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Silversoul
Rhizome
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Let's talk aesthetics
#14469202 - 05/17/11 06:11 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Beautiful, isn't it? A lot of people think so, which is why the painter, Thomas Kinkade, has made millions selling these kinds of paintings in Wal-Mart and other venues throughout America. There's a good chance that one of your neighbors has a Thomas Kinkade painting in their house. No self-respecting artist, however, would want to associate themselves with his work, which is dismissed as kitschy commercial crap. Art is often contrasted with kitsch, and distinguishing between the two is one of the tasks of aesthetics. So, how do we distinguish the two? Is it merely by beauty? Most art critics would say no. A lot of great art is actually grotesque or minimalist. Let's continue to some examples of what is considered to be art.
This work is called The School of Athens by Raphael. A depiction of the great philosophers of ancient Greece, it is an example of Renaissance art. Renaissance art tended to focus on realism, since the medieval art which preceded it tended to be mostly iconographic and lack perspective.
This is called No. 1 by Jackson Pollock. It exemplifies a type of art known as "abstract expressionism." It doesn't represent anything. It is instead focused on the process of making the art itself. Rather than regular brush strokes, Pollock would instead drip or splash paint from his brush while standing over the canvass. So, should art have to represent something?
This work is called Fountain, by Marcel Duchamp. It is simply a urinal taken out of a bathroom and displayed as a work of art. He submitted it an art show which said that all works of art would be accepted, yet this was rejected on the grounds that it was not art. Today, however, it is considered a turning point in 20th century art, exemplifying the movement known as "Dada." Can something be considered art if it simply takes an ordinary object and presents it in a different way?
This one is called Campbell's Soup Cans by Andy Warhol. It is a set of 32 equal-sized canvasses depicting different flavors of Campbell's Soup. It is an example of is known as "Pop Art." Pop Art is self-consciously kitschy, and actively celebrates the commercial, tacky, and unsophisticated in mass culture. So this seems to bring yet another dilemma. If art is contrasted with kitsch, how are we to understand an art movement that specifically embraces kitsch?
I think that's enough for now. So, I wonder if we can get a conversation going about what art is. Can anything be art? What sets it apart from anything else? Are the aesthetics of art purely subjective, or are there standards by which it can be measured? Is the aesthetic experience of a work of art simply given by its immediate apprehension, or is it enhanced by understanding the context of the art and what the artist is trying to do? Discuss.
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The Phleg
Big Dick Chakra
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: Silversoul]
#14469220 - 05/17/11 06:14 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I took Art Appreciation as well.
Eye of the beholder.
-------------------- You wanna get high? Drink tap water. --------------------
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johnm214
Registered: 05/31/07
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Loc: Americas
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: The Phleg]
#14469448 - 05/17/11 07:05 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Art seems to be valued based on emotional appeal. I'd imagine any objective standard that doesn't take this into consideration wouldn't really work, therefore.
Just look at the divide between classes of people. Those who know a lot about art often aren't too impressed by realistic depictions of the world, while I, knowing little and having just passing experiences in consuming art as such, think the work is amazing and striking- obviously worthy.
I'd imagine its valued differently for the same reasons people proficient at something have different tastes as others: perhaps the novelty allows the consumer to experience the emotional appeal the works first had when viewed anew.
I'd imagine this also explains why artistic fields seem to focus on particular genres for a while and then shift to something new without much in the way of any particular reason other than emotional appeal.
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Lion
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: johnm214]
#14469524 - 05/17/11 07:21 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I can't really explain my ideas about art. Art is a part of life and living itself is an art. I feel gratitude when someone produces a work of art that moves me emotionally.
One of my favorite literary quotes is this line from The Unbearable Lightness of Being: "In the Kingdom of Kitsch you would be a monster."
-------------------- “Strengthened by contemplation and study, I will not fear my passions like a coward. My body I will give to pleasures, to diversions that I’ve dreamed of, to the most daring erotic desires, to the lustful impulses of my blood, without any fear at all, for whenever I will— and I will have the will, strengthened as I’ll be with contemplation and study— at the crucial moments I’ll recover my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
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morrowasted
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: Lion]
#14469591 - 05/17/11 07:32 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I see beauty here:
I see a reflection of suffering here:
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desert father
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: Silversoul]
#14470231 - 05/17/11 09:44 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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i guess kiss is how you should judge art.
keep it simple stupid.
just like music, if it sounds like shit, it's shit.
if it looks like shit, it's shit.
-------------------- vi veri veniversum vivus vici What she said : "I smoke 'cos I'm hoping for an Early death AND I NEED TO CLING TO SOMETHING !"
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Solomon Ash
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: Silversoul]
#14470238 - 05/17/11 09:45 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Symmetry is associated with beauty, and also the golden mean/ golden ratio and the fibonnaci sequence, or so I have heard.
Both realism and surrealism can be moving and powerful art. Art can be beautiful, make a statement, or both.
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MushroomTrip
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Quote:
desert father said: i guess kiss is how you should judge art.
keep it simple stupid.
just like music, if it sounds like shit, it's shit.
if it looks like shit, it's shit.
Sure, why take the time to actually think about something, when there's so much more important things to do, such as living in ignorance?
-------------------- All this time I've loved you And never known your face All this time I've missed you And searched this human race Here is true peace Here my heart knows calm Safe in your soul Bathed in your sighs
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morrowasted
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Quote:
desert father said: i guess kiss is how you should judge art.
keep it simple stupid.
just like music, if it sounds like shit, it's shit.
if it looks like shit, it's shit.
so long as you don't impose your "it's shit" onto others. because whether or not a given track "sounds like shit" is completely subjective...
if it sounds like shit to you, then you are right, it effectively IS shit for you. there is little point in TRYING to make it sound pleasing/beautiful. but it is also a misconception that, simply because someone else finds some music to be beautiful when you do not, that person must have somehow "tried" to do so.
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desert father
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i'm sorry, i don't quite understand whether you're implying that i live in ignorance or that my statement was incorrect?
-------------------- vi veri veniversum vivus vici What she said : "I smoke 'cos I'm hoping for an Early death AND I NEED TO CLING TO SOMETHING !"
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desert father
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yea...no kidding.
what does it matter what someone else thinks anyway, really?
-------------------- vi veri veniversum vivus vici What she said : "I smoke 'cos I'm hoping for an Early death AND I NEED TO CLING TO SOMETHING !"
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morrowasted
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Quote:
desert father said: yea...no kidding.
what does it matter what someone else thinks anyway, really?
nothing matters until you decide that it matters
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Diploid
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: Silversoul]
#14474424 - 05/18/11 05:21 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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kitschy commercial crap
I think that whole attitude it crap. It's applied not only the the visual arts but also to music. Rachmaninoff at the piano is brilliant but Yanni at the piano is yucky commercial sell-out.
Wine is no better than grape juice. Beauty is in the eye/ear/whatever of the beholder, IMO. There is no golden standard for aesthetics any more than there is a privileged inertial reference in physics. If the now-praised Fountain isn't evidence of that, I don't know what is.
I have a friend who turns his nose up at pop music but drools over discordant jazz that to me sounds like a 6 year old banging on a keyboard.
I have repeatedly challenged him to a blind listening test where I'll play for him some obscure professional jazz piece and me more or less randomly hitting keys and ask him to tell me which is which. He declines.
I reply that the emperor has no clothes.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Silversoul
Rhizome
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: Diploid]
#14474605 - 05/18/11 06:03 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I can understand that sentiment, but I think this brings up one of the crucial issues in aesthetics: Is the aesthetic experience merely something that is immediately given by the senses? I would say no. Jazz and classical music are both genres that involve active listening. You get more out of it by appreciating the nuances such as the different chord changes and modalities involved. Thus, appreciation of these genres is enhanced by learning more about what goes into them.
I think knowing the artist's intention or the historical context matters as well. For instance, with the Duchamp piece, and the Dada movement in general, it helps to understand that the movement began as a reaction against the elites around the time of World War I. It sought to undermine the foundations of bourgeois art. In a way, I think it's similar to punk rock, a proletarian movement which sought to throw off all the overindulgent pretensions of prog rock and strip it down to the basics.
There is also a matter of what the viewer or listener brings to the table. Different art movements will tend to resonate with people of different backgrounds. In short, I think there's a lot more to an aesthetic experience than simply what is immediately given. Such experiences have a historicity to them.
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Epigallo
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: Diploid]
#14474646 - 05/18/11 06:15 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I used to think some bands were good, but now years later it sounds simplistic, hacked, and cliche. If you listen to a lot of a certain genre of music you start to notice the same musical techniques being employed to bring about certain effects. Listening to a bad musician is, to me, like watching a bad magician. You see right through it.
Pop music can be fantastic though. Some of it.
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treewood69
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: Epigallo]
#14474712 - 05/18/11 06:28 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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i am an artist like pollock
-------------------- I have enough cents to know I dont have any sense
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Vsnares.Zappa
bend over
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Re: Let's talk aesthetics [Re: treewood69]
#14474939 - 05/18/11 07:15 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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The fondamental goal in art is to discover new forms of expression IMO.The beauty/ugliness duality is restraining and boring.
Everything is art, it's just a way of perceiving things.
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morrowasted
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the problem with the pollock peace is that any meaning it has seems to involve second order reasoning, ie the meaning it represents involves considering the idea of meaning itself. perhaps this is beautiful, but not for as large an audience, at very least.
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Vsnares.Zappa
bend over
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Quote:
morrowasted said: the problem with the pollock peace is that any meaning it has seems to involve second order reasoning, ie the meaning it represents involves considering the idea of meaning itself. perhaps this is beautiful, but not for as large an audience, at very least.
Pollock's work is very evocative but in an abstract way : it's up to you to define and attribute meaning to his work.I think much people can't grasp this concept because they have been deprived from their imagination because of social conditioning .
You arbitrary attribute meaning to all things surrounding you, why art would be different ?
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LunarEclipse
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Having been to the Louvers in Gay Paree and been face to face with Mona and had I been the intimate type could have run up and kissed her all I can say is
Art is fantastique. I just like to wander around the great art museums and take it in. To not be critical per se, but to spend more time in front of that which appeals to me. No point in even trying to put into words what that appeal is then or now.
-------------------- Anxiety is what you make it.
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