Dali and behavior

[spino...@msn.com]

>Subject: Re: Dali/Cubism/double images and Behavior
>From: zi...@interport.net

>The source of the Dali double images is two fold. Occasional works by
>di Chirico who is very interesting because some of his most radical
>works make representational again the analytic cubist paintings of
>Braque and Picasso. Braque almost did it himself. turning a
>still-life into a self portrait more than once, or aportrait of some
>one else. Picasso turned a painting of a famous occasion-the party
>for le Douanier Rousseau-into a still life. The double image had a
>modernist genealogy before Dali, who painted bad cubist paintings
>along the way to his final style. The big source for Dali for quite a
>while was di Chirico, who comes out of cubism. By the way something I
>have not noticed the art historians aware of.

A very accurate recounting of the facts. It indicates to me that Dali
was a miniature industry who commercialized surrealism, not a first-rate
artist.

Analytic cubism demystifies the art process by showing how complex
realistic shapes can be schematized into simpler shapes such as de
Chirico's egg-shaped heads and what Mani regards as "flipper" hands.
Then, it is clearer how to return to realistic images. Art teachers use
analytic cubism to teach the art student how to begin a realistic
drawing, by sketching shapes lightly.

Insistence on realism seems to me to be an exclusionary measure because
it wants to hide the fact that mere representation ain't magic.

>Please note. I have not maligned one living being in this. Nor have I
>mentioned the name of one. In all things, if you have something to
>discuss, name calling is not a rhetorical or logical device. It only
>points to spleen and lack of respect on the part of the name caller.

I have not attained to this almost Buddhist lack of spleen. My personal
guideline is to disagree where I can present reasons, and where there is
sufficient reason to disagree. I felt that Mani's Web page, while
well-crafted and offering interesting links, was neo-barbaric in that it
saw shit where Matisse had created beauty. But I try to refrain from
characterizing the person apart from his viewpoints as a fool. The
problem with this is that if a viewpoint is regarded by the person as
part of his soul, then I have, in effect, engaged in name calling...the
sort of name calling condemned in the Sermon on the Mount as virtual
murder:

"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not
kill: and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgement. But
I say unto you, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall
be in danger of the judgement: and whoever say to his brother Raca,
shall be in danger of the council: but whoever shall say, Thou fool,
shall be in danger of hell fire."

I therefore engaged in an attack on Mani's soul (his Mana, if you will
:-)) by so sharply taking issue with his views on art, and his art
itself, which I regarded as a Surrealist dodge.

I can only say that I and all of us are subject to criticism of our work.
But if I were a better person I would probably not even criticise Mani's
work for fear that the criticism would affect his soul, even though the
enlightened artist creates without worrying about criticism. I am using
a variant of the law of war, which approves of war as long as the cause
is just and there is sufficient reason. But this is not a perfect rule.
I am a Hindu in some sense, not a Buddhist, for I am mindful of Krishna's
admonition to Arjuna that the battle of life cannot be escaped.

>Is it easy to feel embattled in this world? Yes it is. But does that
>mean that any one who disagrees with you in any particular ought to be
>attacked personally? Does this strengthen an argument? Of course not
>it shows that the name caller has only weak argument at his/her
>command.

If I had called Mani, literally, Raca, or a butthead, then that would be
wrong. But you may be alerting me to the fact that you can say of
someone's artistic production that it sucks and that this can be for all
intents and purposes saying that HE sucks. Robert Bly gives an example
in his book The Sibling Society: "that music sucks, man." Bly is
concerned about the lack of support people in a society, who no longer
respect parental authority, give each other's attempts to be creative,
and Bly specifically mentions the Internet as an example of the sort of
vicious rivalry that results.

But at the same time I feel that there has to be room for nuanced
criticism of the form "that music sucks in this way and for this reason",
because ANOTHER aspect of the Sibling Society is its refusal to see that
intersubjectivity is possible. Because parental authority has been
rejected, there is no longer any reason why one should struggle to
appreciate Beethoven or Cezanne unless they immediately float one's boat.
And nuanced criticism should also say good things where the nuanced
critic is being honest: thus, I honestly thought Mani is a good Web page
designer and that his work, as far as I can tell from thumbnails, is
well-crafted in detail.

Good managers in the bizness world know this instinctively: if they have
to give somebody a lousy overall performance review they (a) try to find
good things to say (such as "works well after an enema") and (b) only say
good things if they are being honest.

I have seen people engage in Internet flaming malgre lui because although
they believe that everybody is entitled to there own opinions, they hold
this "opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one" view so strongly
that considerations external to the matter at hand irritate them and make
them flame. "You deserve respect but you are wrong for these reasons
which I have considered carefully" is a view which requires a lack of
nihilism. I believe it is different from mere flaming, but I have seen
nuanced criticism characterized as mere flamage.

>One of the problems in all of this is that I do not believe in
>progress although I believe in its possibility. Cave engraving and
>painting is not worse than Greek or Roman painting. Renaissance
>painting is not better than the paintings in the Villa of the
>Mysteries, Baroque painting is not better than Titian,
>Bellini,Giorgione, Raphael Etc.

Correctamundo, but at the same time it is trivially true that artists
know and remember the work of their predecessors, and this is important.
Poussin did not improve on Titian, but he used color in awareness of the
Venetians. For this reason knowing, baldly, that Titian came before
Poussin is important in appreciating Poussin.

The common mistake made in seeing Boogeroo as a first-rate artist results
from ignorance of Boogeroo's awareness of Poussin. Liking Boogeroo
indicates that the liker does not know Poussin, because Poussin gives you
everything Boogeroo does, and more. I own three different Ninth
symphonies and can hear the Ninth over and over again, whereas I own one
David Bowie and cannot listen to it repeatedly. Bowie is great, but not
as great as Beethoven. Boogeroo is fair to middling. Poussin is the
sweet swan of Les Andelys, and Boogeroo shines his boots in Parnassus.

People can err in appreciation through ignorance of the history of art.
These errors are not like errors in matters of fact. They are errors
peculiar to artistic appreciation. To point out these errors is part of
the labor of the art historian. Like it or not, Gabriel, if you point
out an art history fact of which I am unaware as regards my appreciation
or creation, you have "maligned" my appreciation or creation. A simple
view that la la la everybody is right tends through its lack of
intersubjectivity to generate its polar opposite: ya da ya da ya da that
music sucks and you are a butthead.

>It is a good ideal for a young artist to want to be as good
>as---someone out there in the past. But except through his/her work,
>it is not reasonable to inflict this ideal on everyone else.

In this spirit, the neoconservative Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick
writes in the introduction to Philosophical Explanations that it is in
our modern, tolerant society to be a philosoper (or a philosophical
arrogant art critic like Clement Greenberg or Teddie Adorno) is to be
impolite. Americans tend to reject such figures. Nozick pretends,
dishonestly, to be in agreement.

The trouble is that Nozick, in Philosophical Explanations, was deeply
engaged in carrying out the ideological work of the Reagan administration
by building a metaphysic based on laissez-faire. Laissez-faire, as a
result of his work and the work of related figures such as Richard Posner
in the philosophy of law, is the strongest ideology on American campuses
today: for example, it is almost impossible to get tenure in sociology
unless you believe in "rational choice theory", a laissez-faire view with
a corporate agenda.

We shuddha, despite Buddha, struggled against this process.

>I prefer to think that we are living in kali yuga, the age of brass.
>And that we do the best we can in these times. The behavior of some
>of you would support my belief. If you check out the kinds of behavior
>typical of kali yuga and of the ages which preceded it The Age of Gold
>and the Age of Silver, you will instantly know why.

You got that right.

Krishna sums it up:

"Thou grievest for that which should not be grieved for, yet speakest
words of wisdom."

- Bhagavad-Gita

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