The Absolute Depravity and Bankruptcy of Modern Art and Artists...

[amicus]

I read a lot...look a lot at what is offered in the theatre and on television. I also have a love for classical art; works that lift my spirit or make me smile or even shed a tear over the human condition.

Due to medical reasons I have been confined most of this year and sentenced to wade through the pap on television, including all the movie channels. I am not surprised at the dearth of anything worthwhile; but this not not an original observation or a new one:

“Art and Cognition,” The Romantic Manifesto, 75.
Decomposition is the postscript to the death of a human body; disintegration is the preface to the death of a human mind. Disintegration is the keynote and goal of modern art—the disintegration of man’s conceptual faculty, and the retrogression of an adult mind to the state of a mewling infant.

To reduce man’s consciousness to the level of sensations, with no capacity to integrate them, is the intention behind the reducing of language to grunts, of literature to “moods,” of painting to smears, of sculpture to slabs, of music to noise.

But there is a philosophically and psychopathologically instructive element in the spectacle of that gutter. It demonstrates—by the negative means of an absence—the relationships of art to philosophy, of reason to man’s survival, of hatred for reason to hatred for existence. After centuries of the philosophers’ war against reason, they have succeeded—by the method of vivisection—in producing exponents of what man is like when deprived of his rational faculty, and these in turn are giving us images of what existence is like to a being with an empty skull.

While the alleged advocates of reason oppose “system-building” and haggle apologetically over concrete-bound words or mystically floating abstractions, its enemies seem to know that integration is the psycho-epistemological key to reason, that art is man’s psycho-epistemological conditioner, and that if reason is to be destroyed, it is man’s integrating capacity that has to be destroyed.

It is highly doubtful that the practitioners and admirers of modern art have the intellectual capacity to understand its philosophical meaning; all they need to do is indulge the worst of their subconscious premises. But their leaders do understand the issue consciously: the father of modern art is Immanuel Kant (see his Critique of Judgment).

I do not know which is worse: to practice modern art as a colossal fraud or to do it sincerely.

Those who do not wish to be the passive, silent victims of frauds of this kind, can learn from modern art the practical importance of philosophy, and the consequences of philosophical default. Specifically, it is the destruction of logic that disarmed the victims, and, more specifically, the destruction of definitions. Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.

Works of art—like everything else in the universe—are entities of a specific nature: the concept requires a definition by their essential characteristics, which distinguish them from all other existing entities. The genus of art works is: man-made objects which present a selective recreation of reality according to the artist’s metaphysical value-judgments, by means of a specific material medium. The species are the works of the various branches of art, defined by the particular media which they employ and which indicate their relation to the various elements of man’s cognitive faculty.

Man’s need of precise definitions rests on the Law of Identity: A is A, a thing is itself. A work of art is a specific entity which possesses a specific nature. If it does not, it is not a work of art. If it is merely a material object, it belongs to some category of material objects—and if it does not belong to any particular category, it belongs to the one reserved for such phenomena: junk.

“Something made by an artist” is not a definition of art. A beard and a vacant stare are not the defining characteristics of an artist.

“Something in a frame hung on a wall” is not a definition of painting.

“Something with a number of pages in a binding” is not a definition of literature.

“Something piled together” is not a definition of sculpture.

“Something made of sounds produced by anything” is not a definition of music.

“Something glued on a flat surface” is not a definition of any art.There is no art that uses glue as a medium. Blades of grass glued on a sheet of paper to represent grass might be good occupational therapy for retarded children—though I doubt it—but it is not art.

“Because I felt like it” is not a definition or validation of anything.

There is no place for whim in any human activity—if it is to be regarded as human. There is no place for the unknowable, the unintelligible, the undefinable, the non-objective in any human product. This side of an insane asylum, the actions of a human being are motivated by a conscious purpose; when they are not, they are of no interest to anyone outside a psychotherapist’s office. And when the practitioners of modern art declare that they don’t know what they are doing or what makes them do it, we should take their word for it and give them no further consideration.


“Art and Cognition,” The Romantic Manifesto, 76

Ayn Rand...of course...who else?

If that is a little heavy and complex for you...take note of what you watch or read within the spectrum of the arts in general.

Ask yourself why you find this or that, song, book, sculpture or film enjoyable and what it means to you.

Mindless entertainment is not an option.

Amicus

 

[amicus]

I suggest that Art went through three general phases or eras, that of God, the Rennaissance and the death of God.

There are, of course, existing exceptions to my generality, in all ages, where beauty and symmetry reigned in the midst of tributes to Religion, Gods and Kings. In general, one might refer to this era as Classical Art, although that too, is subject to definition.

The Impressionist Era began in about 1830 with Pissarro and ended in about 1925 with Monet and Cassatt and, strangely enough parallels the Industrial Revolution when man broke free of the harness of physical labor and created surplus wealth that could be used in discretionary spending. And, businessmen took over the patronage of the arts replacing the Church and Royalty.

Existentialism, concerned with the broad phenomenology of human experience, emerged from the European philosophical tradition to speak to the anguish and alienation of the times, addressing such human concerns as suffering and death, the sense of cosmic absurdity and the limitations of human reason.

Read 'cosmic absurdity' as, 'the death of god', to understand how the disillusionment of the intellectual elite as the search for a moral system outside the Church was undertaken.

The era of Modern Art is aptly described by the above note concerning the nature of Existentialism and its' influence over all expressions of artistic endeavor and all genre's.

The intellectual elite of our times are still rooted in that 'sense of cosmic absurdity and the limitations of human reason', one can speculate on the damage done and just how long this abyssmal era will continue.

This is merely an outlet for my thoughts until they are filed away for further compilation.

Amicus

 

[Liar]

I think you're missing one important factor - volume.

There is at any point in history a given amount of "bad" art. Stuff that may give the illusion of beauty and relevance at first glance, but does not stand the test of time. The reason we look backwards and see only greatness is that simple - history forgot the crap.

And in this age of mass information and technology, it's easy for anyone to pick up a tool and make a cultural artefact. This is both a blessing and a curse. When everyone is given the tools, a lot of really good stuff will be made by those who in another time would not have had the opportunity. But it also means that works of genius have a greater risk at drowning in a white noise of even more crap.

I read somewhere that more music have been written in the last 15 (or 10, I'll have to look that up...) years than in the entire human history before. And that you have access to ten if not hundred times more art of different kinds than your grandpanents did at your age. To take a snapshot of this and try to determine what will stand the test of time is so daunting, that it's easier to just say "it's all crap".

 

[ishtat]

Amicus , if you are ever fortunate enough as I have been to visit the sculpture galleries at the museum of Naples you can see the art, mainly frescoes and sculpture recovered from the ruins of Ercolano and Pompeii. Much of this 2000 year old art when discovered beneath the volcanic ash was considered so depraved it was kept under lock and key for years.

It is depraved, utterly depraved in many ways... but it is still great, very great art (especially the sculpture). Your basic precept that art must necessarily have a moral dimension is in my view wrong.

Indeed, had you not indicated that the quotation in your post was from Ms Rand I would have thought the views expressed might have been more typical of one of the lesser critics from the Soviet tradition.

 

[oggbashan]

It is difficult to judge what contemporary art will survive to be regarded as classics.

In the 1930s Walter Pater and Ernest Bramah were revered as great writers. Who reads them now?

Rudyard Kipling won a Nobel Prize for literature. A modern reader, looking at many of Kipling's works might reasonably ask "How did he win?" and "Why?".

Good, classic Art doesn't necessarily mean valuable.

Vladimir_Tretchikoff (The Green Girl) made more money from Art during his lifetime than Picasso did, and both made infinitely more than Van Gogh.

Picasso and Van Gogh are classic masters. Tretchikoff - a passing fad.

It isn't sensible to reject everything modern. It is madness to say that everything modern and experimental is good.

Og

 

[bronzeage]

It is difficult to judge what contemporary art will survive to be regarded as classics.

In the 1930s Walter Pater and Ernest Bramah were revered as great writers. Who reads them now?

Rudyard Kipling won a Nobel Prize for literature. A modern reader, looking at many of Kipling's works might reasonably ask "How did he win?" and "Why?".

Good, classic Art doesn't necessarily mean valuable.

Vladimir_Tretchikoff (The Green Girl) made more money from Art during his lifetime than Picasso did, and both made infinitely more than Van Gogh.

Picasso and Van Gogh are classic masters. Tretchikoff - a passing fad.

It isn't sensible to reject everything modern. It is madness to say that everything modern and experimental is good.

Og

This is as good as it ever got:
http://coquinadaily.com/daily/imagesdaily/080305/cave%20paintings/a172lascaux1.jpg
Everything after that is just derivative.

 

[serpentwrap]

Shorn of all jargon - and to put it simply - art reflects the society. It always has. When societies were God-fearing and trying to discover the tenets of morality, art assumed a moral genre. During Renaissance, art too went through its period of introspection and interpretation. When society was going through the Industrial revolution, art represented the angst of teh revolution. Contemporary art too reflects the mood and the thinking of teh times. Whether you call it death of God or you call it changing paradigms of aesthetics, morality and social consciousness, art will reflect the same trends. Its the interpretation and how an artists manifests such trends through art in different media is what will separate the wheat from the chaff. Those who are able to stand the test of time will become classics, others will fade away. Thats how the trend has been - be it in books or paintings or cinema - and thats how it will continue to be...

 

[amicus]

Liar....Volume...yes, music in every home, painting or prints on every apartment wall, computer assisted drawing, anime' creations by the millions...point well taken.

But there remains an 'art world' of connoisseurs that is global and perhaps acts as a filter for exceptional works of art in all categories...I am not comfortable with your suggestion that mass exposure is perhaps destructive or demeaning...that is if I read you correctly...

Amicus

 

[amicus]

Amicus , if you are ever fortunate enough as I have been to visit the sculpture galleries at the museum of Naples you can see the art, mainly frescoes and sculpture recovered from the ruins of Ercolano and Pompeii. Much of this 2000 year old art when discovered beneath the volcanic ash was considered so depraved it was kept under lock and key for years.

It is depraved, utterly depraved in many ways... but it is still great, very great art (especially the sculpture). Your basic precept that art must necessarily have a moral dimension is in my view wrong.

Indeed, had you not indicated that the quotation in your post was from Ms Rand I would have thought the views expressed might have been more typical of one of the lesser critics from the Soviet tradition.

~~~

I did visit museums here and there around Europe and I have watched art shows on television explaining and illustrating the art found in Pompei and, depraved, yes, the decline of the Roman Empire is viewed by many historians to have been caused by hedonism of the ruling class.

A 'moral' dimension is automatically included in any human action or artifact by definition, thus it is cannot be a 'wrong' view, it exists and one is called upon to judge as to whether 'value' exists or not.

It is fine if you are not fond of Ms. Rand and the Soviet and Nazi works of 'art', glorifying the State and the Leaders is not even worthy of criticism and useful only as examples of what art is not.

Have a good day.

Amicus

 

[amicus]

It is difficult to judge what contemporary art will survive to be regarded as classics.

In the 1930s Walter Pater and Ernest Bramah were revered as great writers. Who reads them now?

Rudyard Kipling won a Nobel Prize for literature. A modern reader, looking at many of Kipling's works might reasonably ask "How did he win?" and "Why?".

Good, classic Art doesn't necessarily mean valuable.

Vladimir_Tretchikoff (The Green Girl) made more money from Art during his lifetime than Picasso did, and both made infinitely more than Van Gogh.

Picasso and Van Gogh are classic masters. Tretchikoff - a passing fad.

It isn't sensible to reject everything modern. It is madness to say that everything modern and experimental is good.

Og

~~~

One of my 'gimmicks' as a disc jockey, a long time ago, was that I received new records, 45's back then, of rock 'n roll music just released. I would play a few bars of each new song on the radio and if it was good, I played the entire song and if it was bad, I broke the record in front of an open microphone with a fine 'snapping' sound that everyone quickly identified.

Not that this necessarily applies to you, dear Og, but one of the possibilities of wide and extensive knowledge is the inability to judge because of the confusion created by an over abundance of alternatives.

It isn't sensible to reject everything modern. It is madness to say that everything modern and experimental is good.

I never suggest either, but I do suggest that, as Rand pointed out, that not everything created and called 'art' is actually art.

In the diamond industry there exists an entire set of qualities of the stone that give value; why would you think it otherwise in the world of art?

If your answer hinges on the subjectivity of art as a personal experience only, then there is no place, ever, for discussion, as that subjective pov dismisses universal values that all humans respond to in all places at all times.

A study, from infants to senior citizens, when presented with the human form and face, a consistency was noted in that which was judged as 'beautiful'. It involves symmetry and youth and it is indeed universal.

So is art, that re-creation of human values; that which reflects those values, has value because of it.

Amicus

 

[mynameisben]

This is as good as it ever got:
http://coquinadaily.com/daily/imagesdaily/080305/cave%20paintings/a172lascaux1.jpg
Everything after that is just derivative.

I'm derivative. You are derivative. Everything that ever was is derivative. There's nothing new under the sun.

 

[amicus]

Shorn of all jargon - and to put it simply - art reflects the society. It always has. When societies were God-fearing and trying to discover the tenets of morality, art assumed a moral genre. During Renaissance, art too went through its period of introspection and interpretation. When society was going through the Industrial revolution, art represented the angst of teh revolution. Contemporary art too reflects the mood and the thinking of teh times. Whether you call it death of God or you call it changing paradigms of aesthetics, morality and social consciousness, art will reflect the same trends. Its the interpretation and how an artists manifests such trends through art in different media is what will separate the wheat from the chaff. Those who are able to stand the test of time will become classics, others will fade away. Thats how the trend has been - be it in books or paintings or cinema - and thats how it will continue to be...[/QUOTE]

~~~

Thas a big...big, paragraph and loaded. Don't think I recognize your screen name, so welcome to the forum...

I throw out as many generalities and absolute statement as any one here and probably more, and I always get those finding exceptions with my prognostications; part of the art of discussion I suppose.

Shorn of all jargon - and to put it simply - art reflects the society. It always has.

That art reflects society is usually a fairly safe assertion, but not in this case as I reject that almost entirely.

I have mentioned this several times before and will probably draw heat from it, but, so what....I submitted a graduate level paper in Poly Sci asserting that the amount of Jazz in any society would reflect the amount of personal, individual freedom in that society. On a wider base, I would say that 'art' in general, flourishes in a free society and withers in an oppressed one. I made my point quite well, but the Marxist professor didn't think so.

Art also requires a patron in a less than free society. The Church was the only Patron during the Middle ages and yet we have Michaelangelo who also worshipped the natural beauty of the human body.

The Rennaissance went hand in glove with the invention of the printing press and later, the industrial revolution and yet the period was Impressionism, an art form that reflected beauty of nature and man.

Almost every sentence you wrote is subject to disagreement and I shall not go through them one by one. I would merely suggest that instead of viewing art in general as a social process, you view the individual artist as an isolated person expressing his or her own personal perception and interpretation of existence.

Not everyone views the industrial revolution and modern society through jaded and worldly eyes; I in particular look upon the magnificent structures of man as a testament of growth and progress and yes, even beauty.

I should end there, but the current age of altruism, and equality and the socialization of society as reflected by aberrant behavior and glorified literature and films is a self destructive trend that will leave little if anything of value to history.

Appreciate your opinion...and as I said earlier, you packed a lot into one paragraph...

Amicus

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BULLSHIT. The yardstick for any art is how it advances art's fund of knowledge and skills. Sticking a gerbil up your ass and yodeling adds nothing new to art. The bottomline is ya gotta demonstrate improvement.

 

[oggbashan]

...


I never suggest either, but I do suggest that, as Rand pointed out, that not everything created and called 'art' is actually art.

I don't need to quote Rand to know that everything presented as Art is Art.

In the diamond industry there exists an entire set of qualities of the stone that give value; why would you think it otherwise in the world of art?

If your answer hinges on the subjectivity of art as a personal experience only, then there is no place, ever, for discussion, as that subjective pov dismisses universal values that all humans respond to in all places at all times.

That argument has been stated as "I don't know about Art but I know what I like". That is a cop-out. I may not like a particular artist, nor his/her work, but I can still recognise that the work has value as Art.

We have disagreed before, and will probably disagree again about "universal values". So much depends on cultural history and tradition. What could be recognised as High Art in one culture may not be recognised at all as Art in another culture.

I agree that there are basic principles - in Western Civilisation - that apply to painting, to sculpture, to architecture that haven't changed in hundreds of years. But Art may come from deliberately challenging or twisting those principles to make the person viewing or experiencing the work look at something differently - e.g. Impressionism, Cubism.

[/I]A study, from infants to senior citizens, when presented with the human form and face, a consistency was noted in that which was judged as 'beautiful'. It involves symmetry and youth and it is indeed universal.

So is art, that re-creation of human values; that which reflects those values, has value because of it.

Amicus

In my view, Art, like literature and specifically poetry, presents something that you might not have seen or appreciated before you saw or experienced the particular work. How is that different view produced? That is a matter of vision, of technique, of skill.

Art does not need to be "beautiful". The "beautiful" might be easier to appreciate but ugliness can also be art as some of Rodin's sculpture shows.

Art can jar, can jolt you out of your cosy preconceptions, can challenge your view of the world - unfortunately much modern art seems to spend too much time and effort trying to shock, and not enough trying to illuminate, to explain, to persuade you that there is something else worth experiencing.

Og

 

[mynameisben]

BULLSHIT. The yardstick for any art is how it advances art's fund of knowledge and skills. Sticking a gerbil up your ass and yodeling adds nothing new to art. The bottomline is ya gotta demonstrate improvement.

Art has no use for yardsticks. Anyone who tries to pigeonhole art is entirely missing the point. If the bottom line was "improvement," there never would have been an impressionist movement. Nor cubism, nor pointillism, nor surrealism, nor much of anything else beyond the Dutch masters' dreary hold on realism.

Art is alive, and refuses to fit the definition of self-professed know-it-alls. "Advances in art's fund of knowledge and skills" is entirely a matter of opinion. Even ass-inserted gerbil yodeling, in a stretch, can be considered performance art. If it leaves a lasting impression, if it opens eyes, if it moves people to think and create in ways they never thunk or created before, then it is art.

Conformance to one man's rigorous and narrowly defined opinion is art, too. But it's not the be all, end all.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

According to you art can be anything, even a dog turd on a popcicle stick. What are you, about 19?

 

[jomar]

BULLSHIT. The yardstick for any art is how it advances art's fund of knowledge and skills. Sticking a gerbil up your ass and yodeling adds nothing new to art. The bottomline is ya gotta demonstrate improvement.

I'm still scratching my head over McCarthy's The Road winning a Nobel for Litrachoor.

 

[oggbashan]

Performance Art in the street

I live near a place with a high population of students, including students of dramatic art.

I have no objection, in principle, to unscheduled performance art in the street. If passers-by can stop, watch, take part if required, then that's their choice

What I do object to is performance art that impedes all the public by obstructing the street completely.

I can tolerate incompetent performance art if I am not forced to watch it. If I am on the way to an appointment, the best performance ever is just an annoyance if it delays me.

We now have so many designed "performance areas" around our towns that blocking the public highway is unforgivable.

Og

 

[bronzeage]

According to you art can be anything, even a dog turd on a popcicle stick. What are you, about 19?

http://emptyeasel.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/fountainbymarcelduchamp.jpg

 

[mynameisben]

According to you art can be anything, even a dog turd on a popcicle stick. What are you, about 19?

No. According to me, "If it leaves a lasting impression, if it opens eyes, if it moves people to think and create in ways they never thunk or created before, then it is art. " Scroll the page up. It's there.

Poor reading comprehension and a juvenile fascination with excrement... what are you, about 6?

 

[TE999]

Art, as beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Some forms of expression stretch credulity in regard to being classified as Art...but if one considers it Art, then in that mind it is.

Artists such as Gainsborough and Whistler cannot be compared to Renoir, Gauguin and Picasso and shouldn't be...each work stands alone.

In re: Music, I was around when Rock 'N Roll was thought to be a pernicious influence on Americas youth...all that 'jungle music' would turn them into sex maniacs. Styles change and there's room for all sorts of music in our lives...even Rap.

Philosophical and Sociological discussions of and about Art are part and parcel of the overall medium, which as McLuhan once said, is the message. You can also over analyze anything and take all the fun out of it.

 

[Verdad]

I've always found a more than passing resemblance between Ayn Rand and soc realism....

I think you're missing one important factor - volume.

There is at any point in history a given amount of "bad" art. Stuff that may give the illusion of beauty and relevance at first glance, but does not stand the test of time. The reason we look backwards and see only greatness is that simple - history forgot the crap.

And in this age of mass information and technology, it's easy for anyone to pick up a tool and make a cultural artefact. This is both a blessing and a curse. When everyone is given the tools, a lot of really good stuff will be made by those who in another time would not have had the opportunity. But it also means that works of genius have a greater risk at drowning in a white noise of even more crap.

I read somewhere that more music have been written in the last 15 (or 10, I'll have to look that up...) years than in the entire human history before. And that you have access to ten if not hundred times more art of different kinds than your grandpanents did at your age. To take a snapshot of this and try to determine what will stand the test of time is so daunting, that it's easier to just say "it's all crap".

Volume is of interest, and some other things that come with mass media. An artist, needless to say, always works with an eye to the audience, but that relationship seems to grow ever more pandering and sterile. If something bothers me about contemporary art/entertainment, it's that. There's a reduction of art to a sort of consumer science, whose job is to develop an ever firmer grasp on the pulse of the audience and obligingly deliver the goods. The more deliberate this process becomes, the more it seems to short-circuit independence and innovation.

The phenomenon of atomization is related. All the niches and sub-niches, all the wonderful possibilities of customization, have the downside of locking us into little worlds made in our own image. If I don't want to, I never have to hear another song I don't like, or see or read another movie or book I don't like—yet to do that is to close the door on anything new and commit yourself to endless iterations of what you once liked.

 

[Cold_Eyes]

I have mentioned this several times before and will probably draw heat from it, but, so what....I submitted a graduate level paper in Poly Sci asserting that the amount of Jazz in any society would reflect the amount of personal, individual freedom in that society.

Interesting considering that the demographic largely responsible for jazz was also one of the most oppressed.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Expressed like a true perfesser. Sigh.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Art, as beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Some forms of expression stretch credulity in regard to being classified as Art...but if one considers it Art, then in that mind it is.

Artists such as Gainsborough and Whistler cannot be compared to Renoir, Gauguin and Picasso and shouldn't be...each work stands alone.

In re: Music, I was around when Rock 'N Roll was thought to be a pernicious influence on Americas youth...all that 'jungle music' would turn them into sex maniacs. Styles change and there's room for all sorts of music in our lives...even Rap.

Philosophical and Sociological discussions of and about Art are part and parcel of the overall medium, which as McLuhan once said, is the message. You can also over analyze anything and take all the fun out of it.

You get to like what you will but you dont get to debate whats new; but you can debate its utility and relevance.