"The finest things in life are not what you see, but what you eat." - Me
Life is a pizza. Cheese is beauty, Pepperonis are people (some greasy, some dry and stale, others perfect), and onions are everything bad that ever happens to you. You taste the beauty, and friends provide that spice that adds meaning to your mundane pizza - I mean life - while onions remind us that life is not like a slice of pizza.
I don't know why I posted that. A silly little comment. Don't dwell on it too long - it'll make you hungry.
While I walked to my class today, I passed an "art" exhibit that made me start thinking. The piece of "art" was one of those junk-art "masterpieces" - made from the artist's trash and stuff - and was of a knight with a cross painted across its chest with the head of a goofy-looking dog sitting on its shoulders. This made me start thinking (as many have before me) about the criteria for judging whether something is art or not.
I have come to the hasty conclusion that art is defined by the individual. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, to use a trite phrase, and so if you have a question of art, the only one you can trust for an answer is yourself.
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A rendezvous for discussing topics, including, but not limited to, poetry, politics, and prose.
Isaiah 45:18
"For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else."
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10 comentarios:
Amen, Pizza Philosopher. It sounds like that class is giving you plenty to think about. ;)
"a hasty conclusion" says you...
Surely this is one of your famous devil's advocate episodes? Second week of school is a bit early to start soaking up all the atmospheric relativism, dontchathink? Just Say No, Ryan, Just Say No.
Cultural revisionism keeps the village idiots amused, but revisions never alter reality.
IOW, when some trash-loving artist presumes to redefine the boundaries of art to include the artless, that does not alter the reality of what art actually is.
(fwiw, my art profs weren't universally fond of me -- they complained that I was incapable of producing anything truly ugly, which, I learned, was not admirable in a true artist. I'm not kidding. But they're all dead now, primarily from fumes and art-induced maladies, and I am still here living a beautiful life.)
Then what standard are we to use to judge art? If not ourselves, then who is the best judge?
Ouch. Sticky, complicated subject.
You might try to find Francis Schaeffer's writing on this....the title is something like Perspectives on Art. It's excellent.
The book (booklet, actually) that Fa-So-La-La referred to has a relevant chapter entitled "Four Standards of Judgment." I imagine someone in your realm has this book; if not, I'd be very happy to copy that chapter and send it to you. You'd enjoy it.
It's been online at this site, which appears to be down today, but I've been there recently so it's worth a try:
http://disciplethenations.org/rield/index63.html
Have you seen his video series "How Should We Then Live?"
And good the book may be, but you have yet to answer my questions.
"What standard are we to use to judge art?"
"Who is the best judge?"
And no, I haven't seen his movie series.
Well, then... please consider this: the only reason you and I could discuss Flannery O'Connor last month, even for just a few (too brief but very happy) minutes, was because we both have some familiarity with her work and her worldview. Had I not read some of her work myself, you would have had to spend the better part of that evening making me understand many, many things before we could even discuss her.
In a similar vein, I humbly suggest we could have a more efficient discussion toward defining art if you read the relevant chapters of this book -- in order to give us a common field of concepts and definitions. The abstract nature of the matter demands what Mortimer Adler calls "coming to terms."
My dad often says that often misunderstandings erupt because people are using the same vocabulary... but not the same dictionary. Discussions of the nature of art, being essentially conceptual, largely subjective, and abtract, are fraught with such possibilities.
Schaeffer's philosophy of art has been very formative in my thinking on this quandary. I am a big fan of working smarter rather than harder, which means if you want my input, please go read da chaptah, ma frin.
Let me know if you need a scan of the chapter. Really, I have a hunch it's right up your alley. Stuff you'll still be thinking about when you're old and grey (hmm, you without red hair... wow).
I love discussing this subject.
Yes, please. If you can spare the time to send it to me, I'd love to read it. I tried to visit the online site, but everytime I tried (just now was my third time) the site was down.
Will have my personal assistant send it by post posthaste.
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