. Strapped to the feet and in all properties (color, materials,
light effects, etc.) contrasting with the woman as a foreign body
which can't be controlled but is nevertheless acting as the very base
of this woman.
As a matter of fact, I departure a lot from cultural aesthetics. I
only aim to get it working for me. Ofcourse, I thank culture for the
insights it gave me about the visual system, my brushes and paint, the
methods with which I can create depth, etc. But these are merely tools
at my disposal to make a work which pleases me. How do I create
movement on a static picture? I can only rely upon my own ideas about
movement (and in such a case I fire with all cylinders, I get sublimal
stuff, tension, Gestallt, etc. all to work on this very hard subject)
>> To get a little bit scientifical: when we're born we don't know what
>> behaviour to show (we can do anything). We also have feelings which we
>> do not understand. We will learn that some behaviour is satisfactory
>> to show in certain affective contexts. This is why we cannot show
>> behaviour without emotions and feelings, urges, etc. The behaviour
>> would simply not be reinforced by positive emotional feedback or
>> inhibited by negative feedback. Affect and behaviour will need to be
>> coupled. Without this we cannot know what behaviour is appropriate and
>> will feel insecure, not being able to do anything. Emotions are the
>> backbone of human behaviour and intelligence. But we need to observe
>> in order to learn. And we are in an environment in which culture is a
>> big factor.
>>
>> But this culture is not the producer of sensibility. The sensibility
>> is based upon the emotions, knowing that you're affected and how. The
>> problem is ofcourse the "why" and left for the artist to find out.
>
>My understanding of 'sensibility' is that is the decision making process, or results, in an artist deciding
>what goes where, how something could be rendered, what colors to use, and so on. Whether a painting is
>regarded great or not is a matter that others agree that it is, for any of several reasons. Good artistic
>sensibility then is that which accords to the consensus about good and bad. What else there?
>
You can certainly put it that way. Emotions tell us what is good or
bad (in categories, there's not a single good and a single bad).
>> I paint towards the goal of creating a scene that will evoke certain
>> ideas in me (one can also say that the scene incorporates certain
>> ideas) that will lead to a desired emotional response. Everything I
>> use can be argued to be part of culture (the paint, the symbols, the
>> perspective, the style, etc.). But all these things are orchestrated
>> by my sensibility (actually, I've never heard of the word, it's just
>> emotional responses to me)
>>
>> It's quite obvious these ideas are not cultural.
>
>Then how come I've heard these ideas stated over and over and over all my life from a broad range of
>sources? Of course they're cultural. Think about it this way. There are hundreds of human cultures who
>only made anomynous art. The spirit of thought here was that art making was democratic and available to all,
>and the idea of a 'special person' who had supernatural gifts and a heroic quest to transform society was
>repugnant, if not silly. But this doesn't mean that some weren't better at it than others, or that others
>didn't recognize that some were better. So the very essential foundation of the idea of an individual artist
>as 'special' and 'gifted' and 'visionary,' in our society is a product of our culture.
>
The idea about the artist of being special and visionary, of having
supernatural gifts and being on a heroic quest is certainly a cultural
product.
I don't buy this idea at all, there's nothing magical about what an
artist does. The artist's quest is to find out how to express his/her
own sensibility. This is a cumbersome process. Knowing that one is
affected by what one sees and trying to figure out _what_ one exactly
sees when affected (and as I already stated, this is more than light
falling on the retina, more than what is in a photo)
So, what do we see? Actually we perceive ideas (that something is
rectangular, or that something is off balanced, or that a person is
happy, etc.) These ideas also lead to other ideas by association (her
face is getting red, she's smiling to me, etc. ergo: she has the hots
for me, I want sex, this is good, etc. ;-)
We can't put feelings into paintings (they're not graphical :-) but we
can find out what visual ideas lead to what feelings and how. These
visual ideas are no grand ideas, they're like Mona Lisa's smile
(actually the whole facial expression), hands and angle of depiction.
In serious commentary on paintings (the not so serious are filled with
hype) there is talk about how the composition with curves, perceptual
grouping, tension, etc. convey an idea which leads to an emotional
response. I typically need dozens of sketches before I get the general
idea in order (the painting ofcourse needs to grow while executed but
the basis must be the compositional sketch).
I might use symbols (actually it can be argued that everything is
symbolic). These symbols are a cultural product for the most part. I
might decide to use a stop sign for some reason. Obviously, other
cultures not knowing this sign will be puzzled. But the stop sign only
aids me in conveying an idea which should lead to a desired response.
I only know my feelings by learning how they react upon experiences
and much of what I experience is cultural (but a lot is also non
cultural).
So, the carriers of ideas are partly cultural (facial expressions
conveying emotion are not cultural for example, they're universal to
humans) but the way in which these ideas are orchestrated serve to
elicit a certain emotional response. This response is individual and
thus the way in which means and methods of culture are being used
depends on the individual.
Okay, so far, I'll quickly do some shopping now and go to a Tiberian
Sun session (with 7 others), I'll reply to your other post later on
Lauri Levanto
I arbitrarily selected the last posting of Mark.
In fact this is temporarily precedent, I have time to read the latest
contributions only after finishing this.
Due to deadlines in the office I had a late start. IThen I had to read
ION, and after that 100+pages tangled crossquotations.
Mark, one is not necessarily a coward if one feels discouraged
by that volume of defensive fire. Both of you dismissed Plato
easily and retreated behind your well established fortresses.
* * *
While I was reading ION, I had to check a couple of times whether
I am reading the same book as either of you. I was reading so
differently.
To begin with, Plato does not deny that ION is a great performer
of Homer. Then he makes great effort to show that the 'Art of
poetry/music' is not by nature any different from the arts of
doctors, horsemen, sculptors. To Plato - as I understand - the art of
something is skill and knowledge of the subject, combined with
professional use of that skill. 'The Art of fine arts,
that is esthetics of Plato is "No skill, no art". Plato is a formalist
in the narrowest sense. Am I wrong?
Where Plato exceed Mani, is that he understands that esthetics
is not all. Ion is an acknowledged artist though Sokrates proved that
he knows nothing of esthetics. Makes me think Mani's opinions of
Picasso and Rothko.
- lauri
Lauri Levanto
to get abreast with you three.
I think that the cultural inpact goes mostly in into Plato's definition
of esthetics. Clearly, to know the art of doctors, one must be
familiar with the science, tradition and general practice of medicine.
We have a proof that ION knew next to nothing about esthetics, but was a
top performer inspite of this. He could not tell good art apart from
bad. No sensibility. (Erik 1, Mark 0).
Plato says that this was possible because Ion had divine inspiration.
The word divine is a slippery thing in modern discourse of art.
I agree with Erik that it is safer to substitute it with something
more down to earth. 'The cultural contex' was Erik's choice,
which Mark challenged. So do I. Not only, as I believe like Erik
that it belongs to esthetics. If good and bad are contextual
as Erik seems to claim, it cannot substitute the divine,
as Socrated had proved that Ion could not tell apart good and bad art.
The sensibility of Mark is creeping in in an disguise.
(Erik 1, Mark 1)
When we excluded the divine, we had to replace it with something inside
the human mind. I do not know yet what it is. I'm not a scholar
like both of you. I understand why Erik suggested the social context.
In his weltanshau the human mind is a tabula rasa to be written by
cultural imprints. If 'good' is not universal and absolute, that
is built in in every human mind, it must be
learned (my paraphrase). No third choice.
Erik postulated that the purpose of art is to provoke emotions.
According to his allegory of fetishism, he tries to show that this
happens by associating signs, that is forms in the artwork to our
previous experiencies, memories and beliefs. If he is right,
it must be posiible to point out and enumerate at least part of these
signs that direct to the wanted association. In principle
there must be possible to collect a dictionary of forms,
soecial to each culture, that when applied in proper syntactic
skill will produce the desired emotional reaction. On the other
way round - in principle - it is possible to introspectively
isolate the cues in an artwork that were responsible for my
emotional reaction.
What do you think Mark, shall we from now on call Erik formalist?
If it is not formally identifiable, you have no ground to say
it is there. (Erik 1, Mark 2, Plato zero so far).(this is only because
Plato was excommunicated so early in the game)
We still have the nagging question, how Ion was capapbe of
so superb performance. It is time to fit another Cinderella shoe.
For Erik's sake I try to build a scientific stage for further
discussion. Science consists of two discrete elements. We have
facts - observations to be more precise, and theories or hypotheses
that describe how we understand the facts. The facts are stable,
though their number may increase. No new fact can nullify old ones.
The theories are variable. Copernicus when he developed the
sun-centered system explicitely used ptolemaios' facts. The facts
were common, the theories differnt. Ptolemaios could with equal
precision tell how the heavenly bodies moved when seen from the earth.
Copernicus with his minds eye positioned himself outside the planetary
system and saw a more elegant explanation, which we now regard
as the right one. The theory of Ptoleaios still explained all the
known facts. It was only cumbersome and less useful.
In history the sources represent the facts. According to our source
Ion was very succesful in performing Homer. The theory of Plato
was that this was possible only due to divine inspiration.
When denying the divine, as we all seem to do, a treatise of Ion
is not complete without new explanation.
* * *
While I'm working with the part three, I'm also eager to hear
what you Erik, see as an explanation to this "No skill but divine"
phenomen in art.
- lauri
Erik A. Mattila
> To begin with, Plato does not deny that ION is a great performer
> of Homer. Then he makes great effort to show that the 'Art of
> poetry/music' is not by nature any different from the arts of
> doctors, horsemen, sculptors. To Plato - as I understand - the art of
> something is skill and knowledge of the subject, combined with
> professional use of that skill. 'The Art of fine arts,
> that is esthetics of Plato is "No skill, no art". Plato is a formalist
> in the narrowest sense. Am I wrong?
I don't think you're wrong. Mark and I went over this point. Plato's
literary mechanism was introducing his character Ion as the winner of the
most prestigious Rhapsode contest - obviously to establish Ion's
credentials in that area. I'm pretty sure Mark agrees with this, so I'm
not clear why you see it otherwise.
--Erik
lake
First of all, thank you for a passionate and thoughtful reply. You say
that you do not
"delude myself into believing that it is some divine presence that
wants me to make art...".
You state further that inspiration is filtered through you, and
originates in something you call "exposure". You imply a process of
cause and effect, as if this exposure (could we say, experience?) would
mutate and curdle of its own accord, needing only your own conscious
intervention to transmute it into art.
I say you are wrong. This is not where art comes from, it is where
pseudo-art comes from. Serious art comes from a place where the artist
has divorced himself from all knowledge of his own experience.
To the extent that an artist is dabbling in what he or she considers to
be "his" or "her" experience, the art is impure and uninteresting. This
is the most common failing of artists. This is what Vincent was doing
when he painted "The Potato Eaters", and to a lesser extent when he was
imitating the impressionists. But when Vincent finally lost his own
history, he started doing serious art.
If you choose to credit "the brain" for the marvels of
Rembrandt,DaVinci,Goya, Bosch.........well perhaps you might capitalize
the 'B', at least.
-Lake
Erik A. Mattila
> Sorry for the length of these postings. I have to run fast
> to get abreast with you three.
>
> I think that the cultural inpact goes mostly in into Plato's definition
> of esthetics. Clearly, to know the art of doctors, one must be
> familiar with the science, tradition and general practice of medicine.
>
> We have a proof that ION knew next to nothing about esthetics, but was a
> top performer inspite of this. He could not tell good art apart from
> bad. No sensibility. (Erik 1, Mark 0).
I think we're getting in some language difficulty here, Lauri. Plato
didn't use the term 'esthetics' anywhere in the story, although "Ion" is
generally regarded today as a work on aesthetics. Plato's terms are 'art'
and 'divine' so I think we need to be careful to stay within those bounds.
My reading is that 'aesthetics' belong to both spheres. In Plato,
'esthetics' are the given -- as a treatise, Plato is begining to take the
concept apart, and presenting the reader with two aspects. So I would say
that Plato regarded Ion's achievment as part of aesthetics, just not the
whole picture.
> Plato says that this was possible because Ion had divine inspiration.
> The word divine is a slippery thing in modern discourse of art.
> I agree with Erik that it is safer to substitute it with something
> more down to earth. 'The cultural contex' was Erik's choice,
> which Mark challenged. So do I. Not only, as I believe like Erik
> that it belongs to esthetics. If good and bad are contextual
> as Erik seems to claim, it cannot substitute the divine,
> as Socrated had proved that Ion could not tell apart good and bad art.
> The sensibility of Mark is creeping in in an disguise.
> (Erik 1, Mark 1)
Hmmm. Well, I take religion as culture, if that's any help. Religious
concepts by nature tend to be very general and abstract. But there might
be a historical note here. Wasn't Socrates forced to take the Hemlock
because he was a non-believer (something that certainly would have
impressed Plato). So you have to ask yourself why Plato would have
Socrates introduce the divine into the argument. This is why I think Plato
was using a very vague term to refer to that which is other than the
explicit definition of 'art' in aesthetics.
> When we excluded the divine, we had to replace it with something inside
> the human mind. I do not know yet what it is. I'm not a scholar
> like both of you. I understand why Erik suggested the social context.
> In his weltanshau the human mind is a tabula rasa to be written by
> cultural imprints. If 'good' is not universal and absolute, that
> is built in in every human mind, it must be
> learned (my paraphrase). No third choice.
This is a little presumptuous of you, Lauri. I actually believe we come
into the world with some instinctive behaviors. For example, I think there
are many who have argued that the newborn are pre-programmed to recognize a
human face. I've never heard this theory argued against - so it seems
reasonable to me. But it's interesting that you see my view as
'Weltanschauung' considering Freud's view that this ideology was devoid of
any emotional content. Have you ever witnessed 'mass hysteria?' This
seems to me to be a fine example of culture at work on the emotional
frontiers.
> Erik postulated that the purpose of art is to provoke emotions.
> According to his allegory of fetishism, he tries to show that this
> happens by associating signs, that is forms in the artwork to our
> previous experiencies, memories and beliefs. If he is right,
> it must be posiible to point out and enumerate at least part of these
> signs that direct to the wanted association. In principle
> there must be possible to collect a dictionary of forms,
> soecial to each culture, that when applied in proper syntactic
> skill will produce the desired emotional reaction. On the other
> way round - in principle - it is possible to introspectively
> isolate the cues in an artwork that were responsible for my
> emotional reaction.
>
> What do you think Mark, shall we from now on call Erik formalist?
> If it is not formally identifiable, you have no ground to say
> it is there. (Erik 1, Mark 2, Plato zero so far).(this is only because
> Plato was excommunicated so early in the game)
Oops. You're confusing me with Paul here. I'll let him respond to this.
> We still have the nagging question, how Ion was capapbe of
> so superb performance. It is time to fit another Cinderella shoe.
It's not a mystery in my mind, Lauri (nagging question). I thought Plato
made it clear that Ion's accomplishment was because of the magnetic rings
connecting him to the divine.
> For Erik's sake I try to build a scientific stage for further
> discussion. Science consists of two discrete elements. We have
> facts - observations to be more precise, and theories or hypotheses
> that describe how we understand the facts. The facts are stable,
> though their number may increase. No new fact can nullify old ones.
> The theories are variable. Copernicus when he developed the
> sun-centered system explicitely used ptolemaios' facts. The facts
> were common, the theories differnt. Ptolemaios could with equal
> precision tell how the heavenly bodies moved when seen from the earth.
> Copernicus with his minds eye positioned himself outside the planetary
> system and saw a more elegant explanation, which we now regard
> as the right one. The theory of Ptoleaios still explained all the
> known facts. It was only cumbersome and less useful.
>
> In history the sources represent the facts. According to our source
> Ion was very succesful in performing Homer. The theory of Plato
> was that this was possible only due to divine inspiration.
> When denying the divine, as we all seem to do, a treatise of Ion
> is not complete without new explanation.
> * * *
Well, this would only be true if you have a more explicit idea of what the
'divine' is than Plato. Again, I believe that Plato was merely separating
out 'art' from the full picture of aesthics, and calling what was left
'divine.'
> While I'm working with the part three, I'm also eager to hear
> what you Erik, see as an explanation to this "No skill but divine"
I have no problem with this. But this doesn't mean I can't substitute
'cultural context' for 'divine.'
-Erik
Erik A. Mattila
> There's no real new stuff here. It's the same story all over again for
> all art. The artist is affected in certain ways, finds out how this
> happens and makes a painting with this knowledge. What is different is
> that all individuals are affected in slighty different ways by ideas,
> that slightly different ideas become their instances about certain
> feelings, that the work is carried by the means and methods of a
> culture which shows in such stuff as style and that the motorics of
> the artists yield personal results (in the rennaissance they tried to
> eliminate the "handwriting" of the artist), there's ofcourse also a
> personal skill. What is different is how artists use these tools.
OK.
> So, what does the individual encompass? Experiences with one's own
> being exposed to the world. The ability to observe is not enough to
> get meaning, one needs to be affected. Here's an example:
>
> When I was about 7 years, me and my sister were walking to school and
> on our trip we encountered a pitifull scene. A kid in my class went to
> school on roller skates and kept on falling, crying with frustration
> but struggling on. "How sad" my sister said, "Meiko keeps falling".
>
> Now I was puzzled since I experienced feelings I didn't experience
> before in such magnitude and I didn't know what it was but obviously
> the scene evoked them in me (later on I came to know that I'm a
> terrible sadist and have experienced more and more scenes which evoked
> these feelings, the delivery room scene in "It's alive" blew me off my
> socks for example and I now do quite some medical bondage stuff :-)
What I'm reading here is an example of culture, in this way. It's based on interactions between individuals, and
expectations. The only way you could possibly be 'puzzled' by your reaction is that it contradicted your sense
of a 'normal' reaction - and where does the idea of normalacy come from if not culture? The 'norm' is merely a
statistical concept, but it requires a sampling of something to have any meaning. I guess what I'm trying to say
that even if you seek to define your 'self' in culturally heterogeneous terms, you are nevertheless working
within the systematics of culture. You are only different by referencing that system you differ from, so it is
still a cultural practice -- even though the motive of establishing your individuality is evident. It's like a
trap. I think this is why so many people have hated Frederic Jameson's "Prison House of Language." The book
leaves you with a sense of futility, sort of an Ionesco "No Exit" feeling, and poses some very real questions
about the possiblility of seeing oneself as an individual. I keep thinking that there is a way through this trap
-- it's like a really good computer game, actually. (I think that that is one way through, as a matter of fact -
or a step in that direction - and that is to not take it so seriously).
> What were the visual ideas that triggered this feeling in me? What
> other ideas where triggered by these visual ideas which also triggered
> this feeling?
>
> After more than 25 years I've a pretty good idea about them (it
> actually boiled down to postures, expressions, virtual surfaces,
> volumes, etc. I can write a book about it but it's easier to paint
> them :-)
>
> All these ideas don't come from culture, they come from experience. I
> execute them by means and methods of culture, that is true.
I would argue this, but I know that there's always an expense involved. In this case it would see as if I were
denigrating whatever view you have as yourself as an individual. I wouldn't do this. My argument operates on a
more abstract level. And that is that the ideology of individualism we have is a product of culture, and varies
greatly across cultural frontiers. This is a fine point, but I think an important one. I see myself as an
individual, for example, even though I have come to learn and accept that culture is at play in this. So it all
boils down to a question of values. To wit: if I have a thought that I think is both creative and original, and
then discover that others have had the same thought, and indeed this thought circulates in my culture (maybe
rarely, but nevertheless there), then does this devalue the thought? My honest answer is that there was a time
when it did, sometimes dramatically devaluating it to the degree that I became depressed. But that concern seems
to have slipped away. I don't think it does devalue it any longer, according to the way I have things measured
up. In fact, in these times of my life when I discover that a thought that I thought was original is in fact
shared and circulated, I find it cool - and very interesting, almost delightful.
> So, what happens? The firm base of the feet is gone, the whole system
> is unbalanced, the bulky mass of the body tries with violent movement
> to restore its upright position but to no avail since the feet are
> shooting away over virtual surfaces which can never yield a body
> position in balance. Actually the body is such that it never could be
> in balance (huge breasts and butt which state: the gravity center of
> all of this is well outside the body). The legs are not strong, they
> either appear as made out of jelly or a bunch of sticks which are
> wobbly and weak in knees, hips and ankles. They are no longer the
> mighty columns which keeps our bodies upright, they're the very things
> in which we trusted but only produce a fall from much greater height.
> In a way they betray us.
Undeniably you could assemble these images into unique examples and it would be a testimony to you standing as an
artist. I have no quarrel with that. But the images themselves are in circulation in our society. What is the
cultural discourse on women's spiked heels anyway? These wouldn't be available for your artistic toolbox in the
first place if the ideas of imbalance, vulnerability, sexual power relationships did not circulate. And what is
the connection between that between Chinese foot binding, and even sewing pebbles into women't feet to validate
power of one human individual over another. But now you've got me wondering if the spindley legged elephants in
Dali's works are related.
> To what avail? Well, to express helplesness and falling ofcourse but
> also as the source of braveness, frustration, hidden masochism, etc.
> The predator/hunter in all of us immediately spots an opportunity
> which recquires immediate action. At the same time we get feelings of
> protection, we also want to help but at the same time we want to make
> her trip. The clash of these feelings give a strong effect, are we
> going to be saints or sinners?
Have you read much of Georges Bataille? It seems to me you would find his work very compelling. His 'mission in
life' seems to have been trying to understand his pornographic impulses. He did unravel a lot, but maybe not
completely. At any rate it is clear that he didn't want his pornography to be 'acceptable' by any standard -- he
sought and appreciated punishment for his transgressions. It apperently began out of a relationship to his
father, who was dying of syphillis over a long period of time. "The Story of the Eye" relates to the appearance
of his father's eyes as his brain was turning to mush, which horrified the young Bataille. But I think Bataille
is a good example to our discussion on aesthetics, if for no other reason than his accomplishment of making a
pornography that transgressed the boundaries of pornography itself. He was able to do this, I think, because he
took theory seriously, and rigorously, and used it as a tool to push the envelop, so to speak. Originality? Yes,
I think so, but to a degree -- I think the he and a few others engaged in the project of resurrecting de Sade
because they wanted to create a new discourse -- I think Bataille found that many of his ideas that he discovered
independently were verified by de Sade, and the interplay of an idea and a paradigm combined into the discourse
that we are familiar with today.
> What is the unfortunate subject? Well, a well crafted beautifull woman
> whose whole body expresses fertility (I always make them as round as
> aesthetically possible, there's no straight edge ever to be seen). The
> body is warm and vulnerable. She's prey and I'm the hunter. There's
> opportunity coz she can't get away. But she does this all to herself,
> I'm merely someone who just happened to see this. While she looks
> angrily at me because I see her like this, she's also only clothed in
> a white shirt which she can hardly use (or wants to use) to hide that
> what gets me up (yukyuk ;-) Her body expresses involuntary expressions
> of sexual arousement while her mind tries to deny them. As a matter of
> fact: she seduces me willingly to play the role of caveman. She plays
> a sex game and wants me to play by doing what I'm good at, letting the
> predator out (RAAAAOOW)
And you deny that this isn't social?
> Any inhibitions I will have against behaving this way are in fact
> eliminated by her. A man wants to rape and a man wants to take
> advantage of his greater strength and to torture but at the same time
> a man also wants to protect, to be good (this isn't a learned thing,
> this is an innate thing). What's the difference between rape and
> making love? Well, the first one is bad because you don't want to hurt
> anyone by doing something they don't want you to do, the second one is
> good because now you're allowed to do these things you always wanted
> to do and you're pleasing another one with it as well. Rape is
> unnatural and against the very nature of humans just like killing,
> hurting, etc. Making love is OTOH very natural.
What you are referencing here are called sexual power relationships -- very cultural. Probably the lowest common
denominator in culture are sexual relationships.
> In my paintings women are strong, not ashamed of their body and
> sexuality but using it, and show their willingness very subtle,
> challenging the onlooker to give in to their darker feelings. Very
> much like the real world actually :-) They want you and know how to
> get you.
But they aren't paintings of women at all, Paul. They certainly are images representing ideas about women, but
don't confuse the map with the territory, as the General Semantics crowd used to say.
> Ofcourse all these ideas like helplesness, falling, sexual arousel,
> defyiance, played shame, etc. etc. all need to be expressed visually
> and that takes quite some work to get all these pieces to function
> just right. It is my sensibility alerting me that something is a good
> visual expression of a certain idea. This is what my works are about,
> succesfully conveying ideas which arouse me.
>
> This has hardly anything to do with culture. My women are _women_
> because I took a good look at what separates them from men and this I
> enhanced by distortion of reality. I want them to be desireable in a
> sexual way so I focus on butts, breasts, face, legs, shadows which can
> hardly hide the candy inside ;-) I also want them to be strong in a
> mental way so I investigated what exactly gives me that idea. The
> roller skates all have high heels (actually I have a world of types
> developed) and are made in such a way that they're completely off
> balance. Strapped to the feet and in all properties (color, materials,
> light effects, etc.) contrasting with the woman as a foreign body
> which can't be controlled but is nevertheless acting as the very base
> of this woman.
I disagree wholeheartedly. What you are describing has everything to do with culture. You know, to some extent
some of your observations underwrite the classic rape defense in court actions, e.g. "the rape victim deserved to
be raped because she dressed and acted provocatively." This is what is meant by a naturalized concept, because
it's always posited in terms of the males' "uncontrolable sexual instincts." The idea that unmasks the fiction
of this assumption is that is an idea that circulates in culture, and is never anything more noble than an alibi
which seeks to rationalize antisocial behavior. But there is always a central question that begs answering when
this kind of cultural material enters 'art.' You must, somehow, define the borderline between a critique and an
endorsement of antisocial behavior. I think this is what Bataille sturggled with for most of his career, and the
search for an acceptable answer that he could feel good about was in fact a great motivational force. But look a
R. Crumb's work for example - there's always the question if his overt racism, i.e. Anglefood McSpade et al, is
racism or a critique -simple social reporting. Crumb himself will not respond to the question -- but you could
look at his silence as a tactic, since the enigma and the controversy in themselves are marketable in today's
society. It becomes part of the R. Crumb industry.
> As a matter of fact, I departure a lot from cultural aesthetics. I
> only aim to get it working for me. Ofcourse, I thank culture for the
> insights it gave me about the visual system, my brushes and paint, the
> methods with which I can create depth, etc. But these are merely tools
> at my disposal to make a work which pleases me. How do I create
> movement on a static picture? I can only rely upon my own ideas about
> movement (and in such a case I fire with all cylinders, I get sublimal
> stuff, tension, Gestallt, etc. all to work on this very hard subject)
But you know, the "Bad Art" of the late 70s was another way to draw attention to the 'cultural aesthetic' so it
wasn't really a departure. It merely defined the force of the margins - what is 'art' if it isn't this or that.
>
> You can certainly put it that way. Emotions tell us what is good or
> bad (in categories, there's not a single good and a single bad).
But you have to keep in mind that in my point of view, 'emotions' are also productions of culture. But it's a
complex argument to make, especially considering that 'emotions' are generally viewed as part and parcel of the
private sphere. But here is an example of where I would argue against the tabula rasa idea, I think we are born
with an emotional structure which may have a long biological history -- for example the fundamental 'pleasure
pain' response of the single celled organism. The linguist Julia Kristeva has some pretty interesting ideas
about this (which are built primarily on Freud's theories) and they involve investigations of the function of the
'signifier' in semiosis. But here's where the original emotional content departs from 'instinct' or 'original
equipment' that we are born with -- that is, the raw experience of emotion is subjected to semioses and is
invested with 'meaning.' Part of ego formation is gaining the experience of emotions as meaning structures,
which provides the space for the intervention of culture on our emotional lives. The emotional experience of
gestation and early infancy is remembered only in vague traces. Like I have a very vague and hazy memory of
crying in my crib, looking at the wall paper, whenever I stand on my head in the water and water runs up my nose
and creates that sort of pain which I first experienced in the crib.
> So, the carriers of ideas are partly cultural (facial expressions
> conveying emotion are not cultural for example, they're universal to
> humans) but the way in which these ideas are orchestrated serve to
> elicit a certain emotional response. This response is individual and
> thus the way in which means and methods of culture are being used
> depends on the individual.
In my mind there is an important difference in saying that the 'circulation of ideas' IS culture," than saying
the "the carriers of ideas are [partly] cultural." It's simply because the latter leaves any understandable
notion of what culture is hanging. The recent discoveries about the extendability of facial expressions is very
interesting. But you know, in conjunction there is also modern theories springing forth from DNA research which
is painting a picture of a very young humanity - even a new category of "beaviorally modern Homo Sapiens" who
migrated out of Africa 40,000 years ago to overlay (and perhaps replace) an older population of "anatomically
modern Homo Sapiens." You could extend this idea that apparently universal traits such as facial preference
reflect an older cultural standard and consensus. So you see, shared values don't necesssarily work against the
idea of culture's role in shaping our thinking. What seems evident to me is that 'culture' is a very ancient
thing that developed in species long before the advent of our species.
> Okay, so far, I'll quickly do some shopping now and go to a Tiberian
> Sun session (with 7 others), I'll reply to your other post later on
Ah ha. So the Dutch have reinvented the Sun. Excellent.
Erik
mesken
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>mesken wrote:
>
>> That certainly is true, the simplest solutions (which are normally
>> also the best) are the hardest to get to. That especially goes for
>> compositions. After one finally gets the desired composition then it's
>> hardly believeable it took so much effort to arrive at something so
>> simple (hell! it's just a triangle :-)
>
>But I don't see it this way at all, Paul. The tight, concise essay is not simple
>at all. It is very difficult, and complex. Since I've been required to write
>this way from time to time, I can say it takes longer to write concisely - a lot
>of editing is involved. Not the kind of thing for email chats.
>
That's what I meant, the simple solution, one sentence which conveys
what typically needs a number of sentences. That one sentence is
ofcourse much harder to arrive at but in the end it looks like the
simplest solution.
>> Ah yes, hype and buzzwords do sell ;-) I personally am interested in
>> what makes it "work", the content side. I'm of the opinion something
>> like "ambiguity of space" can be nothing more than an epiphenomenal
>> idea (I just love that word ;-) I have problems to believe that an
>> artist will sit down and says "Now, I'm going to do a work about the
>> ambiguity of space". Besides: it's hardly worthy as the subject.
>
>How do you know it's not worthy, if no one knows what it means? But great word,
>"epiphenomenal," I hope I can remember it.
>
Hehe, yes, that's the problem with the word "ambiguity". It can mean
multiple things.
>> But this impact happens in varying degrees. The most important factor
>> is whether the artist is creating towards the expression of
>> sensibility.
>
>Why is this the most important thing? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you,
>Paul, but just raising the question. I see this as an expression of culture
>itself - or the expression of a cultural value. I can imagine many societies
>where 'sensibility,' as it is defined here, would be of little interest. In some
>religious art, say that has some supernatural value to people, what's important is
>that all the parts of the religious are represented, and often how it appears is
>inconsequential. This is one method art historians and archeologists cand
>distinguishe between religious and social art forms.
>
Okay, let's say that working towards an expression of sensibility is
not the most important thing. That would mean that affecting people
(especially the artist him/herself) is not the most important goal of
the artwork.
One could also say that sensibility is the product of culture, so it
would be culture being the most important thing in art. But emotions
are that what makes up sensibility (and emotions control our behaviour
which led to cultures).
But emotions have their own cognitive system (which I already
discussed in another thread) and they need to be experienced. This
experience is as much subject to adaption as anything else in the
human mind ("learning to like something" is an example or even liking
something which you actually don't like at all, the cognitive illusion
which can appear as real as anything else: "the emperor has no
clothes" for example). I already mentioned how the self image is a
construction, telling one about one's self. But this construction
doesn't need to be consistent with the true self which we can only
experience when exposed and in action (we need to learn about
ourselves to know ourselves). The intellectual self can inhibit the
whole self: "Gee, I like that" becomes "No, I don't like that, it's
political incorrect and the perspective is off".
Culture can have a big vote in what people _think_ they like or
dislike but only because one has the urge to be accepted. Don't be
mistaken: people will even deny to themselves that they're working
completely on the basis of their own free will (whatever that is) and
A.Damasio has some very nice clinical examples of how far this can
actually go after a stroke which temporarily disables the possibility
of changing mental constructs like our self image. Reason will be very
ingenious to explain the discrepancies between these constructs which
explain the world and ourselves to us and observable reality ("My left
arm isn't paralyzed, I just don't feel like using it right now" -> and
even believing this completely) These constructs are very valuable,
without them we cannot act because we wouldn't know what the
consequences would be.
These were the "inhibiting rules of culture which can have an impact
on the artist" I talked (typed) about.
One can say that working towards culture instead of one's own
sensibility (the real sensibility) is working towards the happy
satisfaction of acception, this is also an emotion or feeling. Let's
take a look at Rubens' crucification of Christ. All the time there was
a consensus of how to depict this: Christ in the middle, the two
murderers at the sides, shown in front view, making a nice triangle.
But Rubens changed this and rotated the stuff, showing the good
murderer who believed in Christ much closer to Christ in the
projection and the bad murderer further away and more isolated, did
some interesting angle and resorted a much greater effect. Rubens
departed from culture to a much stronger conveyance of the idea.
Closing in means affection or desire (the approach emotions which are
present in even the most humble animals), moving away means fear,
denial, etc. These things don't come from culture even though culture
incorporated them, they're natural.
>> Take illustrators of medical books for example. Now these people are
>> very skilled but their work is only made to reach a functional goal,
>> that of providing medical information. Not because the illustrators
>> want to make an expression of their sensibility. Therefor it is not
>> art.
>
>Yet if you did a detailed study of medical illustrations over time you would
>discover that style conventions have developed, became popular, and evolved into
>other styles, just as oil painting has. If information was ever the singular
>goal, we would have a much more symbolic system of presenting anatonomical
>information - much like the systems used by chemists to illustrate molecules. If
>we only wanted to have the opportunity what something would look like once the cut
>was made, photography would do just fine. But instead we have an art form, with
>an art history, that both conveys scientific and aesthetic information. It's
>'art' any way you look at it.
>
Yes, ofcourse they developed but they developed towards the aim of
being more functional (set in the context of time and culture
ofcourse). I don't think medical illustrations are art, I doubt
whether many would agree with you that it is art. How about flow
charts of computers? They developed as well towards the goal of being
more functional.
>> >But thinking within this limit, I reach this impasse. I can't differenciate,
>> >in terms of my response to a really well painted painting, between painting
>> >and other things that are exquisitely crafted, involving the craftsman's
>> >sensibility. I've mentioned this before. Looking at Armor in a museum, for
>> >example, or flint-lock firearms with mother of pearl inlays that were created
>> >for the wunderkammerns of the rich and famous.
>> >
>> Well, you know what my opinion about skill is: it's a trademark of an
>> artist. The artist needs to be both a great craftsperson and a
>> creator. John Moore pointed this very nicely out: skill is something
>> you pick up because you want to make a great work of art. My
>> sensibility isn't pleased by a lousy execution of a very moving idea.
>
>So then why isn't exquistly fashioned armor or flint locks art in the same sense
>as painting is art? Surely the artists who made these 'expressed sensibility'
>with materials which are actually horrendoulsy more difficult to control that
>simple panels and pigments - thus attaining an even greater accomplishment that
>painters.
>
Surely these were made beautifull but this isn't their main function.
Everything is a blend (there's even yellow or purple in red but still
we call it red) Craftsmanship is expressed here by beauty (it's never
simple beauty, it's the harder variety to arrive at) When Giotto made
a perfect circle in one sweep he didn't make art, he showed off his
skill (now, a 4 yard straight horizontal line, that's even harder :-)
To make art one needs both skill and sensibility, only one of them
won't do.
>> What are memorable moments of these movies? Take Rutger Hauer's dialog
>> for example, just before he dies. I can fill a 500 line piece about
>> this scene which only takes about 30 seconds but you really need to
>> see it: how angles work here, the light, the weather, the very way he
>> speaks to Harrison Ford (" I've.. seen _things_ ... you people
>> wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire on the shoulder of Orion... I
>> watched C beams glittering in the dark at Tannhauser gate... Now all
>> these moments will be lost.... like.. tears... in rain"), everything
>> in this scene expresses exactly that feeling Ridley Scott wanted to
>> convey. It's a masterpiece.
>
>Excellent. I was just remembering that scene the other day, telling my wife that
>final line "Time to die..." That was Hauer's magnum opus, I think. That's a
>great film all the way around, in my opinion. But are you going to argue that
>Bladerunner was a work of art that was created by a singular artistic achievment
>(Scott's) and not a recapitulation of a long line of codes about 'the city',
>mythological regurgitations, gender arguments and all these things which have
>ciruclated in Western culture during this century?
>
Oh, certainly these ideas form the framework but what is conveyed in
the movie is how it moves us (or better: what Ridley thinks of it).
The terrible realization that all your memories are false. How
precious life is and how it inevitably ends. The doubt that you might
not be what you think: was Harrison also a replicant? Look at the
eyes, all replicants get the light straight into their eyes at many
occasions (this is no coincidence, you have to direct the light
carefully to get this) and the pupils glow red, no depth, no window of
the soul but a flat disc. At some points Harrison shows the same
effect, he has a lot of photos as well on his piano.
Anyway, the movie is a carrier of how these ideas move us not the
ideas at their bare selfs (BTW did you know Rutger Hauer is dutch?
Just like Paul Verhoeven, Jan de Bont, Jeroen Krabbee, Famke Jansen,
we have a lot out there :-)
>By the way, Mr. knows the great movie soliquies, tell me what that fellow on the
>freeway overpass was shouting at the cars in Wim Wender's "Paris, Texas."
>(another work of art about culture).
>
Sorry, didn't see it
>> Ofcourse it takes a lot of skill to execute such scenes but one cannot
>> know how to use skills if one doesn't know what to convey, how to move
>> the audience (and ofcourse one cannot know what moves the audience,
>> only what moves oneself)
>
>Unless you are able to understand that the artist and the audience are of the same
>culture, and in fact share sensibilities. That's what my argument is about. A
>good example is the distortions that took place when de Laurentis started making
>his speggitti westerns, and distorted further when Kurosawa began his noodle
>westerns.
>
Certainly the artist and audience need to be exposed to the same
cultural environment else one might not know what symbols mean, or
share the same ideas (like replicants, you need to know something
about science to know what a replicant encompasses, to us the idea of
artificial humans is not a ridiculous one, we've thought about it)
But the work of art is about how these ideas can move us. The
sensibility: ideas move us. The artist needs to take a look at how and
what ideas move us in what way. Once some of this knowledge is picked
up, the artist can make art (why does J.A. Sebastian lives in an old
abandoned building, why does he makes little friends? Etc. All these
things will affect our thinking of J.A.)
Don't you see that for every culture bound idea which is used to
convey a feeling there is an equivalent idea bound to another culture?
What makes them equivalent is that they convey the same feeling. I
already stated that we cannot express feelings, we can only express
ideas which do arouse feelings. But it is the goal of art to move
people. Most ideas are not typical cultural BTW (I already stated that
most experiences are not cultural). We all can decipher expressions of
human beings, we all know the universal facial expressions, we all
acknowledge stuff like straightness, curvature, colinearity, symmetry,
etc. This stuff is innate.
>> I still watch that great dialog of Luke Skywalker with Emperor
>> Palpatine. Ralph McDiarmid is such a great actor (with his slight
>> german accent, just enough) The decor with the emperor in the middle
>> of a circular window, the mask Ralph wears (you can see in the Phantom
>> Menace how he really looks like), etc. etc.
>>
>> It takes great skill to execute these great things but it needs
>> sensibility to wield these skills else there're useless (as in
>> Godzilla, Lost in Space, etc.)
>
>But Lucas found the goose that laid the golden egg when he met Joseph Campbell.
>Popular culture still loves mythological regurgitations -- these forms are so well
>worn that everyone knows what to expect beforehand. MacDonalds and Dennys and
>advetisments operate the same way. The basis of popularity is familiarity. I
>like to compare Star Wars with Nueremberg Stadium -- they both thrill the audiance
>in the same way.
>
It's very well executed familiarity. It doesn't have the subtleness of
Blade Runner, that is true. But take a look at exactly _how_ the
emperor is expressed (purely visual), _how_ the ideas of power and
evil are depicted. The good guys are all shabby clothed, the bad guys
don't wear colors and all wear the same. Uniformity, repetition,
rectangular shapes, great numbers, uprightness, being in the center,
heavy shadows: these things are intercultural. Ofcourse a lot means
more powerfull, uniformity means belonging to the same body
(perceptual grouping), equal distribution in rectangular shapes, long
lines, etc.
Now, we only think of these things as power because that's how power
manifested itself to us. But the reaction to and idea of power itself
is innate, not the recognition of it but the idea and reaction.
This is where we differ in opinion. You believe that sensibility is a
product of culture because it uses these things that are culture bound
(not all things are culture bound as I already noted). I say
sensibility is not a product of culture because it is the effect of
ideas which is used to reach the goal of the painting. Its goal is to
move people by presenting ideas (of which there are a number cultural
bound, that is true). So, it's human centered. It's about feelings and
emotions which are innate, only the ideas which are used to evoke
these feelings and emotions are to some degree cultural.
Lauri Levanto
>
> Lauri Levanto wrote:
> ...
> > I think that the cultural inpact goes mostly in into Plato's definition
> > of esthetics. Clearly, to know the art of doctors, one must be
> > familiar with the science, tradition and general practice of medicine.
> >
> > We have a proof that ION knew next to nothing about esthetics, but was a
> > top performer inspite of this. He could not tell good art apart from
> > bad. No sensibility. (Erik 1, Mark 0).
>
> I think we're getting in some language difficulty here, Lauri. Plato
Yes,at least one of us is. I introduced the word esthetics (with the
spelling error), as I understand Plato wanted to separate the
knowledge and skill from the divine. Unfortunately I am not capable
to consult the original greek text for more exact meaning.
The English word 'art' is unfortunate here as it is not used in the
sense of fine arts at all but to refer to
crafts and skills -like the art of horsemen- or martial arts.
By comparing to other professions, I read Plato using the word
art more like science of poetry/music. His Art of Doctors equals
corresponds to medical science, or more precisely to medical practise.
Another note for the greek use of the term art is a bit younger.
Aristotle: Rhetoric is an Art, as one can
formulate it as a rational system.
The conscious part of art making and appreciation as opposed
to divine possession.
...although "Ion" is
> generally regarded today as a work on aesthetics. Plato's terms are 'art'
> and 'divine' so I think we need to be careful to stay within those bounds...
While you were the first one to take the priviledge to
throw over the divine ;-)
> My reading is that 'aesthetics' belong to both spheres. In Plato,
> 'esthetics' are the given -- as a treatise, Plato is begining to take the
> concept apart, and presenting the reader with two aspects. So I would say
> that Plato regarded Ion's achievment as part of aesthetics, just not the
> whole picture.
Now I have a language problem. Please elaborate, do you mean that
Plato thought that aesthetics covers both rational and irrational
part of art making and Ion was in fact only partly succesful, as he
covered but a half of the whole?
>> ... If good and bad are contextual
> > as Erik seems to claim, it cannot substitute the divine,
> > as Socrated had proved that Ion could not tell apart good and bad art.
> Hmmm. Well, I take religion as culture, if that's any help.
No objection.
> ...I think Plato
> was using a very vague term to refer to that which is other than the
> explicit definition of 'art' in aesthetics.
I'm surprised, you are claiming that sensibility, the ability to
discriminate good and bad in art is 'explicit definition of art'???
My reading is that this discrminination is the kernel of the whole first
part.
I understand why Erik suggested the social context.
> > In his weltanshau the human mind is a tabula rasa to be written by
> > cultural imprints. If 'good' is not universal and absolute, that
> > is built in in every human mind, it must be
> > learned (my paraphrase). No third choice.
>
> This is a little presumptuous of you, Lauri.
My apologies, I was mislead by your statement 'no third choice'.
> I actually believe we come
> into the world with some instinctive behaviors.
Well, then we have to analyse the possibility of instinctive
behaviour in this treatise, too. Looking forward to it.
( But it's interesting that you see my view as
> 'Weltanschauung' considering Freud's view that this ideology was devoid of
> any emotional content. Have you ever witnessed 'mass hysteria?' This
> seems to me to be a fine example of culture at work on the emotional
> frontiers.
I have not the slightest Idea how Sigmund abused the term. For me
it was an emergency, I didn't know the expression 'world wiew'
in English :-) .)
<...>
One more apology for confusing with Paul.
<...>
> > When denying the divine, as we all seem to do, a treatise of Ion
> > is not complete without new explanation.
> > * * *
>
> Well, this would only be true if you have a more explicit idea of what the
> 'divine' is than Plato.
I'm slowly approaching that.
> Again, I believe that Plato was merely separating
> out 'art' from the full picture of aesthics, and calling what was left
> 'divine.'
>
> I have no problem with this. But this doesn't mean I can't substitute
> 'cultural context' for 'divine.'
When I try to read 'cultural context inspiration' chaining from muses
to the audience, I feel like I have one more language problem.
Please Erik, overstrike the previous chapter. After a quiet smoke
a thought came into my mind that maybe you mean something like:
After separating Ion's performance from art, cultural context
was left. So Ion's fame was the same as pop stars. No art but
mass hysteria.
That matches well with the last paragraph of the dialog, but I see
the sideline about Tynnichus very contradictory.
Anyway Erik, I am glad you introduced Ion to us. These discussions
work wonders to my sclerosis.
Now is time to consider Mark's position.
- lauri
mesken
But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
mesken
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
No, I was puzzled because there was a _new_ feeling introduced to me
which I didn't have before in this magnitude. It was never encountered
before ("I didn't recognize myself" is a typical phrase when someone
has a violent emotional reaction which is completely unfamiliar). It
didn't fitted anywhere in my self image which is not a cultural
product but a product of *all* experiences I had. Certainly later on
there will be pressure on the self image due to the desire of being
accepted by society and the importance of personal ethics and long
term goals but at that age they were hardly an influence on my self
image.
Artists, scientists and sports people are often non conforming. That's
why they're so efficient. They don't try to please both themselves and
all other people at the same time.
Your mentioning of language (which is only cultural to a limited
degree BTW) is noted, "1984" is a nice example. But I already
mentioned in another thread that the "voice in your head" is only an
epiphenomenon. It's not the real thing, only a report of what actually
already happened in your mind.
"This sentence is not true"
Did you crash? I guess not. The formal system of language is not fully
consistent with reality. Take a step back and look at all languages.
Many linguistics have done so. All human languages are actually the
same. Chimps can learn our language as well (ASL) even though they
don't speak. They can learn to understand our spoken language.
Language is a late addition, it's a product of our neocortical ability
to think purely symbolical. It's quite efficient.
I'm an individual just like anyone else. But we are individuals that
need to adapt to both our own desires/goals and our environment. The
fact that we are changed by our environment doesn't mean we're a
product of our environment. All lifeforms are based on sustaining
homeostasis, we change our outsides to keep that what is inside the
same.
The same with language: the words and grammar are different
intercultural but the expressions are still the same. We categorize
actions, objects, relations, time, quantities, etc. These things are
the terms of our perceptual system. We can only communicate about what
we can perceive and that perceptual system is innate. Anything after
that is in terms of the innate system. We don't have symbols which
don't relate to anything which can't be expressed in terms of our
perceptual system.
That's my point "back to nature". Everything humans do and make is
because of their biological make up. Culture is a product of humans,
not vice versa. Art makes use of the tools of culture but it will
always aim to moving people and people cannot be moved by anything
which wasn't already "part of the system".
Love, hate, hunger, friendship, fear, puzzlement, etc. etc. These
things are in us right from the start. We learn about them when we
experience them. We express them by studying and using these
experiences (what makes me experience love, what anger? etc.). Art
presents us with ideas about feelings in order to move us, they are
expressions of feelings and thus sensibility. These ideas are the
result of experiences with our own feelings and part of these
experiences are cultural. The idea is conveyed in a language, visual,
verbal, musical, etc.
But simply expressing in this language is not the goal of the artist.
The goal is to evoke a certain response else art is useless as art.
There's nothing cultural about feelings. Feelings are the internal
companions of external stimuli but we need the external stimuli to
depict these feelings by realizing which stimuli actually arouse
certain feelings.
>> What were the visual ideas that triggered this feeling in me? What
>> other ideas where triggered by these visual ideas which also triggered
>> this feeling?
>>
>> After more than 25 years I've a pretty good idea about them (it
>> actually boiled down to postures, expressions, virtual surfaces,
>> volumes, etc. I can write a book about it but it's easier to paint
>> them :-)
>>
>> All these ideas don't come from culture, they come from experience. I
>> execute them by means and methods of culture, that is true.
>
>I would argue this, but I know that there's always an expense involved. In this case it would see as if I were
>denigrating whatever view you have as yourself as an individual. I wouldn't do this. My argument operates on a
>more abstract level. And that is that the ideology of individualism we have is a product of culture, and varies
>greatly across cultural frontiers. This is a fine point, but I think an important one. I see myself as an
>individual, for example, even though I have come to learn and accept that culture is at play in this. So it all
>boils down to a question of values. To wit: if I have a thought that I think is both creative and original, and
>then discover that others have had the same thought, and indeed this thought circulates in my culture (maybe
>rarely, but nevertheless there), then does this devalue the thought? My honest answer is that there was a time
>when it did, sometimes dramatically devaluating it to the degree that I became depressed. But that concern seems
>to have slipped away. I don't think it does devalue it any longer, according to the way I have things measured
>up. In fact, in these times of my life when I discover that a thought that I thought was original is in fact
>shared and circulated, I find it cool - and very interesting, almost delightful.
>
If there are no individuals then who is it reacting to culture?
Culture can't react to itself. Without us there's no culture. Culture
is like a book and we're the one reading it. We're affected by it,
that's true. But we're only affected by it because we have emotions
and feelings. These are present in a lot of animals, they're part of
nature, not of that human invention called culture.
Culture is the product of humans. It's an important product because it
allows us to think as one to some degree, to enhance our knowledge by
learning from carefully crafted ideas conveyed in a language which is
also one of culture's traits. But it's all made by humans and therefor
in terms of our being.
Certainly, being exposed to an equal cultural environment yields ideas
alike in different people. But this is not because culture is such a
powerfull thing but because culture relates to humans and the same
humans sharing experiences alike will think more or less alike. But
again: this isn't because of culture but because people are all alike
and have the same experiences. Pain is always bad, hunger is always
bad, sex is good, food is good, fresh air is good, etc. The more
complex ideas are not higher, they're only composed of more innate
ideas at a more symbolic level like "freedom" or "justice", etc.
>> So, what happens? The firm base of the feet is gone, the whole system
>> is unbalanced, the bulky mass of the body tries with violent movement
>> to restore its upright position but to no avail since the feet are
>> shooting away over virtual surfaces which can never yield a body
>> position in balance. Actually the body is such that it never could be
>> in balance (huge breasts and butt which state: the gravity center of
>> all of this is well outside the body). The legs are not strong, they
>> either appear as made out of jelly or a bunch of sticks which are
>> wobbly and weak in knees, hips and ankles. They are no longer the
>> mighty columns which keeps our bodies upright, they're the very things
>> in which we trusted but only produce a fall from much greater height.
>> In a way they betray us.
>
>Undeniably you could assemble these images into unique examples and it would be a testimony to you standing as an
>artist. I have no quarrel with that. But the images themselves are in circulation in our society. What is the
>cultural discourse on women's spiked heels anyway? These wouldn't be available for your artistic toolbox in the
>first place if the ideas of imbalance, vulnerability, sexual power relationships did not circulate. And what is
>the connection between that between Chinese foot binding, and even sewing pebbles into women't feet to validate
>power of one human individual over another. But now you've got me wondering if the spindley legged elephants in
>Dali's works are related.
>
Yes, almost all roller skates do have high heels to get more effect
and I wouldn't come up with these images if I wouldn't have seen it
both of them. I do assemble images into paintings, that is very true.
And these images are part of culture (else I should invent the wheel,
think about using it under feet, etc. etc.)
Some images are so powerfull within a culture that they have become
symbols (like the high heel in western cultures).
But you're making a thinking error while at the same time giving
interculturally equivalent ideas (foot binding, high heels) which I
mention in my other post.
Ideas of imbalance, vulnerability and sexual power relationships do
indeed circulate in culture and they're coupled to symbols. But they
only circulate in culture because these symbols come from images
giving us these ideas. And these ideas only circulate in culture
because they are our ideas. They are attributions of our feelings and
perceptions. They don't exist outside the human (or closely
compatible) system.
Half of our neurons is devoted to orchestrating our body movements in
order to maintain balance, both dynamically and static. _We_ are the
one who made the ideas about balance because we're aware of it coupled
to perception and it is us who get these ideas looking at images. All
what culture does is getting good and general ideas. Balance is a part
of us, not of culture. The same goes for vulnerability and sexual
power relationships and to any other idea in culture.
Science and math are also part of culture (all non-material property
of people like language, art, science, etc. is culture, doesn't mean
it's not in need of material carriers ofcourse)
Suppose now that science proved that a cone placed upright on its top
is the most balanced construction. What would this mean? It would mean
science need a revision coz it's wrong. It needs to be consistent with
how *we* experience the world for, to us, this is the truth.
>> To what avail? Well, to express helplesness and falling ofcourse but
>> also as the source of braveness, frustration, hidden masochism, etc.
>> The predator/hunter in all of us immediately spots an opportunity
>> which recquires immediate action. At the same time we get feelings of
>> protection, we also want to help but at the same time we want to make
>> her trip. The clash of these feelings give a strong effect, are we
>> going to be saints or sinners?
>
>Have you read much of Georges Bataille? It seems to me you would find his work very compelling. His 'mission in
>life' seems to have been trying to understand his pornographic impulses. He did unravel a lot, but maybe not
>completely. At any rate it is clear that he didn't want his pornography to be 'acceptable' by any standard -- he
>sought and appreciated punishment for his transgressions. It apperently began out of a relationship to his
>father, who was dying of syphillis over a long period of time. "The Story of the Eye" relates to the appearance
>of his father's eyes as his brain was turning to mush, which horrified the young Bataille. But I think Bataille
>is a good example to our discussion on aesthetics, if for no other reason than his accomplishment of making a
>pornography that transgressed the boundaries of pornography itself. He was able to do this, I think, because he
>took theory seriously, and rigorously, and used it as a tool to push the envelop, so to speak. Originality? Yes,
>I think so, but to a degree -- I think the he and a few others engaged in the project of resurrecting de Sade
>because they wanted to create a new discourse -- I think Bataille found that many of his ideas that he discovered
>independently were verified by de Sade, and the interplay of an idea and a paradigm combined into the discourse
>that we are familiar with today.
>
I definately need to read Bataille, I did read lots of De Sade however
(how reason works to give the green light to anything which is bad,
fascinating stuff)
Certainly, the artist want to understand his/her impulses. I already
noted this by telling that the artist needs to understand what the
ideas are that actually affect him/her. Seems Bataille had an internal
clash (always food for thought) by realizing that he had these
pornographic impulses and at the same time realizing he couldn't
accept this because he wanted to be acceptable by society (which
didn't approve of these impulses). He sought redemption by punishment
and in this way he felt good about giving in to his impulses (his
sexual desires satisfied) and then he felt good about being punished
because this redeemed him and made him feeling accepted again.
He found a way to solve the discrepancy between two conflicting
drives. The same goes for me. I know what evokes my sexual lust and
sadistic urges but I also don't want to hurt anyone. This I solved by
having my object of lust "willingly bringing it up to herself". So,
actually, I get the green light. I won't hurt her, she wants me to do
the things I had in mind for her. This ofcourse will make me love her
and she will love me for what I am. Equilibrium has restored in my
whole system again and everything is good again :-)
>> What is the unfortunate subject? Well, a well crafted beautifull woman
>> whose whole body expresses fertility (I always make them as round as
>> aesthetically possible, there's no straight edge ever to be seen). The
>> body is warm and vulnerable. She's prey and I'm the hunter. There's
>> opportunity coz she can't get away. But she does this all to herself,
>> I'm merely someone who just happened to see this. While she looks
>> angrily at me because I see her like this, she's also only clothed in
>> a white shirt which she can hardly use (or wants to use) to hide that
>> what gets me up (yukyuk ;-) Her body expresses involuntary expressions
>> of sexual arousement while her mind tries to deny them. As a matter of
>> fact: she seduces me willingly to play the role of caveman. She plays
>> a sex game and wants me to play by doing what I'm good at, letting the
>> predator out (RAAAAOOW)
>
>And you deny that this isn't social?
>
This is social indeed (and this was the whole idea) but only because
she wants it. In the real world she wouldn't want it (well, there
might be a few but I didn't meet them :-)
>> Any inhibitions I will have against behaving this way are in fact
>> eliminated by her. A man wants to rape and a man wants to take
>> advantage of his greater strength and to torture but at the same time
>> a man also wants to protect, to be good (this isn't a learned thing,
>> this is an innate thing). What's the difference between rape and
>> making love? Well, the first one is bad because you don't want to hurt
>> anyone by doing something they don't want you to do, the second one is
>> good because now you're allowed to do these things you always wanted
>> to do and you're pleasing another one with it as well. Rape is
>> unnatural and against the very nature of humans just like killing,
>> hurting, etc. Making love is OTOH very natural.
>
>What you are referencing here are called sexual power relationships -- very cultural. Probably the lowest common
>denominator in culture are sexual relationships.
>
Yes, ofcourse. And that's why they're so powerfull. Like eating,
protecting, etc. they're basic urges of humans and that's why they're
so prominent in culture. Any culture which is for some reason not
relating to the human nature is doomed. Religion can't make the sex
drive of humans disappear. It will turn into other behaviour and very
often (as in the USA can be seen by the many "lust killers") it will
turn totally wrong. Sex behaviour will turn in such a way that it is
in line again with an unnatural culture. But it's still the very same
sexual behaviour but now seen as "punishment" for some invented reason
A lustfull woman punished for her "sin" by a lustfull man who actually
twisted in himself the idea that he's carrying out God's Will by
raping and killing her. He can't think he's actually giving in to his
sexual desires. He thinks he's doing something good. But only his mind
made the effort to make it _appear_ to him as good for reason needed
to both satisfy the imposed unnatural rules (in order to be acepted
within his society) AND his sexual drive which is forbidden to
satisfy. The sexual drive only wants him to perform certain behaviour
but the unnatural rules forbid that he thinks of it as sex and the
woman of his desire makes him mad because she wants him to make sin.
>> In my paintings women are strong, not ashamed of their body and
>> sexuality but using it, and show their willingness very subtle,
>> challenging the onlooker to give in to their darker feelings. Very
>> much like the real world actually :-) They want you and know how to
>> get you.
>
>But they aren't paintings of women at all, Paul. They certainly are images representing ideas about women, but
>don't confuse the map with the territory, as the General Semantics crowd used to say.
>
Ofcourse I realize this. They're wishfull thinking. A sublimation of
my sexual desire, not a depiction of the real thing. Only a depiction
of how part of me sees women (or wants to see women) but in the whole
it has only a partial vote (which can be bigger by actually seeing
women which are closer to the ideal, my mother or sister for example
is a complete mismatch, I don't feel anything sexual if I watch them
because my long experiences with them weren't sexual)
Crumb is certainly quite handy :-)
About the court, I already gave the example above: men not realizing
that they were actually the ones doing the crime. They tricked
themselves into thinking their behaviour is excusable or even good in
severe cases. Unknowingly they might even spread their ideas because
some men having the same urges which can't be satisfied for reason of
ethics, or whatever, see these ideas as great solutions and don't want
to invalidate it because they want to use it themselves. Unfortunately
they're often not aware of it for reason has a way to negotiate a
truce between conflicting feelings and we, in the west, like to listen
to this voice of reason more than those of emotions.
This isn't culture, this is Freud and Goleman :-) Psychology might be
part of culture but only because it "works". How about a psychology
that excuses rape? Or religion that puts the blame onto women? They
exist unfortunately. They're responses to unnatural culture. To some
degree our culture is also unnatural (and indeed it's very male
centered, feminists behaving like men for example are not feminists at
all, they just wholeheartedly accept male ideas which are very
powerfull in western culture)
But you did make me think about my own ideas (it's always good to have
a clash in ideas, you need to really deepen your own ideas and to
fully understand them).
When I said: "My women are _women_" I was wrong. I don't
overexaggerate their differences with men. I overexaggerate the sexual
signals because my women are objects of my lust in this case. Even
though certainly not all of my women are depicted to be objects of
lust I wasn't aware that my _women_ are.
I could have easily know this (but wasn't aware of it until you said
that my women weren't women at all) when I made a sketch for an
upcoming painting in which there're 3 women. One of them is an object
of my lust (rendered with curves, being helpless and beautifull
according to my sexual desires, wearing a skirt, high heeled roller
skates, etc.) But the other two are women standing against a wall
(grounded with color and posture and total conical composition into a
firm balance with the background). They are looking at the roller
skating girl with my sadistic look, up to no good, but not because of
sexual desire but only to torment and tease.The whole composition is
actually such that to finish the Gestallt of the virtual cone, one of
the women need to extend her leg which is positioned with its feet
against the wall. If this motion has carried out the woman will
actually make the unfortunate girl trip which already is struggling to
keep upright, she's a cone as well but one that's wobbly and with the
top down. When this cone is finished towards the proper Gestallt she's
actually in the position to get tripped (amazing, but it never starts
with this perceptual stuff, I get those ideas in the process)
These mean women don't look like the girl, they don't have balloon
breast which throws them off balance. They were trousers, shirts, look
like conveniently clothed women, no high heels but "all-stars". They
don't have a blush and overexaggerated female skin color. They look
very realistic. I think this is because I was thinking of them in
terms of myself and made them real humans.
>> As a matter of fact, I departure a lot from cultural aesthetics. I
>> only aim to get it working for me. Ofcourse, I thank culture for the
>> insights it gave me about the visual system, my brushes and paint, the
>> methods with which I can create depth, etc. But these are merely tools
>> at my disposal to make a work which pleases me. How do I create
>> movement on a static picture? I can only rely upon my own ideas about
>> movement (and in such a case I fire with all cylinders, I get sublimal
>> stuff, tension, Gestallt, etc. all to work on this very hard subject)
>
>But you know, the "Bad Art" of the late 70s was another way to draw attention to the 'cultural aesthetic' so it
>wasn't really a departure. It merely defined the force of the margins - what is 'art' if it isn't this or that.
>
Yes, it was a really interesting period but it was meta art. Art about
art. It worked outside the system.
>>
>> You can certainly put it that way. Emotions tell us what is good or
>> bad (in categories, there's not a single good and a single bad).
>
>But you have to keep in mind that in my point of view, 'emotions' are also productions of culture. But it's a
>complex argument to make, especially considering that 'emotions' are generally viewed as part and parcel of the
>private sphere. But here is an example of where I would argue against the tabula rasa idea, I think we are born
>with an emotional structure which may have a long biological history -- for example the fundamental 'pleasure
>pain' response of the single celled organism. The linguist Julia Kristeva has some pretty interesting ideas
>about this (which are built primarily on Freud's theories) and they involve investigations of the function of the
>'signifier' in semiosis. But here's where the original emotional content departs from 'instinct' or 'original
>equipment' that we are born with -- that is, the raw experience of emotion is subjected to semioses and is
>invested with 'meaning.' Part of ego formation is gaining the experience of emotions as meaning structures,
>which provides the space for the intervention of culture on our emotional lives. The emotional experience of
>gestation and early infancy is remembered only in vague traces. Like I have a very vague and hazy memory of
>crying in my crib, looking at the wall paper, whenever I stand on my head in the water and water runs up my nose
>and creates that sort of pain which I first experienced in the crib.
>
That what triggers emotions in the first place (and feelings,
sensations, etc. all internal events) is innate. But the system
expands to getting sensitive to other stimuli. It learns and has its
own cognitive structure. You see this as a prove that culture makes
emotions but this is simply untrue for emotions can only build upon
what was already there. We _learn_ that something is painfull and will
be afraid of the dentist (this certainly isn't an innate response:
fear for the dentist). But this cultural fear (it is a cultural fear)
is based upon the very thing of pain which is innate. We learn to give
meaning to observations in terms of our response to them.
So, when you say that emotions are products of culture then you're
wrong for the emotions were already there. But we learn ideas about
these emotions (like fear for the dentist). Fundamentally and in
nature these emotions are not the product of culture. But we use ideas
which are for a part given by culture to express these emotions.
This is actually what we're argueing about in my opinion.
You rightfully see that ideas which evoke responses are for a part
cultural ideas. I also mentioned that the artist uses methods and
means of a culture. I also said that sensibility is mostly the
awareness of feelings and emotions, sensations, etc. That pain is bad
is innate, recognizing things that will hurt is not, that is learned
by experience. A baby touching fire for example will soon learn that
fire means pain (pain is coupled to this). We will have ideas about
fire given to us by the perceptual system's description of it (that it
is red, waving motion, heat, etc.)
This isn't culture, fire has always been fire and always been
perceived in the same terms. Culture adopts these ideas of fire as
ideas about pain.
Suppose there're cultures without fire. They won't couple an unknown
thing to pain. If we want to make them clear that it actually is about
pain then we must show the reaction to it and emotional facial
expressions are universal fortunately simply because of the
physiological make up of humans.
So: cultural ideas are only valid because we can show how these ideas
make us feel. Some ideas are accompanied by powerfull symbols which we
all came to recognize for what they stand for: the swastika for
example stands for evil in our culture (boedhists have a different
opinion about that). But all ideas and all accompanying symbols refer
back to our own being. To pain, to love, to satisfaction, to balance,
to grouping, etc.
Culture is an accumalation of ideas which were all accepted and are
thus universal intracultural. There're means of communication like the
spoken language but they are used in art to express sensibility, to
move the audience.
The goal of a piece of art cannot be found in culture, only in the
affected human. It is carried partly by cultural ideas but the goal is
not merely to give good examples of these ideas but to use them to
evoke a response.
>> So, the carriers of ideas are partly cultural (facial expressions
>> conveying emotion are not cultural for example, they're universal to
>> humans) but the way in which these ideas are orchestrated serve to
>> elicit a certain emotional response. This response is individual and
>> thus the way in which means and methods of culture are being used
>> depends on the individual.
>
>In my mind there is an important difference in saying that the 'circulation of ideas' IS culture," than saying
>the "the carriers of ideas are [partly] cultural." It's simply because the latter leaves any understandable
>notion of what culture is hanging. The recent discoveries about the extendability of facial expressions is very
>interesting. But you know, in conjunction there is also modern theories springing forth from DNA research which
>is painting a picture of a very young humanity - even a new category of "beaviorally modern Homo Sapiens" who
>migrated out of Africa 40,000 years ago to overlay (and perhaps replace) an older population of "anatomically
>modern Homo Sapiens." You could extend this idea that apparently universal traits such as facial preference
>reflect an older cultural standard and consensus. So you see, shared values don't necesssarily work against the
>idea of culture's role in shaping our thinking. What seems evident to me is that 'culture' is a very ancient
>thing that developed in species long before the advent of our species.
>
How do americans say this? Way out in the left field or something? (it
has something to do with rugby I believe :-)
You're redefining culture by extending it with biological evolution.
Facial expressions a learned ability coming from culture? What else?
Reflexes? Growth? Proteins manufacturing? Amino acids as a cultural
idea?
Undoubtly culture is subject to the very same mechanisms all life is
subject to but this doesn't mean culture is the producer of life.
Facial expressions are a way of conveying emotions to others. Some
fish change their color, cells exchange chemicals to emit their state.
It's very old. The muscles of the face are directly linked to the
blood and nerve networks of the limbic system. If you make a happy
face than you immediately get the happy feeling (there're even
succesfull laugh therapies, they're amazing). Before we had this fancy
neo cortex we already had facial expressions (ancestors of 100s of
million years ago). The neo cortex has also a limited control over
these emotion expressing stuff (but not the pupil or blush, etc.).
This is the part of the brain that "did" culture, the sharing of
abstract ideas about feelings for example.
We even understand the emotional state of the much older reptiles even
though they don't have facial expressions they still show universal
emotional behaviour. If a big reptile rushes at me with its head in
defensive position and its jaws ready to bite then I don't need
culture to know what it means. It's immediately clear to me it is
attacking me because I have this very same emotional behaviour as well
buried deep down in my R complex.
>> Okay, so far, I'll quickly do some shopping now and go to a Tiberian
>> Sun session (with 7 others), I'll reply to your other post later on
>
>Ah ha. So the Dutch have reinvented the Sun. Excellent.
>
It's great, it's a network game in which we innihilate each other
(socially acceptable sublimation of aggressive impulses you know)
Until now I've won all of them. Those guys really need to read "the
art of war" by Sun Tze. "It's not fair" isn't in my dictionary of
warfare ;-)
Lauri Levanto
he does not appreciate much the divine inspiration. It is enough for
this purpose to note that he ia acquainted with it, he has observed its
existence. At those moments an artist is out of his senses,
possessed, in a trance.
I think he reveals in a sideline something we should not ignore.
"A convincing proof of what I say is the case of Tynnichus, who
had never composed a single poem in his life that could deserve any
mention, and then produced the paean,...almost the finest song we have,
simply - as he says himself - "an invention of the muses".
( A sidenote to Erik:"...we should not wawer or doubt that these fine
poems are not human or work of men". The modernist myth of an
artistic genius and hero seems to have very long roots. It makes me
wonder if it might be an observation and not myth at all.)
As I read 'Art of poetry/music' is the rational treatise of the subject,
while the 'divine' is the irrational. As a philosopher Plato
sets this irrational subordinate, to the 'others' category, like an
anthropologist classifies unidentified objects as 'cult object'.
Let us put this divine aside for a while, and concentrate to other key
term 'inspiration'. The metaphora of magnetic rings describes
how this inspiration can spread from man to man. Plato makes it
look like mass hysteria. Clearly Erik is on track in saying this is a
process.
Muses -> Homer -> Ion -> audience and the jury of the contest.
between Ion and the audience we can easily imagine, was an emotional
response: Wow, what a show. Ion was out of his senses like Elvis
Presley, and took his audience. All that is a social event, like I hear
Erik saying. Nothing more is needed to explain it. My question is what
makes mass hysteria possible. What happens in an individual when
he is dragged into mass hysteria.
Between Homer and Ion there is the text, a piece of art. I have been
told that semiotics say Homer used socially defined symbols - in the
guidance of his art and/or divine inspiration - in such a way
that Ion's memories, experiences associated so vividly he got moved.
Even I can see that.
My question is, isn't this formalism?
At least in theory, and semiotics is not much but a theory. A perfect
semiotician can without hesitation point the symbols, or assemblies
of symbols, that evoke the expected association. Therefore I regard Erik
as formalist. Somewhere he even said that after an artwork is launched
into markets, it is very much on its own. The creation process
does not count anymore. What is left is form.
Mark, who claims to be a formalist, is for me another doubtful case.
He claims that we can see if an artwork is good or bad. So does
Plato:" What is good, and what is not good, do we need anybody to tell
us that" (Phaedrus). Mark explains this that he is seeing sensibility,
the thinking of the artist. Like Erik, I do not believe we can see it
in a painting. But I believe that Mark can see it beyond the painting.
How is it possible if it is not encrypted in signs and symbols?
First we do have some intrinsic sense of beauty. Surprisingly few people
speak of ugly sunsets, and quite commonly baby animals are held cute.
This sense is not at all absolute, What we appreciate as female beauty
is culturally variable, from Rubens to Twiggy. That there exists
female beauty may not be socially conditioned.
Secondly, we have a sense called empathy. An ability to feel - in
some extent - what someone else feels. I think this sense makes
mass hysteria possible, and also it made possible to Homer to
anticipate the reactions of Ion, and set his words properly.
Within art I think this empathy is what Mark calls sensitivity.
Both in making and in experiencing artworks. This is how I read
the divine madness of Homer and Tynnichus.
- lauri
Erik A. Mattila
Yes, it's long and I'm growing weary. Lauri is correct - it's departing
from Ion dramatically.
I agree with your asssessment of what we are arguing about, on a
fundamental level.
If I wanted to continue, I would have to lay the cards on the table on
what I mean by 'culture' and then more very long threads debating that.
It's rather complex.
But I'll say this much about it. I sense that you are using the term
'culture' as if it were a 'thing' which generates cause and effect
phenomena. I don't use the term this way. In fact, in my usage
'culture' is a term used to label the behavioral matrix in a social
system - so 'human culture' and 'bacteria culture' in a petrie dish
share some affinity. So culture couldn't be held accountable for
behavior -- it's more a matter that behavior is called 'culture.' But
that's just the tip of the ice berg. But my views are largely
reflections of what I learned by studying the modern social sciences,
and they owe a lot to Barthes, Foucault, Benjamin, Habermas, Deleuze &
Guitari, Gremais, Jakobsen, Todorov - oh, shit, the list goes on and
on. But the funny thing is that I am also very influenced by a fellow
who seems to be left out of the discourses of the above, and that is
Ernst Cassirer. I think it was Cassirer who made the ideas expressed by
a lot of social scientists feasible to me, in his "Philosophy of
Symbolic Forms." Without some the concepts he provided, I couldn't
conceive of 'culture' operating on a very opaque level in daily life,
shaping how we relate to one another, how we think, and how we see the
world.
Think of this, just as a concept. A once-removed Dutchman (I didn't
know Rutger Haeur was Dutch, by the way, I thought he was German), the
South African doctor who studied termites and baboons - perhaps the
first serious work in what became 'animal behaviorism' - Eugene Marias,
argued a white ant colony (termite) should be concieved as a single
organism, and not a collective. An organism whose 'body' was the
architecture of the colony and the terrain of it's feeding area.
Think of the human individual in the same way - the single organism
which is a compilation of cells, many or which have an independant
existance, all organized to work in concert to fulfill the destiny of
the 'meta-organism.' The conception of human culture as an organism is
just one more click up on this sort of hierarchy of cooperative
biology. Of course if we are heavily invested in the ideology of
individualism, such an image can make us shudder. (like the human
electric batteries in "Matrix"). And the idea evokes images of our
negative utopian concepts - the society of total control and domination
- the managed, corporate society conceivd by Orwell and Huxley. But the
idea doesn't have to be conceived this way. It's merely a matter of
locating many of our ideas about 'the human' in society and culture,
rather than in the single cell in the system.
Anyway, that's about all the energy I have at this point. I actually
woke up this morning with a short story in my head, "The Teacher Fish"
(I always have to think of the title first, then try to invent a story
to fit it) so I want to get it down on (cyber) paper before I lose it.
Best regards,
Erik
Alison A Raimes
<usu...@euronet.nl> writes
>Oh my, and to think I was complaining about length ;-)
>
>But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
>with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
I am just soooooooooooooo busy with exhibitions and moving house at the
same time ! Its a good feeling when the paintings suddenly start to
sell. And I just met a fascinating Brazilian artists elsewhere in Cyber
who merits some intense responses because he is writing his posts at
three in the morning ! Contemporary Brazilian art - now there is a
fascinating subject. He and Erik would get on well.
Signing off for a few weeks then.
Don't eat too many mince pies will you !
Cheers !
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
mark webber
Hi Lauri,
On Sun, 19 Dec 1999, Lauri Levanto wrote:
(snip)
> Between Homer and Ion there is the text, a piece of art. I have been
> told that semiotics say Homer used socially defined symbols - in the
> guidance of his art and/or divine inspiration - in such a way
> that Ion's memories, experiences associated so vividly he got moved.
> Even I can see that.
>
> My question is, isn't this formalism?
By "socially defined symbols" do you mean "words"? If not, what do you
mean - or what do semioticians mean? I'm hoping we are talking about
words. I'm wishing we could could call them that.
In the interest of crossing language barriers, may I try to simplify the
above statement? (Naturally, changing the elements of a text will alter
its meaning, but I'm going to risk the wrath and chaos.)
So between Homer an Ion there is a work of art (a composition) - one which
already exists in its own right, but one which will be performed by Ion,
thereby creating a new experience - whether we want to call it a seperate
work of art or merely a performance of one could be debated endlessly,
until one remembers that the *only* law of the land is that It's Art If
Anyone Calls It So.
(Henceforth: IAIACIS, pronounced "eye yi sis")
So we won't debate that.
Then Lauri goes on to say: (I paraphrase)
Semioticians say Homer used "words" (cultural inventions, conventions)
*in such a way* as to stimulate Ion to moving, successful performance.
To answer your question, Lauri, I would say that because you use the
phrase "in such a way" - that is the "how" and not the "what" - the answer
is yes. Formalism.
Inotherwords, it is the word choices and their arrangements which make
Homer successful enough to move Ion; perhaps to elicit a wonderful
performance from him.
(If semiotics focuses on identifying the character and nature of the
"what", the words, that is fine. It intrigues me that this notion that
words are social/cultural constructs becomes more important to some people
than what the words are doing - or more specifically, "how" they are
used.)
For me an image is conjured of six or eight highly intelligent, well-read,
Frenchmen standing around a Watteau in the Louvre, focusing on the
cultural constructs exhibited in the content and oblivious to the plain
and simple fact that it is also a demonstration of a sensibility, a
sensibility as wonderful as Homer's.
Again, I have no interest in trying to alert these or any other brand of
philistine to what they are missing. They are engaged in an activity which
fascinates them - just as a crowd of American illiterati gathered around
the Mona Lisa is engaged in an activity which fascinates them. The name of
this particular activity could be "Masterpiece Bagging" or "sight seeing".
I will simply call it "Tourism."
I have no quarrel; neither have I any interest. But both of these groups,
to me, are pedestrian in that they miss the very thing about the Watteau
and the da Vinci for which the social construct "art" was invented.
>
> Mark, who claims to be a formalist, is for me another doubtful case.
> He claims that we can see if an artwork is good or bad.
With experience, yes. The experience is there. It happens.
> So does
> Plato:" What is good, and what is not good, do we need anybody to tell
> us that" (Phaedrus). Mark explains this that he is seeing sensibility,
> the thinking of the artist.
This is insufficient explanation. There is great sensibility and weak
sensibility. There is great sensibility expressed well, and not expressed
well.
> Like Erik, I do not believe we can see it in a painting.
If you can see color choices, altering of shapes, design, you are seeing
the sesnibility at work. There is no mystery, no magic.
> But I believe that Mark can see it beyond the painting.
What - in biography? millieu? context? before Form? not bloody likely.
> How is it possible if it is not encrypted in signs and symbols?
Signs and symbols are read as content. As soon as one "interprets" a sign
or symbol one is engaged with the content, the subject matter - what
it is that is depicted.
Form deals with how it is depicted.
> Within art I think this empathy is what Mark calls sensitivity.
I haven't been discussing sensi*tivity* - I've been discussing
sensi*bility* - however, I do believe that a particular type of empathy or
sensisitivity, on the part of the *viewer*, allows him access to the
sensibility of the *artist* and I think this particular type of empathy in
most cases needs to be learned or at least nurtured.
I case I miss any or all of you, Very Happy Holidays!
Mark
Lauri Levanto
>
> Oh my, and to think I was complaining about length ;-)
>
> But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
> with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
Thanks Paul,
for your vivid posting. Erik seems to feel tired to this thread.
I don't blame him. If one defends the same position over and over again,
it feels futile.
There is no way to determine if culture or individual is a fundamental
concept. There are plenty of phenomena one can describe on
both levels. It is a pragmatic decision to *leave out* the phenomena on
the other level.
On a social level it easy to explain *why* people play chess,
but you have to go down to psychological level to understand *how*
people play chess. Both questions are justified. The other way round
I can easily see lots of cultural impact in *how* A paints, but I meet
difficulties in understanding on cultural level *why* she paints,
in spite of all economical pressure and social disapproval from
her family.
My background is mainly in psychology and fysiology, so I enjoyed
your text and had none or few objections.
Erik had the metaphora of petri disc versus in vivo. Likewise one
can study woods in the forestry level and never get and idea what
happens, when birch-trees turn yellow in autumn. It seems like
a cultural pattern, a rite maybe.
BTW termite ants. When a beehive moves to a new nest, the process
is best understood as a decision made by a neural network of
the social body of worker bees. There is however no need to stop there.
We may step up and see the whole earth as a single body, Gaia.
What you see there is but homeostasis. Suddenly the human culture,
Plato included, is but an influensa, a temporary discomfort. It will
go over.
- lauri
mesken
<ali...@see.signature.for.address> wrote:
>In article <wChdOAddv6BQK=o39a17t...@4ax.com>, mesken
><usu...@euronet.nl> writes
>>Oh my, and to think I was complaining about length ;-)
>>
>>But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
>>with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
>
>
>I am just soooooooooooooo busy with exhibitions and moving house at the
>same time ! Its a good feeling when the paintings suddenly start to
>sell. And I just met a fascinating Brazilian artists elsewhere in Cyber
>who merits some intense responses because he is writing his posts at
>three in the morning ! Contemporary Brazilian art - now there is a
>fascinating subject. He and Erik would get on well.
>
>Signing off for a few weeks then.
>Don't eat too many mince pies will you !
>
Ah, now I understand. I already feared you were ill or something :-)
Great to hear your art sells well. It's definitely worth it.
mesken
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>mesken wrote:
>
>> Oh my, and to think I was complaining about length ;-)
>>
>> But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
>> with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
>
>Yes, it's long and I'm growing weary. Lauri is correct - it's departing
>from Ion dramatically.
>
>I agree with your asssessment of what we are arguing about, on a
>fundamental level.
>
>If I wanted to continue, I would have to lay the cards on the table on
>what I mean by 'culture' and then more very long threads debating that.
>It's rather complex.
>
[ snip ]
Aha, now I understand what you mean by culture, the "meta pattern",
the ant colony (as discussed in Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach"),
Gaia and stuff. Holistic approach vs Reductionism.
This indeed differs from my notion of culture as property of people, a
thing indeed, even though non material.
But this holistical approach of culture isn't valid for us people to
assume and at the same time defend your point. Think about this for
instance: the behaviour of water cannot be found in a single water
molecule. The system "water" is bigger than the sum of its parts. The
same goes for the ants, the intelligence shown by the colony as a
single organism cannot be found in the ant. Likewise: our cells don't
know they're part of our body which OTOH _is_ aware of being composed
of cells.
One cannot speak about or perceive systems which are transcending that
of the human. That's why Zen will never work. So, however we discuss
culture, this culture will still be a subclass of our own being else
we can't discuss it or even have a clue about it. We can at most think
of culture as having all the properties we have ourselves but that
will only make our argument result in a draw. Culture and mankind will
be equivalent at this point but this would also mean that your
statement that sensibility is the product of culture is false, it
wouldn't be a product but a part of mankind and thus culture.
Hehehe
My statements are still true for I have made my definition of culture
as being a part and property of mankind.
... and in that barren and tortured land, in the center of destruction
stood a figure of a man. His form cut out from reality and nothing but
voidness and darkness filling it. Towering high above his latest
victim. "Aaah, do you smell that Mattila? It's a scent I know so well.
It's the smell of victory"
IWONIWONIWONIWONIWONWONWONWON
And he disapeared joyfully dancing ;-)
Erik A. Mattila
Lauri Levanto wrote:
> mesken wrote:
> >
> > Oh my, and to think I was complaining about length ;-)
> >
> > But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
> > with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
>
> Thanks Paul,
> for your vivid posting. Erik seems to feel tired to this thread.
> I don't blame him. If one defends the same position over and over again,
> it feels futile.
Yes, a bit tired of the same thing - but actually what got me feeling weary
was how much there was that hasn't been said yet that will need to be
defended. Besides, I wanted to write that short story instead - it's
coming along quite well. I have the title already, and the first chapter,
and I have no idea what is going to happen.
> There is no way to determine if culture or individual is a fundamental
> concept. There are plenty of phenomena one can describe on
> both levels. It is a pragmatic decision to *leave out* the phenomena on
> the other level.
>
> On a social level it easy to explain *why* people play chess,
> but you have to go down to psychological level to understand *how*
> people play chess. Both questions are justified. The other way round
> I can easily see lots of cultural impact in *how* A paints, but I meet
> difficulties in understanding on cultural level *why* she paints,
> in spite of all economical pressure and social disapproval from
> her family.
I can only speak for myself. I started drawing and painting at a very
early age, as an attention getting device. I mean I got a lot of positive
attention, and I needed it. It was compensation. After I outgrew those
concerns, it just became a bad habit. (he hee hee he). I think Paul's
reasons may be as ignoble as mine. But I like being part of the underbelly
of the art monster. There is no depth too low to travel.
> My background is mainly in psychology and fysiology, so I enjoyed
> your text and had none or few objections.
>
> Erik had the metaphora of petri disc versus in vivo. Likewise one
> can study woods in the forestry level and never get and idea what
> happens, when birch-trees turn yellow in autumn. It seems like
> a cultural pattern, a rite maybe.
>
> BTW termite ants. When a beehive moves to a new nest, the process
> is best understood as a decision made by a neural network of
> the social body of worker bees. There is however no need to stop there.
> We may step up and see the whole earth as a single body, Gaia.
> What you see there is but homeostasis. Suddenly the human culture,
> Plato included, is but an influensa, a temporary discomfort. It will
> go over.
>
> - lauri
Lauri, you're turning into a cynic. Would you like to borrow my fly
swatter? Fed Ex to Finland, 3 days. BTW, you're image reminded me of an
Arthur C. Clark early work - "Childhood's End." Did you ever read it?
Erik
mesken
<lauri....@nokia.com> wrote:
>mesken wrote:
>>
>> Oh my, and to think I was complaining about length ;-)
>>
>> But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
>> with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
>
>Thanks Paul,
>for your vivid posting. Erik seems to feel tired to this thread.
>I don't blame him. If one defends the same position over and over again,
>it feels futile.
>
Well, I believe I've got him now. He was a worthy opponent and he
pulled some tricks out of his sleeve but to no avail. His last line of
defense was the holistic approach but this is an invalid one for
humans to assume if it is about systems in which humans are but part.
You can't ask ants about the meta behaviour of the ant colony or asks
cells about human awareness.
>There is no way to determine if culture or individual is a fundamental
>concept. There are plenty of phenomena one can describe on
>both levels. It is a pragmatic decision to *leave out* the phenomena on
>the other level.
>
Yes, that was the problem for Erik. He made culture and mankind
equivalent concepts in the end (he can't make culture a meta system of
the human system) but this invalidated his previous statements.
>On a social level it easy to explain *why* people play chess,
>but you have to go down to psychological level to understand *how*
>people play chess. Both questions are justified. The other way round
>I can easily see lots of cultural impact in *how* A paints, but I meet
>difficulties in understanding on cultural level *why* she paints,
>in spite of all economical pressure and social disapproval from
>her family.
>
Yes, this is also my notion of culture. It has a lot of means and
methods and it is a part of the "how" (with oil paint, in linear
perspective, with sfumato, with certain symbols, etc.) but it is used
by an individual at his/her own disposal for reasons which are
personal instead of cultural.
Ofcourse culture has a certain impact on the individual and will
change the individual to some degree (but so do all other
experiences). But what exactly this impact is depends on the
individual and not upon culture.
>My background is mainly in psychology and fysiology, so I enjoyed
>your text and had none or few objections.
>
Thanks, I'm enormously interested in psychology, neurophysiology,
developmental psychology, conceptual learning and visual perception
etc. as well. It all started with programming however and now it has
become clear why artificial intelligence failed until now. We made
heuristical systems, we gave it culture in a way but we didn't give it
the possibility to develop it itself. By the inclusion of systems
(like emotions and even evolution) which were never regarded to be
part of intelligence (Socrates error in a way ;-) we're much more
succesfull.
>Erik had the metaphora of petri disc versus in vivo. Likewise one
>can study woods in the forestry level and never get and idea what
>happens, when birch-trees turn yellow in autumn. It seems like
>a cultural pattern, a rite maybe.
>
Yes, things shouldn't be observed in isolation. It evolved in a bigger
system and should be seen in that context.
>BTW termite ants. When a beehive moves to a new nest, the process
>is best understood as a decision made by a neural network of
>the social body of worker bees. There is however no need to stop there.
>We may step up and see the whole earth as a single body, Gaia.
>What you see there is but homeostasis. Suddenly the human culture,
>Plato included, is but an influensa, a temporary discomfort. It will
>go over.
>
Yes, homeostasis. All what life encompasses is directed to maintaining
it. Life doesn't stand for change, it stands for keeping things the
same. But it's not only life, everything seems to work towards
equilibrium. It's quite interesting to see how human behaviour fits
into this, how art making for example seems to be some way of
maintaining homeostasis.
Erik A. Mattila
structure, as consisting of two components - objects and relationships.
Culture is the relationship. It is the way meaning migrates from one object
to another.
Erik
mesken wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Dec 1999 08:41:19 GMT, "Erik A. Mattila"
> <emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>
> >mesken wrote:
> >
> >> Oh my, and to think I was complaining about length ;-)
> >>
> >> But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
> >> with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
> >
Lauri Levanto
just to show I'm not such a coward you blame (the rest of NG).
mark webber wrote:
>
> Hi Lauri,
>
> On Sun, 19 Dec 1999, Lauri Levanto wrote:
>
> (snip)
> > Between Homer and Ion there is the text, a piece of art. I have been
> > told that semiotics say Homer used socially defined symbols - in the
> > guidance of his art and/or divine inspiration - in such a way
> > that Ion's memories, experiences associated so vividly he got moved.
> > Even I can see that.
> >
> > My question is, isn't this formalism?
>
> By "socially defined symbols" do you mean "words"? If not, what do you
> mean - or what do semioticians mean? I'm hoping we are talking about
> words. I'm wishing we could could call them that.
No doubt it was the text of Homer. A friend of us wants to believe that
only symbols can convey meaning. To relate with nonverbal arts i used
the
word symbol here - also
> In the interest of crossing language barriers, may I try to simplify the
> above statement? (Naturally, changing the elements of a text will alter
> its meaning, but I'm going to risk the wrath and chaos.)
>
> So between Homer an Ion there is a work of art (a composition) - one which
> already exists in its own right, but one which will be performed by Ion,
> thereby creating a new experience - whether we want to call it a seperate
> work of art or merely a performance of one could be debated endlessly,
> until one remembers that the *only* law of the land is that It's Art If
> Anyone Calls It So.
>
> (Henceforth: IAIACIS, pronounced "eye yi sis")
> So we won't debate that.
yes, we focus on a piece of art, composed of elements like words, tunes,
colors shapes.
> Then Lauri goes on to say: (I paraphrase)
>
> Semioticians say Homer used "words" (cultural inventions, conventions)
> *in such a way* as to stimulate Ion to moving, successful performance.
>
> To answer your question, Lauri, I would say that because you use the
> phrase "in such a way" - that is the "how" and not the "what" - the answer
> is yes. Formalism.
The 'such a way' , the how is a slippery term, nobody has been able
to point what is exactly 'such a way'. That is why i regard it not
formalism. I think you can see the quality, but not the ingredients of
quality.
<...>
> (If semiotics focuses on identifying the character and nature of the
> "what", the words, that is fine. It intrigues me that this notion that
> words are social/cultural constructs becomes more important to some people
> than what the words are doing - or more specifically, "how" they are
> used.)
The how I see as not-formal, you can find unlimited variety in both good
and
not so good.
> For me an image is conjured of six or eight highly intelligent, well-read,
> Frenchmen standing around a Watteau in the Louvre, focusing on the
> cultural constructs exhibited in the content and oblivious to the plain
> and simple fact that it is also a demonstration of a sensibility, a
> sensibility as wonderful as Homer's.
In another response to Poul i wondered the same question, what you
exclude
of your experience if you restrict it to one level only.
> Again, I have no interest in trying to alert these or any other brand of
> philistine to what they are missing. They are engaged in an activity which
> fascinates them - just as a crowd of American illiterati gathered around
> the Mona Lisa is engaged in an activity which fascinates them. The name of
> this particular activity could be "Masterpiece Bagging" or "sight seeing".
> I will simply call it "Tourism."
To be fair, those French intellectual are little more than tourist. They
see some true,extraordinary intellectual beauty in their debate. Who
minds Watteau, he is dead anyway.
<...>
> > Mark, who claims to be a formalist, is for me another doubtful case.
> > He claims that we can see if an artwork is good or bad.
>
> With experience, yes. The experience is there. It happens.
>
> > So does
> > Plato:" What is good, and what is not good, do we need anybody to tell
> > us that" (Phaedrus). Mark explains this that he is seeing sensibility,
> > the thinking of the artist.
>
> This is insufficient explanation. There is great sensibility and weak
> sensibility. There is great sensibility expressed well, and not expressed
> well.
Of course.
> > Like Erik, I do not believe we can see it in a painting.
>
> If you can see color choices, altering of shapes, design, you are seeing
> the sesnibility at work. There is no mystery, no magic.
>
> > But I believe that Mark can see it beyond the painting.
>
> What - in biography? millieu? context? before Form? not bloody likely.
What you correctly call form is undefinable but real. You see the form
- or at least I do - before the color choices, shapes design.
The latter are intellectualisations, that take place a bit later
in our brains. That is why it is so impossible to pinpoint or analyse
the form.
At the moment you concentrate to instances, you miss the Form.
If Sokrates were questioning you "is this form - or part of it"
you would endlesly deny.
> > How is it possible if it is not encrypted in signs and symbols?
>
> Signs and symbols are read as content. As soon as one "interprets" a sign
> or symbol one is engaged with the content, the subject matter - what
> it is that is depicted.
>
> Form deals with how it is depicted.
>
> > Within art I think this empathy is what Mark calls sensitivity.
>
> I haven't been discussing sensi*tivity* - I've been discussing
> sensi*bility* - however, I do believe that a particular type of empathy or
> sensisitivity, on the part of the *viewer*, allows him access to the
> sensibility of the *artist* and I think this particular type of empathy in
> most cases needs to be learned or at least nurtured.
sorry my misleading typo. I do have language trouble with those two
terms.
I find two differencies in our thinking. For me formalism ignores Form,
and we are born with the empathy (in the sense females 'are born' with
breasts -not a social or learned structure, while well worth of
nurturing.)
> I case I miss any or all of you, Very Happy Holidays!
>
> Mark
I wish too "Merry whatever-you-folks-are-celebrating
and happy new year for those lucky that are not bound to Y2K duty.
- lauri
Marilyn
Sorry to say I only read your posts while pressing down the scroll button.
But your last sentence regarding "homeostasis" I did catch.
Homeostasis means the state of relatively staying the same,
nothing is absolutely static in the universe. In homeostasis there is a
relative state of balance or equilibrium. The word is not a synomym for
equilibrium.
So the biological creature attemps to keep things in balance
not to keep things the same (aging and the force of gravity are
only two things which prohibit this). Also you stated somewhere that
creatures
change on the outside, so as to stay the same on the inside
and then later thanked Erik because you learned so much.
Well, wouldn't "learning" be an example of an internal change,
that is increasing knowledge or changing ideas in your head?
Further more Erik uses the first person singular for his statements,
while you use the first person plural. Who all are you speaking for?
In law, when a person lies in one thing, lawyers always assume that he
will lie in other things. So although I have not read everything you have
posted, I am assuming that some of your other statements are untrue
as well, just as any mean lawyer would.
You only THINK that you won.
mesken wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Dec 1999 14:59:20 GMT, Lauri Levanto
> <lauri....@nokia.com> wrote:
>
> >mesken wrote:
> >>
> >> Oh my, and to think I was complaining about length ;-)
> >>
> >> But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
> >> with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
> >
> >Thanks Paul,
> >for your vivid posting. Erik seems to feel tired to this thread.
> >I don't blame him. If one defends the same position over and over again,
> >it feels futile.
> >
> Well, I believe I've got him now. He was a worthy opponent and he
> pulled some tricks out of his sleeve but to no avail. His last line of
> defense was the holistic approach but this is an invalid one for
> humans to assume if it is about systems in which humans are but part.
> You can't ask ants about the meta behaviour of the ant colony or asks
> cells about human awareness.
>
> >There is no way to determine if culture or individual is a fundamental
> >concept. There are plenty of phenomena one can describe on
> >both levels. It is a pragmatic decision to *leave out* the phenomena on
> >the other level.
> >
> Yes, that was the problem for Erik. He made culture and mankind
> equivalent concepts in the end (he can't make culture a meta system of
> the human system) but this invalidated his previous statements.
>
> >On a social level it easy to explain *why* people play chess,
Erik A. Mattila
> On Mon, 20 Dec 1999 14:59:20 GMT, Lauri Levanto
> <lauri....@nokia.com> wrote:
>
> >mesken wrote:
> >>
> >> Oh my, and to think I was complaining about length ;-)
> >>
> >> But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
> >> with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
> >
> >Thanks Paul,
> >for your vivid posting. Erik seems to feel tired to this thread.
> >I don't blame him. If one defends the same position over and over again,
> >it feels futile.
> >
> Well, I believe I've got him now. He was a worthy opponent and he
> pulled some tricks out of his sleeve but to no avail. His last line of
> defense was the holistic approach but this is an invalid one for
> humans to assume if it is about systems in which humans are but part.
> You can't ask ants about the meta behaviour of the ant colony or asks
> cells about human awareness.
I know it's almost christmas and I should really be contemplating the joy of
giving (in) but Santa made it clear to me that If I caved into the Brush of
Steel I would not get the kolinsky sable jockey shorts I've requested this
year (the Gucci "Rembrant" line).
I did pull some pretty good tricks. I liked the last one - citing a Dutch
authority for the termite metonomy. I thought I had you by the roller
skates on that one. (By the way, I've figured out your roller skate fetish
is culture - direct reference to "Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates." The
basic story of every Dutchman's cryptic anxieties)
By the way, if you've never read Eugene Marias I recommend him. He's a
fascinating figure. Can you read Afrikaans? (It probably would be better).
During his studies of the baboons (Chacmas) he discovered the group he was
watching went each evening, around 5 p.m. to a patch of psychodellic cacti
and imbibed, they all got stoned to the gills, every day. While writing
about this, he went into a long theory about how the higher primates shared
a negative trait, and that was emotional depression as the sun went down.
He compared it to the late afternoon 'cocktail hour' of civilization. But,
as it turned out, he was heavily addicted to morophine himself, and he had a
ready supply since he was a medical doctor. His theory may have been
colored by this fact. But on the other hand the drug allowed him to crawl
under someone's house and stay there for three or four days straight
studying the termites. He was able to locate the queens chamber by sticking
a series of broom twigs into the holes in the wood, and observing the angles
of the hole, by which he could extrapolate the Queen's chamber location.
Then he would begin to slice into the wood carefully with a razor blade,
layer by layer, until he would just penetrate the chamber wall. He would
then peer in with that medical instrument doctors use for looking in your
ears. The one thing that he never observed was how the Queen moved from a
chamber she had outgrown into a new, larger chamber. It was an unsolved
mystery. As far as he knew, the Queen teleported from one chamber to the
next.
But anyway, I just wanted to say that termite colony example wasn't intended
to represent 'culture' at all. I was trying to provide examples of
different ways to think about individualism. So termite colony culture
could be defined as the sum total of all the relationships existing between
the insects, and would be operational regardless if we considered the colony
a collective of unique individuals or as a single organism.
> >There is no way to determine if culture or individual is a fundamental
> >concept. There are plenty of phenomena one can describe on
> >both levels. It is a pragmatic decision to *leave out* the phenomena on
> >the other level.
> >
> Yes, that was the problem for Erik. He made culture and mankind
> equivalent concepts in the end (he can't make culture a meta system of
> the human system) but this invalidated his previous statements.
But how could I do this and at the same time claim culture in the petrie
dish?
>
> Yes, homeostasis. All what life encompasses is directed to maintaining
> it. Life doesn't stand for change, it stands for keeping things the
> same. But it's not only life, everything seems to work towards
> equilibrium. It's quite interesting to see how human behaviour fits
> into this, how art making for example seems to be some way of
> maintaining homeostasis.
So the Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests, and we move towards maximum
entropy. But Lao Tzu sez "the only constant is change." We have a very
useful concept that we use all the time - the balance of nature. It makes
sense to us and has a lot of meaning. We use this concpet to to visualize
some of our utopias, in fact. Yet there has never been a 'balance of
nature' and there never will be. The history of this planet is one of
unbalance, perpetually, whether we consider dinosaurs or daiseys.
Erik
lake
a skillful image of the real thing. It is secondary rather than primary.
By the time Vincent painted Dr. Gachet (and crows over the cornfields)
he was no longer concerned with his own personal relationship with the
good doctor. Neither was he concerned with crows, nor cornfields. He
was rather in the grip of something which, for want of a better word,
could be termed "divine". Even his passionate Christianity, which in
his mind he thought of as his guiding principle, had to be jettisoned.
All that admirable morality of his, all those pre-conceptions, all was
abandoned in order to produce the final masterpieces, upon which his
fame now firmly rests.
You ask, "Who then decides which art is divine? Do you glow in the dark
or something?"
Perhaps. It's a mystery, I'll grant you. But I think no one, of
whatever political stripe, will deny the inherent wonder of Rembrandt,
once they see his paintings. C'est evident.
I don't understand why you brought "hyper-realism" into the debate. It
seems irrelevant - but if not, please explain.
mesken
>Mesken:
>Sorry to say I only read your posts while pressing down the scroll button.
>But your last sentence regarding "homeostasis" I did catch.
>Homeostasis means the state of relatively staying the same,
>nothing is absolutely static in the universe. In homeostasis there is a
>relative state of balance or equilibrium. The word is not a synomym for
>equilibrium.
Thanx for the update but I already knew what it meant. Equilibrium
was used here to show that any changes from outside which will upset
the internal milieu must be countered. Adapting in other words.
>So the biological creature attemps to keep things in balance
>not to keep things the same (aging and the force of gravity are
>only two things which prohibit this). Also you stated somewhere that
>creatures
>change on the outside, so as to stay the same on the inside
>and then later thanked Erik because you learned so much.
>Well, wouldn't "learning" be an example of an internal change,
>that is increasing knowledge or changing ideas in your head?
>
So? I'm optimizing, adapting constantly in order to maintain
homeostasis. This whole body of mine, including its brain changes
itself in order to remain alive. Those ideas don't upset homeostasis
(now, if one could talk me into suicide, that would be something else,
but then again: no system is flawless ;-)
>Further more Erik uses the first person singular for his statements,
>while you use the first person plural. Who all are you speaking for?
>
I and the emperor :-)
>In law, when a person lies in one thing, lawyers always assume that he
>will lie in other things. So although I have not read everything you have
>posted, I am assuming that some of your other statements are untrue
>as well, just as any mean lawyer would.
>
Ah! Mere details. One can make a lie appear as the truth and make the
truth appear unbelievable.
>You only THINK that you won.
>
And you try to get even while Alison is away but these feeble attempts
only make me smile :-)
mesken
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>mesken wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 20 Dec 1999 14:59:20 GMT, Lauri Levanto
>> <lauri....@nokia.com> wrote:
>>
>> >mesken wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Oh my, and to think I was complaining about length ;-)
>> >>
>> >> But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
>> >> with you (and Alison who's awfully quit lately :-)
>> >
>> >Thanks Paul,
>> >for your vivid posting. Erik seems to feel tired to this thread.
>> >I don't blame him. If one defends the same position over and over again,
>> >it feels futile.
>> >
>> Well, I believe I've got him now. He was a worthy opponent and he
>> pulled some tricks out of his sleeve but to no avail. His last line of
>> defense was the holistic approach but this is an invalid one for
>> humans to assume if it is about systems in which humans are but part.
>> You can't ask ants about the meta behaviour of the ant colony or asks
>> cells about human awareness.
>
>I know it's almost christmas and I should really be contemplating the joy of
>giving (in) but Santa made it clear to me that If I caved into the Brush of
>Steel I would not get the kolinsky sable jockey shorts I've requested this
>year (the Gucci "Rembrant" line).
>
Hehe, probably my punishment for not believing in him ;-)
>I did pull some pretty good tricks. I liked the last one - citing a Dutch
>authority for the termite metonomy. I thought I had you by the roller
>skates on that one. (By the way, I've figured out your roller skate fetish
>is culture - direct reference to "Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates." The
>basic story of every Dutchman's cryptic anxieties)
>
Amazing, so I'm legitimate now :-) Well, that was to be expected.
Certainly more must have had the very same experiences as me which
turned roller skates into a fetish.
>By the way, if you've never read Eugene Marias I recommend him. He's a
>fascinating figure. Can you read Afrikaans? (It probably would be better).
All dutch can understand Afrikaans, it is old dutch (apart from new
words). It has such a nice accent to it, a little bit between
contemporary dutch and german (which is a great language to shout
orders in :-)
>During his studies of the baboons (Chacmas) he discovered the group he was
>watching went each evening, around 5 p.m. to a patch of psychodellic cacti
>and imbibed, they all got stoned to the gills, every day. While writing
>about this, he went into a long theory about how the higher primates shared
>a negative trait, and that was emotional depression as the sun went down.
>He compared it to the late afternoon 'cocktail hour' of civilization. But,
>as it turned out, he was heavily addicted to morophine himself, and he had a
>ready supply since he was a medical doctor. His theory may have been
>colored by this fact. But on the other hand the drug allowed him to crawl
>under someone's house and stay there for three or four days straight
>studying the termites. He was able to locate the queens chamber by sticking
>a series of broom twigs into the holes in the wood, and observing the angles
>of the hole, by which he could extrapolate the Queen's chamber location.
>Then he would begin to slice into the wood carefully with a razor blade,
>layer by layer, until he would just penetrate the chamber wall. He would
>then peer in with that medical instrument doctors use for looking in your
>ears. The one thing that he never observed was how the Queen moved from a
>chamber she had outgrown into a new, larger chamber. It was an unsolved
>mystery. As far as he knew, the Queen teleported from one chamber to the
>next.
>
The man was definitely drugged :-)
>But anyway, I just wanted to say that termite colony example wasn't intended
>to represent 'culture' at all. I was trying to provide examples of
>different ways to think about individualism. So termite colony culture
>could be defined as the sum total of all the relationships existing between
>the insects, and would be operational regardless if we considered the colony
>a collective of unique individuals or as a single organism.
>
Indeed it is fascinating to observe something like a city as an entity
with its own behaviour. And I am composed of cells. No single cell can
do what I can.
My thinking (about my individualism for example) happens at the "I"
level which is not the level of my cells nor the level of the society
I'm part of. It's impossible. I can think about my cells and I can
think about society but only at my own level. I can only think in
terms which are available at my own level. Certainly my cells enable
me to think and humans are the parts which enable the behaviour of
societies but we're talking about levels. We can only talk and think
about other levels in terms of our own level.
But I can't see how bringing up new ideas about individuality support
your case: that culture is the producer of our sensibility. As far as
I know: my emotions were innate.
Emotional response is coupled to events that led to it. I already
discussed how the limbic system (with its emotions) has its own
cognitive system which is not directly accessible by the neo cortex
(which we use to make art). So, we don't have direct insight in the
mechanisms of our sensibility (that's what makes it "magical" to
some).
Culture doesn't mean anything without the innate emotions. Say I'll
put on my SS uniform and go paint some swastika's on some jewish
graves. Think of it as performance art :-)
The audience watches this and you will be horrified to see that it
won't elicit a response of disgust (they're actually smiling because
I'm acting happy and sing the upbeat song "Die Fahne hoch, Die Reihe
festgeschlossen") but my trick is that my audience doesn't recognize
any of the images. The SS uniform, the swastika's, Jews, graves, the
holocaust, they don't know anything about it. I actually make a big
party of it and before you know it all these images stand for good
instead of evil and start to think of Hitler as a swell guy. You see:
they _do_ understand my happiness for this is an innate emotion. The
rest is just associated with that basic human trait.
The only way you can defend your standpoint that culture is the
producer of sensibility is to state that emotions themselves are not
something innate but learned. But this is simply not true. Pain,
pleasure, etc. all are present from the beginning. The only thing we
learn is in which events they're elicited.
>> Yes, homeostasis. All what life encompasses is directed to maintaining
>> it. Life doesn't stand for change, it stands for keeping things the
>> same. But it's not only life, everything seems to work towards
>> equilibrium. It's quite interesting to see how human behaviour fits
>> into this, how art making for example seems to be some way of
>> maintaining homeostasis.
>
>So the Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests, and we move towards maximum
>entropy. But Lao Tzu sez "the only constant is change." We have a very
>useful concept that we use all the time - the balance of nature. It makes
>sense to us and has a lot of meaning. We use this concpet to to visualize
>some of our utopias, in fact. Yet there has never been a 'balance of
>nature' and there never will be. The history of this planet is one of
>unbalance, perpetually, whether we consider dinosaurs or daiseys.
>
One cannot say the system "nature" is unbalanced for until now it's
still been able to maintain homeostasis. We're talking nature here,
not dinosaurs. The ant colony doesn't suffer from removing a single
ant, we don't suffer from the death of one cell. Ofcourse we nowadays
have the power to make nature disappear (and with it necessarily
ourselves)
Stuart Kauffman wrote a nice book about self organizing systems like
nature: "At Home in the Universe : The Search for Laws of
Self-Organization and Complexity"
It also discusses systems which are such that whatever change you make
into it, it will respond with a barrage of consequent changes that
will result into its old pattern. It remains to be seen whether nature
can be called such a system. In the end probably not (for the universe
will one day run out of the possibility to convert one energy form
into another) but for now it's doin alright.
Lauri Levanto
>
> Lauri Levanto wrote:
>
> > mesken wrote:
> > >
> > > But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
> > > with you
. Erik seems to feel tired to this thread.
> > I don't blame him. If one defends the same position over and over again,
> > it feels futile.
>
> Yes, a bit tired of the same thing - but actually what got me feeling weary
> was how much there was that hasn't been said yet that will need to be
> defended.
I understand thet feeling quite well. Those who used to think when young
(I still remember the feeling) have formed a world wiew which is quite
consistent, but also rather private by necessity - as no universal
theory
of everything exists. Usually it has some uncommon ingredients due to
private experiences. I have been early influenced by Grey Walther: The
living
brain, and Breitenberg:Synthetic psychology. Rare Gems. The latter is
in only one library in whole Scandinavia, The first one I gave to my son
in a weak moment. Okey, books are cultural, but also real private
experiences
affect us - like your leg or my cancer.
Besides, I wanted to write that short story instead - it's
> coming along quite well. I have the title already, and the first chapter,
> and I have no idea what is going to happen.
Jess, forget the gardenig. While there is nothing so important,
the farmers do it better.
> > Suddenly the human culture,
> > Plato included, is but an influensa, a temporary discomfort. It will
> > go over.
> >
> > - lauri
>
> Lauri, you're turning into a cynic.
Far from cynic, only consistent. Took the time in global scale, too.
Just like sensibility is not worth of mentioning on a cultural level.
> BTW, you're image reminded me of an
> Arthur C. Clark early work - "Childhood's End." Did you ever read it?
>
> Erik
Are you psychic, Erik. I have a couple of self-portraits waiting to be
hung
on my web page.
( I must have read it, but can't remember. Clark's texts are so
religious
I havn't read them recently.
-lauri
and finally the Seasons Greetings:
And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?"
They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of
our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very
selfhood
revealed."
And Jesus replied, "What?"
(Chris Suslowich in ASR)
Erik A. Mattila
>
> Culture doesn't mean anything without the innate emotions. Say I'll
> put on my SS uniform and go paint some swastika's on some jewish
> graves. Think of it as performance art :-)
>
> The audience watches this and you will be horrified to see that it
> won't elicit a response of disgust (they're actually smiling because
> I'm acting happy and sing the upbeat song "Die Fahne hoch, Die Reihe
> festgeschlossen") but my trick is that my audience doesn't recognize
> any of the images. The SS uniform, the swastika's, Jews, graves, the
> holocaust, they don't know anything about it. I actually make a big
> party of it and before you know it all these images stand for good
> instead of evil and start to think of Hitler as a swell guy. You see:
> they _do_ understand my happiness for this is an innate emotion. The
> rest is just associated with that basic human trait.
>
> The only way you can defend your standpoint that culture is the
> producer of sensibility is to state that emotions themselves are not
> something innate but learned. But this is simply not true. Pain,
> pleasure, etc. all are present from the beginning. The only thing we
> learn is in which events they're elicited.
I'm beginning to think that anything could be expressed by referencing a movie.
You could have said the above by saying "did you see "The Producers" (Mostel,
Wildman)? Since they needed a 'guanteed failure' to succeed in their fraud,
they found an old German Nazi playwright in Brooklyn who lived secretely, and
wrote plays dressed in his old uniform. His play that they decided to produce
was a musical about Hitler, "Springtime in Germany." At the beginning of the
first performance, some of the audiance was disgusted and bood and began walking
out. But then someone laughed at a line, and soon other's were laughing. It
was a pretty amazing bit of film making, I think, since it showed how the
'consensus' that existed in the audiance about the play shifted, due to a couple
of cues, and it turned out the play was a smashing success as a wonderful
'satire' on Hitler.
> One cannot say the system "nature" is unbalanced for until now it's
> still been able to maintain homeostasis. We're talking nature here,
> not dinosaurs. The ant colony doesn't suffer from removing a single
> ant, we don't suffer from the death of one cell. Ofcourse we nowadays
> have the power to make nature disappear (and with it necessarily
> ourselves)
It may be emtional. Can you imagine how boring life would be if people could
achieved any of their imagined utopias? I liked Mark Twain's critiques of
western civilization in his "Letters from the Earth" book. One image in
particular, where he attacked the Christian view of "Heaven." He questioned how
utterly meaningliess and unsufferable 'afterlife' would be if we really had to
don a white toga, sit on a puffy cloud with a harp in our hands, and sing the
same song over and over again for the rest of eternity.
> Stuart Kauffman wrote a nice book about self organizing systems like
> nature: "At Home in the Universe : The Search for Laws of
> Self-Organization and Complexity"
>
> It also discusses systems which are such that whatever change you make
> into it, it will respond with a barrage of consequent changes that
> will result into its old pattern. It remains to be seen whether nature
> can be called such a system. In the end probably not (for the universe
> will one day run out of the possibility to convert one energy form
> into another) but for now it's doin alright.
We should probably contemplate this second system when our Sun decides to bloat,
eh? We'll have about 9 seconds to decide if there's any merit to the thought.
Erik.
Lauri Levanto
> <emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
> >mesken wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, 20 Dec 1999 14:59:20 GMT, Lauri Levanto
> >> <lauri....@nokia.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >mesken wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> But it's very interesting stuff and I always learn a lot by argueing
> >> >> with you
> >But anyway, I just wanted to say that termite colony example wasn't intended
> >to represent 'culture' at all. I was trying to provide examples of
> >different ways to think about individualism. So termite colony culture
> >could be defined as the sum total of all the relationships existing between
> >the insects, and would be operational regardless if we considered the colony
> >a collective of unique individuals or as a single organism.
lauri:
As I mentioned, some colonial insects we can understand working like
neural network. They arrive collective decisions about subjects
where no individual knows all facts. This is a fancy point in
social and political decision making.
Paul (or I lost count):
> But I can't see how bringing up new ideas about individuality support
> your case: that culture is the producer of our sensibility. As far as
> I know: my emotions were innate.
lauri:
Once again, the ability to get mad is innate, the case
when and to whom, depends.
> Emotional response is coupled to events that led to it. I already
> discussed how the limbic system (with its emotions) has its own
> cognitive system which is not directly accessible by the neo cortex
> (which we use to make art). So, we don't have direct insight in the
> mechanisms of our sensibility (that's what makes it "magical" to
> some).
My understanding of physiology does not separate so clear layers.
I disapprove he Freudian notion of superego (=society),Ego and ID (=the
biochemistry) fighting over control. Freudian subconsciousness is
but less frequently visited part of consciousness.
The limbic system, right hemisphere or Zen, refere to me to the
underlying mechanisms if Self that selects what is presented to
consciousnes.
We all know that our actions have dual reasons, a good reason
and a true reason. Ego or I are 'what I think I am', Self is what makes
me tick. It is a Freudian slip to mix them up.
- lauri
--
99.9 percent of those who misbehave in new year
are not computers.
Lauri Levanto
<...>
> Ofcourse culture has a certain impact on the individual and will
> change the individual to some degree (but so do all other
> experiences). But what exactly this impact is depends on the
> individual and not upon culture.
...it depends on theindividual and the culture.
> It all started with programming
lauri:( My son was fourteen when he said "I'm not interested
of artificial intelligence, I want to make real one". Now he
plays with neural networks and learning structures)
> however and now it has
> become clear why artificial intelligence failed until now. We made
> heuristical systems, we gave it culture in a way but we didn't give it
> the possibility to develop it itself.
For a long time artificial intelligence was confined in an ares
where we did not have algorithms.
> By the inclusion of systems
> (like emotions and even evolution) which were never regarded to be
> part of intelligence (Socrates error in a way ;-) we're much more
> succesfull.
Socrates was still a Sophist. I guess that in his attack against
sophists, Plato deliberately chose his authority
to degrade the whole bunch. For Plato rhetorics was the Art of
Manipulation.
> It's quite interesting to see how human behaviour fits
> into this, how art making for example seems to be some way of
> maintaining homeostasis.
Yes, the art of nutrition deals with what is good for your health.
My daughter never failed to remind that
Donoughts are good to your mental health.
- lauri
mark webber
> Hi Mark, a quick response,
> just to show I'm not such a coward you blame (the rest of NG).
Did I sound harsh? I apologize. It is all in fun, isn't it?
> > By "socially defined symbols" do you mean "words"? If not, what do you
> > mean - or what do semioticians mean? I'm hoping we are talking about
> > words. I'm wishing we could could call them that.
>
> No doubt it was the text of Homer. A friend of us wants to believe that
> only symbols can convey meaning. To relate with nonverbal arts i used
> the word symbol here - also
First, is the answer to my question yes or no? Are they words about which
we speak or is there some other vehicle for symbols within a text? If they
are words, let's call them words, ok? So far as I know, a text is made of
words.
Second, our friend - I'm truly not sure which one you mean - has a common
problem if what you say is true. That is, if one thinks that the only
meaning is a verbal meaning. There are visual meanings as well. That is
why form can speak to us.
> > Then Lauri goes on to say: (I paraphrase)
> >
> > Semioticians say Homer used "words" (cultural inventions, conventions)
> > *in such a way* as to stimulate Ion to moving, successful performance.
> >
> > To answer your question, Lauri, I would say that because you use the
> > phrase "in such a way" - that is the "how" and not the "what" - the answer
> > is yes. Formalism.
>
> The 'such a way' , the how is a slippery term, nobody has been able
> to point what is exactly 'such a way'. That is why i regard it not
> formalism.
We have a little problem here, my friend. Are you saying that the "how" is
not formalism?
> The how I see as not-formal, you can find unlimited variety in both good
> and not so good.
Yes, I think we are having trouble with the word usage again. Why does
form equal definitive good?
*Good* form is a part of *good* art. *Bad* form may explain *bad* art. But
form is simply part of art. Form in general doesn't equal quality.
>
> To be fair, those French intellectual are little more than tourist. They
> see some true,extraordinary intellectual beauty in their debate. Who
> minds Watteau, he is dead anyway.
Vous avez raison, mon ami. "La beaute - c'est mon intelligence."
>
> <...>
> > > Mark, who claims to be a formalist, is for me another doubtful case.
> > > He claims that we can see if an artwork is good or bad.
So what makes me a "doubtful case"?
>
> What you correctly call form is undefinable but real. You see the form
> - or at least I do - before the color choices, shapes design.
> The latter are intellectualisations, that take place a bit later
> in our brains. That is why it is so impossible to pinpoint or analyse
> the form.
> At the moment you concentrate to instances, you miss the Form.
Interesting. Color, shape, design - these are parts of what we call form.
I don't understand the point of inventing yet another definition of the
word.
> If Sokrates were questioning you "is this form - or part of it"
> you would endlesly deny.
Deny which? I think an accusation of the sort warrants more clarity.
But form to me is a sum, a unity. I don't point to a part of a whole and
call it the whole.
> I find two differencies in our thinking. For me formalism ignores
> Form...
Well, yes, I would say now we have a disagreement. Entomology ignores
bugs?
thanks,
Mark
Marilyn
> I and the emperor :-)
>
> >You only THINK that you won.
> >
> And you try to get even while Alison is away but these feeble attempts
> only make me smile :-)
Well, "feeble" to a sadist, could have a strong connotation for the rest of us.
Don't blame Alison, I was reacting more to your sexist misogynistic writings.
mesken
>
>
>
>> I and the emperor :-)
>>
>> >You only THINK that you won.
>> >
>> And you try to get even while Alison is away but these feeble attempts
>> only make me smile :-)
>
>Well, "feeble" to a sadist, could have a strong connotation for the rest of us.
>
>Don't blame Alison, I was reacting more to your sexist misogynistic writings.
>
Mesken the Misogynist, it certainly has a nice ring to it ;-)
mesken
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
Oh my, all evasive manoeuvres. Still before my eyes. That's why I
declared victory :-)
It's really simple: sensibility is the skill to realize how perception
affects us. It's not possible without our emotions and other feelings.
All these things that underlie sensibility are innate.
Sensiblity is not the product of culture, it's more the other way
around. Culture itself is partly an expression of sensibility. Culture
has all of its origins in humans. That our languages has symbols for
objects like "Cars", "Trees", "People" is only because object
perception is an integral part of our innate perceptual system. These
symbols only have meaning within us because we associate them with
values given to us by emotions, feelings, etc. Symbols, paintings,
words, all these things are meaningless on themselves, we, humans,
attribute meaning to them. We merely developed formal systems like
language for convenience's sake, for communication. Culture doesn't
exist without us. A painting would no longer depict anything and a
symbol would no longer have any meaning for their meaning lies in us
and not in culture. Not even math would mean anything without our
ability to perceive amounts, sizes ,etc. (and this is also an innate
property)
But I realize you have a definition of culture which is such that
sensibility is a product of it.
Let's hear it (and I'm invulnerable to the "emperor has no clothes"
approach :-)
Marilyn
Erik A. Mattila wrote:
> Marilyn wrote:
>
> > > I and the emperor :-)
> > >
> > > >You only THINK that you won.
> > > >
> > > And you try to get even while Alison is away but these feeble attempts
> > > only make me smile :-)
> >
> > Well, "feeble" to a sadist, could have a strong connotation for the rest of us.
> >
> > Don't blame Alison, I was reacting more to your sexist misogynistic writings.
>
> Well, that was the question I was trying to raise in my own feeble way. Where do
> you draw the line.
>
> Dalton Trumbo was at a cocktail party once and the discussion came around to the
> question about war literature - "does writing about the the horrors of war serve
> the cause of peace, or does it merely condition people, numb them, and serve the
> cause of war?" Trumbo's theory was that exposure to the horrors of war worked
> positively, and better knowledge about the consequences led to thinking twice
> about war. He then wrote "Johnny Get Your Gun" to prove his point. There was a
> survey conducted after the novel was published, and the indications were that the
> readers were more prone to reject war as a solution to social conflicts.
>
> But the question has to be always left open, I think. If we all thought that the
> unthinkable shouldn't be thought, well...it might lead to the opposite
> consequences we would like -- liked repressions erupting all over the place. Just
> some thoughts...
>
> Erik
Opposite consequenses:
That's what I meant in the quote on "purposeful behaviour"
posted a while ago saying that it does not always
achieve the set goals, since there are so many variables, so much out of our
control.
An example I'm thinking of was an extreme case of child abuse where the
visiting nurse asked the child what was wrong and the child could only reply
with moans and whimpers, he was in so much pain. She left him there in that
home, and went to her office and filed her report. The child is no longer
with us. The help offered the child had "opposite consequences."
The goals of the police and news media in publicizing the case may have been to alert
the public and also alert potential abusers that they will be found out and charged.
Unfortunately the repetition of the unredeeming story told in horrendous detail
becomes
a form of abuse in itself. Think what it does to child-abuse survivors for example.
Also instead of warning abusers, it could have "the opposite consequences."
I felt that the story should have been mitigated by some glimmer of hope for justice
and protection for children in our society particularly as a result of the case.
and am I being cruel posting this?
Marilyn
Erik A. Mattila
> > I and the emperor :-)
> >
> > >You only THINK that you won.
> > >
Lauri Levanto
>
> On Mon, 20 Dec 1999, Lauri Levanto wrote:
>
> > Hi Mark, a quick response,
> > just to show I'm not such a coward you blame (the rest of NG).
>
No you didn't. have more fun :-)
> > > By "socially defined symbols" do you mean "words"? If not, what do you
> > > mean - or what do semioticians mean? I'm hoping we are talking about
> > > words. I'm wishing we could could call them that.
> >
> > No doubt it was the text of Homer. A friend of us wants to believe that
> > only symbols can convey meaning. To relate with nonverbal arts i used
> > the word symbol here - also
>
> First, is the answer to my question yes or no? Are they words about which
> we speak or is there some other vehicle for symbols within a text? If they
> are words, let's call them words, ok? So far as I know, a text is made of
> words.
My apologies, I did mean words, or maybe even syntactic structures,
as words tend to shift in meaning with minute grammatical changes.
That is called poetry.
> Second, our friend - I'm truly not sure which one you mean - has a common
> problem if what you say is true. That is, if one thinks that the only
> meaning is a verbal meaning. There are visual meanings as well. That is
> why form can speak to us.
Now I feel my english terrible inadequate. In the previos note i tried
to explain that I did mean 'words' in the contect of Homer but selected
'symbols' as I wanted to maintain this thread in connection to visual
arts.
As far as I understand - and have quotes to prove it - this friend
is aware of visual meanings transmitted by visual symbols - just
like verbal meanings are conveyed by words. I have earlier challenged
that notion of *visual words*.
This boils down to what Paul says. Something like it is nonsense that
we can communicate meanings only by symbols. We would never invent the
symbols
or agreed their vocabulary unless we could first understand meanings.
> > > Then Lauri goes on to say: (I paraphrase)
> > >
> > > Semioticians say Homer used "words" (cultural inventions, conventions)
> > > *in such a way* as to stimulate Ion to moving, successful performance.
> > >
> > > To answer your question, Lauri, I would say that because you use the
> > > phrase "in such a way" - that is the "how" and not the "what" - the answer
> > > is yes. Formalism.
> >
> > The 'such a way' , the how is a slippery term, nobody has been able
> > to point what is exactly 'such a way'. That is why i regard it not
> > formalism.
>
> We have a little problem here, my friend. Are you saying that the "how" is
> not formalism?
>
> > The how I see as not-formal, you can find unlimited variety in both good
> > and not so good.
>
> Yes, I think we are having trouble with the word usage again. Why does
> form equal definitive good?
I try to put it down systematically. We have a great variety of Form,
good and
bad. You may define'good form' as you like, and we can find out
bad form that fits into the bill. Take any good composition, color
balance
or what ever and you can see it also abused in an empty way.
That is why I say 'how' is not formalism. You can see (or sense, as I
believe)
sensibility, but never pinpoint the Form that carries it.
because it is not seen in the artwork, you see it beyond the artwork.
As we are supposed still to keep ION in mind, I try to draw
David Hargreave's description of musik: (Read it down the first column ,
crossover at bottom line and back up on the listener's side.)
Composer Listener
-------- --------
Mind Musik
inspiration Transcendence
Idea, structure gestalt
materialisation perception
Score, sounds reception
acoustic waves
You, the listener, gives the gestalt, the Form that is more than its
parts.
It is not present in the acoustics, or in a painting.
A nice example fron true life. Once in the art class I made a quite
stylicied madonna. The face of the child f.ex. was but a little
rounded trapezoid. The face and neck of Maria was a dented triangle.
One fellow student admired it - the color and the balance. The she
asked the stupid question "what does it represent?" The very moment
I said "madonna" she blushed as it was self-evident from now on.
In this case I could see the difference between reception and
perception. One could look it as a flat surface with
a Greenbergian(?) solution with geometrical forms. Or as a Madonna.
It is not a message encodes into visual forms.
> *Good* form is a part of *good* art. *Bad* form may explain *bad* art. But
> form is simply part of art. Form in general doesn't equal quality.
I hope I succeeded to illustrate my thinking above. Only a question
of 'bad Form'. Isn't it for you really lack of form. Otherwise, with
your skill, you could correct any bad art so it becomes indiecernible
from good.
> > To be fair, those French intellectual are little more than tourist. They
> > see some true,extraordinary intellectual beauty in their debate. Who
> > minds Watteau, he is dead anyway.
>
> Vous avez raison, mon ami. "La beaute - c'est mon intelligence."
>
> > What you correctly call form is undefinable but real. You see the form
> > - or at least I do - before the color choices, shapes design.
> > The latter are intellectualisations, that take place a bit later
> > in our brains. That is why it is so impossible to pinpoint or analyse
> > the form.
> > At the moment you concentrate to instances, you miss the Form.
>
> Interesting. Color, shape, design - these are parts of what we call form.
> I don't understand the point of inventing yet another definition of the
> word.
I have exactly two points, *HOW* and *WHY*.
> > If Sokrates were questioning you "is this form - or part of it"
> > you would endlesly deny.
>
> Deny which? I think an accusation of the sort warrants more clarity.
Socrates: My friend Mark, I have been told yoou are a painter.
Mark: Yes, in my humble way I do paint and also teach painting.
S: So you teach what subjects are worth of painting?
M: In a lesser extent, if you were not so conservative you might have
seen in internet that nowadays anything goes.
S: I'm surprised, Mark. How can you teach then what is good.
M: The subject is secondary, the quality is or isn't in Form.
S: You mean composition?
M: Not only that, the color,shapes all goes into form.
S: But you say composition goes into Form, too.
M: No doubt
S: I saw somewhere, I cant remember the name -these years take a toll
you know,
but it was a renessaince madonna, was it Raphael's?
M: I think so. Let us have a look at Mark Harden's.
here: Raphael Madonna dell Granduca
S: Exactly, that is what I have in mind. I see it is composed skillfully
in a cone. The renaissance painters were as preoccupied with geometry
as Pythagoras.
M: The cone is part of the composition, but there is more than that,
the flow of lines, color play on the robe, they all belong to the
form.
S: Sorry, Mark. I get a little confused. Do you mind if we take one at
time.
M: good for me.
S: This composition is a simple one. Sometimes I muse with thous books
that tell how to paint with numbers. I have seen the same composition
there.
M: True, but it is used in an insensible way, it remains an empty form.
S: Glad you say that. Now look the colors, Red and Green and ochre.
HAve you seen these same colors in those paint-by-number-books.
M: Many times. Renaissance look is in favour among middleclass ladies,
to whom
those books are intended.
S: So you say those books have colors that constitute in good form?
And those who paint so, make good form.
M: Quite the contrary, Form results from the sensibility of the artist,
those
paintings by the book a mere kitsch if I dare say so.
S: Kitsch, even when great skill is applied?
M: definitely, art is more than a skill.
S: Tell me then Mark, what makes you see good form apart from kitsch, if
it is not in the art of draftsmen.
M: That makes me wonder, Socrates. When I wander through museums, I see
hall after hall insignificant collection, and I am bored with them.
hardly look at them. When I see a masterwork, I can immediately
grasp the Form.
S: I can tell you Mark. What you appreciate, is not the art of
draftsmen,
but divine inspiration. Are you not in awe in front of great paintings.
M: Very much so. From the first moment I am inspired, full of
admiration,
and I could look for hours, withut feeling hunger or tire in my legs.
S: As you have said, form is not seen in the constituents. We should not
waiwer or doubt that this form is not human, or made by man. It is
the diveine inspiration, that like Herakles stones move from man to man.
S: Wait a minute, Pythagoras made great efforts to make me understand
that the sqyare of teh hypothenusa equal the sum of squares of the
sides,
in spite of which order you take them and from what size of triangle.
> But form to me is a sum, a unity. I don't point to a part of a whole and
> call it the whole.
While the sum is either *more* than parts or a total of them.
Formalism in semiotic sense refers to the total of parts. The *how* and
especially *why* you experience is not in media =artwork but seen
beyond it.
> > I find two differencies in our thinking. For me formalism ignores
> > Form...
>
> Well, yes, I would say now we have a disagreement. Entomology ignores
> bugs?
>
So let us forget the bugs and language peroblems, essentially we see
and strive in work for the same Form.
> thanks,
>
> Mark
My pleasure
- lauri
mesken
<lauri....@nokia.com> wrote:
>lauri:
>As I mentioned, some colonial insects we can understand working like
>neural network. They arrive collective decisions about subjects
>where no individual knows all facts. This is a fancy point in
>social and political decision making.
It's not much different of our own decision making. We don't know how
we get ideas (it's actually a quite chaotic system :-). We do have
ideas about ourselves however but these are about the system, not the
system itself.
>> Emotional response is coupled to events that led to it. I already
>> discussed how the limbic system (with its emotions) has its own
>> cognitive system which is not directly accessible by the neo cortex
>> (which we use to make art). So, we don't have direct insight in the
>> mechanisms of our sensibility (that's what makes it "magical" to
>> some).
>
>My understanding of physiology does not separate so clear layers.
>I disapprove he Freudian notion of superego (=society),Ego and ID (=the
>biochemistry) fighting over control. Freudian subconsciousness is
>but less frequently visited part of consciousness.
>
Yes, physiology certainly shows us that boundaries between functional
systems (we _see_ them as systems, parts) is quite fuzzy.
Both the superego and ego are the same. We do not obey social rules
because they're imposed but because we want to be social. It's a drive
just like asocial drives that conflict with it.
Why don't I kill people? It's not because some social rule controls me
but simply because I don't want to hurt people. The rule only
formalizes this feeling.
>The limbic system, right hemisphere or Zen, refere to me to the
>underlying mechanisms if Self that selects what is presented to
>consciousnes.
>We all know that our actions have dual reasons, a good reason
>and a true reason. Ego or I are 'what I think I am', Self is what makes
>me tick. It is a Freudian slip to mix them up.
>
Absolutely. An artist shouldn't question his/her own feelings, just
use them. Not creating to what is supposed to be good but what really
feels as good. Theories can be developed afterwards which can serve as
guide in the future.
mark webber
Greetings Lauri,
On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, you wrote:
> > Second, our friend - I'm truly not sure which one you mean - has a common
> > problem if what you say is true. That is, if one thinks that the only
> > meaning is a verbal meaning. There are visual meanings as well. That is
> > why form can speak to us.
>
>
(snip)
> This boils down to what Paul says. Something like it is nonsense that
> we can communicate meanings only by symbols. We would never invent the
> symbols
> or agreed their vocabulary unless we could first understand meanings.
Well, there is also meaning that has nothing to do with words or symbols.
There is visual meaning - visual ideas such as perceptual short-hand and
visual metaphor.
I have noticed that some people can only appreciate verbal concepts and
naturally this is all that matters to them. But some people experience
visual concepts for which there are no words. Or at least they are
difficult to express verbally.
> > We have a little problem here, my friend. Are you saying that the "how" is
> > not formalism?
> >
> > > The how I see as not-formal, you can find unlimited variety in both good
> > > and not so good.
> >
> > Yes, I think we are having trouble with the word usage again. Why does
> > form equal definitive good?
I sure wish you could answer that question. Do you or do you not see "how"
one does something as the formal aspects of the work?
> because it is not seen in the artwork, you see it beyond the artwork.
Well, let's just talk about what we see, then, shall we? I honestly don't
know what you mean by the part of an artwork that I can't see.
> As we are supposed still to keep ION in mind, I try to draw
> David Hargreave's description of musik: (Read it down the first column ,
> crossover at bottom line and back up on the listener's side.)
>
> Composer Listener
> -------- --------
> Mind Musik
> inspiration Transcendence
> Idea, structure gestalt
> materialisation perception
> Score, sounds reception
> acoustic waves
>
> You, the listener, gives the gestalt, the Form that is more than its
> parts.
> It is not present in the acoustics, or in a painting.
Well I'll try to clarify again. Different people will perceive the same
work in different ways, right? Well, the form I am talking about is not
part of perception, it is part of execution. Certainly, on the perceiver's
end there is unity, gestalt perhaps.
But are you saying the artist doesn't achieve a unity, a structure?
(snip childhood recollection - I need to boycot these because I overdosed
on Erik's childhood memories.)
> > *Good* form is a part of *good* art. *Bad* form may explain *bad* art. But
> > form is simply part of art. Form in general doesn't equal quality.
>
> I hope I succeeded to illustrate my thinking above. Only a question
> of 'bad Form'. Isn't it for you really lack of form. Otherwise, with
> your skill, you could correct any bad art so it becomes indiecernible
> from good.
No I couldn't. Even if my sensibility was up to the task, it would be a
different sensibility from the one expressed in the work. I think your
notion of form is missing some parts and that is why you depict it in such
a dry fashion. Form includes personal things like bushwork and how the
brushwork integrates itself.
> > > If Sokrates were questioning you "is this form - or part of it"
> > > you would endlesly deny.
> >
> > Deny which? I think an accusation of the sort warrants more clarity.
>
> Socrates: My friend Mark, I have been told yoou are a painter.
> Mark: Yes, in my humble way I do paint and also teach painting.
> S: So you teach what subjects are worth of painting?
(snipping some of this exceptional dialogue, which I am honored and
pleased by)
Let's remember first the very obvious fact that in a paint-by-numbers book
the decisions have already been made - I think I might have pointed that
out to Socrates.
> M: Quite the contrary, Form results from the sensibility of the artist,
> those
> paintings by the book a mere kitsch if I dare say so.
> S: Kitsch, even when great skill is applied?
> M: definitely, art is more than a skill.
> S: Tell me then Mark, what makes you see good form apart from kitsch, if
> it is not in the art of draftsmen.
> M: That makes me wonder, Socrates. When I wander through museums, I see
> hall after hall insignificant collection, and I am bored with them.
> hardly look at them. When I see a masterwork, I can immediately
> grasp the Form.
> S: I can tell you Mark. What you appreciate, is not the art of
> draftsmen,
> but divine inspiration. Are you not in awe in front of great paintings.
I don't believe in the Divine, but I do believe in inspiration as it is
commonly understood today, wise Socrates. In fact, you needn't assume that
I would reply in the above fashion. In fact, it is no mystery to me.
The awe I experience is elicited by the demonstration, the expression of
an excellent sensibility.
> > But form to me is a sum, a unity. I don't point to a part of a whole and
> > call it the whole.
>
> While the sum is either *more* than parts or a total of them.
> Formalism in semiotic sense refers to the total of parts. The *how* and
> especially *why* you experience is not in media =artwork but seen
> beyond it.
Not in my experience. Truly. I am responding to a painting, and the
painting is an expression of what the artist feels is the right way to
make the painting.
You, again, speak of some magic, some mysticism which I have no experience
with.
>
> > > I find two differencies in our thinking. For me formalism ignores
> > > Form...
> >
> > Well, yes, I would say now we have a disagreement. Entomology ignores
> > bugs?
> >
> So let us forget the bugs and language peroblems, essentially we see
> and strive in work for the same Form.
Ok, I take your word that we strive for the same thing. But again, Ion, I
ask you, how can formalism have nothing to do with form?
best and warmest wishes,
mark
Erik A. Mattila
> Well, there is also meaning that has nothing to do with words or symbols.
> There is visual meaning - visual ideas such as perceptual short-hand and
> visual metaphor.
>
> I have noticed that some people can only appreciate verbal concepts and
> naturally this is all that matters to them. But some people experience
> visual concepts for which there are no words. Or at least they are
> difficult to express verbally.
Talk about a Pandora's Box, Mark. So now that we have a four-way correspondence
going on, just when we had agreed about brevity, it's almost impossible.
So I'm just responding here to a few things that have been said about 'words'
'symbol' and 'semiotics.' There's no point in identify the sources, since I'm
only make some observations and certainly not attacking anyone here.
First, 'symbols.' Depending on what point of view we're talking from (
psychology, lingusitics, anthopology, philosophy) there's some difference in the
meaning of this term. No matter, I just want to point out that in semiology this
term isn't used much, simply because it's not very useful to the discourse. But
it is an error (in terms to semiology) to confuse the 'sign' with a 'symbol.'
This is because a 'symbol' has some characteristics that a 'sign' doesn't have
(for the most part, a 'symbol' has 'meaning'). The 'sign' is an object that must
be perceived as something that has no meaning before 'semiosis.' This is a
theoretical concern, not to be confused with real life. Empirically, we do not
experience the 'sign' in isolation, (uless it is unintelligible), and semiosis is
so rapid that we are seldom aware of it happening.
Second, 'words.' A 'word' is just one of many things a 'sign' could be. We
still have the argument about the posssibility of a 'visual semiotics,' of
course. I'm aware that many don't accept this, and for a large part, it is
because the 'sign' is conceived of as a 'word' or 'language.' This is incorrect
(again, by the rules of semiology).
By way of illustration, think of a picture of a triangle and a circle, roughly of
the same area. You can even draw it on a piece of paper, if this helps. We
'read' this image as being constituted by two things, which we call a 'triangle'
and a 'circle.' If anyone would ask, we would say that these are two different
things. "Anybody knows a 'triangle' isn't a 'circle." we might say. If you
wish, you can try to concieve of the images without the intervention of those two
words - it makes no difference for the purpose of this illustration.
Between the two elements of this image, draw a third, which is an image of a
triangle with its sides bulging outwards (the straight lines becoming arcs).
It's possible to read this new image, composed of three elements now, in
different ways, but many people will now see an image of a triangle changing
(morphing) into a circle, since the middle image acts as a mediator between the
two outer shapes, and suggests a process taking place.
If we read the new image this way, the triangle and the circle now longer are
thought ot two different things, but rather as two different states of the same
thing (and indeed the new 'middle shape" a transitority state).
Of course it's possible to read the first image as two states of the same thing,
but on average we don't - we see two different things. The impact of the third
shape causes a shift in signification, and we get another idea about the
situation.
So this is just an example how semiosis is possible without words. Strictly on
the basis of a picture, the mind associates qualities and attributes of the image
with various signifiations, and meaning is produced.
Erik
Tomi Holmberg
cultural things (what else?). rather i support spiritual sensivity or
studies of transparent psychology - some people are more sensitive than
others. some have more kundalini rising their bodies or someone have
more developed third eye and they do perceive the world around us
differently. I don’t believe that subjective experience is only an epi-
phenomenon, or consequence of the chemical activity of the brain.
it's those things like ball-lightnings or sixth sense what science
knows but can't explain. for example drugs change your level to see
things, which we all know, or don't if we haven't experienced it. maybe
the sensivity comes from genetic codes, hormones or psychosis as well,
which could have been removed some blocks out of our percistance =)
like religious behaviour is caused by one or more specific genes for it.
how about this?..
ps. hi all crackpots =)
--
Art Suxors!!
www.sci.fi/~tomppa1
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Erik A. Mattila
Weeeelllll, Tomi. My first thought when I read your first sentence was
remembering a sentence that was popular throughout the cold war here in the
US: "The Unites States does not recognize the People's Republic of
China." Everytime I heard this, I would ask "How is this possible?" I
mean, even 'naming' the PRC in this disclaimer is in fact 'recognizing' it.
My question is, of course, 'what else' are ideas of 'kundalini and
third-eyes' than cultural things? Or "transparent psychology" and
"spiritual sensitivity?" Historically, these are pretty modern in the West
(with the exception of Christian sensitivity, of course) -- in fact part
and parcel of the collection of exotic curios by Europeans after they
disccovered the world, right? How 'cultural' can you get?
It's a pretty fascinating history to delve into. For example, for a large
part collected exotica was the jet fuel of avant gardism in Europe and
Euroamerica. Picasso and his African masks, Pollock and his Navajo
Sandpaintings or Emil Nolde's Pacific Island collection. It was the very
presence of these curios and exotic ideas which allowed 'avant garde' in
the first place, as these became the 'model' of something different from
what already was - or arrows pointing to an alternative way of being
(cultural) rather than simply re-calculating existing western culture each
generation.
Also, spiritual ideas are leaches, or some other parasitical form, since
their vitality is forever gained by their frequent plunder of logic and
language. (signs and symbols). Consider the Bardo Thodol. The freshly
departed must be carefully guided through the seemingly endless layers of
the illusions of our lives in order to escape the miserable fate of
reincarnation. Could one possible argue that this 'instruction' was not
symbolic, wrought from signs and codes? Isn't the idea of 'a third-eye' a
language construction - perhaps a metaphor. Is not Kundalin Yoga a
discourse?
My point is that by even mentioning these things is in fact supporting the
idea of signs and symbols. If words and the spiritual were
incommensubable, how would we have religious texts - even explanations
written, step by step, on how to practice Kundalini yoga, or what is a
Chakra and so on? And why do we have so many versions of genisis that
claim that 'in the beginning, there was the word." It seems like the
ancients were indeed wise, and at least understood that what we understand
about the world is essentially symbolic.
Personally, I have no argument against spiritual ideas, but I do have an
argument against the 'either/or' postulate, that you have to abandon logic
and thinking in order to achieve some sort of spiritual attainment. I see
these things working hand in hand. While you could say that the Bahavagad
Gita or the Secret of the Golden Flower are spiritual works, you could also
say that they are wonderful achievments of the human intellect.
Erik Mattila
Lauri Levanto
>
> Greetings Lauri,
>
> On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, you wrote:
L:
> >We would never invent the
> > symbols
> > or agreed their vocabulary unless we could first understand meanings.
> There is visual meaning - visual ideas such as perceptual short-hand and
> visual metaphor.
>
> I have noticed that some people can only appreciate verbal concepts and
> naturally this is all that matters to them. But some people experience
> visual concepts for which there are no words. Or at least they are
> difficult to express verbally.
Elsewhere i have to split hairs with Erik about symbols and signs.
i agree wholeheartly that we enjoy visual meanings that have no
verbal counterpart -no concept attached- just like we enjoy music.
> M:
> I sure wish you could answer that question. Do you or do you not see "how"
> one does something as the formal aspects of the work?
lauri:
Yes, 'how' I can deduce from what I see in the artwork. I think
'how' goes deeper that technical part, approcahing the 'why'.
Why this form - of all infinite variations.
L:
> > because it is not seen in the artwork, you see it beyond the artwork.
M:
> Well, let's just talk about what we see, then, shall we? I honestly don't
> know what you mean by the part of an artwork that I can't see.
lauri:
back to this why, When I look The Sream of Munch, it is not so much
how, but why, which moves me. Sure there must be plenty of how
to make this why come through.
M:
> Well I'll try to clarify again. Different people will perceive the same
> work in different ways, right? Well, the form I am talking about is not
> part of perception, it is part of execution. Certainly, on the perceiver's
> end there is unity, gestalt perhaps.
lauri:
All the time I have a feeling that we are so close.
Again, part of the exceution - the sensibility - is not written in the
paint.
It is inseparable of the 'why', I think.
That is why I have called it behind the form.
L:
> > I hope I succeeded to illustrate my thinking above. Only a question
> > of 'bad Form'. Isn't it for you really lack of form. Otherwise, with
> > your skill, you could correct any bad art so it becomes indiecernible
> > from good.
> M:
> No I couldn't. Even if my sensibility was up to the task, it would be a
> different sensibility from the one expressed in the work. I think your
> notion of form is missing some parts and that is why you depict it in such
> a dry fashion. Form includes personal things like bushwork and how the
> brushwork integrates itself.
lauri:
yes, I know what it is to fight back a *good teacher*. He is suggesting
improvements that are not mine. We have for instance different tolerance
of
emty space.
About brushwork I am not competent to say, I'm not a painter. My notion
of form is like yours, the unity, the total of the work as it can be
seen.
It is a dry one. The why - the personal sensibility behind - is more.
Looking from one side it is the inspiration of Muses,
fron the other side it is emphaty (or something like that) the ability
to react the other person's feelings.
M:
> Let's remember first the very obvious fact that in a paint-by-numbers book
> the decisions have already been made - I think I might have pointed that
> out to Socrates.
Socrates again: I know that, what I do not understand is that although
Vincent made the decisions, a good paint-by-numbers version is not the
same,
even though the museum curators might meet great difficulty to prove it.
L:
> > S: I can tell you Mark. What you appreciate, is not the art of
> > draftsmen,
> > but divine inspiration. Are you not in awe in front of great paintings.
> M:
> I don't believe in the Divine, but I do believe in inspiration as it is
> commonly understood today, wise Socrates. In fact, you needn't assume that
> I would reply in the above fashion. In fact, it is no mystery to me.
>
> The awe I experience is elicited by the demonstration, the expression of
> an excellent sensibility.
lauri:
The awe _happens to you_ like to Ion's audience.
For me it is not magic, it is psychology.
> best and warmest wishes,
>
> mark
and thanks to you of this enjoyable conversation.
- lauri
Lauri Levanto
<snip>
> Personally, I have no argument against spiritual ideas, but I do have an
> argument against the 'either/or' postulate, that you have to abandon logic
> and thinking in order to achieve some sort of spiritual attainment. I see
> these things working hand in hand. While you could say that the Bahavagad
> Gita or the Secret of the Golden Flower are spiritual works, you could also
> say that they are wonderful achievments of the human intellect.
>
> Erik Mattila
lauri:
first of all, I like to use this new year time to thank Erik,
for the discussions during the year. I have learned enourmously
about the cultural influence in art, and especially useful has been
a new insight of an artist role in the society.
Tomi said: "I don't believe that subjective experience is only an
epiphenomenon, or consequence of the chemical activity of the brain".
I would like to leave that 'only' out. As I understand, the
subjective experience is chemical activity of brain, not a consequence.
As you Eric, like to be precice with language. Therefore
wish a corrective:" ...are wonderful achievments of the human mind."
best wishes
- lauri
Erik A. Mattila
> As you Eric, like to be precice with language. Therefore
> wish a corrective:" ...are wonderful achievments of the human mind."
>
> best wishes
>
> - lauri
As you wish, Lauri. But I was trying to acknowledge a distintion between
spiritual attainment and intellectual attainment. As long as you keep that
distinction in mind, I see no problem with exchanging 'intellect' with 'mind.'
Best wishes to you to, - a happy and prosperous New Year.
Erik
mark webber
On Sun, 26 Dec 1999, Lauri Levanto wrote:
> > I sure wish you could answer that question. Do you or do you not see "how"
> > one does something as the formal aspects of the work?
>
> lauri:
> Yes, 'how' I can deduce from what I see in the artwork. I think
> 'how' goes deeper that technical part, approcahing the 'why'.
> Why this form - of all infinite variations.
>
Ahhhhh - I see what you mean! I apologize - I misunderstood. When you have
been saying "why" I was reading "why art?" or "why this subject?" - it
didn't occur to me that you meant "why this decision?"
Very well; for me, "why this color and not that color" or "why this shape"
is answered, in most cases, with "sensibility" but in some cases with
"formula" or "to achieve this effect which I have seen achieved
elsewhere."
Yes, you are speaking of form. We are simply wording the same question in
different ways. "How?" for me means "How is the picture unified?" and "How
to solve this passage, this visual problem" and "How to resolve this
pictorial tension."
For me, and for writers like Fry and Dewey, Form isn't *just* the whole,
but how the relationships between the decisions create that particular
whole.
> L:
> > > because it is not seen in the artwork, you see it beyond the artwork.
> M:
> > Well, let's just talk about what we see, then, shall we? I honestly don't
> > know what you mean by the part of an artwork that I can't see.
> lauri:
> back to this why, When I look The Sream of Munch, it is not so much
> how, but why, which moves me. Sure there must be plenty of how
> to make this why come through.
Yes, again, same question, worded differenty, I think. You are asking,
"why does this work move me - what is it about the colors and shapes that
succeeds in eliciting this response in me." and I am asking "How does he
arrange color and shape so that this effect is elicited?"
Very happiest wishes to everyone this holiday!
Mark
Tomi Holmberg
>My question is, of course, 'what else' are ideas of 'kundalini and
third-eyes' than cultural things? Or "transparent psychology"
and "spiritual sensitivity?" Historically, these are pretty modern in
the West (with the exception of Christian sensitivity, of course) -- in
fact part and parcel of the collection of exotic curios by Europeans
after they disccovered the world, right? How 'cultural' can you get?
depends on if you consider human anatomy (even universe and energies
here all around) as cultural things, then they are.
western people have always known the phenomena of kundalini and
other "mystics" but we've rather denied everything we can't see.
i was dumb and thought "signs" as "visual signs" on your earlier posts.
>Also, spiritual ideas are leaches, or some other parasitical form,
since their vitality is forever gained by their frequent plunder of
logic and language. (signs and symbols).
well, true; the task to describe something like that is too difficult
with language and our brains work better with visual information rather
than with "words" anyway. :)
this is getting too complicated...
what i've got from this whole threat is that *art's value is in it's
perceivers mind/brains*. so, there is no common "good" or "bad" art.
Jonathan Clift
>Very well; for me, "why this color and not that color" or "why this shape"
>is answered, in most cases, with "sensibility" but in some cases with
>"formula" or "to achieve this effect which I have seen achieved
>elsewhere."
>
Mark, can I butt in and ask a question? Does "sensibility" come before
or after the act? What I mean is, does it guide your decision making,
prior to making a brush stroke, like a sixth sense, or is it a kind of
aesthetic 'critic' afterwards that says "if you made it a bit more ...
then it would 'work'".
What you wrote suggests the former. The word itself, to me, suggests the
latter (e.g. sensibility = aesthetic good taste).
--
Jonathan Clift
mark webber
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for joining us:
> Mark, can I butt in and ask a question? Does "sensibility" come before
> or after the act? What I mean is, does it guide your decision making,
> prior to making a brush stroke, like a sixth sense, or is it a kind of
> aesthetic 'critic' afterwards that says "if you made it a bit more ...
> then it would 'work'".
>
> What you wrote suggests the former. The word itself, to me, suggests the
> latter (e.g. sensibility = aesthetic good taste).
Well, I think an artist is expressing sensibility when he/she is making
art in an authentic way. And I think that viewers rely on sensibility to
enjoy art. So both.
But any ideas of visual language, communication and expression revolve
around sensibility and folks who don't see beyond rendering haven't tapped
into this type of experience.
thanks again,
Mark
Jonathan Clift
>
>Hi Jonathan,
>
>Thanks for joining us:
>
>> Mark, can I butt in and ask a question? Does "sensibility" come before
>> or after the act? What I mean is, does it guide your decision making,
>> prior to making a brush stroke, like a sixth sense, or is it a kind of
>> aesthetic 'critic' afterwards that says "if you made it a bit more ...
>> then it would 'work'".
>>
>> What you wrote suggests the former. The word itself, to me, suggests the
>> latter (e.g. sensibility = aesthetic good taste).
>
>Well, I think an artist is expressing sensibility when he/she is making
>art in an authentic way. And I think that viewers rely on sensibility to
>enjoy art. So both.
>
I understand what you mean, in a very general sense, but I have some
problems with the idea of 'sensibility' guiding the action of painting.
This is not based on what I think "an artist" is doing, but on my own
experience of painting. Of course my own experience isn't necessarily
typical (I'm not a "real artist", apparently), which is one reason for
trying, unsuccessfully, with the question above, to get you to talk
about your own experience.
The (inevitably simplified) model I have of the process, in my own case
goes like this. I have a formula for painting that informs the decisions
I make when painting. The result of painting modifies that formula
according to my sensibility. That then results, hopefully, in a better
painting the next time I paint. The point is that sensibility here is
only ever working as a form of judgement, it doesn't have to cover all
the ground that your use of the term seems to imply. Of course, the
feedback also works at the brush stroke level, where I can continually
adjust the picture as I go along. The 'formula' is also modified (and
limited) by other factors - the artists that influence me, education and
so on. I don't know whether this is true of the 'sensibility' side of
things. It feels like it is just there, or at least the outline or shape
of it is there, even if it does develop (and I'm not sure that it does -
I think maybe we're stuck with whatever sensibility we happen to have).
Without the sensibility I'd just be stuck with formula, and have no way
of developing an individual voice. With it I can develop as an artist
(further than just perfecting the current formula).
Hopefully you can see what I trying to get at, and maybe I can persuade
you to respond.
>But any ideas of visual language, communication and expression revolve
>around sensibility and folks who don't see beyond rendering haven't tapped
>into this type of experience.
>
>thanks again,
>
>Mark
>
>
--
Jonathan Clift
mdeli
<jona...@ipsart.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Mark wrote:
>>Well, I think an artist is expressing sensibility when he/she is making
>>art in an authentic way. And I think that viewers rely on sensibility to
>>enjoy art. So both.
>>
What's "authentic?"
>I understand what you mean, in a very general sense, but I have some
>problems with the idea of 'sensibility' guiding the action of painting.
What guides the painter, bad good or indifferent, is his ability to
carry out his ideas by means of his knowledge of technique and
craftsmanship.
What counts is the artwork on the wall. The greater percentage of all
else, like the endless talk about sensibility theory here, is mostly
useless bullshit.
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Tired of Modern Art? Check out my web page!
http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/