Look In The Mirror

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Between the first line and the last, I believe is beautiful writing.

Yet, the last line's conclusion seemingly disagrees with the writer's hypothesis and its supporting lines. Or does it?

It is a bit lengthy, but each line, compelling.
Each line could be a springboard for discussion.

My beginning question to start a dialogue: "Does the last line contradict, all that is written, which proceeds it? Or is there more important thoughts expressed?
Do not heed the writer's warning, "Those who go beneath the the surface do so at their peril'!

- - - -

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impressions of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thoughts and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.

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Fatima10- I need to digest this a bit more, but you are right. The words are very powerful.

Quote:

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

I think that what I have quoted is probably the most important part of the work. When we look at art, each person brings to it his entire history. What the spectator perceives has more to do with the his philosophy and view of the world than anything the artist has expressed.

More on this, when I am awake!

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Phoenix:
It seems to me that you arrived at the core meaning of the writing.

I always find it fascinating to listen to people critique works of art: plays, books, movies, sculptures, paintings or anything that is up for interpretation. Listen closely and we will learn more about that particular person than we might if we spent a week with them.

IMHO.

Thanks for your insight.
fatima10

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fatima, I disagree that the last line is a contradiction. It is, rather, the summation of the work. The author's point is that the purpose of art is not usefulness; if something is useful, it is not art, because that is not art's purpose.

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Kara
kara,

Yes, what you wrote is true to the essay.

But do you agree that art is useless?

thank you.
fatima10

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I think that art is useless in a practical sense. It serves no utilitarian purpose. But it is far from useless in how it affects people--whether emotionally or intellectually.

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I do not agree that art is necessarily useless. I believe that useful things can also be art. I have seen pieces of furniture that are unquestionably works of art. I have seen windows that serve the function of allowing light into a room or building, which are works of art. I believe that certain works in food are art.

I do not believe that there is a hard line dividing art and craft. I believe that there exists an intersection between the two. Is it most desirable to fall into that intersection, or into one or the other categories exclusively? I do not know. But I am sure that such an intersection exists.

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I want wordy missives about funny trevails, as I find it impossible to comment lucidly on that work as I don't understand much of it, and find it to reflect the kind of thinking that can't be parsed for meaning. By that, I mean that all such simplistic truisms, or beliefs, can't be evaluated by rational, logical thought. They have to be accepted in a leap of faith.

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Roberta wrote:

I think that art is useless in a practical sense. It serves no utilitarian purpose. But it is far from useless in how it affects people--whether emotionally or intellectually.

Roberta,I guess I am unpractical because I *need* art, therefore it is not useless, to me. But perhaps that is what you mean, when you state that it is far from useless how it affects people emotionally or intellectually.

I will look at the most mundane of objects, say for instance, meats and cheeses in the deli counter and see, what I consider to be art. Traffic lights turn into art, for me. Hmmm, maybe I am not too discerning? OR: see art in almost everything.

Marycat, your observations are true still. Look at the pieces of furniture that are in Museums, because of their beauty without renigging on the functionality of it. Practical can be art.

Sumac, it iIS a rather oblique, layered essay with meanings withing meanings. I think old Oscar was right when he said to go beneath the surface or to try to discern art's symbols, one does so, at one's peril. Perhaps the same could be said of this piece of writing.

So does that mean that pursuing Art is a perilous journey?

I believe there are no absolutes in art, just as there are no absolutes in life. It may be easier if all was black and white, but would it be as interesting? Then, if all was defined to black and white, would we have art?

Just wondering.

fatima10

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Marycat and Fatima,

I agree with you only in part. Yes, a beautifully designed chair can be art. But is it art to the person who is sitting in it?

Marycat, I do agree that art and craft intersect.

Fatima, I don't agree that meat and cheese are art unless someone has done something to make them aesthetically appealing. By the same token, I don't think that nature is art, although it can be beautiful. But a magnificently designed garden can be art. I think that art requires some form of conscious human involvement--creative, imaginative, etc.

Is something that is aesthetically pleasing art just because of the way it looks? I don't think so.

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I second Roberta's point that in order to be art, there must be some conscious human participation. Nature creates some of the most beautiful things possible, but she does so in her own way. Such things are not art until they are manipulated by a human.

Your other point is an interesting one as well -- is the chair art to the person who is sitting in it? Is it art if it is in use? Does the sitter become part of the art piece? Or does the chair cease to be art during the time that it is in use? One might ask similarly if the sugar sculpture is still art if we eat it. Or if the paintings in a burning house are still art when they are in the process of being destroyed. Does a change in status change the "artness" of an object?

I think that the chair is still art. I think that if I am sitting on the chair, I am participating in the piece's "artness," if you will. The piece changes from a passive object to an interactive one, but it is still art. One of my favorite kinds, actually. I really enjoy art that invites participation.

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Of COurse You are Both RIGHT!
Goodness, I appreciate the time for the replys. So many more questions, posed, that I must now ponder. So many points clarified for me. A one person discussion is not very enlightening. Particularly, when I have it with myself. I never agree...must disagree...and then 'I' am even more confused! *Myself*, on thother handnd, is the real trouble maker!wgWG>

Enough nonsense talk.

Roberta wrote:
Fatima, I don't agree that meat and cheese are art unless someone has done something to make them aesthetically appealing. Fatima, I don't agree that meat and cheese are art unless someone has done something to make them aestheticallappealingga magnificently designed garden can be art. I think that art requires some form of conscious human involvement--creative, imaginative, etc.

a)" Fatima, I don't agree that meat and cheese are art unless someone has done something to make them aesthetically appealing"

I have to go with you on this one. I think I had just returned from our grocery store, where they make a concerted effort to make the foods look appealing....to sell more. Not to make art. But the meats and cheeses are arranged in an artful way.

b)"magnificently designed garden can be art."

I bow to you, on this statement, as well.

Mary Cat also brought up this challenge to art, in other words. of course.

c) "I think that art requires some form of conscious human involvement--creative, imaginative, etc."

Right on the money, again. Nature can be beautiful, but it becomes art when it is represented for a viewer to admire.

I believe when I made the statement that I see art in most things, this statement nees some clarification. As someone who has been artisticly inclined, since I can remember: 3? 4? years old; then trained to be an artist, seeing art all around was actually speaking shorthand when I made that statement.

More clearly put, when I look around me, in most cases, I see how I could 'manipulate' or 'translate' what I am viewing, into a painting, a drawing, a watercolour, mixed media.....use art to rearrange what I am viewing.

Does that make sense?

fatima10

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art
Art IS thoroughly useless, in the sense that clothes-hangers are only useful.
Pardon my avatar, Roberta. We should have our DNA checked.

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JL, I knew I wasn't the only panther. There are a few others lurking, ready to pounce. I suspect we're related more by taste than blood.

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I don't think art is necessarily useful. I don't think art is necessarily useless. I don't believe that usefulness affects artfulness either way. I believe that some pieces of art can be used in other ways besides pure aesthetic appreciation, and some pieces can not.

JL, can you explain why you think that art is necessarily useless, and why ordinary objects can not be artful?

If you took a piece of mahogony and carved it beautifully and uniquely into a coat hanger with an intricate scene of a village, say, with different people and houses and stores all along the body of the hanger, would it be wrong to hang a coat on it? Or would it be wrong to create such a beautiful hanger, when it by nature cannot be art, because it is fashioned also as a useful object? Would it be art if the carving were designed to hang on a wall instead of in the closet? Why can't it be art if the same carving is designed to bring beauty to every day activities?

(Did those questions make sense?)

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I am thrilled that my two favorite panthers meet, and both are mentally able pantera.

On the question at hand, I am at a rest stage re opinions, others speaking for me here. What is the question again, is art useful, of course it is.
To some with eyes open to it at the time.

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Marycat, you've got me there. I guess I think that art is AT ITS BEST when its only function is its form (beauty) and a clothes hanger is at its best when its function takes priority over its form. But you are right: form and function are not mutually exclusive.

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There's a core failure of not delineating between commercial and fine art. Now the two have irretrivably meshed, at least in the marketing concepts. A good design is also art and may or may not have anything to do with the function. Form follows function is also a philosophy of creative intentions that has been blurred. One of my art instructors in college once stated that a beautifully designed ad is just as viable as a fine painting. The methods of producing fine art have evolved dramatically and the pop artist has had a lot to do with that. Today's pluralism is anything goes. Gehry's architectural designs are fine art that is utilitarian and belies the statement discussed here.

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(PS- JL -- Duchamp elevated the lowly wire clothes hanger to the level of fine art.

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truth
So said Duchamp. And that's, of course, also true to Picasso's bicycle seat?
Horray, Lightwizard is back. Now if only we had Firenze, 400, Colorific and Kayla we'd have a full house.

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