Does art take away from life?

@The Pentacle Queen,

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We are supposed to be artistically looking at Nature, not a second hand imitation of someone's expression of nature.
Well, I agree, but what do you mean by 'supposed'?

Birds commonly sit on a limb and watch the colours of the sunset. Mother cats purr their little arrogant heads off at the sight of their fluffy kittens stumbling around. To me this is true art that we should be enjoying, that we are supposed to enjoy.

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@Ionus,

But art takes off from that, riffs. Music, painting, light shows. They are not really different. This argument between academics and ordinary people who like sunsets seems, to me to be whipped up on years of constructs by art critics, some of which is interesting, and much not. Elaboration on basic sensience, how can that not be interesting?

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@ossobuco,

I admire the Venus de Milo, David, Mona Lisa, as exquisite representations of the human form but free form sculptures leave me appreciating why I never did hard drugs. I admire scenes by van Gogh but can not go as far as Picasso.

It is not academics who like art and ordinary people who like nature, I am saying that true art is nature and humans who have had too much food are called fat arse, people who have had too much sex are called sex mad, and people who have had too much art are called avante guarde.

Why would we exercise restraint in food and sex and be self indulgent in art ?

Most of what passes for art is rubbish, paid for by those with too much money like too much food is eaten by those with too much stress in their lives, and too much sex is had by those who have too much loneliness in their lives. A lot of manufactured art is by people with too much time in their lives and not enough reality.

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seems, to me to be whipped up on years of constructs by art critics

I am not aware of any art critics who think like I do...

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Elaboration on basic sensience, how can that not be interesting?

I assume you mean sentience. Elaboration on basic sex, elaboration on basic food, is all interesting but hardly essential and like art is more gluttonous then interesting.

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@Ionus,

You seem quite bitter, which is neither here not there except that you blast whole efforts of art, some very full bodied and some mere whisps.

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@Ionus,

Of course sentience is what I meant. Don't be petty.

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@ossobuco,

I'm sort of amused, you, Ionus, and you, Pentacle, ratchetting at art from both sides.

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@ossobuco,

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Of course sentience is what I meant. Don't be petty.

I wasnt being petty, just saying what assumptions I was making because you could have meant sense science by sensience.

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@Ionus,

snort

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@ossobuco,

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You seem quite bitter, which is neither here not there except that you blast whole efforts of art, some very full bodied and some mere whisps.

Seeming is not accurate in this case. I am aware I am blasting whole efforts of art, I believe in natural before man-made and the middle road before lack or excess. Much of what passes for art is in the hands of a few trying to convince others "this" is the latest fashion for their own financial gain.

When a piece of junk has to pass through a tortured mind to come out as art, why bother ? It is only people who have had too much art in their lives who think some abstract means anything but a fatuous attempt to get money.

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@Ionus,

Ok, ok, you are bitter, no seeming.

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@ossobuco,

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Ok, ok, you are bitter, no seeming.

No, I am not bitter but you are angry that any art could be criticised. If the kitchen is too hot, dont be a cook. Or in this case, if the audience is too cold, dont be a kook.

Lots of people dont "get" the touchy feely rubbish being generated as art. Things like Opera, the only legally allowed torture...or ballet, lets make girls go on point but not men, and the girls can wave their crutch at the audience whilst they are at it...or junk welded together that looks like a train wreck, or paint on canvas that any 5 yr old would be thrown out of kindergarten for a total lack of talent if they finger painted it...

All art has an extreme end and some of it looks as excessive and over-indulgent as a drunk vomiting in the gutter.

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

Quote:
Quote:
We are supposed to be artistically looking at Nature, not a second hand imitation of someone's expression of nature.
Well, I agree, but what do you mean by 'supposed'?
Birds commonly sit on a limb and watch the colours of the sunset. Mother cats purr their little arrogant heads off at the sight of their fluffy kittens stumbling around. To me this is true art that we should be enjoying, that we are supposed to enjoy.

I just don't think that's an argument, sorry. What are you hinging this on? Where do you derive this sense of purpose?

For me, opera is the most powerful emotional experience I can get, pretty much. The absolute opposite of torture.

I think calling the avant garde 'too much art' is also faulted. Maybe it is just too abstract or expressive for some people.

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@Shapeless,

Shapeless wrote:

The Pentacle Queen wrote:
Is shapeless on this thread? I'm thinking Susan McClary. And a whole load of others I've wasted a lot of time reading.

Not to worry, I'm listening in. I've been mostly silent because I believe you know my views already: it's hard for me to answer any question about what "art" does; I would rather take things on a case-by-case basis and think about what specific artworks do. I don't think it's possible or desirable to develop general statements about art as if it were a monolithic concept.

But, yeah... Susan McClary. Needless to say, not all scholars in the field take her seriously. That said, I do think what she says about Beethoven's Ninth is no less (or no more) illuminating than, say, what Heinrich Schenker says about Beethoven. And is there really all that much difference between McClary's "pelvic thrusts" and E. M. Forster's "elephants dancing" (his description of Beethoven's Fifth)? McClary's approach at least has the merit of casting some sociological light on the fact that the two principal themes of a sonata were traditionally called the "masculine" and "feminine" themes.

Anyway, not to derail the tread.

Don't worry about derailing it at all, shapeless. I consider it derailed.
My basic point was, wouldn't it be nice if taking an aesthetic attitude to ones own life was more commonplace rather than 'saving' it for special locations within society. But I can't forge any kind of argument, because, as you say, it's too general.
I don't know. It would probably make people rather smug too, and perhaps a bit less functional.

Yeah, I understand the reasoning, I just really hate a lot of conjectures like that, since it's possible to argue quite a lot from quite little given that music is so abstract. I don't know. I think I'm a bit disillusioned about what we actually can say from wading through so much bad musicology this year. Actually, I will email you at some point soon to let you know how that went (don't worry, I won't ask you loads of questions Wink

).

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@The Pentacle Queen,

The difference between Monet and Matisse is the difference between {iston nd JS Bach. Some enjoy and can appreciate, others cannot approach.

ome of the " artistic shorthand" that is unique to specific artists is earned after a sound familiarity with the "rules".
Picasso was a superb draughtsman. His genius was the development of his own painterly language that stands him apart from other artists of his time.
I admit readily that an entire show of Picasso can get tiring as it demands so much of the viewer. Whereas camera "sub" landscapes of the Hudson River artists are meant to be scanned one at a time and in large enough halls so that the dialogue between the artist and viewer is underpinned by the surroundings.

One of the humongestest collections of Impressionist, Post Impressionist and Modern art is the BArnes Foundation. This collection is about 25 BILLION dollars worth of paintings that have appreciated beyond the Foundations capability to even sustain.

I defy anyone, passionate art lover, casual observer, to jaded "I dont know much about art but I know what I like" TYPES. I defy them all to take a tour through the Barnes Foundation and not get bored out of your skull.

Im passionate about art, I just hate vast collections and pointless comparative retrospectives (Cezanne v Picabia).
All those shows are , are just some museum director getting his or herself off on the power over taste they wield.

Whenever wwe go visit DC, (A museum day we call it) we visit ONE show in the arts at the EAst QWing, and then we go off visiting some totally different museum .

All things in moeration, even ones passionate obsession.

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@farmerman,

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I defy anyone, passionate art lover, casual observer, to jaded "I dont know much about art but I know what I like" TYPES. I defy them all to take a tour through the Barnes Foundation and not get bored out of your skull.

That's how I felt this past Christmas when we were home, so I took my daughter who's doing art at A-level to MOMA (Museum of Modern Art). Some of that stuff is just so ridiculous. I told her if I could only think of the right word to write on a piece of paper over and over and over again, I could be an 'ARTIST' too! There was one exhibit where I kid you not, this person wrote one word-I can't remember what it is now) on white paper with black ink over and over and over again and that was the 'exhibit' of 'art'.

I enjoyed looking out the windows at the brownstones across the street (or at least that's what I remember) more than anything I saw in that museum.
At least I know I'll never have to go again.
What a waste of an afternoon.

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@aidan,

I'll add my voice to the refrain of "modern art sucks"......art came under the control of a class who enjoyed having a set of standards that is unknown by the masses, they also greatly preferred being different over being good. Most of what passes for art according to the "experts" is not worth the effort to look at.

This business about art is another finger of the current lack of respect accorded to the elites of our society, it factors into the rapidly growing consensus that the elites must be removed from their positions, that now is the time for the citizens to take back this country.

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@The Pentacle Queen,

Art makes life beautiful. Art gives extra energy to a person in his life.

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@hawkeye10,

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I'll add my voice to the refrain of "modern art sucks"......

Do you say the same about John Cage or Miles Davis?

You like Michelangelos sculpture but apparently not Lois Nevellson. A suggestion is trying to understand the discipline that some of the abstract expressionists used in their work.
Seurat was certain that , just by deconstructing a painting via his dots of the spectrum, all art could be thus deconstructed into its primary elements. He was all fucked up about that, It made an interesting technique and when seen in full scale, the viewer is able to see what Seurat was trying to achieve in that one work.

The rules in art are that there are no real rules. Many artists whose work we find difficulty "getting" spent a lot of time entering their own journeys of some kind of deconstruction and they also approach it with great discipline.

I love the primal art of George Morrison, an Ojibway Indian whose works, as far as I can tell, all celebrate the single sharp horizon line of the lands around the Great LAkes and the Uppwer Peninsula. His work has only recently begun to be shown (7 years after his death). He was always a kind of "indian genre" artist whose work was dismissed by the critics. Until the Museum of the American Indian devoted a large display hall to his work, Then he was dicovered in DC and then of late NYC (It doesnt happen until it happens in NYC-even though NY is really kind of provincial and myopic ). Id suggest looking up his work, both his paintings/drawings as well as his work of wood sculpture and wood plank art.

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@debrah,

debrah wrote:

Art makes life beautiful. Art gives extra energy to a person in his life.

But why do you specifically need art for this, why can you not apply the same type of thought to your own life?

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@The Pentacle Queen,

Art is just one method, its certainly not exclusive. Like music or poetry, all serve different receptor ganglia and cognative centers.

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Does art take away from life?

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