False statements - Ingres
John Ng
statements are made as if they are facts. Like this one by Maria
Costantino in her 1992 book, "Treasures of the Louvre", page 155.
Commenting on Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres' "The Turkish Bath", 1862,
she said:
"Ingres was not interested in anatomy; he changed the shaped of the
female body to recreate it in idealized forms. It is possible
therefore to see him as a forerunner of abstraction, the precursor of
the artists such as Modigliani and even Picasso."
Statements like these are made frequently (and without let) by authors
who wouldn't even dare to post those statements in this newgroup. The
truth is that Ingres painted this picture WITHOUT the use of models
and made lots of unforgiveable errors. He was an old man by then and
probably couldn't care less. I compare this painting with Leonardo's
"John the Baptist", as both are just bad swansongs of an otherwise
good career.
John Ng
ART RENEWAL ADVOCATE
http://community.webshots.com/user/pigsmayfly
keith o'connor (tinmangallery.com
k
John Ng <pigsm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d1bb492a.02122...@posting.google.com...
G*rd*n
He couldn't care less? Sounds like he was not interested in
anatomy, then, at least. The fact is, though, changing the
shape of the female body (among other things) to idealized
forms goes back to prehistory. Ingres didn't invent it.
Modigliani and Picasso aren't much of a leap of thought here,
though. Yes, they did an elongated figure now -- ho, hum.
Can't we come up with something a bit more exciting, a bit
more daring? Maria doesn't need to be shot, but she needs
some practice on the trapeze and the high wire.
--
(<><>) /*/
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
{ http://www.etaoin.com | latest new material 11/14/02 <-adv't
John Ng
> He couldn't care less? Sounds like he was not interested in
> anatomy, then, at least
Let me clarify. What I am getting at is not whether Ingres cared or
not but that Maria is giving the impression that Ingres purposefully
distorted his figures. I believe he is trying to draw as accurately
as he could, but failed. He IS interested in anatomy but didn't
bother to correct the disaster.
Hopping on the band-wagon, Maria took this opportunity to related
Ingres with Picasso.. a sheer nonsense. It is like saying apples are
oranges because worms attach them both!
> The fact is, though, changing the
> shape of the female body (among other things) to idealized
> forms goes back to prehistory. Ingres didn't invent it.
Of course, Ingres didn't invent "errors". It just came... just like
Picasso's bad art.
John
Leo Papandreou
"Old age?" "Unforgivable errors?"
Ingres was the leading academic painter of his time. He studied very
hard and never stopped drawing. He was the preeminent guardian of
classical values, tradition, and proportion. But for some reason he
consistently "overestimated" the length of the human back by some three
vertebrae.
The contradiction between his bourgeois mentality and gothic distortion
of the human figure for sensual effect is what makes his art stand out
in an age of guileless neoclassical and Victorian nudes. For that I do
not think he deserves to be spanked with your slide rule, my good USENET
friend (or enemy as the case may be.)
I think I'm beginning to understand your affection for Mr. B. It's because
he censored himself, isn't it? No doubt we should convene an ISO group to
standardize the human figure and develop technical requirements for artist
accreditation. A latter-day Book of Manners, so to speak.
--
Leo Papandreou
No sex, drugs and rock'n'roll? No art!
Lauri Levanto
John Ng wrote:
> Some people who write and talk about art should be shot! False
> statements are made as if they are facts. Like this one by Maria
> Costantino in her 1992 book, "Treasures of the Louvre", page 155.
>
Would it be kind to clean yoour own nest first?
Here is another name to your kill file:
"At the same time that he was admired and envied he was also much
impugned by a growing clique of painters and writers of the new generation
who considered themselves "progressive" and who believed
that rebellion against traditional values in painting
as defended by the Académie, was their
whole "raison d’etre."
The easier paths of painting for which they searched would be their ticket
to
fame and fortune.
Exploiting "Newness," as an end in itself, they passed themselves off as
champions of progress who emerged seemingly everywhere
in the agitated and unstable Europe at
the dawn of the 20th century.
(William Bouguereau Biography (1825-1905)
by Damien Bartoli )
* * *
In general, I am opposed to killing people
- if they err to go in a disco at Indonesia
- if they write opinions I do not share
- even if they demolish ancient artworks they do not like
live in piece
-lauri
G*rd*n
| > He couldn't care less? Sounds like he was not interested in
| > anatomy, then, at least
pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng):
| Let me clarify. What I am getting at is not whether Ingres cared or
| not but that Maria is giving the impression that Ingres purposefully
| distorted his figures. I believe he is trying to draw as accurately
| as he could, but failed. He IS interested in anatomy but didn't
| bother to correct the disaster.
|
| Hopping on the band-wagon, Maria took this opportunity to related
| Ingres with Picasso.. a sheer nonsense. It is like saying apples are
| oranges because worms attach them both!
Well, they're both fruit, and one might say that worms like
fruit. That wouldn't be nonsense, but it would be rather
pedestrian. If someone is going to discover Ingres somewhere,
let it at least be a bit less obvious than Ingres -> those
other guys who drew elongated figures!
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
| > The fact is, though, changing the
| > shape of the female body (among other things) to idealized
| > forms goes back to prehistory. Ingres didn't invent it.
pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng):
| Of course, Ingres didn't invent "errors". It just came... just like
| Picasso's bad art.
But if he liked his "errors" and so did other people, then
maybe they weren't really errors, except insofar as he
failed to accurately predict _your_ taste -- an oversight it
is true, but nobody's perfect.
John Ng
http://www.humboldt.edu/~rmj5/turkish-bath.jpg
> "Old age?" "Unforgivable errors?"
Yes, that is right.
> Ingres was the leading academic painter of his time. He studied very
> hard and never stopped drawing.
Without doubt Ingres is a VERY GOOD painter. It is for that reason
that I deem the errors unforgivable because I know he could do better
than this. I am not talking about the elongated figures, trademarked
of Ingres, but of the joins and length of the arms and legs, the
incorrect perspective, the mixture of midgets and giants etc.
> I think I'm beginning to understand your affection for Mr. B. It's because
> he censored himself, isn't it? No doubt we should convene an ISO group to
> standardize the human figure and develop technical requirements
I understand your affection for Ingres and it is as mine too. I
don't know how Bouguereau got into this invective of yours. Your
remarks are totally meaningless and retarded. Your statement about
the ISO also proves that you have no ability of determining human
proportion by eye, and has to depend of what authors say.
John Ng
John Ng
> But if he liked his "errors" and so did other people, then
> maybe they weren't really errors
But does he??? Or did the authors of books say so??? That is the
problem with art - "He who shouts the loudest, paints the best",
Confusion said that.
John Ng
John Ng
top-notch painter. The purpose is also not to condemn his
painting(s). Rather, it is to bring to light how incorrect statements
can be passed off as the truth by unscrupulous authors which is then
propagated into other books and soon becomes the truth that had never
happened, the basic idea condemns by Aldous Huxley and George Orwell.
My experience tells me that Arty-Fartsy proponents simply regurgitate
any printed statements without reflecting on them.
A picture reference can be found at:
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/I/ingres/turkbath.jpg.html
John Ng
G*rd*n
| > maybe they weren't really errors
pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng):
| But does he??? Or did the authors of books say so??? That is the
| problem with art - "He who shouts the loudest, paints the best",
| Confusion said that.
I doubt if Ingres cares about his painting any more, or, if
he does, that he can tell us about it in a way any but the
spiritualists among us will be satisfied with. However, the
painting must have a history. Ingres painted it, then he
did something with it, other than throw it out. If he sold
it or got it put into a gallery, then we must assume that he
liked the painting, weird as it is.
There may have even been a contemporary discussion of its
peculiar properties.
"Ça, c'est une très étrange pièce, Ingres. Tu te
sens bien?"
"Baise mon cul."
Edward G. Nilges
> statements are made as if they are facts. Like this one by Maria
> Costantino in her 1992 book, "Treasures of the Louvre", page 155.
>
> Commenting on Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres' "The Turkish Bath", 1862,
> she said:
>
> "Ingres was not interested in anatomy; he changed the shaped of the
> female body to recreate it in idealized forms. It is possible
> therefore to see him as a forerunner of abstraction, the precursor of
> the artists such as Modigliani and even Picasso."
>
> Statements like these are made frequently (and without let) by authors
> who wouldn't even dare to post those statements in this newgroup. The
Yeah, that's because this ng is dominated by authoritarian clowns who
hate beauty and art itself.
> truth is that Ingres painted this picture WITHOUT the use of models
> and made lots of unforgiveable errors. He was an old man by then and
What part of art don't you understand?
Furthermore, aging artists with failing physical powers often produce
work that is artistically their supreme achievement. This includes
Poussin's Four Seasons and the late Matisse.
Young punks who believe art is a matter of being a human camera
*obscura* will become at best commercial artists who will find their
intellectual product systematically stolen, and serve 'em right.
> probably couldn't care less. I compare this painting with Leonardo's
> "John the Baptist", as both are just bad swansongs of an otherwise
> good career.
What ev er.
Mani Deli
>Some people who write and talk about art should be shot! False
>statements are made as if they are facts. Like this one by Maria
>Costantino in her 1992 book, "Treasures of the Louvre", page 155.
>
>Commenting on Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres' "The Turkish Bath", 1862,
>she said:
>
>"Ingres was not interested in anatomy; he changed the shaped of the
>female body to recreate it in idealized forms. It is possible
>therefore to see him as a forerunner of abstraction, the precursor of
>the artists such as Modigliani and even Picasso."
>
This is 20th century politically correct stuff. Its a style. The rule
is if you are writing about a classical artist always mention someone
in the stable of Modern Academics. Its a rule of Artspeak.
There are whole books which proclaim how Mondrian influenced Vermeer
and de Kooning influenced Rembrandt etc. I just bought a book on
Ingres which reproduces among other drivel a Picasso a horror from his
mega schmier period along with the usual babble about the comparison.
I'm not into shooting anyone over the matter. The time will come when
boob scholars of that ilk will be seen to have shot themselves.
BTW In my opinion Ingres didn't change anatomy. The oft repeated
anecdote that his nude had extra vertebrae is for people who haven't
seen different body types.
...no skill no art!
Want to get away from the indecipherable imbecilities and absurd pretensions of the modern art establishment?
Check out my web page http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
Leo Papandreou
> koan...@earthling.net (Leo Papandreou) wrote in message
> http://www.humboldt.edu/~rmj5/turkish-bath.jpg
>
> > "Old age?" "Unforgivable errors?"
>
> Yes, that is right.
>
>
> > Ingres was the leading academic painter of his time. He studied very
> > hard and never stopped drawing.
>
> Without doubt Ingres is a VERY GOOD painter. It is for that reason
> that I deem the errors unforgivable because I know he could do better
> than this. I am not talking about the elongated figures, trademarked
> of Ingres, but of the joins and length of the arms and legs, the
> incorrect perspective, the mixture of midgets and giants etc.
>
This is what I'm saying! Why are you wasting breath and spittle
rebutting our violent agreement? /If/ only ISO approved works were
permitted to hang in museums, /then/ this discussion would be moot.
>
> > I think I'm beginning to understand your affection for Mr. B. It's because
> > he censored himself, isn't it? No doubt we should convene an ISO group to
> > standardize the human figure and develop technical requirements
>
> I understand your affection for Ingres and it is as mine too. I
> don't know how Bouguereau got into this invective of yours. Your
> remarks are totally meaningless and retarded. Your statement about
> the ISO also proves that you have no ability of determining human
> proportion by eye, and has to depend of what authors say.
>
>
You think I made a "meaningless and retarded" statement, eh?
You have learnt to read the letter of the text for content and are
unable to interpret style, form, and context. You have never learned
to pay attention to odd marginal moments, slips of the tongue and
unintended disclosures. You have never learned, or are genetically
indisposed, to turn your attention to that which is not explicit in
the text. It would stand to reason that if significant meaning is latent,
hidden and submerged in the text, then perhaps what we are looking at
when we read your accusations of "meaningless and retarded" is simply
a construction of your mind. The construction serves to project your
inadequacies onto others. Freud has shown us that such psychological
mechanisms represent appropriation, and thus acts of desire and murder.
Murder is a very wicked act. Thus, you are a very wicked man. I wonder,
are you the Devil?
I do not think you are the Devil. Ergo, I exist solely to pluck caustic
rejoinders from your radiant mouth.
John Ng
> I wonder, are you the Devil?
Worst than that, I am Picasso.
Ng
John Ng
> Ingres painted it, then he
> did something with it, other than throw it out. If he sold
> it or got it put into a gallery, then we must assume that he
> liked the painting, weird as it is.
Ah, yes, there is beauty in the painting... I never disputed it. I
simply said that Maria's comments on the anatomy used is preposterous
and that Ingres' figures were unintentionally wrongly constructed
instead. The painting is not about purposeful stylization of anatomy.
John Ng
Edward G. Nilges
> On 29 Dec 2002 16:25:27 -0800, pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng) wrote:
>
> >Some people who write and talk about art should be shot! False
> >statements are made as if they are facts. Like this one by Maria
> >Costantino in her 1992 book, "Treasures of the Louvre", page 155.
> >
> >Commenting on Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres' "The Turkish Bath", 1862,
> >she said:
> >
> >"Ingres was not interested in anatomy; he changed the shaped of the
> >female body to recreate it in idealized forms. It is possible
> >therefore to see him as a forerunner of abstraction, the precursor of
> >the artists such as Modigliani and even Picasso."
> >
> This is 20th century politically correct stuff. Its a style. The rule
> is if you are writing about a classical artist always mention someone
> in the stable of Modern Academics. Its a rule of Artspeak.
>
> There are whole books which proclaim how Mondrian influenced Vermeer
> and de Kooning influenced Rembrandt etc. I just bought a book on
My dear fellow, you need to hold the books right side up when you read
them. You will then find that they claim that Vermeer influenced
Mondrian, a true statement, and Rembrandt influenced de Kooning,
another true statement.
Mondrian's rectilinear style has its origin in his knowledge of Dutch
17th century art which went beyond a bumpkinesque admiration of
"skill."
De Kooning shared Rembrandt's love of paint and the application of it
to canvas.
> Ingres which reproduces among other drivel a Picasso a horror from his
> mega schmier period along with the usual babble about the comparison.
In fact, Picasso in the 1890s did a considerable amount of studying
and copying of Ingres' drawings and it was then he discovered that the
love of pure form can be divorced from a rube's admiration of "skill."
Mani Deli
>> There are whole books which proclaim how Mondrian influenced Vermeer
>> and de Kooning influenced Rembrandt etc. I just bought a book on
>
>My dear fellow, you need to hold the books right side up when you read
>them. You will then find that they claim that Vermeer influenced
>Mondrian, a true statement, and Rembrandt influenced de Kooning,
>another true statement.
Take the rod out of your ass it might help you catch on.
>
>Mondrian's rectilinear style has its origin in his knowledge of Dutch
>17th century art which went beyond a bumpkinesque admiration of
>"skill."
He didn't know a damned thing about Vermeer. For starters he couldn't
draw.
>De Kooning shared Rembrandt's love of paint and the application of it
>to canvas.
>
I'm touched!
John Ng
> My dear fellow, you need to hold the books right side up when you read
> them. You will then find that they claim that Vermeer influenced
> Mondrian, a true statement, and Rembrandt influenced de Kooning,
> another true statement.
Quite true. Mondrian was also influenced by the cave paintings,
footprints and inkblots. He was also influenced by children's
building blocks. A true statement. Black is black and white is
white... another true statement.
> De Kooning shared Rembrandt's love of paint and the application of it
> to canvas.
Quite true. De Kooning also shared Rembrandt's love for food, drinks,
and sleep. We are also influenced by De Kooning because we share his
love of paint and its application.
> In fact, Picasso in the 1890s did a considerable amount of studying
> and copying of Ingres' drawings and it was then he discovered that the
> love of pure form can be divorced from a rube's admiration of "skill."
Sure, Picasso would admire Ingres. Who wouldn't? But does this have
any relationship to his "love of pure form"? Could you become so awed
by the Statue of Liberty, and after doing "a considerable amount of
studying" of the statue, produce steel sheets? Is "being influenced"
in that way decriptively correct?
John Ng
Edward G. Nilges
> (Edward G. Nilges) Camera obscura + large oven = Vermeer, wrote:
>
> >> There are whole books which proclaim how Mondrian influenced Vermeer
> >> and de Kooning influenced Rembrandt etc. I just bought a book on
> >
> >My dear fellow, you need to hold the books right side up when you read
> >them. You will then find that they claim that Vermeer influenced
> >Mondrian, a true statement, and Rembrandt influenced de Kooning,
> >another true statement.
>
> Take the rod out of your ass it might help you catch on.
Call security...
> >
> >Mondrian's rectilinear style has its origin in his knowledge of Dutch
> >17th century art which went beyond a bumpkinesque admiration of
> >"skill."
>
> He didn't know a damned thing about Vermeer. For starters he couldn't
> draw.
His early and academic work of course disproves this. Like most, but
not all, high modernists he was first rate as an academic artist.
Furthermore, to be able to do analytic drawing in either the style of
Cubism, or de Stijl, is an indicator of that understanding without
which there is not even skill. This is why teachers of traditional
drawing use Cubist approaches to create a solid preparatory drawing,
and this is why Poussin used a form of proto-cubism to create solid
compositions.
>
> >De Kooning shared Rembrandt's love of paint and the application of it
> >to canvas.
> >
> I'm touched!
>
Anhedonic rage has nothing to do with art, and as far as I can
determine, you are a Web hack and a Fascist.
Mani Deli
> (Edward G. Nilges) Camera obscura + large oven = Vermeer, wrote:
>> >Mondrian's rectilinear style has its origin in his knowledge of Dutch
>> >17th century art which went beyond a bumpkinesque admiration of
>> >"skill."
>>
>> He didn't know a damned thing about Vermeer. For starters he couldn't
>> draw.
>
>His early and academic work of course disproves this. Like most, but
>not all, high modernists he was first rate as an academic artist.
In what school did you pick up that bullshit. I doubt that this guy
ever saw even an average academic drawing.
>
>Furthermore, to be able to do analytic drawing in either the style of
>Cubism, or de Stijl, is an indicator of that understanding without
>which there is not even skill. This is why teachers of traditional
>drawing use Cubist approaches to create a solid preparatory drawing,
I wonder if you ever do a drawing
>and this is why Poussin used a form of proto-cubism to create solid
>compositions.
Where?
>> >De Kooning shared Rembrandt's love of paint and the application of it
>> >to canvas.
>> >
>> I'm touched!
>>
>Anhedonic rage has nothing to do with art, and as far as I can
>determine, you are a Web hack and a Fascist.
>
You forgot to mention Bourgeois and Hitler. Hope you are trying to
smell better.
Lauri Levanto
more often than not, I disagree with you.
Sometimes I notice I try to patronise.
This time I am worried of your suicidial attempt
to be included to the number of liar art critics
that you say deserves to be killed
-lauri
Edward G. Nilges
> John,
> more often than not, I disagree with you.
> Sometimes I notice I try to patronise.
> This time I am worried of your suicidial attempt
> to be included to the number of liar art critics
> that you say deserves to be killed
>
> -lauri
>
>
>
> John Ng wrote:
>
> > spino...@yahoo.com (Edward G. Nilges) wrote in message
> >
> > > My dear fellow, you need to hold the books right side up when you read
> > > them. You will then find that they claim that Vermeer influenced
> > > Mondrian, a true statement, and Rembrandt influenced de Kooning,
> > > another true statement.
> >
> > Quite true. Mondrian was also influenced by the cave paintings,
> > footprints and inkblots. He was also influenced by children's
> > building blocks. A true statement. Black is black and white is
> > white... another true statement.
This is the perception, which is based on personal self-brutalization,
that statements in the humanities are tautologies or, without meaning.
The mechanism resembles a schizophrenic overuse of transitivity. The
inference is that if we allow that a -> b -> c in any case, then ANY
expression of the form a -> ... -> b is valid.
It was examined by Klaus Theweilt in his analysis of German politics
and society since the failure of left revolution in Germany in 1918.
The "soldier male" of the WWI German army was so indoctrinated in the
military way of looking at things, where self-identity was important
in the clumsy management of large numbers of men, that when he came
home, the *schlamperei* of civilian life, and liberal politics,
offended his sense of order.
But it now appears that instead of disappearing, this attitude is
common among computer users, perhaps because much of their training
outside of academic computer science is indeed inspired by military
basic training and its emphasis on self-identity...as where users are
trained to see closely-related software commodities (such as different
editions of Windows) as separate entities, and have to be exhaustively
retrained every time a new release comes out.
I am referring to the phenomenon of the user unable to use the DOS
window even though he has DOS experience because as a soldier male of
the computer workforce, has been trained to regard this as disobeying
orders.
When these types of users enter humanistic discussions, one is
saddened and amazed by their inability to grasp that BECAUSE Mondrian
was provably influenced by Vermeer, and Vermeer by Jan van Eyck, this
does not allow us to infer that Mondrian was influenced by Jan Van
Eyck.
> >
> > > De Kooning shared Rembrandt's love of paint and the application of it
> > > to canvas.
> >
> > Quite true. De Kooning also shared Rembrandt's love for food, drinks,
> > and sleep. We are also influenced by De Kooning because we share his
> > love of paint and its application.
> >
Again, an inner lack of discipline in German army recruits of the
First World War was not replaced by an inner ethical and cognitive
motor...any more than "basic training for youth offenders" in the US
in recent years was found to work (it was found to fail and at best
create large and well-muscled gangstas out of ninety-pound weakling
gangstas.)
Excessive focus on technical topics and the Internet leads to a form
of depression in which it is thought that any understanding not part
of mathematics is the road to a slipper slope perdition in which
anything would be permitted.
> > > In fact, Picasso in the 1890s did a considerable amount of studying
> > > and copying of Ingres' drawings and it was then he discovered that the
> > > love of pure form can be divorced from a rube's admiration of "skill."
> >
> > Sure, Picasso would admire Ingres. Who wouldn't? But does this have
> > any relationship to his "love of pure form"? Could you become so awed
> > by the Statue of Liberty, and after doing "a considerable amount of
> > studying" of the statue, produce steel sheets? Is "being influenced"
> > in that way decriptively correct?
> >
Leonardo recommended that the painter study abstract forms in order to
gain inspiration for realistic forms, and Poussin based realistic
composition on a cubist form of drawing in which classical figures,
that resemble the Statue of Liberty because its designer knew Poussin,
begin as wood blocks, or steel sheets.
> > John Ng
Edward G. Nilges
> > (Edward G. Nilges) Camera obscura + large oven = Vermeer, wrote:
>
> >> >Mondrian's rectilinear style has its origin in his knowledge of Dutch
> >> >17th century art which went beyond a bumpkinesque admiration of
> >> >"skill."
> >>
> >> He didn't know a damned thing about Vermeer. For starters he couldn't
> >> draw.
> >
> >His early and academic work of course disproves this. Like most, but
> >not all, high modernists he was first rate as an academic artist.
>
> In what school did you pick up that bullshit. I doubt that this guy
> ever saw even an average academic drawing.
It's called a public library.
The facts about the training of ALL Modernist and Impressionist
painters are available in any number of art books. Outside of
primitives and to an extent Gauguin, they attended traditional
*ateliers* run by sadistic jerks such as yourself who implemented your
dream.
In these *ateliers*, women as models were sexually, physically and
emotionally abused. Art students were physically, sexually and
emotionally abused if their work showed "lack of ability to draw" even
in the form of originality.
The students started by drawing the same small assemblage of plaster
casts, of the Venus de Milo and other Roman copies of Greek originals,
with an assigned set of black Conte crayons on a specified type of
paper. Rather than exploiting the capabilities of this medium, they
were expected to achieve an effect which, today, can be obtained in
seconds with Photoshop or an airbrush.
This was a pornographic sheen and smoothness in which the model was
made a sexual object without personality and without contribution to
the art object.
Then, they were "allowed" to paint, but were required to make a
monochrome *grisaille* underpainting and to color this as if shadows
are brown and not blue.
They, like the model, were made into things, into objects. But
because human beings need to be subjects they took the training and
made something new out of by in the case of analytic Cubism showing
how the process of objectification was incomplete.
Analytic cubism takes the analysis of form implicit in the *atelier*
and shows by example how this makes a person into an industrial
product.
>
> >
> >Furthermore, to be able to do analytic drawing in either the style of
> >Cubism, or de Stijl, is an indicator of that understanding without
> >which there is not even skill. This is why teachers of traditional
> >drawing use Cubist approaches to create a solid preparatory drawing,
>
> I wonder if you ever do a drawing
>
That's quite irrevelant to the fact that you are wasting people's time
by lying about art history.
> >and this is why Poussin used a form of proto-cubism to create solid
> >compositions.
>
> Where?
>
See any book of his drawings at the public library.
> >> >De Kooning shared Rembrandt's love of paint and the application of it
> >> >to canvas.
> >> >
> >> I'm touched!
> >>
> >Anhedonic rage has nothing to do with art, and as far as I can
> >determine, you are a Web hack and a Fascist.
> >
> You forgot to mention Bourgeois and Hitler. Hope you are trying to
> smell better.
Losers, who measure themselves by bourgeois standards, become Hitlers.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> But it now appears that instead of disappearing, this attitude is
> common among computer users, perhaps because much of their training
> outside of academic computer science is indeed inspired by military
> basic training and its emphasis on self-identity...as where users are
> trained to see closely-related software commodities (such as different
> editions of Windows) as separate entities, and have to be exhaustively
> retrained every time a new release comes out.
>
--
Lee Harvey Oswald, where are you when your country needs you? - graffito
(Anon)
Edward G. Nilges
> "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> >
> > But it now appears that instead of disappearing, this attitude is
> > common among computer users, perhaps because much of their training
> > outside of academic computer science is indeed inspired by military
> > basic training and its emphasis on self-identity...as where users are
> > trained to see closely-related software commodities (such as different
> > editions of Windows) as separate entities, and have to be exhaustively
> > retrained every time a new release comes out.
> >
> Have you considered the simpler explanation that they are a bit thick?
Yes, and I have rejected it. It is based on the nasty presupposition
that most people should be provided education, and training, below the
norm in order to prepare them for demeaning jobs and toxic
consumption.
Peter H.M. Brooks
What do you mean by 'toxic consumption'? The drinking of poison?
--
A picture cannot, however, depict its pictorial form: it displays it -
Wittgenstein Tractatus 2.172
Edward G. Nilges
> "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:f5dda427.03010...@posting.google.com...
> > "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> news:<av4ohh$mr$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>...
> > > "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > > >
> > > > But it now appears that instead of disappearing, this attitude is
> > > > common among computer users, perhaps because much of their training
> > > > outside of academic computer science is indeed inspired by military
> > > > basic training and its emphasis on self-identity...as where users are
> > > > trained to see closely-related software commodities (such as different
> > > > editions of Windows) as separate entities, and have to be exhaustively
> > > > retrained every time a new release comes out.
> > > >
> > > Have you considered the simpler explanation that they are a bit thick?
> >
> > Yes, and I have rejected it. It is based on the nasty presupposition
> > that most people should be provided education, and training, below the
> > norm in order to prepare them for demeaning jobs and toxic
> > consumption.
> >
> Really? How so?
>
> What do you mean by 'toxic consumption'? The drinking of poison?
What part of "literal mind" don't you understand?
In part, yes, of course, the drinking of poison at Love canal, and
also the toxicity of long-term consumption of common household and
consumer goods, both physical and spiritual.
Entire books have CONFIRMED the experience of family members and the
observation of my physician father, that a middle-class life in New
Jersey is toxic physically, mentally and spiritually. My kid, when in
New Jersey, had a severe asthmatic and allergic reaction to the
garbage that is unnecessarily spewed in the air in the Garden state.
But I can see that it is convenient if a technical class, surfeit with
Fox news and pseudo-intellectual neoconservative BS, feels it somehow
bad form to use metaphor and down-sizes its language to exclude the
possibility of its own victimization.
Peter H.M. Brooks
meaning!
What is the spiritual toxicity of common household and consumer goods - and
how would one measure this? [presumably not with a spirit level]
>
> Entire books have CONFIRMED the experience of family members and the
> observation of my physician father, that a middle-class life in New
> Jersey is toxic physically, mentally and spiritually. My kid, when in
> New Jersey, had a severe asthmatic and allergic reaction to the
> garbage that is unnecessarily spewed in the air in the Garden state.
>
I wouldn't really wish to comment on the toxicity of life in yankland. We
know that, in common with many other places, life there is invariably fatal,
so you probably have a point.
>
> But I can see that it is convenient if a technical class, surfeit with
> Fox news and pseudo-intellectual neoconservative BS, feels it somehow
> bad form to use metaphor and down-sizes its language to exclude the
> possibility of its own victimization.
>
What is 'Fox news'? [I didn't think foxes had reached that level of
communicational sophistication]
How does something being 'bad form' exclude the possibility of the
victimisation of a class?
You haven't had a bad attack of 'Das Kapital' perchance, have you?
--
"Ecce Edwardus Ursus scalis numc tump-tump-tump occipite gradus pulsante
post Christophorum Robinum descendens. Est quod sciatunus et solus modus
gradibus descendendi,nonnunquam autem sentit, etiam alterum modum estare,
dummodo pulsationibus desinere et de eo modo meditari possit. Deinde censet
alios modos non esse. En, nunc ipse in imo est, vobis ostentari paratus." -
Winnie ille Pu.
Edward G. Nilges
As I said, to manufacture consent to rampant consumerism, it is
necessary to deprive people of a language of complaint.
The spiritual toxicity of common household goods is simply the clutter
and the energy drain that consists in acquiring more than you actually
need.
Some household goods are nifty, like the Popeil Pocket Fisherman or a
good book. But I would suggest that we've gone overboard and in the
last twenty years have manufactured needs along with goods.
> >
> > Entire books have CONFIRMED the experience of family members and the
> > observation of my physician father, that a middle-class life in New
> > Jersey is toxic physically, mentally and spiritually. My kid, when in
> > New Jersey, had a severe asthmatic and allergic reaction to the
> > garbage that is unnecessarily spewed in the air in the Garden state.
> >
> I wouldn't really wish to comment on the toxicity of life in yankland. We
> know that, in common with many other places, life there is invariably fatal,
> so you probably have a point.
OK, maybe your society hasn't reached the point we have. But when I
lived in Britain in the 1970s there were far fewer goods, however,
they seemed kind of toxic at times. Such as vicious little infernal
machines which would turn cherry red when you plugged them into the
wall, already ubiquitous black and white TVs, and Woodbine packets.
> >
> > But I can see that it is convenient if a technical class, surfeit with
> > Fox news and pseudo-intellectual neoconservative BS, feels it somehow
> > bad form to use metaphor and down-sizes its language to exclude the
> > possibility of its own victimization.
> >
> What is 'Fox news'? [I didn't think foxes had reached that level of
> communicational sophistication]
Telly channel here in the States, part of a media multinational,
heavily biased to the right.
>
> How does something being 'bad form' exclude the possibility of the
> victimisation of a class?
>
Come on, behavior is patterned to exclude alternatives.
> You haven't had a bad attack of 'Das Kapital' perchance, have you?
"You should have seen me reading Marx." - Allen Ginsberg
I've read the old stinker of Highgate's Big Book entire. I've also
read the neoclassical holy books such as Milton Friedman.
I have to report that as someone with years in business, the old
stinker was head and shoulders above Adam Smith as an economist.
Read Francis Wheen's biography of Marx, then read Das Kapital, not as
a prescription for action but as a Gothic novel which realistically
describes the pure market, not as the benign god it is supposed to be,
but as a neutral and infernal machine: a kind of Frankenstein:
"I ain't ugly, I just good lookin..." - Alice Cooper
As it happens, the old carbuncle of the British Museum got most of the
facts and much of the interpretation right including declining rate of
profit and consequent squeeze on the working man. As it happens,
things that labor fought for including the 8 hour day and unemployment
insurance have prevented this monster from tearing up the shop for 100
years.
But today, given that markets have expanded globally, we have no
reason to predict that world economic activity will converge to any
one level.
Another first class economic thinker, Keynes, pointed out that one
"depression" may have been the Dark Ages which in Britain lasted from
about 400 AD to let us say for convenience 1066...although that
somewhat anachronistically gives William Conqueror too much credit for
cheering nonexistent lads at a nonexistent stock exchange.
The point is that as in Japan, we have no way of predicting at what
point a market will settle down to a "natural" level. It could be
beer and skittles for all, or it could be 1933, or 500 AD.
Forces outside the market control this, and globalization does tend to
destroy these forces, as in Venezuela where it is probable that the
so-called "general strike" is a CIA funded mobilization of employers
who pay their employees to strike (stranger things have happened.)
Communism was a God that Failed, that is for sure. But there is no
reason why the market will not also fail to solve our problems.
The very idea that if a person cracks a particular damn book, then he
is a deluded idiot, is curious indeed and a form of demotic
postmodernism.
If a yokel sees another yokel on the bus reading a damn book, it is
equiprobable who is dumb and who is dumber. Yokel A (the non-reader)
may be instead a subscriber to the profundities of TV and thus dumber.
Or the reader may have only read one book, and thus dumber.
I see a lot of this crap on the Internet: bubble butt yokels (present
company excluded) jeering at the poster with a library card and
posting links to Web sites full of lies. There are people deluded by
Marx (they are now in nursing homes), and there are people deluded by
the Bible. Then, there are people who read as the wild sheep defecate
in New Zealand, at random, and I suggest that these have a clue.
Edward G. Nilges
No, but in my previous response I had a senior moment. It's "I ain't
evil, I'm just good looking", not what I quoted.
Mani Deli
best messages in my collection. I love his facts. He's deep into
psychoceramics.
Nilges has clearly earned his Dan Fox seal of approval. Even higher
honors are called for; perhaps Fox will recommend his revelations for
inclusion in Artforum. Yente Welch and oconnor should definitely
study this guy carefully.
>>Mani Deli <ma...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
(Edward G. Nilges) discoverer of the modern art formula: Camera
obscura + large oven = Vermeer, wrote:
>The facts about the training of ALL Modernist and Impressionist
>painters are available in any number of art books. Outside of
>primitives and to an extent Gauguin, they attended traditional
>*ateliers* run by sadistic jerks such as yourself who implemented your
>dream.
Were they all sadists or were there exceptions? Please fiil us in on
any details.
>In these *ateliers*, women as models were sexually, physically and
>emotionally abused. Art students were physically, sexually and
>emotionally abused if their work showed "lack of ability to draw" even
>in the form of originality.
I'm sure all the artzy fartzies here will take note of this important
fact. Did you also find out about this in the library? Spacemen?
>The students started by drawing the same small assemblage of plaster
>casts, of the Venus de Milo and other Roman copies of Greek originals,
>with an assigned set of black Conte crayons on a specified type of
>paper.
Terrible indeed!
> Rather than exploiting the capabilities of this medium, they
>were expected to achieve an effect which, today, can be obtained in
>seconds with Photoshop or an airbrush.
Can I credit you with this formula for use by today's art student?
(Photoshop or airbrush) = academic drawing
- If its done in blacks, of course.
>This was a pornographic sheen and smoothness in which the model was
>made a sexual object without personality and without contribution to
>the art object.
Did the "pornographic sheen" enhance the sexual abuse that saturated
all those former art schools?
>Then, they were "allowed" to paint, but were required to make a
>monochrome *grisaille* underpainting and to color this as if shadows
>are brown and not blue.
It's good to now know for a fact that today we can at last do all
this in blue. Are all shadows blue?
>They, like the model, were made into things, into objects. But
>because human beings need to be subjects they took the training and
>made something new out of by in the case of analytic Cubism showing
>how the process of objectification was incomplete.
I hope you write an art history book containing all your sensational
facts. I'm looking forward to many more here in order to supplement my
meager knowledge of art history.
>Analytic cubism takes the analysis of form implicit in the *atelier*
>and shows by example how this makes a person into an industrial
>product.
I now realize that automobile and many towel designers were Analytic
Cubists.
>> >
>> >Furthermore, to be able to do analytic drawing in either the style of
>> >Cubism, or de Stijl, is an indicator of that understanding without
>> >which there is not even skill. This is why teachers of traditional
>> >drawing use Cubist approaches to create a solid preparatory drawing,
As long the shadows are blue.
>> I wonder if you ever did a drawing
>>
>That's quite irrevelant to the fact that you are wasting people's time
>by lying about art history.
Well what else can anyone who didn't get his art history from space
men do, other then lie.
>
>> >and this is why Poussin used a form of proto-cubism to create solid
>> >compositions.
>>
>> Where?
>>
>See any book of his drawings at the public library.
I'll have to do that. And I thought you originated this amazing fact.
Did any masters use proto-dripism?
>> >> >De Kooning shared Rembrandt's love of paint and the application of it
>> >> >to canvas.
>> >> >
>> >> I'm touched!
>> >>
>> >Anhedonic rage has nothing to do with art, and as far as I can
>> >determine, you are a Web hack and a Fascist.
Were all those perverted art teachers you discovered also Fascists
like me?
>> >
>> You forgot to mention Bourgeois and Hitler. Hope you are trying to
>> smell better.
>
>Losers, who measure themselves by bourgeois standards, become Hitlers.
I'm not completely sure but I get an occasional hint that you might be
slightly paranoid. Can you tell us whether you have noticed more
Hitler's then usual in your neighborhood?
Peter H.M. Brooks
> > meaning!
> >
> > What is the spiritual toxicity of common household and consumer goods -
and
> > how would one measure this? [presumably not with a spirit level]
>
> As I said, to manufacture consent to rampant consumerism, it is
> necessary to deprive people of a language of complaint.
>
>
> The spiritual toxicity of common household goods is simply the clutter
> and the energy drain that consists in acquiring more than you actually
> need.
>
even need a house.
> >
> > How does something being 'bad form' exclude the possibility of the
> > victimisation of a class?
> >
> Come on, behavior is patterned to exclude alternatives.
>
>
> > You haven't had a bad attack of 'Das Kapital' perchance, have you?
>
> "You should have seen me reading Marx." - Allen Ginsberg
>
> I've read the old stinker of Highgate's Big Book entire. I've also
> read the neoclassical holy books such as Milton Friedman.
>
> I have to report that as someone with years in business, the old
> stinker was head and shoulders above Adam Smith as an economist.
>
> Read Francis Wheen's biography of Marx, then read Das Kapital, not as
> a prescription for action but as a Gothic novel which realistically
> describes the pure market, not as the benign god it is supposed to be,
> but as a neutral and infernal machine: a kind of Frankenstein:
>
> "I ain't ugly, I just good lookin..." - Alice Cooper
>
clouded by the gross simplification afforded by the 'dialectic'. Anyway I
thought you had drifted into that territory.
>
> Forces outside the market control this, and globalization does tend to
> destroy these forces, as in Venezuela where it is probable that the
> so-called "general strike" is a CIA funded mobilization of employers
> who pay their employees to strike (stranger things have happened.)
>
>
> Communism was a God that Failed, that is for sure. But there is no
> reason why the market will not also fail to solve our problems.
>
>
> The very idea that if a person cracks a particular damn book, then he
> is a deluded idiot, is curious indeed and a form of demotic
> postmodernism.
>
post-modernism yourself - hence my remark. I am happy for everybody to tuck
into 'Das Kapital', it would reduce the crime rate by extending people's
sleeping hours considerably.
>
> If a yokel sees another yokel on the bus reading a damn book, it is
> equiprobable who is dumb and who is dumber. Yokel A (the non-reader)
> may be instead a subscriber to the profundities of TV and thus dumber.
> Or the reader may have only read one book, and thus dumber.
>
>
> I see a lot of this crap on the Internet: bubble butt yokels (present
> company excluded) jeering at the poster with a library card and
> posting links to Web sites full of lies. There are people deluded by
> Marx (they are now in nursing homes), and there are people deluded by
> the Bible. Then, there are people who read as the wild sheep defecate
> in New Zealand, at random, and I suggest that these have a clue.
>
else would nationalism have taken such a grip?
Reading at random does indeed suggest that you have a clue as to how to
broaden your horizons. You do end up reading a fair bit of rubbish, but
discover some quite unexpected gems. Somebody who has only read the
prescribed pinko stuff is a bore beyond belief.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> > victimisation of a class?
> >
> > You haven't had a bad attack of 'Das Kapital' perchance, have you?
>
> No, but in my previous response I had a senior moment. It's "I ain't
> evil, I'm just good looking", not what I quoted.
>
puzzle me.
--
I wish that baby Jesus had never been born - Samaritans
Richard
I doubt that what Nilges said was a fair representation of history.
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Edward G. Nilges
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>
>
> I doubt that what Nilges said was a fair representation of history.
You are welcome to your doubt. But you should tell us your
representation so that we can make a judgement. By "we" I refer of
course to "all of us cool guys."
I have noted that due to the failure of schools at least in the USA,
many students and others do not really have a clear conception of
history any more, and in consequence "doubt" any one attempt to convey
it. Unfortunately they feel very sophisticated in so doing, although
ignorance != doubt.
Norman Davies mentions a check-out clerk in the UK who thought that
the Battle of Agincourt as shown on the case of a DVD with the Branagh
film Henry V occured in 1066.
In North Carolina, I was reading Norman's new history of the British
and Celtic Isles in a restaurant. The waiter thought I was reading a
book of fantasy like Steven King or Tolkien because he literally had
no conception of the concept of history at all. To him, it was a set
of alternative fantasies.
How convenient this is to the elite, for then Howard Zinn, the
historian who describes the suffering of working people, indigneous
people and people of color, is just religious fiction for lefties.
As it happens, Hitler and Fascist parties in Europe turned out to be
very skilled both technically and managerially in the use of the
then-new technology of radio.
Left politicians used the radio for long and boring speeches whereas
Hitler and Fascisti in general found that ordinary listeners were so
overworked that they remembered only sound bites with the classic
being "it is all the fault of the Jews."
Mani's "no skill no art" is a catchphrase of this type.
Edward G. Nilges
> "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > > >
> > > If you wish to communicate it isn't a bad idea to have a good literal
> > > meaning!
> > >
> > > What is the spiritual toxicity of common household and consumer goods -
> and
> > > how would one measure this? [presumably not with a spirit level]
> >
> > As I said, to manufacture consent to rampant consumerism, it is
> > necessary to deprive people of a language of complaint.
> >
> What evidence do you have for this claim?
Your language is exhibit A, mate. You are irritated by metaphor
because the Internet and consumerism encourages the clinical
depression of thinking that it is useless to expand one's horizons
through metaphor.
I am thinking of what a French girl told me in the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art once. I was admiring a pile of donuts painted by
the SF artist Wayne Thiebaud in his sticky, yummy style. I said it
looked good in my naive, gosh-all-fish hooks Hoosier style.
She said, "eet ees a pile of sheeit."
Neither she nor I was correct, or, we were both right.
For it is 99.6% dollars to donuts probable that THE ARTIST HIMSELF is
ambivalent, as an artist, about the shiny glamor of America and
California with its glistening ymmu surfaces, under which
...they stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast...
- The Eagles
Mani admires the similar work of Mel Ramos as a yokel, for he THINKS
Mel just a Vargas in Mel's series of American girls with midcentury
bikini tan lines (yum.)
But my French honey bunny would probably say that the girls are
daemons which they sometimes turn into upon closer demotic inspection.
I refer to the white racism that sort of seethes underneath Southern
California beach culture. Surf Nazis must die!
But this common Internet dislike of complex, ambiguous, and
"self-contradictory" speech literally deprives people of a language in
which they can say, like Jenny Holzer, PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT.
They end up instead on Prozac.
> >
> > The spiritual toxicity of common household goods is simply the clutter
> > and the energy drain that consists in acquiring more than you actually
> > need.
> >
> I see, an Epicurian argument. Actually, as Diogenes established, you don't
> even need a house.
Good call. And Diogenes did us a service. We don't HAVE to get rid
of our goods, only live with purity of heart, such that when we are
THREATENED with their loss by George Bush if we do not support his
war, we can say, so what.
> > >
> > > How does something being 'bad form' exclude the possibility of the
> > > victimisation of a class?
> > >
> > Come on, behavior is patterned to exclude alternatives.
> >
> Really? How then does eating miso soup 'exclude' eating hot and sour soup?
...I ask everybody...kids today...
Seriously, you confuse a digital, and denumerable, commodified variety
of choices with a truly open world.
I am thinking of the apparent sexual openness of the Internet in which
the structure of sites ensures that any combo is available...but NOT
any kind of erotic openness to the world, a phrase considered by
Internet zoids to be vague.
Thus through the sexual "discourse cascade", a person who is at one
point of his life a foot fetishist becomes a reified, dead person who
cannot get interested in any other sexual topic, and she or he
develops a Puritan aversion to any other combination. This might be
the gay person who is physically revolted by "breeders" as opposed to
those charming older gay men who love weddings and the subsequent
babies without any irony.
You replace thought by a commodified experience in which unknown
Japanese fishermen make it POSSIBLE for you to eat miso soup, while
risking their lives because United States submariners are stupid
idiots (cf. the sinking in June 2001 of a Japanese training boat by
the US Navy.)
> >
> > > You haven't had a bad attack of 'Das Kapital' perchance, have you?
> >
> > "You should have seen me reading Marx." - Allen Ginsberg
> >
> > I've read the old stinker of Highgate's Big Book entire. I've also
> > read the neoclassical holy books such as Milton Friedman.
> >
> > I have to report that as someone with years in business, the old
> > stinker was head and shoulders above Adam Smith as an economist.
> >
> > Read Francis Wheen's biography of Marx, then read Das Kapital, not as
> > a prescription for action but as a Gothic novel which realistically
> > describes the pure market, not as the benign god it is supposed to be,
> > but as a neutral and infernal machine: a kind of Frankenstein:
> >
> > "I ain't ugly, I just good lookin..." - Alice Cooper
> >
> Frankenstein was a scientist, not an 'infernal machine'. Marx' thinking was
> clouded by the gross simplification afforded by the 'dialectic'. Anyway I
> thought you had drifted into that territory.
Hmm, I thought that the problem of the dialectic was that it made
Milton Friedman's head hurt, and Capital is a complex and not a simple
text. Oh well...
I have read Mary Shelley's novel and I am well aware that Frankenstein
is the scientist, thank you very much. I ain't evil, I'm just good
lookin.
> >
> > Forces outside the market control this, and globalization does tend to
> > destroy these forces, as in Venezuela where it is probable that the
> > so-called "general strike" is a CIA funded mobilization of employers
> > who pay their employees to strike (stranger things have happened.)
> >
> Surely globalisation is the market.
Why? Why can't civic society say to the market, market, you is a good
guy but you can go no further. Saying that globalization is
inevitable DESTROYS a flourishing market, as in the example where
Starbucks used to have good baked goods but has them no longer because
of profit considerations.
> >
> > Communism was a God that Failed, that is for sure. But there is no
> > reason why the market will not also fail to solve our problems.
> >
> Now that is a true and sensible remark!
Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man pays it any mind. But I
have damnable iteration, like Prince Hal, and can corrupt a saint.
> >
> > The very idea that if a person cracks a particular damn book, then he
> > is a deluded idiot, is curious indeed and a form of demotic
> > postmodernism.
> >
> Don't be cross now! You seemed to be keen on a rather marxist flavoured
> post-modernism yourself - hence my remark. I am happy for everybody to tuck
> into 'Das Kapital', it would reduce the crime rate by extending people's
> sleeping hours considerably.
> >
> > If a yokel sees another yokel on the bus reading a damn book, it is
> > equiprobable who is dumb and who is dumber. Yokel A (the non-reader)
> > may be instead a subscriber to the profundities of TV and thus dumber.
> > Or the reader may have only read one book, and thus dumber.
> >
> Don't look at me as a defender of plebvision!!!
I'm not.
> >
> > I see a lot of this crap on the Internet: bubble butt yokels (present
> > company excluded) jeering at the poster with a library card and
> > posting links to Web sites full of lies. There are people deluded by
> > Marx (they are now in nursing homes), and there are people deluded by
> > the Bible. Then, there are people who read as the wild sheep defecate
> > in New Zealand, at random, and I suggest that these have a clue.
> >
> True enough. There is a spirit of barbaric anti-intellectualism abroad - why
> else would nationalism have taken such a grip?
>
> Reading at random does indeed suggest that you have a clue as to how to
> broaden your horizons. You do end up reading a fair bit of rubbish, but
> discover some quite unexpected gems. Somebody who has only read the
> prescribed pinko stuff is a bore beyond belief.
At the three universities where I have taught (Roosevelt, DeVry, and
in a sense Princeton...at Princeton I taught computer minicourses
only) only DeVry, interestingly, prescribed "pinko" texts!
Roosevelt's administration in the 1970s forced teachers to abandon
Zinn and Chomsky in favor of centrist and conservative hacks like
Brand Blanshard, in philosophy, and Joel Taylor's boring history of
western "civilization"...which if I recall correctly mentions neither
John Brown nor Las Casas.
Princeton, same deal.
But DeVry's history department had the kiddies read Zinn. That is
about the only textbook which speaks to the real situation of people
who are the first in their family to make it to ANY sort of college
whatsoever.
This probably was not a choice of the top guys at DeVry who are
probably a combination of hustlers, and people genuinely interested in
helping poor people and minorities get a degree. Indeed, the chair of
history when I taught at DeVry turned out to be an old buddy of mine
from my SDS days.
Chicago has this stupid program called "one city, one book". It is
the bright idea of an Irish political hack named Mary Dempsey who is
running the library into the ground.
The problem happens to be the sort of natively bright person who reads
one book, such as Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and gets a bee in her
bonnet that Dis is De Answer.
She is the bane of hard-working adjunct faculty like me or my sister,
for she interrupts the smooth flow of our brilliant lectures with
stupid questions taken from her guruette.
The most recent book in Mary Dempsey's stupid Mick program (I can
insult the Irish because I am half Mick meself) is Ely Weisel's Night.
It's an excellent book...but her choice sparked a protest by
Chicago's large Moslem community, because Weisel is a theorist who
maintains that the Holocaust was unique.
The Holocaust in a sense was unique, but if you take this view to
Sharon's extreme, you DIALECTICALLY create a new Holocaust where the
former victims become the new executioners.
That, BTW, illustrates how dialectic logic works. It is not a license
for turning lead into gold. You have to do your homework to make such
a claim and you make such a claim in full knowledge that it is
offensive. The specific claim is based on the fact that while Jews
aren't shoveling Arabs into ovens, they have seen to it that several
generations have grown up in camps, and have killed many as a
byproduct of police operations of military scale.
If you are committed to "Never Again" then you take baby steps away
from the preconditions of a new Holocaust for the SAME dialectical
reason the smart alcoholic doesn't have "one beer."
The alky knows that "one beer" sets up a dialectic where that "one
beer" starts a conversation with him, a dialogue. The beer says "hey,
Joe, I'm a lonely Budweiser, let's get a party started with 20 of me
in the same room. Mybe the Swedish bikini team will show up. You
never know."
I think Ariel Sharon is doin' the same thing. He is crazed by blood
lust in the same way the alky is crazed. His Temple Mount was the
first drink.
I hope this helps.
John Ng
I didn't have time to read all Nilges messages but from what you
picked up, he is stupider than I thought with a misguided
interpretation of art ideas and history.
> >In these *ateliers*, women as models were sexually, physically and
> >emotionally abused. Art students were physically, sexually and
> >emotionally abused if their work showed "lack of ability to draw" even
> >in the form of originality.
I especially like this one. I guess they don't do all those things in
Modern Art ateliers. They were probably so engrossed in splashing
colours, and painting cubes (hard work, must concentration) that they
had no time to think about the models. They probably never looked at
the models in the first place, and probably never realised that they
were there at all.
> > Rather than exploiting the capabilities of this medium, they
> >were expected to achieve an effect which, today, can be obtained in
> >seconds with Photoshop or an airbrush.
According to Nilges, a print is as good as a painting. Why is he in
this Newsgroup in the first place?
John Ng
ART RENEWAL ADVOCATE
http://community.webshots.com/user/pigsmayfly
John Ng
> more often than not, I disagree with you.
> Sometimes I notice I try to patronise.
> This time I am worried of your suicidial attempt
> to be included to the number of liar art critics
> that you say deserves to be killed
Lauri, I wish you would stop this kind of tasteless joke that sets off
a whole lot of post from brainless art-farties about Hilter, George
Bush and all.
You know I never suggested any kind of "killing". It is a matter of
expression which I forgot that idiots like you are ready to pounce on.
The problem is that you are so hung up about trying to "beat" me that
you resort to childish jokes to insinuate defamation. Can you not
stay on the topic and instead "beat" me in art discussion?
Peter H.M. Brooks
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
news:<av8ne0$93p$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>...
> > "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > > > >
> > > > If you wish to communicate it isn't a bad idea to have a good
literal
> > > > meaning!
> > > >
> > > > What is the spiritual toxicity of common household and consumer
goods -
> > and
> > > > how would one measure this? [presumably not with a spirit level]
> > >
> > > As I said, to manufacture consent to rampant consumerism, it is
> > > necessary to deprive people of a language of complaint.
> > >
> > What evidence do you have for this claim?
>
> Your language is exhibit A, mate. You are irritated by metaphor
> because the Internet and consumerism encourages the clinical
> depression of thinking that it is useless to expand one's horizons
> through metaphor.
>
really, than a metaphor.
Actually we have to do so much of our thinking in metaphor that it is
virtually impossible to be against it. I am, however, against poorly chosen
metaphors.
>
> I am thinking of what a French girl told me in the San Francisco
> Museum of Modern Art once. I was admiring a pile of donuts painted by
> the SF artist Wayne Thiebaud in his sticky, yummy style. I said it
> looked good in my naive, gosh-all-fish hooks Hoosier style.
>
> She said, "eet ees a pile of sheeit."
>
> Neither she nor I was correct, or, we were both right.
>
> For it is 99.6% dollars to donuts probable that THE ARTIST HIMSELF is
> ambivalent, as an artist, about the shiny glamor of America and
> California with its glistening ymmu surfaces, under which
>
> ...they stab it with their steely knives
> But they just can't kill the beast...
>
> - The Eagles
>
Good point! There can be more intelligent ways of expressing the point - for
me the famouse fibreglass sculpture of two American tourists does it
beautifully!
>
> But my French honey bunny would probably say that the girls are
> daemons which they sometimes turn into upon closer demotic inspection.
> I refer to the white racism that sort of seethes underneath Southern
> California beach culture. Surf Nazis must die!
>
Since the San Andreas fault is some decades late for a major readjustment
your wish for 'Surf Nazis' may well come true quite soon.
>
> But this common Internet dislike of complex, ambiguous, and
> "self-contradictory" speech literally deprives people of a language in
> which they can say, like Jenny Holzer, PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT.
> They end up instead on Prozac.
>
Wait a minute! Complex and ambiguous speech is necessary, at times, to
express complex ideas. However the mark of a good communicator and somebody
who has truly understood that of which they speak is that they can describe
it simply.
I am not sure of quite what you mean by 'self-contradictory' speech in
inverted commas. Do you mean that it is only apparently self-contradictory?
If so, what is the benefit of giving that appearance?
>
> > >
> > > The spiritual toxicity of common household goods is simply the clutter
> > > and the energy drain that consists in acquiring more than you actually
> > > need.
> > >
> > I see, an Epicurian argument. Actually, as Diogenes established, you
don't
> > even need a house.
>
> Good call. And Diogenes did us a service. We don't HAVE to get rid
> of our goods, only live with purity of heart, such that when we are
> THREATENED with their loss by George Bush if we do not support his
> war, we can say, so what.
>
True. It is, however, considerably easier to accept a pay rise than a pay
cut.
>
> > > >
> > > > How does something being 'bad form' exclude the possibility of the
> > > > victimisation of a class?
> > > >
> > > Come on, behavior is patterned to exclude alternatives.
> > >
> > Really? How then does eating miso soup 'exclude' eating hot and sour
soup?
>
> ...I ask everybody...kids today...
>
> Seriously, you confuse a digital, and denumerable, commodified variety
> of choices with a truly open world.
>
It was you who said 'behaviour is patterned to exclude alternatives' - I
would like you to expand on what you mean, my point about the soup is to
indicate that your claim doesn't apply to all behavour.
What is a 'truly open world' and how would we know it if we saw it?
>
> I am thinking of the apparent sexual openness of the Internet in which
> the structure of sites ensures that any combo is available...but NOT
> any kind of erotic openness to the world, a phrase considered by
> Internet zoids to be vague.
>
I'm not sure what a 'ziod' might be, but it isn't the sharpest expression I
have ever heard!
>
> Thus through the sexual "discourse cascade", a person who is at one
> point of his life a foot fetishist becomes a reified, dead person who
> cannot get interested in any other sexual topic, and she or he
> develops a Puritan aversion to any other combination. This might be
> the gay person who is physically revolted by "breeders" as opposed to
> those charming older gay men who love weddings and the subsequent
> babies without any irony.
>
You appear to be saying that having too wide a choice results in over
specialisation - which is true. However, having a specialist interest
doesn't necessarily mean one doesn't also have general interests.
>
> You replace thought by a commodified experience in which unknown
> Japanese fishermen make it POSSIBLE for you to eat miso soup, while
> risking their lives because United States submariners are stupid
> idiots (cf. the sinking in June 2001 of a Japanese training boat by
> the US Navy.)
>
How is being aware of that a 'commodified experience'?
>
> > > >
> > Frankenstein was a scientist, not an 'infernal machine'. Marx' thinking
was
> > clouded by the gross simplification afforded by the 'dialectic'. Anyway
I
> > thought you had drifted into that territory.
>
> Hmm, I thought that the problem of the dialectic was that it made
> Milton Friedman's head hurt, and Capital is a complex and not a simple
> text. Oh well...
>
Kapital is a complicated book, not a complex book - an important
distinction!
The dialectic is not only a simplification, but also a politicisation of
argument. The person who defines what the dichotomy is defines the
arguement - this is pretty much what you appear to be arguing against above,
and is a result of the unfortunate meme for the dialectic being absorbed
into much 'thought'. It does make simple minds happily deluded that they
have a grasp of the world.
>
> I have read Mary Shelley's novel and I am well aware that Frankenstein
> is the scientist, thank you very much. I ain't evil, I'm just good
> lookin.
<
Good book, isn't it?
--
Nor do I believe that a civilisation which uses torture to defend itself is
a civilisation worth defending. It has already given away one of the core
principles of which its enemy wants to deprive it: a sense of honour and
decency in its actions, however desperate the straits. - Adam Nicholson,
Telegraph 17/12/02
Peter H.M. Brooks
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
news:<av8ne0$93p$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>...
> > "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > > >
> > > destroy these forces, as in Venezuela where it is probable that the
> > > so-called "general strike" is a CIA funded mobilization of employers
> > > who pay their employees to strike (stranger things have happened.)
> > >
> > Surely globalisation is the market.
>
> Why? Why can't civic society say to the market, market, you is a good
> guy but you can go no further. Saying that globalization is
> inevitable DESTROYS a flourishing market, as in the example where
> Starbucks used to have good baked goods but has them no longer because
> of profit considerations.
>
will destroy a smaller one, unless the smaller one has a special niche
unreachable by the larger. Capitalism tends toward monopoly. Monopoly is the
logical conclusion of the large market and, when it occurs, it stifles
competition but becomes inefficient as it uses centralised planning - or
used to. It is possible that, if CRM [customer relationship managment - the
current jargon for data warehousing and the subsequent tailoring of
marketing to the individual] works one day, then a monopoly will be able to
avoid the central planning trap.
>
> > >
> > > Communism was a God that Failed, that is for sure. But there is no
> > > reason why the market will not also fail to solve our problems.
> > >
> > Now that is a true and sensible remark!
>
> Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man pays it any mind. But I
> have damnable iteration, like Prince Hal, and can corrupt a saint.
>
> > >
> > Reading at random does indeed suggest that you have a clue as to how to
> > broaden your horizons. You do end up reading a fair bit of rubbish, but
> > discover some quite unexpected gems. Somebody who has only read the
> > prescribed pinko stuff is a bore beyond belief.
>
> At the three universities where I have taught (Roosevelt, DeVry, and
> in a sense Princeton...at Princeton I taught computer minicourses
> only) only DeVry, interestingly, prescribed "pinko" texts!
>
departments?
>
> Roosevelt's administration in the 1970s forced teachers to abandon
> Zinn and Chomsky in favor of centrist and conservative hacks like
> Brand Blanshard, in philosophy, and Joel Taylor's boring history of
> western "civilization"...which if I recall correctly mentions neither
> John Brown nor Las Casas.
>
> Princeton, same deal.
>
> But DeVry's history department had the kiddies read Zinn. That is
> about the only textbook which speaks to the real situation of people
> who are the first in their family to make it to ANY sort of college
> whatsoever.
>
> This probably was not a choice of the top guys at DeVry who are
> probably a combination of hustlers, and people genuinely interested in
> helping poor people and minorities get a degree. Indeed, the chair of
> history when I taught at DeVry turned out to be an old buddy of mine
> from my SDS days.
>
administrators who should have nothing to do with curricula. Academic
freedom should enable the individual lecturer to set his own texts.
>
> Chicago has this stupid program called "one city, one book". It is
> the bright idea of an Irish political hack named Mary Dempsey who is
> running the library into the ground.
>
> The problem happens to be the sort of natively bright person who reads
> one book, such as Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and gets a bee in her
> bonnet that Dis is De Answer.
>
such a person, but we can let that go.
>
> She is the bane of hard-working adjunct faculty like me or my sister,
> for she interrupts the smooth flow of our brilliant lectures with
> stupid questions taken from her guruette.
>
dead. If you have a brilliant lecture then it should be a work of minutes to
answer stupid questions with elegance and panache.
>
> The most recent book in Mary Dempsey's stupid Mick program (I can
> insult the Irish because I am half Mick meself) is Ely Weisel's Night.
> It's an excellent book...but her choice sparked a protest by
> Chicago's large Moslem community, because Weisel is a theorist who
> maintains that the Holocaust was unique.
>
> The Holocaust in a sense was unique, but if you take this view to
> Sharon's extreme, you DIALECTICALLY create a new Holocaust where the
> former victims become the new executioners.
>
irony that this occurs, not an historical inevitability - as the experience
in South Africa shows. Suggesting that it is an inevitability stifles
thought.
>
> That, BTW, illustrates how dialectic logic works. It is not a license
> for turning lead into gold. You have to do your homework to make such
> a claim and you make such a claim in full knowledge that it is
> offensive. The specific claim is based on the fact that while Jews
> aren't shoveling Arabs into ovens, they have seen to it that several
> generations have grown up in camps, and have killed many as a
> byproduct of police operations of military scale.
>
valid claim being 'offensive' - that is a problem for those so precious as
to wish to take offence.
I agree that Israel has acted as a racist and nationalistic state in many
ways similar to Nazi Germany - you don't need a dialectic to see that, only
a reading of history and the news. As I say, the mistake is to invoke the
dialectic as a sort of magic that explains the process and thus makes it
inevitable - a wrongful simplification of the situation.
>
> If you are committed to "Never Again" then you take baby steps away
> from the preconditions of a new Holocaust for the SAME dialectical
> reason the smart alcoholic doesn't have "one beer."
>
> The alky knows that "one beer" sets up a dialectic where that "one
> beer" starts a conversation with him, a dialogue. The beer says "hey,
> Joe, I'm a lonely Budweiser, let's get a party started with 20 of me
> in the same room. Mybe the Swedish bikini team will show up. You
> never know."
>
> I think Ariel Sharon is doin' the same thing. He is crazed by blood
> lust in the same way the alky is crazed. His Temple Mount was the
> first drink.
>
Beer doesn't talk - at least not yet, I know that they are working on speech
chips in the bottle top, but this is not generally done yet.
A 'dialectic' and a 'dialogue' are two quite different things. A dialogue is
between two people and can encompass, if it is a good dialogue, many
different facets of the problem - a dialectic tries to compress these facets
into two alternatives, trying then to force fit aspects of each facet one or
other side of the false dichotomy. This then leads to a sterile discussion
where real issues are shelved and the false faces invented for the dialectic
are taken as political positions to be defended. This means that somebody
entering the 'dialectical' discussion a little later can't say, though I
agree with X, I think that this part of it doesn't work.
This is what leads to the stupidity of 'if you are not for me, then you are
against me'. You can say, yes I am for your ideas on geology, but I still
don't like the way you beat your wife. At least you can unless you suffer
from the dialectic.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"John Ng" <pigsm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
>. Can you not
> stay on the topic and instead "beat" me in art discussion?
>
on all around you.
--
The grandeur of real art, on the contrary, . . . is to rediscover, grasp
again and lay before us that reality from which we become more and more
separated as the formal knowledge which we substitute for it grows in
thickness and imperviousness--that reality which there is grave danger we
might die without ever having known and yet which is simply our life, life
as it really is, life disclosed and made clear . . . .
- Vladimir Nabokov "Marcel Proust (1871-1922)"
Edward G. Nilges
> "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:f5dda427.0301...@posting.google.com...
> > "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> news:<av8ne0$93p$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>...
> > > "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > > > >
> > > > Forces outside the market control this, and globalization does tend to
> > > > destroy these forces, as in Venezuela where it is probable that the
> > > > so-called "general strike" is a CIA funded mobilization of employers
> > > > who pay their employees to strike (stranger things have happened.)
> > > >
> > > Surely globalisation is the market.
> >
> > Why? Why can't civic society say to the market, market, you is a good
> > guy but you can go no further. Saying that globalization is
> > inevitable DESTROYS a flourishing market, as in the example where
> > Starbucks used to have good baked goods but has them no longer because
> > of profit considerations.
> >
> Markets are dynamic. Market forces are forces. The force of a larger market
> will destroy a smaller one, unless the smaller one has a special niche
> unreachable by the larger. Capitalism tends toward monopoly. Monopoly is the
> logical conclusion of the large market and, when it occurs, it stifles
> competition but becomes inefficient as it uses centralised planning - or
> used to. It is possible that, if CRM [customer relationship managment - the
> current jargon for data warehousing and the subsequent tailoring of
> marketing to the individual] works one day, then a monopoly will be able to
> avoid the central planning trap.
Both data warehousing and custom marketing inherit the presupposition
of the market, which is that there is a denumerable isomorphism
between desire and commodities, and the globalization protestors are
saying that this is simply not the case.
It ignores common goods, it trashes the commons.
Shakespeare's Falstaff wondered where a commodity of good names was to
be bought in his dotage.
I think ultimately that a proof can be found in automata theory that
the attempt to map desires onto discrete commodities leads to paradox,
as in the sign of Jenny Holzer: PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT.
The case of addiction to drugs and alcohol may be unsolvable inside
the market since it makes perfect sense in market terms to sell
addiction. The drug companies merely become moral equivalent to the
cigarette companies when they market a "cure" for smoking consisting
of the active ingedient of the cigarette.
The day I see an Internet sprite who knows what I want is the day I
will smash up my computer with a hammer. I mean, the problem is
straight out of Turing and Godel: a dancing paperclip appears as in
Word and asks me what I want and I say I want never again to see a
dancing paperclip again.
> >
> > > >
> > > > Communism was a God that Failed, that is for sure. But there is no
> > > > reason why the market will not also fail to solve our problems.
> > > >
> > > Now that is a true and sensible remark!
> >
> > Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man pays it any mind. But I
> > have damnable iteration, like Prince Hal, and can corrupt a saint.
> >
> Wisdom can't be bought, or learned, it has to be experienced. Sad, but true.
Ah, but see how this contradicts the totalization of the market. The
bourgeois has to learn to totalize the market on Friday and contradict
himself on Sunday. No wonder he wants to get rowdy on Saturday night,
for as Hegel knew, between Nothingness and Being is Becoming as in
Becoming rowdy.
> > > >
> > > Reading at random does indeed suggest that you have a clue as to how to
> > > broaden your horizons. You do end up reading a fair bit of rubbish, but
> > > discover some quite unexpected gems. Somebody who has only read the
> > > prescribed pinko stuff is a bore beyond belief.
> >
> > At the three universities where I have taught (Roosevelt, DeVry, and
> > in a sense Princeton...at Princeton I taught computer minicourses
> > only) only DeVry, interestingly, prescribed "pinko" texts!
> >
> Really? What about in their sociology, psychology and 'women's studies'
> departments?
Princeton's sociology department has exorcised the gibbering ghost of
Adorno along with the Phantom of Fine Hall (the latter won a Nobel
prize and returned to the land of the living, but Adorno still walks
the battlements.)
Princeton's sociology department therefore accentuates data gathering
and moron math. As such it produces nothing useful or interesting,
and nothing on the scale of Mills, Adorno or Riesman of which I am
aware, as a layperson.
Psych, same deal. Cognitive neuroscience is in fact a conservative
reaction to the impasse psychology finds itself in a society that
manufactures mental disorder through racial and economic injustice.
Women's and African American studies aren't pinko because they replace
Marxist class struggle with identity to some extent.
> >
> > Roosevelt's administration in the 1970s forced teachers to abandon
> > Zinn and Chomsky in favor of centrist and conservative hacks like
> > Brand Blanshard, in philosophy, and Joel Taylor's boring history of
> > western "civilization"...which if I recall correctly mentions neither
> > John Brown nor Las Casas.
> >
> > Princeton, same deal.
> >
> > But DeVry's history department had the kiddies read Zinn. That is
> > about the only textbook which speaks to the real situation of people
> > who are the first in their family to make it to ANY sort of college
> > whatsoever.
> >
> > This probably was not a choice of the top guys at DeVry who are
> > probably a combination of hustlers, and people genuinely interested in
> > helping poor people and minorities get a degree. Indeed, the chair of
> > history when I taught at DeVry turned out to be an old buddy of mine
> > from my SDS days.
> >
> 'Top guys' as you put it, are almost invariably intellectually spent
> administrators who should have nothing to do with curricula. Academic
> freedom should enable the individual lecturer to set his own texts.
I agree but in fact this does not seem to obtain.
> >
> > Chicago has this stupid program called "one city, one book". It is
> > the bright idea of an Irish political hack named Mary Dempsey who is
> > running the library into the ground.
> >
> > The problem happens to be the sort of natively bright person who reads
> > one book, such as Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and gets a bee in her
> > bonnet that Dis is De Answer.
> >
> Oh, dear! I'm not sure that 'natively bright' is the best description for
> such a person, but we can let that go.
> >
> > She is the bane of hard-working adjunct faculty like me or my sister,
> > for she interrupts the smooth flow of our brilliant lectures with
> > stupid questions taken from her guruette.
> >
> Yes, but you surely parody yourself to some extent - irony is not quite
> dead. If you have a brilliant lecture then it should be a work of minutes to
> answer stupid questions with elegance and panache.
A well aimed eraser, perhaps. Or, "lighten up, Otto."
> >
> > The most recent book in Mary Dempsey's stupid Mick program (I can
> > insult the Irish because I am half Mick meself) is Ely Weisel's Night.
> > It's an excellent book...but her choice sparked a protest by
> > Chicago's large Moslem community, because Weisel is a theorist who
> > maintains that the Holocaust was unique.
> >
> > The Holocaust in a sense was unique, but if you take this view to
> > Sharon's extreme, you DIALECTICALLY create a new Holocaust where the
> > former victims become the new executioners.
> >
> Why do you think that 'dialectically' is necessary here? It is an observable
> irony that this occurs, not an historical inevitability - as the experience
> in South Africa shows. Suggesting that it is an inevitability stifles
> thought.
I said it was inevitable as a conditional in which you act like Ariel
Sharon, and not Nelson Mandela or DeKlerk. Precisely because Mandela
had some understanding that he was engaged in a "dialog" with a white
racist "terrorist" whether he liked it or not, he was able to bring
things to a generally successful conclusion.
Lyotard has indeed defined terrorism as the refusal to dialog and
certainly Sharon is a terrorist, who creates physical terror, to the
extent that he only shoots his opponents.
> >
> > That, BTW, illustrates how dialectic logic works. It is not a license
> > for turning lead into gold. You have to do your homework to make such
> > a claim and you make such a claim in full knowledge that it is
> > offensive. The specific claim is based on the fact that while Jews
> > aren't shoveling Arabs into ovens, they have seen to it that several
> > generations have grown up in camps, and have killed many as a
> > byproduct of police operations of military scale.
> >
> To me it shows how it doesn't work. There is no problem, in my mind, to a
> valid claim being 'offensive' - that is a problem for those so precious as
> to wish to take offence.
>
> I agree that Israel has acted as a racist and nationalistic state in many
> ways similar to Nazi Germany - you don't need a dialectic to see that, only
> a reading of history and the news. As I say, the mistake is to invoke the
> dialectic as a sort of magic that explains the process and thus makes it
> inevitable - a wrongful simplification of the situation.
The problem is the modern mechanisms where Israelis who are doubtful
about Sharon are nonetheless marshaled into supporting him as "the
only alternative." It is they and not me who find the present
(intolerable) situation inevitable because Sharon has performed a
dialectical conjuring trick. He has engaged in actions, such as the
visit to Temple Mount, which cause responses that he can use to
justify a swing to the right.
Israel and the USA are itching to use their superior technology, and
limited imagination, to whack somebody, so Sharon keeps up the
pressure, and we pressure UN observers to find something, anything,
that indicates the possible existence of weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq.
> >
> > If you are committed to "Never Again" then you take baby steps away
> > from the preconditions of a new Holocaust for the SAME dialectical
> > reason the smart alcoholic doesn't have "one beer."
> >
> > The alky knows that "one beer" sets up a dialectic where that "one
> > beer" starts a conversation with him, a dialogue. The beer says "hey,
> > Joe, I'm a lonely Budweiser, let's get a party started with 20 of me
> > in the same room. Mybe the Swedish bikini team will show up. You
> > never know."
> >
> > I think Ariel Sharon is doin' the same thing. He is crazed by blood
> > lust in the same way the alky is crazed. His Temple Mount was the
> > first drink.
> >
> Beer doesn't talk - at least not yet, I know that they are working on speech
> chips in the bottle top, but this is not generally done yet.
You know what I mean. Don't play games, especially when I play cooler
games with language.
>
> A 'dialectic' and a 'dialogue' are two quite different things. A dialogue is
> between two people and can encompass, if it is a good dialogue, many
> different facets of the problem - a dialectic tries to compress these facets
> into two alternatives, trying then to force fit aspects of each facet one or
> other side of the false dichotomy. This then leads to a sterile discussion
> where real issues are shelved and the false faces invented for the dialectic
> are taken as political positions to be defended. This means that somebody
> entering the 'dialectical' discussion a little later can't say, though I
> agree with X, I think that this part of it doesn't work.
>
I agree that the dialectic of Hegel and Marx is two-sided. In terms
of modern game theory, it appears to be zero sum and to ignore Nash's
discovery that there can be multiple winners.
But Hegel would probably call this mere clerical manipulation,
underneath which the system is still binary.
For example, Marxists, using dialectical logic, oppose capital and
labor in a game in which labor loses until the ninth inning, at which
it hits a homer with the bases loaded (oops, you are from New Zealand
where there is no baseball. Oh well.)
Perhaps the solution is to point out that capital also labors some how
(as in the case of the hardworking CEO) and that labor has 401Ks, and
also is a consumer, as long as that old 401K is OK.
The problem is that given a created scarcity of information as
obtained at Enron, the 401K is seen to be merely temporary and
epiphenomenal.
Basically, the sunny picture of employee ownership through equity (an
idea of Peter Drucker...who has abandoned it recently) is belied by
the fact that the very ownership demands of labor a management that is
also a labor (whew) sweating at midnight to make sure the funds are
not allocated in fly by night schemes.
In fact I can well imagine the old carbuncle Marx having fun with the
laborer who is given management of his account...and who must then
labor in excess of average labor to manage his damn account, and also
make sure that his HMO doesn't screw him and his pension isn't toast.
For note how the interesting rhetoric of "choice" and "responsibility"
is quietly used to eliminate old-fashioned single-payer health
insurance and defined benefit pensions. All this "choice" makes us,
if "responsible" run ourselves ragged to keep up with company
finagling of the plan for its own bottom line. The name of what we do
in fact is unpaid slave labor, for the company. The result is that
most people say the hell with it and wind up in the poorhouse as a
result of their lack of homework.
The apparent multiplicity of terms, and the n-person game turns back
into the original cockfight between two and not n opponents.
For example, United Airlines was refused assistance by a Bush
administration that has been lavish with perks and with assistance for
the steel industry and the well to do. In a stroke this destroyed the
"socialist" presence of labor on United's board, because the flyboys
at UA are operating in bankruptcy. Labor has no say in the subsequent
decisions.
If you can structure an n-person game, well and good. I have found
benign consulting arrangements where the agency acts as a buffer
between me and the employer with a "win" for all in the Nash
equilibrium. But generally speaking, temp help firms are coupled with
the employer and are a way for him to simplify and reduce costs.
It is true that we have to compromise and try to play n-person games.
But if the old fraud of Highgate is right ultimately a confrontational
divide opens between an elite and the ordinary slobs that is only
resolved by the "expropriation of the expropriators." I hope Marx was
wrong.
> This is what leads to the stupidity of 'if you are not for me, then you are
> against me'. You can say, yes I am for your ideas on geology, but I still
> don't like the way you beat your wife. At least you can unless you suffer
> from the dialectic.
My experience is that you can still negotiate with a person whose
interests are basically at loggerheads. This would be in Hegel
finding an aufhebung or higher resolution rather than what we would
recognize as a compromise.
The problem is that the Marxist aufhebung has been in fact to say to
the capitalist pig, ok, give me all your money and property, and then
you can continue to live like Henry pu Yi, former emperor of China, as
a gardener. Get in the queue in a society controlled by producers who
are drunk most of the time as in Russia.
Yeah, right.
It is true that there is a dualism as you say. Hegel analyzed history
as the collision of opposing binarisms: the Orient versus Greece,
Greece versus Rome.
But this was based on the observable fact that human affairs are
indeed reducible to one on one midnight basketball. In an n-person
group we have to it seems focus on one person at a time, and nail or
be nailed.
But, primitive societies did devise ways of circling up and
interacting as a group, so the answer might indeed be in abandoning
the dialectic and confrontational style. It is true that today, bad
people win these and good people don't.
Edward G. Nilges
> "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:f5dda427.0301...@posting.google.com...
> > "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> news:<av8ne0$93p$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>...
> > > "Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > > > > >
> > > > > If you wish to communicate it isn't a bad idea to have a good
> literal
> > > > > meaning!
> > > > >
> > > > > What is the spiritual toxicity of common household and consumer
> goods -
> and
> > > > > how would one measure this? [presumably not with a spirit level]
> > > >
> > > > As I said, to manufacture consent to rampant consumerism, it is
> > > > necessary to deprive people of a language of complaint.
> > > >
> > > What evidence do you have for this claim?
> >
> > Your language is exhibit A, mate. You are irritated by metaphor
> > because the Internet and consumerism encourages the clinical
> > depression of thinking that it is useless to expand one's horizons
> > through metaphor.
> >
> Really? You get all that from the metaphor of a spirit level - more a pun,
> really, than a metaphor.
> Actually we have to do so much of our thinking in metaphor that it is
> virtually impossible to be against it. I am, however, against poorly chosen
> metaphors.
On what basis do we chose, if not itself metaphor? I think your rule
is that the metaphor that generates the safe and conventional choice
is best.
This is simply not true, for "simplicity" is only partly in the
text...it is also an attribute of whatever baggage the reader brings.
>
> I am not sure of quite what you mean by 'self-contradictory' speech in
> inverted commas. Do you mean that it is only apparently self-contradictory?
> If so, what is the benefit of giving that appearance?
Poets use contradictions to get, in a dialectical fashion, to the
underlying reality. The bourgeois view is that they should be
tolerated, but my view is that there is a logic that encompasses what
they do.
> >
> > > >
> > > > The spiritual toxicity of common household goods is simply the clutter
> > > > and the energy drain that consists in acquiring more than you actually
> > > > need.
> > > >
> > > I see, an Epicurian argument. Actually, as Diogenes established, you
> don't
> > > even need a house.
> >
> > Good call. And Diogenes did us a service. We don't HAVE to get rid
> > of our goods, only live with purity of heart, such that when we are
> > THREATENED with their loss by George Bush if we do not support his
> > war, we can say, so what.
> >
> True. It is, however, considerably easier to accept a pay rise than a pay
> cut.
Ah, but note that the language "oh cool, a raise", or "oh cool, a job
offer" ignores that the raise or offer are both contracts, and a
contract is marked by duties in exchange. A pay raise may mean
onerous duties. A job may mean rising at dawn (eek) and going to
work, indeed, I understand that that is what a job means.
I'm serious. The whole political rhetoric about job creation and the
glories of work conceals the normal and understandable expectation
that the job-holder will give of his time, and spirit, in equal or
greater measure.
> >
> > > > >
> > > > > How does something being 'bad form' exclude the possibility of the
> > > > > victimisation of a class?
> > > > >
> > > > Come on, behavior is patterned to exclude alternatives.
> > > >
> > > Really? How then does eating miso soup 'exclude' eating hot and sour
> soup?
> >
> > ...I ask everybody...kids today...
> >
> > Seriously, you confuse a digital, and denumerable, commodified variety
> > of choices with a truly open world.
> >
> It was you who said 'behaviour is patterned to exclude alternatives' - I
> would like you to expand on what you mean, my point about the soup is to
> indicate that your claim doesn't apply to all behavour.
The shopping mall replaces the wetland and thereby replaces a
profusion of choices to get wet with a smaller range of choices to max
out one's credit card.
Cf. Walter Benjamin. The arcade or mall tries and fails to restore an
aura which it has to destroy.
The first time I saw Starbuck's was at the end of a dawn run in
Seattle on a business trip in 1986: I found the second Starbucks in my
hotel and the experience had what Walter Benjamin called the "aura."
Needless to say, this aura no longer exists.
Of course, most people would consider this to be an uninteresting fact
about me, an old fart from the Eighties. But Benjamin's insight was
to see that not all of our experience is in our heads.
>
> What is a 'truly open world' and how would we know it if we saw it?
Paul N. Edwards has a truly beautiful way of putting it in a book
about computer rhetoric and the way the computer was "sold" to the
public in the Cold War in the 1950s.
The Closed World is a world in which kids are "tracked" into trades
and professions and careers and marriages, and encouraged to commodify
there lives. It is the world of sitting in front of a football game
on Sunday.
The Open World is Shakespeare's world, in which characters like Hamlet
and Olivia enter into situations that demand a fuller range of
responses. It is a "green" world in Edwards' beautiful way of putting
it.
To be brutal, it would most assuredly NOT be one in which everyone I
know is opposed to a war in Iraq, and the city councils of any number
of American municipalities are passing resolutions AGAINST entry, but
in which we more or less assume that the war will happen anyway.
> >
> > I am thinking of the apparent sexual openness of the Internet in which
> > the structure of sites ensures that any combo is available...but NOT
> > any kind of erotic openness to the world, a phrase considered by
> > Internet zoids to be vague.
> >
> I'm not sure what a 'ziod' might be, but it isn't the sharpest expression I
> have ever heard!
Gee, who died and made you my English professor? Why don't you just
admit that I am a killer diller writer and fall on your knees in
admiration, or turn into an adoring super model? Indeed, why are my
desires always so frustrated? Oh well.
> >
> > Thus through the sexual "discourse cascade", a person who is at one
> > point of his life a foot fetishist becomes a reified, dead person who
> > cannot get interested in any other sexual topic, and she or he
> > develops a Puritan aversion to any other combination. This might be
> > the gay person who is physically revolted by "breeders" as opposed to
> > those charming older gay men who love weddings and the subsequent
> > babies without any irony.
> >
> You appear to be saying that having too wide a choice results in over
> specialisation - which is true. However, having a specialist interest
> doesn't necessarily mean one doesn't also have general interests.
The problem is that the demands of specialisation make you at best an
amateur in the other fields. I refer you to the truly moronic
political thought of any number of scientists (like Ed Teller or John
McCarthy.)
> >
> > You replace thought by a commodified experience in which unknown
> > Japanese fishermen make it POSSIBLE for you to eat miso soup, while
> > risking their lives because United States submariners are stupid
> > idiots (cf. the sinking in June 2001 of a Japanese training boat by
> > the US Navy.)
> >
> How is being aware of that a 'commodified experience'?
Being NOT aware of it is the commodified experience, and I do have to
admit that (1) New Zealand may have a Navy in which submariners know
what they are doing and (2) miso soup may not need any fish.
> >
> > > > >
> > > Frankenstein was a scientist, not an 'infernal machine'. Marx' thinking
> was
> > > clouded by the gross simplification afforded by the 'dialectic'. Anyway
> I
> > > thought you had drifted into that territory.
> >
> > Hmm, I thought that the problem of the dialectic was that it made
> > Milton Friedman's head hurt, and Capital is a complex and not a simple
> > text. Oh well...
> >
> Kapital is a complicated book, not a complex book - an important
> distinction!
>
My word. And what might that be?
> The dialectic is not only a simplification, but also a politicisation of
> argument. The person who defines what the dichotomy is defines the
> arguement - this is pretty much what you appear to be arguing against above,
> and is a result of the unfortunate meme for the dialectic being absorbed
> into much 'thought'. It does make simple minds happily deluded that they
> have a grasp of the world.
Why do simple minds not deserve this? Just asking.
> >
> > I have read Mary Shelley's novel and I am well aware that Frankenstein
> > is the scientist, thank you very much. I ain't evil, I'm just good
> > lookin.
> <
> Good book, isn't it?
Yes. Ton of good books out there.
Lauri Levanto
All the time you have been "weeding out" 20th century art.
Even artists.
I don't mind you love old art, but I do react when you advocate
censorship.
Trace back this thread.
You opened it by attacking an art history book.
John Ng wrote:
> Lauri Levanto <laur...@netti.fi> wrote in message
>
> > This time I am worried of your suicidial attempt
> > to be included to the number of liar art critics
> > that you say deserves to be killed
I replied to your spicy joke about Mondrian, Picasso, De Koonig.
Was is not an intentional attempt to obscure facts?
>
>
> The problem is that you are so hung up about trying to "beat" me that
> you resort to childish jokes to insinuate defamation. Can you not
> stay on the topic and instead "beat" me in art discussion?
>
I have no illusion of "beating" you. You and Mani with
some of your opponents always want to have the last word.
That is why most threads so quickly degenerate to yes-no-yes-no.
Nor have I illusion of converting a fundamentalist like you.
Apropos topic
I also mentioned misinterpretation of art history
in Bouguereau biography at ARC.
You want to discuss that?
-lauri
Peter H.M. Brooks
market
> > will destroy a smaller one, unless the smaller one has a special niche
> > unreachable by the larger. Capitalism tends toward monopoly. Monopoly is
the
> > logical conclusion of the large market and, when it occurs, it stifles
> > competition but becomes inefficient as it uses centralised planning - or
> > used to. It is possible that, if CRM [customer relationship managment -
the
> > current jargon for data warehousing and the subsequent tailoring of
> > marketing to the individual] works one day, then a monopoly will be able
to
> > avoid the central planning trap.
>
> Both data warehousing and custom marketing inherit the presupposition
> of the market, which is that there is a denumerable isomorphism
> between desire and commodities, and the globalization protestors are
> saying that this is simply not the case.
>
and demand.
>
> It ignores common goods, it trashes the commons.
>
'common goods' do you refer to? Linux?
>
> Shakespeare's Falstaff wondered where a commodity of good names was to
> be bought in his dotage.
>
>
> I think ultimately that a proof can be found in automata theory that
> the attempt to map desires onto discrete commodities leads to paradox,
> as in the sign of Jenny Holzer: PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT.
>
'paradox' in this case? How are continuous commodities (oil, water)
different from discrete ones (barrels of oil, bottles of water), and how
does this alter the desire for them? Or are you just using words for the
nice sound that they have?
Peter H.M. Brooks
true.
>
> Ah, but see how this contradicts the totalization of the market. The
> bourgeois has to learn to totalize the market on Friday and contradict
> himself on Sunday. No wonder he wants to get rowdy on Saturday night,
> for as Hegel knew, between Nothingness and Being is Becoming as in
> Becoming rowdy.
>
do with anything?
--
A goose is just for Christmas.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Marxist class struggle with identity to some extent.
>
not the opposite? You haven't been boozing by any chance have you?
--
We are here on earth to do good to others.
What the others are there for, I don't know.
-- Auden
Peter H.M. Brooks
> the market since it makes perfect sense in market terms to sell
> addiction. The drug companies merely become moral equivalent to the
> cigarette companies when they market a "cure" for smoking consisting
> of the active ingedient of the cigarette.
>
>
> The day I see an Internet sprite who knows what I want is the day I
> will smash up my computer with a hammer. I mean, the problem is
> straight out of Turing and Godel: a dancing paperclip appears as in
> Word and asks me what I want and I say I want never again to see a
> dancing paperclip again.
>
have one every problem will seem like a nail.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > Why do you think that 'dialectically' is necessary here? It is an
observable
> > irony that this occurs, not an historical inevitability - as the
experience
> > in South Africa shows. Suggesting that it is an inevitability stifles
> > thought.
>
> I said it was inevitable as a conditional in which you act like Ariel
> Sharon, and not Nelson Mandela or DeKlerk. Precisely because Mandela
> had some understanding that he was engaged in a "dialog" with a white
> racist "terrorist" whether he liked it or not, he was able to bring
> things to a generally successful conclusion.
>
LOL! So you try to defend both ends against the middle. The dialectic says
things are inevitable - unless, of course, they aren't.
That's a really useful tool!
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > Beer doesn't talk - at least not yet, I know that they are working on
speech
> > chips in the bottle top, but this is not generally done yet.
>
> You know what I mean. Don't play games, especially when I play cooler
> games with language.
>
Try and be precise, if you can, then. You can't play 'cooler' games - beer
has a temperature, games don't.
Peter H.M. Brooks
dialogue is
> > between two people and can encompass, if it is a good dialogue, many
> > different facets of the problem - a dialectic tries to compress these
facets
> > into two alternatives, trying then to force fit aspects of each facet
one or
> > other side of the false dichotomy. This then leads to a sterile
discussion
> > where real issues are shelved and the false faces invented for the
dialectic
> > are taken as political positions to be defended. This means that
somebody
> > entering the 'dialectical' discussion a little later can't say, though I
> > agree with X, I think that this part of it doesn't work.
> >
> I agree that the dialectic of Hegel and Marx is two-sided. In terms
> of modern game theory, it appears to be zero sum and to ignore Nash's
> discovery that there can be multiple winners.
>
relationship between winners and losers.
>
> But Hegel would probably call this mere clerical manipulation,
> underneath which the system is still binary.
>
> For example, Marxists, using dialectical logic, oppose capital and
> labor in a game in which labor loses until the ninth inning, at which
> it hits a homer with the bases loaded (oops, you are from New Zealand
> where there is no baseball. Oh well.)
>
call it) in most of the world.
>
> The problem is that given a created scarcity of information as
> obtained at Enron, the 401K is seen to be merely temporary and
> epiphenomenal.
>
say, the dialectic is an oversimplification and a bad idea.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> > virtually impossible to be against it. I am, however, against poorly
chosen
> > metaphors.
>
> On what basis do we chose, if not itself metaphor? I think your rule
> is that the metaphor that generates the safe and conventional choice
> is best.
>
not 'generate choice'. Whether this is safe or conventional is irrelevant.
What is important is that the metaphor does indeed carry the meaning
intended and, when extended a little, doesn't collapse into a puddle of
sillyness.
The above in no way constrains the metaphor from carrying a radical or an
extreme or an unsafe idea.
--
Her tall, slim figure was unsuited to 'breeches' parts, and after one
unfortunate appearance she wisely left these roles to Peg Woffington. - of
Elizabeth Farren (c.1759 - 1829) in A Dictionary of Irish Biography, Henry
Boylan
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > Wait a minute! Complex and ambiguous speech is necessary, at times, to
> > express complex ideas. However the mark of a good communicator and
somebody
> > who has truly understood that of which they speak is that they can
describe
> > it simply.
>
> This is simply not true, for "simplicity" is only partly in the
> text...it is also an attribute of whatever baggage the reader brings.
>
You left out a 'not' there, so you appear to be saying the opposite of
sense. Clearly a simple text in Chinese makes no sense to me a non-Chinese
reader, so, to that extent my ability to decode the text does influence its
simplicity. However this obvious point simply loses sight of the fact that,
when talking of communication as I was, there is a proper assumption that we
have people of at least the intellectual ability of the man in the Clapham
omnibus and that a common language is being spoken.
Or, to put it more simply, if you keep the audience the same and vary the
message you can measure the simplicity by the skill of the communicator.
--
Another consequence is a sizeable underclass in Britain losing touch with
mainstream values, prone to criminality and antisocial behaviour and
disorder, teenage pregnancy, drugs, violence and joblessness. - Peter
Mandelson repents, Grauniad May 18, 2002
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Edward G. Nilges" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > What is a 'truly open world' and how would we know it if we saw it?
>
> Paul N. Edwards has a truly beautiful way of putting it in a book
> about computer rhetoric and the way the computer was "sold" to the
> public in the Cold War in the 1950s.
>
> The Closed World is a world in which kids are "tracked" into trades
> and professions and careers and marriages, and encouraged to commodify
> there lives. It is the world of sitting in front of a football game
> on Sunday.
>
> The Open World is Shakespeare's world, in which characters like Hamlet
> and Olivia enter into situations that demand a fuller range of
> responses. It is a "green" world in Edwards' beautiful way of putting
> it.
>
> To be brutal, it would most assuredly NOT be one in which everyone I
> know is opposed to a war in Iraq, and the city councils of any number
> of American municipalities are passing resolutions AGAINST entry, but
> in which we more or less assume that the war will happen anyway.
>
I see, nature red in tooth and claw in other words.
It was Hamlet and Orphelia, by the way.
Peter H.M. Brooks
expression I
> > have ever heard!
>
> Gee, who died and made you my English professor? Why don't you just
> admit that I am a killer diller writer and fall on your knees in
> admiration, or turn into an adoring super model? Indeed, why are my
> desires always so frustrated? Oh well.
>
>
> > >
> > > You replace thought by a commodified experience in which unknown
> > > Japanese fishermen make it POSSIBLE for you to eat miso soup, while
> > > risking their lives because United States submariners are stupid
> > > idiots (cf. the sinking in June 2001 of a Japanese training boat by
> > > the US Navy.)
> > >
> > How is being aware of that a 'commodified experience'?
>
> Being NOT aware of it is the commodified experience, and I do have to
> admit that (1) New Zealand may have a Navy in which submariners know
> what they are doing and (2) miso soup may not need any fish.
>
I'm not sure about the NZ Navy, I think that they use Hobbits. Miso soup
needs miso, not fish, you are right - I let that pass.
>
> > > >
> > Kapital is a complicated book, not a complex book - an important
> > distinction!
> >
> My word. And what might that be?
>
Assuming your question is serious, there is a fundamental difference.
Complications are simply superficial artifacts, surface effects - so a watch
appears complicated though the process of turning a periodic motion into a
display of the time using cogs is in essence simple.
Complex matters may not be the least bit complicated. The question of the
minimum number of colours needed to fill in a two dimentional map is easy to
state, easy to understand, but a very complex question.
>
> > The dialectic is not only a simplification, but also a politicisation of
> > argument. The person who defines what the dichotomy is defines the
> > arguement - this is pretty much what you appear to be arguing against
above,
> > and is a result of the unfortunate meme for the dialectic being absorbed
> > into much 'thought'. It does make simple minds happily deluded that they
> > have a grasp of the world.
>
> Why do simple minds not deserve this? Just asking.
>
I am generally for the upliftment of humanity, rather than its debasement.
John Ng
> Take a deep breath John,
> All the time you have been "weeding out" 20th century art.
> Even artists.
> I don't mind you love old art, but I do react when you advocate
> censorship.
I beg your pardon, I do not suggest nor advocate censorship (they are
yours to enjoy if you like)... I advocate a renewal in art. In fact,
I am doing exactly the reverse of what you said... that is I promote
good art that had been censored. I am harsh not against 20C art but
against all those bad artists like Cezanne and Picasso who are
OVERRATED many times over. I feel a sense of injustice that the art
media is overfilled with lies and propaganda. Give the audience all
the information as it really happened and they will make up their
minds.
> I replied to your spicy joke about Mondrian, Picasso, De Koonig.
> Was is not an intentional attempt to obscure facts?
Tell me when they occur (obscuring facts that is). Mondrian, Picasso,
De Koonig are representative of those who produce gimicks so that they
could make a quick buck out of art. They are bad artists... I can see
the result. No censorship nor books needed to tell me that.
> Trace back this thread.
> You opened it by attacking an art history book.
Yes, I attack art "history" books that are no damn good; which promote
lies and censorship! How many art history books have you seen which
represented the Academics as they really were? How can a group that
is so hugely popular in their times be passed off with a few
derogatory lines as if they never existed but in a bad dream? Is that
censorship?
I do not attack art history if it is properly represented.
> I have no illusion of "beating" you. You and Mani with
> some of your opponents always want to have the last word.
> That is why most threads so quickly degenerate to yes-no-yes-no.
> Nor have I illusion of converting a fundamentalist like you.
So you resort to jokes and ridicule when argument breaks down? No one
will be converted and I don't think anybody cares if one is. My goal
is to oppose lies.
> I also mentioned misinterpretation of art history
> in Bouguereau biography at ARC.
> You want to discuss that?
Yes please... in a new thread. I would like to know about lies
whereever they are.
Andrew D
Did you get to the Doug Moran Portrait Prize at the Perth Gallery? If so,
what did you think of the winner and do you believe it met the requirement
that entries be painted in a traditional, realistic manner?
Did you also see that Heysen's "Droving into the light" is finally back on
display? Wonderful stuff.
I see they've put a few more signs pointing to the exit that leads down to
the Centenary Gallery. I spoke with one of the guards who said it still
wasn't enough and that he gets a lot of comments from people complaining
about the poor exposure for the historical works. He said the gallery was
aware of the problem but seemed unwilling to do much about it.
Andy D.
"I'm a great speller - but a hopless tpyist!"
Lauri Levanto
John Ng wrote:
> Lauri Levanto <laur...@netti.fi> wrote in message
>
> > Take a deep breath John,
> > All the time you have been "weeding out" 20th century art.
> > Even artists.
> > I don't mind you love old art, but I do react when you advocate
> > censorship.
>
> I beg your pardon, I do not suggest nor advocate censorship (they are
> yours to enjoy if you like)
Isn't weeding out censorship?
> I feel a sense of injustice that the art
> media is overfilled with lies and propaganda. Give the audience all
> the information as it really happened and they will make up their
> minds.
I quote:
John Ng:
Mondrian was also influenced by the cave paintings,
footprints and inkblots. He was also influenced by children's
building blocks. A true statement.
Tell me the facts: When and how. What is the substance behind your claim.
>
> Mondrian, Picasso, De Koonig are representative of those who produce
> gimicks so that they could make a quick buck out of art.
Gimme the facts. From what source is your info about their motivation?
>
> Yes, I attack art "history" books that are no damn good; which promote
> lies and censorship! How many art history books have you seen which
> represented the Academics as they really were?
The best Academics (Ingres, Gerome, Boucher,David etc) are represented as
they
really were in Janson, Honour &Fleming, Piper etc.
> I do not attack art history if it is properly represented.
I do not attack art history when correctly represented.
Where is your proof that in Turkish Bath
Ingres failed to draw what he wanted.
>
> > I also mentioned misinterpretation of art history
> > in Bouguereau biography at ARC.
> > You want to discuss that?
>
> Yes please... in a new thread. I would like to know about lies
> whereever they are.
>
You quotes that above already.
-lauri
Mani Deli
>
>I quote:
>John Ng:
> Mondrian was also influenced by the cave paintings,
>footprints and inkblots. He was also influenced by children's
>building blocks. A true statement.
>Tell me the facts: When and how. What is the substance behind your claim.
>
Having read your profound analysis on the aerodynamics of Bouguereau
do tell us when and how and what is the substance behind your claims.
Gimme the facts. From what source is your info about their motivation.
>
...no skill no art!
Want to get away from the indecipherable imbecilities and absurd pretensions of the modern art establishment?
Check out my web page http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
John Ng
Hi Andrew,
> Did you get to the Doug Moran Portrait Prize at the Perth Gallery? If so,
> what did you think of the winner and do you believe it met the requirement
> that entries be painted in a traditional, realistic manner?
Yes, I visited the Doug Moran Portrait Prize exhibition. They are
good by today's standards but many were seemed painted from small
photographs and thus have the same lack of details as a photo.
However, on the whole, the exhibition is a VERY GOOD start for the
return to to the traditional realism.
I don't know who the winner was (didn't pay attention). The one I
like best is the one on the portrait of a house-painter painted on a
canvas full of holes, patches (stitch) and dirt. I usually don't like
this kind of gimmicky modern-ness but this time it REALLY applied to
the painting.
Wish the museum's page (at
http://www.artgallery.wa.gov.au/x_dougm.htm) would show all the
paintings. Is that "Courtney" the winner? I remember the quality to
be quite good (there was realism in the walkman) but there are lots of
small distortion. The Jason Ben. painting is just too oversized, and
not of good quality.
> Did you also see that Heysen's "Droving into the light" is finally back on
> display? Wonderful stuff.
Yes, the Heysen came back. Wonder why it is always upstairs.
There was another exhibition about sex or something in the other part
of the museum. Most of it were trash but there was an amazing large
1920 painting (I think it is called "The Delinquents"). It is simply
sensational.
In the same exhibition was a Lucien Freud. I think his paintings are
insulting and should only be included in Penthouse or Playboy
magazines.
John Ng
John Ng
> Isn't weeding out censorship?
Okay, I don't remember what context it was in but maybe the words were
not well chosen. What I should have said is that bad art should not
be as well publicized as it should because it gives people the wrong
perception of things.
> > Mondrian, Picasso, De Koonig are representative of those who produce
> > gimicks so that they could make a quick buck out of art.
>
> Gimme the facts. From what source is your info about their motivation?
The source of my motivation is the visual result of their paintings.
It does not come from books or the printed words, since, after all,
printed materials, like Maria's, lie anyway. So if I quote a lie,
does it become truth?
> Where is your proof that in Turkish Bath
> Ingres failed to draw what he wanted.
What is your proof that it WAS really what Ingres wanted? Maria's
words?
Andrew D
pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng) wrote:
>right@the_end.of.my_tether (Andrew D) wrote in message news:<right-
>
>Hi Andrew,
>
>> Did you get to the Doug Moran Portrait Prize at the Perth Gallery? If so,
>> what did you think of the winner and do you believe it met the requirement
>> that entries be painted in a traditional, realistic manner?
>
>Yes, I visited the Doug Moran Portrait Prize exhibition. They are
>good by today's standards but many were seemed painted from small
>photographs and thus have the same lack of details as a photo.
>However, on the whole, the exhibition is a VERY GOOD start for the
>return to to the traditional realism.
In fact, this was a lower standard than previous years (though Adam Cullen
got in the finals last year!). The judges seem to be drifting away from
the basic "realist/traditionalist" criteria and have started letting
abstract pieces through to the finals. I understand there have been
numerous complaints about this.
One of the requirements for entry is that the works are supposed to be
painted from life, as I understand it. But it seems from some of the works
(this year and last year) that this requirement is also being overlooked
by the judges.
>I don't know who the winner was (didn't pay attention).
It was the one hanging outside in the lobby. It looked like a face with
the skin peeled off and the eyes poked out - all red, scratchy lines on a
black background. If this was realist, then I'd hate to meet the model :)
When i visited, there was a small group going around with a guide. She was
trying to mount some sort of defence for the winning piece but admitted it
would be a controversial choice since it clearly wasn't realist - unless
you start to redefine realism. She said the shape of the chin was
interesting and that the artist appeared to be having some difficulties in
that area. I commented that he appeared to be having difficulties from the
top left corner to the bottom right.
A number of people in the group felt the judges had serious problems. No
one commented positively on it. When the public popular choice vote box
was pointed out, a few people said "good" - it was their chance to award a
more worthy winner.
> The one I
>like best is the one on the portrait of a house-painter painted on a
>canvas full of holes, patches (stitch) and dirt. I usually don't like
>this kind of gimmicky modern-ness but this time it REALLY applied to
>the painting.
Yep, that was my pick too. I liked the way the paint spatters on the
canvas seemlessly blended into his overalls. I found most of the paintings
rather boring and not worth a second look (not that I'd do any better mind
you). Considering what Drewfus Gates has been through in the last year, I
found his piece outstanding. In fact, it was good regardless of what he's
been through.
[snip]
>> Did you also see that Heysen's "Droving into the light" is finally back on
>> display? Wonderful stuff.
>Yes, the Heysen came back. Wonder why it is always upstairs.
Don't know but I'm glad it is. They should put a sign next to it saying
"more like this in the other gallery" - with arrows leading the way.
>There was another exhibition about sex or something in the other part
>of the museum. Most of it were trash but there was an amazing large
>1920 painting (I think it is called "The Delinquents"). It is simply
>sensational.
Missed it.
>In the same exhibition was a Lucien Freud. I think his paintings are
>insulting and should only be included in Penthouse or Playboy
>magazines.
I don't think they're good enough - his people literally look like
corpses. His creamy-grey skin colour seems to be derived from the
carcasses that hang out the back of the local butcher's and the models
look like rigormortis set in long before he started painting them.
John Ng
Hi Andrew,
> Yep, that was my pick too. I liked the way the paint spatters on the
> canvas seemlessly blended into his overalls.
I analyzed the work for quite a while and came out more confused.
Seemed like the canvas was actually used in a house-painting session
before the portrait was painted. Don't know if the splatters were
house paint or oil paint. His holes in the canvas seemed natural
enough as if it is really old... Wonder how he did it. I don't know
why the judges could miss out on this one. It should have won pants
down. Quite clever.
> I don't think they're good enough - his people literally look like
> corpses. His creamy-grey skin colour seems to be derived from the
> carcasses that hang out the back of the local butcher's and the models
> look like rigormortis set in long before he started painting them.
I have always thought that way too but you put it in words better than
I could.
John Ng
Andrew D
pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng) wrote:
>right@the_end.of.my_tether (Andrew D) wrote in message
news:<right-0801031009160001@i161-
>
>Hi Andrew,
>
>> Yep, that was my pick too. I liked the way the paint spatters on the
>> canvas seemlessly blended into his overalls.
>
>I analyzed the work for quite a while and came out more confused.
>Seemed like the canvas was actually used in a house-painting session
>before the portrait was painted. Don't know if the splatters were
>house paint or oil paint. His holes in the canvas seemed natural
>enough as if it is really old... Wonder how he did it. I don't know
>why the judges could miss out on this one. It should have won pants
>down. Quite clever.
It certainly did look like a genuine painter's drop sheet (as an ex
signwriter, I've seen my fair share of them). I began looking closely then
decided I didn't care how he'd done what he'd done - I just liked it and
gave it my vote.
Lauri Levanto
> LL> Isn't weeding out censorship?
>
> JN>Okay, I don't remember what context it was in but maybe the words were
> not well chosen.
Your apologies accepted.
I have been criticied here - with reason - that I have so little tolerance to intolerance.
I'll try to improve.
>
> JN> > Mondrian, Picasso, De Koonig are representative of those who produce
> > > gimicks so that they could make a quick buck out of art.
> >
> LL> Gimme the facts. From what source is your info about their motivation?
>
> JN>The source of my motivation is the visual result of their paintings.
So it all boils down to what you like, to what do *You* see there.
All three have raised to top prize category. None of them started there.
The quick buck is a myth promoted by ARC.
If it were true, there could be only one explanation: The academic
market was so rotten that people were willing to pay anything for
anything different. You believe in that? :-)
After sixties, Mani's theory of lottery has some credibility. Not before that.
JN>What I should have said is that bad art should not
be as well publicized as it should because it gives people the wrong
perception of things.
Bad art beeing what *you* see as bad as you said above.
As you well know, there is a theory, that a piece of art has no intrisic value,
the value is only subjective, and depends on individual reactions.
If you really believe so, then people who look after different
things are equally right.
If the value is in the work, as formalists say, then what you see, what you like
is no criteria.
> LL> Where is your proof that in Turkish Bath
> > Ingres failed to draw what he wanted.
>
> JN>What is your proof that it WAS really what Ingres wanted? Maria's
> words?
1. Isn't he innocent until proved othervise?
2.When I look (prints) of Ingres' work I see a very capable draughtsman.
When I look his drawing of Luis Bertin and the painting of the same subject,
I can see that he very much drew what he saw, and painted what he wanted to show.
P.S. You aroused my interest in the classical canon.
Polyclitus wrote down the ideal proportions of a human.
Lysippos added two vertebreae making the head one 8th of the total length.
Ingres added a couple of vertebrae, too.
Vargas, seems to me, disposed one or two to leave more length for legs.
All of these knew how to draw.
-lauri
Neil Maxwell
>What I should have said is that bad art should not
>be as well publicized as it should because it gives people the wrong
>perception of things.
I'm a bit confused. Who gets to decide what should be publicized?
Who decides what the right perception of things is? I think America's
President Bush has some thoughts on this...
I see lots of art publicized that I consider both good and bad.
Friends of mine have the exact same opinion, except we have opposite
definitions of what's good and bad.
The good part is that art is getting publicized, and people are
allowed to make their own choices, be it Kinkades in the mall, Joan
Brown in the local museum, or abstracts in the downtown galleries.
Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer
John Ng
> If it were true, there could be only one explanation: The academic
> market was so rotten that people were willing to pay anything for
> anything different. You believe in that? :-)
Actually, I do agree with that. Commercialism started back then. It
should be true that the early pieces of Mondrian, Picasso, De Kooning
were to strive for something new. Understandingly, when the backdrop
was a plethora of academic-type art (not necessary of good quality),
this strange gimmicky colours and shapes stand out from the crowd as
"Modern" and became quickly promoted as such. It is exactly as a
programme on TV I saw last night about the fashion parade of Alexander
McQueen where his artistic fashion designs and presentation (but
unwearable) stood out from the crowd.
I do admit the tongue-to-cheek statement about "making a quick buck".
Nevertheless, those artists do stand a place in history but as
"fashionable" graphic artists. My main grouse is not that they are
ever known, but that they are not promoted the way they should. The
voices reasoning the rise of modern art (as I detailed above) is
smoldered, but instead inferior artists of (fashionable art) are
promoted as if their product is what art should be all about, whereas
good academic art is totally censored.
However, today, the surviving academic art (which are usually only the
good ones) stand out from the plethora (of even greater proportions)
of Modern.
> Bad art beeing what *you* see as bad as you said above.
> As you well know, there is a theory, that a piece of art has no intrisic value,
> the value is only subjective, and depends on individual reactions.
> If you really believe so, then people who look after different
> things are equally right.
Art is all about lasting beauty, and beauty is, to a great extend, not
subjective. If beauty is subjective, then I am sure someone out there
will find me handsome. I have lived forty odd years and I
haven’t heard it whispered once yet. (I will try to believe
that beauty is subjective... there is hope for me... keep my fingers
cross.)
Yes, "art has no intrisic value" depending on how you define art. If
beauty is the aim, then there IS intrinsic value. The value is
subject only to the extent of how much more you want to value it. The
intrinsic value of art is like the intrinsic value of a Rolls Royce
and also many things in life, except the basic.
> > LL> Where is your proof that in Turkish Bath
> > > Ingres failed to draw what he wanted.
> >
> > JN>What is your proof that it WAS really what Ingres wanted? Maria's
> > words?
>
> 1. Isn't he innocent until proved othervise?
What is this statement all about? You can't see the blatant mistakes
in Turkish bath? Am I that good to be able to see defects where no
one else is able to?
> 2.When I look (prints) of Ingres' work I see a very capable draughtsman.
> When I look his drawing of Luis Bertin and the painting of the same subject,
> I can see that he very much drew what he saw, and painted what he wanted to show.
Yes, he is indeed a very capable draughtsman, but that is not to say
that all his works are draughted correctly. This is what I have been
trying to say, that most people have to depend on books to tell them
right or wrong and can't make up their own mind. (I never commented
on this vertebrae thing... it is the proportion of his figures and
other anatomical structures in the Turkish bath that I am commenting
on).
Bear in mind that I am not promoting ARC orgranization, which I myself
have an on-going dispute. I advocate a renewal of art that is totally
independent of ARC. I am not bought by ARC or blindly subscribe to
their ideas. However my ideals are strikingly similar to theirs.
John Ng
Advocate of an art renewal
http://community.webshots.com/user/pigsmayfly