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Pax
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Whoever said that there were no new ideas?
Think of all the things that have been invented since that person died.
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Oncle Boris
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Once in a brown moon
Aug 2001
time: 00:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
But I am not a Marxist and reject that view and the view of 'class struggle' throughout history is the main struggle. Therefore your whole view of art is rejected by me and I have not be satisfied as to why art needs to be the 'text' of anything. |
Not so fast. You don't have to agree with Marx to agree with this view of art (which was created in the 50s by French Marxists). First, I'm almost sure I've not made myself entirely clear, because I'm tired and all, so I apologize.
The first thing to know is, are you denying class struggle, or you only claim that is not the driving force behind history?
Second, I am not entirely justifying X conception of art as being inherently good because it comes from X class. I was merely responding to your argument, which asked, I think, "why would it be that the liberal elite is a better standard than the ruling one? In both cases we have elites who are creating something with different but equally valid goals".
To which, I was responding that the ruling elite creates art for its own domination, while the liberal one, as an "institutionalized" revolutionary force (i.e. when the Revolution becomes the Left), tries to deny the "natural order" created by the ruling class.
Now, listen carefully, because it's quite complex, and I might spoil it because it comes from a French thinker I've read in French. (R. Barthes)
You pretty much have to admit that language, in the first place, is a tool in the hand of humanity that has been arbitrarily chosen to shape and describe the world (read my post on differenciation for more details). The great thing about this, is that Marxism is a form of existentialism, that says that humans define themselves by working Nature- (ergo, the idea that the structuralist studies of language fitted perfectly with marxism). This Nature does not have any essence, and neither do humans. They are both shaping and shaped material, with no clear-cut identity.
If the role of Art is to be realist, to represent the Real, then it has to be, as I said, ever moving and self-defining: it has to lie outside of language, because language is merely a conscious mechanism by which we recognize a differanciation system.
Now, whether you are Marxist or not, you've got to admit that society builds an order, and that this order has to look like it is natural and inalienable. In other words, you have to deny Nature; you have to act like the world and humans are known; you therefore have to create art in which there is good and evil, emotional balance, and morale exutory.
If art belonged to Man and not Society, it would be foggy, unclear, passionate; it would refuse to take a chain of meaning (sentences, pictures, sounds) and pose it for anything else than for what it MEANS, rather than creating a new order built on words (apparent language) instead of concepts (what is close to our perception); thus,p it would be profoundly Revolutionary- in a metaphoric way. What I am supposing here, is that purity of creation and mental nirvana can only be reached when art belongs to man.
The only marxist premice you have to admit, is that the liberal elite is more likely to make art that goes in that way. For the rest, you are free to agree on the definition and say it could also be achieved in a non-marxist society.
OK. I'm not sure I'm being clear, but I hope you'll cease being a lawyer for a few moments and read it without this "let's beat Oncle Boris" purpose in mind. 
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Oncle Boris
In the case of the common paintings of religious scenes, I'd say it's merely art- because its function was to educate first, not to make revolutionary aesthetic statements. |
All art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art.
'Merely art'- are the cave paintings of Lascaux and Altamira 'merely art' or do they have a religious or cultural significance which we cannot divine, or define?
How about the dot painting of Australian aborigines which use a visual language intelligible to aborigines but not to most other people?
Are they avant garde, 'merely art', propaganda, what?
They might superficially look like a once 'avant garde' Damien Hirst painting but they have a different function.
What was once avant garde becomes commonplace- the rejected Impressionists triumph over academicians such as Bouguereau and Tissot, and fetch absurdly high prices, as do Van Gogh and Cezanne and Matisse and Gauguin.
Mondrian's art becomes a Sixties 'Mondrian sack' dress, or wallpaper; Rapahel's cherubs become illustrated notepaper, and Leonardo's ideal man is used as a television lead in.
At the same time, popular 'mass' culture is (re)used in 'avant garde' art- a long tradition from the use of popular melodies in Roman Catholic mass settings, to newspaper clippings, linoleum patterns and disposable toy cars in Picasso's work, or mass produced Duco paint in Jackson Pollock's paintings, or ephemera in the work of Joseph Cornell or advertising in British and American Pop Art.
All art educates to a degree, even 'bad' art, whatever you consider that to be (socialist realism, Nazi Romanticism, Brutalism, Arte Povera), if only to make you think about the alternatives to what you are looking at, or listening to, or living in.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:34
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quote:
Originally posted by The Mad Viking
 @ FS*
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I remember seeing the work of a photographer reviewed in the Arts section of London's 'Time Out'.
Most of the photographs were out of focus, badly organised visually, and clipped clumsily. The reviewer said that the photographer was not interested in traditional concepts of framing, and reproduction, and quality- I thought, well, if that had been a bricklayer building a wall, or a plumber fixing a drain, I'd be suing them.
How the reviewer could intuit that the photographer actually knew what they were doing, or couldn't tell the operations of a camera from the instructions on a boil in the bag meal, I'm not sure.
Of course, that may have been the point, but I'm afraid the photographs didn't stake a claim on my imagination.
Andy Warhol once worked as a commercial artist, as did David Bowie.
I've never understood this supposed difference between 'high art' and 'commercial art'- Shakespeare was a commercial artist, so was Michelangelo, Van Eyck, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Dickens, Picasso and Matisse- they were paid, they expected to be paid, they sold their work.
I see no virtue in starving for hunger's sake.
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Imran Siddiqui
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The Potterverse
Jan 1970
time: 00:34
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quote:
To which, I was responding that the ruling elite creates art for its own domination, while the liberal one, as an "institutionalized" revolutionary force (i.e. when the Revolution becomes the Left), tries to deny the "natural order" created by the ruling class. |
In essense both elite try to create art for their own domination, they just have different defintions on what 'domination' means  . The liberal elite want domination over the minds of the 'intellectual' and in order to do so engage in this sort of destructive avant guard.
quote:
If the role of Art is to be realist, to represent the Real, then it has to be, as I said, ever moving and self-defining: it has to lie outside of language, because language is merely a conscious mechanism by which we recognize a differanciation system. |
But art doesn't always have to represent the real. In fact, the avant guard art you point to doesn't represent any reality. A lot of art may indeed represent reality, but much of it goes beyond reality. Just like it goes beyond language.
quote:
you have to deny Nature; you have to act like the world and humans are known; you therefore have to create art in which there is good and evil, emotional balance, and morale exutory. |
Not really. Why does a denial of Nature (which I'm not sure most societies do, they embrace Nature and say their order is most conducive to that nature) mean there must be art with is black and white and moral?
quote:
creating a new order built on words (apparent language) instead of concepts (what is close to our perception); thus,p it would be profoundly Revolutionary- in a metaphoric way. |
Why is it creating a new order rather than continuing an existing one? Is man simply a part of his society? So if art was for man rather than society (as you say), wouldn't the man simply create art which would mostly fit his society? And only a relative few would try to go beyond society.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:34
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quote:
Originally posted by The Mad Viking
In Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee he tells of how they had Chimpanzees complete "abstract expressionist" paintings.
They showed them to artists and critics, and got long, serious analyses of the artistic merits. |
How many of us who don't know say, Chinese calligraphy, or Islamic art, could write about the nuances of either?
Would anyone not familiar with Chinese calligraphy or the different forms of Islamic calligraphy be able to distinguish random brushstrokes from characters or words?
What art is, and is used for, is culturally determined. Many artists have talked about wanting to get back to the way a child looks at the world, before preconceptions about what the world 'should' look like, intruded.
Samuel Beckett took inspiration from a textbook primer for French schoolchildren in order to make his prose style less ornate.
It's entirely possible that a higher primate such as a chimpanzee, given the tools might create 'art', or already does, but how would a human recognise something so far outside their usual understanding?
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Rogan Josh
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Art is dead. Long live Science.
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by molly bloom
I remember seeing the work of a photographer reviewed in the Arts section of London's 'Time Out'.
Most of the photographs were out of focus, badly organised visually, and clipped clumsily. The reviewer said that the photographer was not interested in traditional concepts of framing, and reproduction, and quality- I thought, well, if that had been a bricklayer building a wall, or a plumber fixing a drain, I'd be suing them.
How the reviewer could intuit that the photographer actually knew what they were doing, or couldn't tell the operations of a camera from the instructions on a boil in the bag meal, I'm not sure. |
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Oncle Boris
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Once in a brown moon
Aug 2001
time: 00:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
In essense both elite try to create art for their own domination, they just have different defintions on what 'domination' means . The liberal elite want domination over the minds of the 'intellectual' and in order to do so engage in this sort of destructive avant guard.
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The liberal elite never, ever dominates. When it start doing so, it's not the liberal elite anymore.
quote:
But art doesn't always have to represent the real. In fact, the avant guard art you point to doesn't represent any reality. A lot of art may indeed represent reality, but much of it goes beyond reality. Just like it goes beyond language.
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In a specific sense, you are right. However, the 'real' is meant here in very broad sense. Actually, you almost pointed it out- that what goes beyong language, is truly 'real', and not what tries to be so with overused conventions (example, Hollywoodian cinema). There is absolutely no way you can say that a painting by David is more realistic than one from Pollock.
quote:
Not really. Why does a denial of Nature (which I'm not sure most societies do, they embrace Nature and say their order is most conducive to that nature) mean there must be art with is black and white and moral?
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It sounds like you agree with me here. Embracing nature, or claiming you are, is necessarily denying it, in the sense that that it is being appropriated by a force, which is hijacking nature's true nature towards some goal.
quote:
Why is it creating a new order rather than continuing an existing one? Is man simply a part of his society? So if art was for man rather than society (as you say), wouldn't the man simply create art which would mostly fit his society? And only a relative few would try to go beyond society. |
Good point. In fact, society forces an unnatural order to man, and in such cannot truly belong to man. The order it creates is new, in that it is unnatural.
BTW, why are you discussing this with me? Do you agree or disagree that taking art for granted and linking it with emotional responses is being illiterate about it?
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Wraith
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Austin, Texas, USA
Aug 1999
time: 23:34
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--"Finally, you have to keep in mind that it was only with the appearance of cartoons and cinema that art was destined directly for the masses."
Actually, Ukiyo-e, Japanese wood-block prints, were definitely meant for the masses. The earlier forms of Japanese art it's decended from are another matter; they're incredibly expensive, even today (a single painting in the traditional Japanese style can cost thousands of dollars just for the pigments). The wood-block prints, on the other hand, could be produced cheaply and in quantity, and were always meant to sell to the masses.
And yes, this was long before television or movies. ^_^
--"Pirates of the Caribbean is a brilliant movie that is far smarter than anyone has given it credit for."
You forgot the sarcasm tag...
Don't think I'm being snooty just because it's a movie. One of the best works of art I've seen in a while was a TV series (Haibane Renmei; incidentally involving one of my favorite artists, ABe yoshitoshi, who was trained in Classical Japanese painting styles). My problem with Pirates is because, in the words of Jay Sherman, "It stinks!".
--"Because art exists within a social context and aesthetic legacy. It is constantly redefining itself: it is proactively intellectual, and it requires constant reflexion. If you passively take X film and claim it is art- because it is, then you are using it in the false sense."
You got this from one of those comment generator pages, didn't you?
Oddly enough, half of this thread (on both sides) could have been written by an Eliza script. But that's true of most of the threads here ^_^
--"So instead of the usual one-upmanship that this site has slipped into, why don't you just start appreciating art for art's sake?"
Because this is Poly. Where would we be if people stopped the one-upmanship?
Wraith
Fine. No one understands you. That doesn't make you an artist.
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Az
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MACEDONIA - It's the name of the sovereign country to the north of Greece
Apr 2000
time: 07:34
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I think this debate is futile. To me, everything which is aesthetically pleasing, is art. Especially so, if it's only purpose is to be aesthetically pleasing. For each era, and "school", however, I have different favourites.
If it is, all is great. If you don't like something, don't look at it, and don't buy it. It's your choice. Everyone can design their own houses, and make whatever art they want.
On the issue of Kinkade: From the posts I've seen here, and in other places, each and every person who has seriously dissed his painitings, showed himself to be an incredibly arrogant *****. I am quite ambivalent, myself, to his work, but I certainly will "not" degenerate this debate, and humiliate the people who like him, just because they like pictures of calmness and naivity. I think that kinkade's work is calming to the eye, and brings one to an era of childhood most of us will forever cherish, respect and love. OTOH, there is more to life than childhood's bliss.
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02-03-2004 11:07
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