Gombrich and Painting
Sally Porter
Psychology of Pictorial Representation which was part of the A. W. Mellon
Lectures in the Fine Arts in 1956. Although the text is 43 years old, many
of the observations in the book are classic and relevant to our image
making.
He speaks a lot of the history of art up to that time, including discussion
on children's and primitives' art. "Making" precedes "matching", and
"finding" precedes "making." I enjoyed his comments about how our mental
sets and experience color the reading of a work of art. "Even nonobjective
art derives some of its meaning and effects from the habits and mental sets
we acquired in learning to read representations." ( 286)
In the past 43 years, our "mental set" has experienced an explosion of
growth due to mass global exposure via media and the Internet, resulting in
an unprecedented sharing of knowledge and exploding multicultural awareness.
This electic soil has bred postmodernist art, where all previous art forms
are free to intermingle at will. I can't help but reflect on how we carry on
the quest to push the boundaries of art, based on our collective experience
and interpretation of the current unfolding of the truth.
Gombrich states that artists either choose to paint using other paintings as
their artistic vocabulary or they choose to start fresh from nature to
express their own reality. I would like to express the term "nature" as
including our "internal" nature, the mind. Our perceptions and experiences
can never be separated from our art.
Sally Porter
Original Acrylic Paintings
http://home.columbus.rr.com/sallyporter/
John Haber
>paintings as their artistic vocabulary or they choose to start fresh
>from nature to express their own reality. I would like to express the
>term "nature" as including our "internal" nature, the mind. Our
>perceptions and experiences can never be separated from our art.
I like that. Thank you.
I've always thought Gombrich got himself into that position by backing
into it, awkwardly indeed. He writes a whole book on how art is not
reality but a representation of it, with not just the means of
representation changing all the time, but also with them what looking
at nature itself involves. Then he feels embarrassed at the end of
the book by his own relativism, so he adds (almost as a postscript and
almost writing off his whole book) that perspective defines a natural
vision. Maybe he was born too soon to see how he could get out of the
relativist hole with a line like yours.
John
A.A. Raimes
<sallypor@SPAM_ME_NOTcolumbus.rr.com> writes
>
>In the past 43 years, our "mental set" has experienced an explosion of
>growth due to mass global exposure via media and the Internet, resulting in
>an unprecedented sharing of knowledge and exploding multicultural awareness.
>This electic soil has bred postmodernist art, where all previous art forms
>are free to intermingle at will. I can't help but reflect on how we carry on
>the quest to push the boundaries of art, based on our collective experience
>and interpretation of the current unfolding of the truth.
>
>Gombrich states that artists either choose to paint using other paintings as
>their artistic vocabulary or they choose to start fresh from nature to
>express their own reality. I would like to express the term "nature" as
>including our "internal" nature, the mind. Our perceptions and experiences
>can never be separated from our art.
>
>Sally Porter
Thanks for that Sally, it reminded me that I have neglected this book
for a few months - I just pulled it off the shelf and blew the dust
away.
The message that I always get from reading this book is that we should
never accept the world in the way that we think it is presented. That we
should investigate angles and visions that are there but which our mind
is trained not to receive. A reluctance to consider the options can only
be attributed to former training as children and it is this that artists
must fight against. I would say *that* message relates to our entire
existence and however *out of date* Gombrich may be considered by many
today, his message here is timeless.
Alison A Raimes
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
A.A. Raimes
<sallypor@SPAM_ME_NOTcolumbus.rr.com> writes
>Gombrich states that artists either choose to paint using other paintings as
>their artistic vocabulary or they choose to start fresh from nature to
>express their own reality. I would like to express the term "nature" as
>including our "internal" nature, the mind. Our perceptions and experiences
>can never be separated from our art.
>
>Sally Porter
After I wrote my last post I visited your website Sally - something
struck me about your last statement that paralleled the core of my own
work. The investigation into the unknown being in this case the mind -
but more so that the unknown and the mind are inextricably entangled.
Since reading _The Tao of Physics_ I have been infatuated with the idea
of the *continual cosmic dance* and the rhythms and vibrations that
make the universe and life a whole. That, for me, is nature - a
celebration of the unity between life and the inexplicable phenomena
that we call the *cosmos*. Since then I have gone further and tried to
satisfy my concerns for the need for religion to the extent of even
comparing the artists studio to the place of worship, where the artist
is able to focus on making that connection. Something I feel artists
like Brancusi and Rothko were intent on. If religion was originally
aimed *not* at earning our place in heaven by an omnipotent presence,
(as western society has succeeded in labelled it), but rather at feeling
this unity that remains for most a complete mystery, then religion would
no longer be stigmatised for failing man. Man has in fact failed
religion by trying to make the inexplicable human. Art may have the
capabilities of filling the void created by this inability to feel at
one with the universe. It is certainly worth a discussion by anyone who
feels any empathy for this idea.
emat...@tomatoweb.com
I feel some empathy, Alison, but I may see it a bit differently. I'm
thinking of a remarkable piece of fiction (that I mentioned on the ng a few
monts back) and that is Ursala LaGuin's (Buffalo Gals) short-short story "She
Un-names Them." I think it's about a page and a 'alf long. As a
word-crafter, I think, LaGuin shares that ability with authors such as
William Golding and Sally Carrighar to cause the reader to experience some
limit or constraint of thought -- like Golding's Neandertals (not quite able
to form a modern 'concept') or Carrighar's chipmunk (not quite able to form a
human thought). So LaGuin's story is about Eve being pissed-off at Adam, and
taking away the 'names' of all the animals of Eden. Just for a flash, I got
the sense of living in a world where nothing has a name, as if it is language
itself that determines the distance and distinction between the individual
and the world.
So I can say with certainty that art has the ability to suspend language, even
over-write language -- in this case LaGuin's piece, but in other's a Turner
landscape of a Puccini stanza. But then, I believe, art is anothr language,
which still interfaces between the human and phenomena, albiet on different
terms.
Erik Mattila
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Sally Porter
Fritjof Capra has an amazing ability to explain complex issues of physics in
a way that laypersons can relate and understand. The Uncertainty Principle
reveals the inextricable relationship of the observer and reality. While in
the act of creation, the artist experiences this mystery in a special way.
The state of consciousness is altered.
Everyone involved in creative acts is priviledged; to create is to
participate in humankind's pinnacle of ability.
Sally
A.A. Raimes
writes
>I feel some empathy, Alison, but I may see it a bit differently. I'm
>thinking of a remarkable piece of fiction (that I mentioned on the ng a few
>monts back) and that is Ursala LaGuin's (Buffalo Gals) short-short story "She
>Un-names Them." I think it's about a page and a 'alf long. As a
>word-crafter, I think, LaGuin shares that ability with authors such as
>William Golding and Sally Carrighar to cause the reader to experience some
>limit or constraint of thought -- like Golding's Neandertals (not quite able
>to form a modern 'concept') or Carrighar's chipmunk (not quite able to form a
>human thought). So LaGuin's story is about Eve being pissed-off at Adam, and
>taking away the 'names' of all the animals of Eden. Just for a flash, I got
>the sense of living in a world where nothing has a name, as if it is language
>itself that determines the distance and distinction between the individual
>and the world.
I would add Julian Barnes' _A History of the World in Ten and a Half
Chapters_ to your list Erik, and expand to say that language and myth
actually prevent us from making that connection that I speak of. Barnes
successfully challenges our notions and reminds us that we have
preconceived ideas that are in themselves, questionable.
>
>So I can say with certainty that art has the ability to suspend language, even
>over-write language -- in this case LaGuin's piece, but in other's a Turner
>landscape of a Puccini stanza. But then, I believe, art is anothr language,
>which still interfaces between the human and phenomena, albiet on different
>terms.
>
>Erik Mattila
>
Absolutely. I find it difficult to express my views on this *connection*
because I am forced to use words like *religion* and *worship* which
instantly conjure up an image based on something that I am actually
opposed to. A couple of years ago during a similar discussion with the
arts writer, William Dunning (known to most as Vance), who explained it
as this:
"I mean ecstasy, presence, numinous presence, epiphany, mystical
experience, ultimate reality, immanence, cosmic unity, religious
experience, the spiritual, the eschatological, the infinite, revelation,
revealed truth, enlightenment, transformation, transcendental, vitalism,
peak experience, pragmatism, meditational, the sublime, a state of
grace, the universal pool of consciousness, Bernard Berenson's "ideated
sensation," Roger Fry's "disinterested intensity of contemplation," and
Susanne Langer's "symbolic form" are just twenty-seven of the terms
beyond record or number that have been used to describe the
transcendental experience in art that I call the 'aesthetic
experience'."
If I had to pick out a word that I felt comfortable with it would be
*sublime* but even a word like that is problematic to most people simply
because it represents some sort of romantic ideal.
lauri....@nmp.nokia.com
emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
(Snipped)
So LaGuin's story is about Eve being pissed-off at Adam, and
> taking away the 'names' of all the animals of Eden. Just for a flash, I got
> the sense of living in a world where nothing has a name, as if it is language
> itself that determines the distance and distinction between the individual
> and the world.
>
> over-write language -- in this case LaGuin's piece, but in other's a Turner
> landscape of a Puccini stanza. But then, I believe, art is anothr language,
> which still interfaces between the human and phenomena, albiet on different
> terms.
>
> Erik Mattila
I have been reading your postings, Erik, about art and language for a time.
Some time ago you mentioned what happens when you paint - a different set
of mind.
Most of art theory is verbal, so much that we believe we think only in words.
That is not the case. How can we choose words before thinking. The verbal
sphere is but a top layer of what our self decides worth of presenting
to the consciousness.
I do not mean Freudian unconsciousness here, for me it belongs to the
eventually conscious area. We do plenty of things on a level below
consciousness and rational thinking. Not only reflexes.
When a calligrapher forms a brushstroke, he/she cannot afford to think
about it. He can plan in advance, or analyze afterwards. During the act
it must be done only by learning and a kind of intuition.
Abstract expressionism is - for me - mainly a funny way to simulate this.
My favourite short story is about Master Wu. The secretary of the Mandarin
asked Master Wu to paint a picture of a hen. Master wu claimed that a
hen is a very difficult subject, and asked two years for the task.
After that, he asked two more years. When tose four years has gone
the secretary visited Wu to collect the painting.
Master Wu took a sheet of paper, and with five fast brushstrokes
draw the hen.
This is the level of preconsciousness I appreciate in art.
Ralph Gothoni, the pianist, said that teachers tell you to listen
the sound of your music. That is much too late, he continued, you must feel
it before your fingers touch the keys.
At a certain stage of my best works, I feel the moment when the clay
takes over and models me.
* * *
These are hard things to express. One has to invent new words with
new meanings, like Heidegger. or one has to use oriental terms
- Tao of Physics - Zen and motorcycle maintenance - Dancing Wu Li Masters -
with unfortunate associations to mysticism.
- lauri
lauri....@nokia.com
http://www.netti.fi/~laurleva/index.html
emat...@tomatoweb.com
lauri....@nmp.nokia.com wrote:
Hi Lauri,
Fortunately I'm well seasoned enough to be comfortable with my internal
contradictions and inconsistencies. Theory and practice often become
incommennsurable -- But you know, the Unified Field Theory of existance hasn't
been written yet.
> I have been reading your postings, Erik, about art and language for a time.
> Some time ago you mentioned what happens when you paint - a different set
> of mind.
This is where Ernst Cassirer's "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms" fascinates. I
realize he didn't have the final word on the subject, but he did lay down some
acceptable groundwork on how human thought arranges itself around the modes of
language, art, and myth.
>
> Most of art theory is verbal, so much that we believe we think only in words.
> That is not the case. How can we choose words before thinking. The verbal
> sphere is but a top layer of what our self decides worth of presenting
> to the consciousness.
I would say all art theory is thoroughly embedded in language, unless I
misunderstand what you mean by 'theory.' But since you betray your interest
in things Chinese below (as well as some of your drawings) I'll tell you
about something that has fixed on my mind for several years. I read that the
modern Chinese don't accept the theory of the unconscious (Freudian of
Jungian or derivatives). So I've pondered this for years, I can hardly
imagine the non- esistance of the unconscious mind, the concept is so
naturalized in my way of thinking.
>
> I do not mean Freudian unconsciousness here, for me it belongs to the
> eventually conscious area. We do plenty of things on a level below
> consciousness and rational thinking. Not only reflexes.
I don't know how it is in Finland, but here in the US one great liberating
pleasure enjoyed by many is driving a car (out of heavy traffic, of course).
One reason that I propose why this should be a pleasure is because of the
rote quality of driving. It's something you learn, and once learned sort of
becomes automatic. Some educational research has shown that when the student
is engaged in rote activity, the mind is much more receptive to instruction,
as if it has opened-up (finally). Driving, I think, is like this, since the
seat of my pleasure in this is falling into a sort of reverie of ideas --
whole novels can be written in 200 miles.
Throughout my school career I always doodled instead of taking proper notes.
I can look at my drawings done twenty years ago, or thirty years ago, and
remember what was being said at the time I took these strange 'notes.'
My point is that I believe art making has that quality of rote activity, and
I don't think that the discussion needs to go beyond that to think of art
making as profound. As far as puffing it all up with spiritual terms, ideas
of genius, special insights, and so forth -- well... that's all speculation
as far as I am concerned.
>
> When a calligrapher forms a brushstroke, he/she cannot afford to think
> about it. He can plan in advance, or analyze afterwards. During the act
> it must be done only by learning and a kind of intuition.
I don't agree with this, Lauri, and I don't mean to be disrespectful. I
think a calligrapher always thinks about it. Well, you've worked with
material -- wood, concrete, papier mache, pen and ink. Always the material
has a resistance, and it is an intellectual process to 'master' it. Just
think of the knowledge of a master carpenter, for example. Just because one
becomes skillful to the degree that manipulating material is 'second nature'
does not mean that thought is not involved. Just because you are not aware
of thinking about it doesn't mean that you are not thinking about it.
>
> Abstract expressionism is - for me - mainly a funny way to simulate this.
> My favourite short story is about Master Wu. The secretary of the Mandarin
> asked Master Wu to paint a picture of a hen. Master wu claimed that a
> hen is a very difficult subject, and asked two years for the task.
> After that, he asked two more years. When tose four years has gone
> the secretary visited Wu to collect the painting.
> Master Wu took a sheet of paper, and with five fast brushstrokes
> draw the hen.
There probably is no more abstract expressionist form than Chines abstract
calligraphy -- and it uses words, after all. So your story describes four
years of thought that result in five brushstrokes. Very good.
>
> This is the level of preconsciousness I appreciate in art.
> Ralph Gothoni, the pianist, said that teachers tell you to listen
> the sound of your music. That is much too late, he continued, you must feel
> it before your fingers touch the keys.
And playing an instrument has that same quality as driving an automobile, or
taking a chisel to the wood. I'll tell you an amazing thing I witnessed
once. I went to talk to an old woman named Amy Stoker. She was a Yurok
Indian basket weaver -- her baskets were in the Smithsonian. California
Indians took basket weaving to its highest, it's generally agreed. So I was
talking to Amy about problems with salmon fishing on the Klamath River, a
very political problem. When I entered her little house she was sitting in
the dark (curtains over the windows, etc.) weaving a basket. She was
complaining that she could hardly see in her old age: "My baskets used to be
so fine, but now I can't see, and they're so coarse." What she had in her
hands, half one, was exquisite to my eyes, but it was true that her earlier
work was finer. At any rate, while we were talking about the fishing
problems she continued to weave, and I realized that she was doing it without
thought. I watched her do the design with fern foots, little hairs that had
to be mathematically positioned in order to create the desired shape, and she
was doing this with her fingers while she talked about other things. I would
have at least expected that she would be counting, but she wasn't. It was
all memory -- probably in her fingers. But rather than describing this as an
unconscious or preconscious activity, I would say it was a superconscious
activity. And I think that's an important distinction to make, since it gets
us away from the darwinian model that has been applied to the development of
the human minds and its ability.
>
> At a certain stage of my best works, I feel the moment when the clay
> takes over and models me.
Well, I want to propose that when the clay takes over, it''s
superconscousness. Following the enigma I have mentioned about the PRC's
disparagement of the idea of the unconscious mind, I've considered that
consciousness itself boils down to the sense of existance. In this scale a
dog is more conscious than we are, and a worm more so than a dog, and the
king of consciousness is the single cell. "I don't think, therefore I am."
Erik Mattila
John Haber
that book among the explanations of physics out there. I think it
doesn't EXPLAIN: it USES physics (with the bad connotations of using
people). It just takes the words, removes them from their meaning,
and then allows them free standing to become metaphors for his own
doctrine.
Now, the doctrine is also way, way, way too new-agey for me, but
that's another story. A scientist just won't touch it on principle.
Or else we'd admire it for the doctrine and flair but smile and say it
has no more to do with physics than with dermatology.
John
A.A. Raimes
<jh...@columbia.edu> writes
The book is an EXPLORATION of the parallels between modern physics and
Eastern Mysticism. It is philosophy not science - the search for wisdom
versus conclusions based on *facts*. As we all know, that scares the
life out of scientists doesn't it, John ?
John Haber
context, where it's new to me. It's a standard way to defend shameful
thought, silliness, and lies. Do people think it's preposterous to
show that aliens landed, a conspiracy took out JFK, evolution is a
hoax, etc., etc.? They're really SCARED? Your rhetoric is abysmal
here.
And indeed, we're not scared of your opinion. Closer to bemused.
What's outrageous is how the opinion is used to mislead yourself and
others.
You said just now it's philosophy, not science. Right. But I said
that I was stating a problem ASIDE from my disagreement with the
philosophy. I'm not even going to try to express my disagreement. It
doesn't matter here. If you get comfort from the unity of life,
great.
The problem is that other fields, including real facts, were being
exploited as "proof." The metaphorical usage misleads people (clearly
including you), and that's wrong on the facts but also ethically
wrong. It is also ethically wrong in that one should never use facts
and other people's opinions as metaphors for your cause. As I said,
it's no different from using people.
Reciting vocabulary apart from its meaning is also no more than making
it into a ritual. You haven't found truth: you've found a religion.
You're so scornful of science that you've put it on a pedestal where
you can pray to it -- a pedestal on which it doesn't belong.
How would you feel if I "praised" your paintings for how they "show"
by their unity of themes that the world can be reduced to atoms,
leaving no room for the mind? Think about it. No difference at all.
An artist above all people should treat metaphors as something
profound, not to be employed without rigor. What else is art?
Sorry, kiddo. The fear is yours. You're afraid of science, lest it
destroy your dreams. So you avoid thinking about it while you recite
its vocabulary. Try to take it seriously. It might be beautiful.
John
lauri....@nmp.nokia.com
I have selectively snipped part to keep the posting shorter
Erik:
> Fortunately I'm well seasoned enough to be comfortable with my internal
> contradictions and inconsistencies. Theory and practice often become
> incommennsurable -- But you know, the Unified Field Theory of existance hasn't
> been written yet.
lauri:
> > I have been reading your postings, Erik, about art and language for a time.
> > Some time ago you mentioned what happens when you paint - a different set
> > of mind.
Erik:
> This is where Ernst Cassirer's "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms" fascinates. I
> realize he didn't have the final word on the subject, but he did lay down some
> acceptable groundwork on how human thought arranges itself around the modes of
> language, art, and myth.
lauri:
> > Most of art theory is verbal, so much that we believe we think only in
words.
> > That is not the case. How can we choose words before thinking. The verbal
> > sphere is but a top layer of what our self decides worth of presenting
> > to the consciousness.
Erik:
> I would say all art theory is thoroughly embedded in language, unless I
> misunderstand what you mean by 'theory.'
lauri:
My mistake!
I read that the
> modern Chinese don't accept the theory of the unconscious (Freudian of
> Jungian or derivatives). So I've pondered this for years, I can hardly
> imagine the non- esistance of the unconscious mind, the concept is so
> naturalized in my way of thinking.
lauri:
> > I do not mean Freudian unconsciousness here, for me it belongs to the
> > eventually conscious area. We do plenty of things on a level below
> > consciousness and rational thinking. Not only reflexes.
lauri:
The western psychoanalytical concept is more or less that there are
three actors - like superego,ego and id - rivaling of control of our
behaviour. The center is a rational free will, ego.
I understand that chinese attitude to be different, while the 'facts'
must be the same. (Humans are humans in east as well as west)The Self, rather
than ego is one but multilayered structure,
where the conscuiousness, rational, verbal thinking is only a
part - maybe a mior ingredient.
Erik:
> I don't know how it is in Finland, but here in the US one great liberating
> pleasure enjoyed by many is driving a car (out of heavy traffic, of course).
(lauri's footnote)
The Finns are as crazy for driving, blessed with the extra thrill of
crroked dirt roads and special ice/snow conditions. Our national heroes are
Mika Hakkinen the F1 champion and Tommi Maekinen, the rally champion)
Personally, I enjoy that pleasure more on a bicycle.
(end of footnote)
> One reason that I propose why this should be a pleasure is because of the
> rote quality of driving. It's something you learn, and once learned sort of
> becomes automatic. Some educational research has shown that when the student
> is engaged in rote activity, the mind is much more receptive to instruction,
> as if it has opened-up (finally).
lauri:
So the Self, rather than Id, is kept busy from interfering?
Erik:
> My point is that I believe art making has that quality of rote activity, and
> I don't think that the discussion needs to go beyond that to think of art
> making as profound.
lauri:
i agreed to the extent that rote experience is important,
I disagree whether it is preconscious or superconscious. The point is
that rational determination to do something is not enough, To make it Art,
something more than Ego must be involved.
Erik:
As far as puffing it all up with spiritual terms, ideas
> of genius, special insights, and so forth -- well... that's all speculation
> as far as I am concerned.
lauri:
I avert this mysticism, too. With the reservation that special insight
may turn out to be rote learned sensitivity.
lauri:
> > When a calligrapher forms a brushstroke, he/she cannot afford to think
> > about it. He can plan in advance, or analyze afterwards. During the act
> > it must be done only by learning and a kind of intuition.
Erik:
> I don't agree with this, Lauri, and I don't mean to be disrespectful. I
> think a calligrapher always thinks about it. Well, you've worked with
> material -- wood, concrete, papier mache, pen and ink.
> Always the material > has a resistance, and
> it is an intellectual process to 'master' it.
lauri: For me it is very much a *mental* process, even if some of it
may seem to reside in the fingers of a basket weaver. At the moment of
acting out the intellectual can only disturbe. It is better left out to
talk about fish preservation.
(MY READERS, please refer to Erik's posting for full details the parables
about
- Master Wu
- basket weavers and
- dogs and worms)
Erik:
> ... Just because you are not aware
> of thinking about it doesn't mean that you are not thinking about it.
lauri:
Then *I* am not thinking about it, though my Self is working on it.
I understand 'thinking' to refer something that is verbal, or possible
to express or describe with verbal means.
Not- thinking is all mental activity that happens far from the conscious
level. You call it superconsciousness (meaning that it is reached only after
conscious level is bypassed ?? ). I call it subconsciousness because it
happens without or *before* something is represented to the consciousness.
lauri:
> > Abstract expressionism is - for me - mainly a funny way to simulate this.
lauri afterwards:
Writing in a foreign language, my text is sometimes too compressed,
without enough syntactic sugar.
I think much of AE was an attempt to exclude conscious thinking, on assumption
that the psychoanalytic subconscious were the free to express
something more true or essential, on the same intellectual level.
I was well aware that calligraphy is about words. I agree that it is
thoughtful, Still I feel that at the moment your brush touches the paper, you
cannot afford conscious decisions, you must LET IT HAPPEN, trusting that your
Self makes good use of the necessary premeditation and rote learning.
Erik, about the basket weaver:
> I would say it was a superconscious
> activity. And I think that's an important distinction to make, since it gets
> us away from the darwinian model that has been applied to the development of
> the human minds and its ability.
EriK
> I've considered that
> consciousness itself boils down to the sense of existance. In this scale a
> dog is more conscious than we are, and a worm more so than a dog, and the
> king of consciousness is the single cell. "I don't think, therefore I am."
lauri:
That last sentence is a gem.
Do you mean that consciousness is an experience of existence?
I have used the term to refer to the rational Me.
--
The fact that I abuse my office address, does not
imply that my employer agrees with or is aware of
my opinions expressed here
A.A. Raimes
<jh...@columbia.edu> writes
>Bosh, I'm so tired of that line -- and I don't mean even in this
>context, where it's new to me. It's a standard way to defend shameful
>thought, silliness, and lies. Do people think it's preposterous to
>show that aliens landed, a conspiracy took out JFK, evolution is a
>hoax, etc., etc.? They're really SCARED? Your rhetoric is abysmal
>here.
>
>And indeed, we're not scared of your opinion. Closer to bemused.
>What's outrageous is how the opinion is used to mislead yourself and
>others.
Well John, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, so I happily take
it on the chin. Am I allowed a defence or have I been tried and
convicted already ? What bit about me are you bemused about ? So my
opinion is outrageous ? How does it mislead others ? and more
importantly how does it mislead me ?
>
>You said just now it's philosophy, not science. Right. But I said
>that I was stating a problem ASIDE from my disagreement with the
>philosophy. I'm not even going to try to express my disagreement. It
>doesn't matter here. If you get comfort from the unity of life,
>great.
>
I do get comfort from the idea of unity. It is damn hard to feel it when
innocent people are being massacred; children being used as blood banks
for soldiers; girls in rape hotels; high school kids being gunned down
by masked gunmen; toddlers having four inch nails imbedded in their
skulls after nail bombs ... and so on. Enough to send one over the edge,
yes ? So comfort ? yes I think I do seek that.
>The problem is that other fields, including real facts, were being
>exploited as "proof." The metaphorical usage misleads people (clearly
>including you), and that's wrong on the facts but also ethically
>wrong. It is also ethically wrong in that one should never use facts
>and other people's opinions as metaphors for your cause. As I said,
>it's no different from using people.
>
>Reciting vocabulary apart from its meaning is also no more than making
>it into a ritual. You haven't found truth: you've found a religion.
>You're so scornful of science that you've put it on a pedestal where
>you can pray to it -- a pedestal on which it doesn't belong.
I absolutely agree. I have not found Truth and nor do I expect to. Maybe
I have found a religion - that is what I have been thinking for a long
time. I have taken from many different sources, including Science and
Art and created my own *religion* that I feel I can cope with at this
time. I ain't doin no prayin though man. In certain Eastern religions
there are sources that I feel some sort of affinity with. I thought you
had read my webpage ? It is pretty apparent that I am a layman who is
fascinated by Science (amongst other things). Capra attempts to bridge
the gap that makes physics such a daunting concept for so many and he is
but one of the writers that has helped me overcome this so called *fear*
of science.
>
>How would you feel if I "praised" your paintings for how they "show"
>by their unity of themes that the world can be reduced to atoms,
>leaving no room for the mind? Think about it. No difference at all.
>
>
>An artist above all people should treat metaphors as something
>profound, not to be employed without rigor. What else is art?
>
>Sorry, kiddo. The fear is yours. You're afraid of science, lest it
>destroy your dreams. So you avoid thinking about it while you recite
>its vocabulary. Try to take it seriously. It might be beautiful.
>
>John
I like that - *kiddo* ... makes me feel all young again ;-)
John, my dreams were shattered long ago, but I will take your advise ...
just don't expect me to throw out all the other inquiries along the way,
there are too many paths on my journey to stick rigidly to just one.
Sally Porter
John Haber <jh...@columbia.edu> wrote in message
news:371ba38d...@news.cc.columbia.edu...
> Watch out, guys. Former or present science types, like me, despise
> that book among the explanations of physics out there. I think it
> doesn't EXPLAIN: it USES physics (with the bad connotations of using
> people). It just takes the words, removes them from their meaning,
> and then allows them free standing to become metaphors for his own
> doctrine.
>
> Now, the doctrine is also way, way, way too new-agey for me, but
> that's another story. A scientist just won't touch it on principle.
> Or else we'd admire it for the doctrine and flair but smile and say it
> has no more to do with physics than with dermatology.
>
> John
Hi John,
I just wanted to comment that the author of The God Particle, who was at one
time in charge of Fermi Lab, mentions Capra's explanations of particle
physics as technically accurate, although he does not endorse his personal
philosophy.
Sally
A.A. Raimes
<sallypor@SPAM_ME_NOTcolumbus.rr.com> writes
>Psychology of Pictorial Representation which was part of the A. W. Mellon
>Lectures in the Fine Arts in 1956. Although the text is 43 years old, many
>of the observations in the book are classic and relevant to our image
>making.
Sally: have you also read _Illusion in nature and art_ edited by R L
Gregory and E H Gombrich (first published in 1973 by G Duckworth and Co
ltd, London) ? Might be interesting to compare Gombrich's ideas over the
time span between the two books.
Regards.
Sally Porter
>
> Sally: have you also read _Illusion in nature and art_ edited by R L
> Gregory and E H Gombrich (first published in 1973 by G Duckworth and Co
> ltd, London) ? Might be interesting to compare Gombrich's ideas over the
> time span between the two books.
> Regards.
> Alison A Raimes
> ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
> http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
>
Hi Alison,
No, I haven't read it. I'll have to look it up later and compare. Thanks for
the suggestion.
Sally
Linda Thomas
Another excellent book in the Mellon series is Painting and Reality,
by Etienne Gilson. Gilson is a Thomist philosopher; he begins with
first principles and develops a theory of painting that is thorough
and very interesting, whether you go along with his conclusions or not.
"A.A. Raimes" <ali...@address.in.signature> wrote:
> In article <Y8GR2.4070$qx1....@storm.twcol.com>, Sally Porter
> <sallypor@SPAM_ME_NOTcolumbus.rr.com> writes
> >I have been reading E. H. Gombrich's Art and Illusion: A Study in the
> >Psychology of Pictorial Representation which was part of the A. W.
> >Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts in 1956. Although the text is 43 years
> >old, many of the observations in the book are classic and relevant to
> >our image making.
>
> Sally: have you also read _Illusion in nature and art_ edited by R L
> Gregory and E H Gombrich (first published in 1973 by G Duckworth and Co
> ltd, London) ? Might be interesting to compare Gombrich's ideas over the
> time span between the two books.
> Regards.
> Alison A Raimes
> ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
> http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
--
Linda Thomas
*Time is never wasted when you're wasted all the time.
--Catherine Zandonella*
mark webber
> Folks -
>
> Another excellent book in the Mellon series is Painting and Reality,
One of my favorites is "The Art in Painting", Albert Barnes (Yes the same
lucky bastard who created the Barnes Collection in Philly.)
Also very enlightening: "The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space" by John
White. (I believe this is also a favorite of currently absent(?) Gabriel
Laderman.)
Mark