Painting Frank O. Bought A.R.


jenright

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If you call photography hybrid, then painting is also a hybrid. Before photography was invented, paintings and drawings fulfilled its utilitarian role, for example illustrations in books about plants or animals, or in medical works (like anatomy books). In fact such art forms are still used today to that purpose, while they can often give information that no photo can give.

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My last post and these comments captures the essence of classifying architecture and photography. In some respects, they can involve art. In some not. It's really just that simple.

The point, Phil, is that some photography -- including examples of both motion and still photography -- doesn't include non-artistic aspects. In other words, some photography which is art does not include reportorial, documentary or utilitarian aspects. All architecture, on the other hand, includes utilitarian aspects. Get it?

This image is a fictional scene which was arranged, composed and captured for the sole purpose of artistic expression. It serves no other purpose. The same is not true of buildings. All buildings have a utilitarian function. All photographs do not. All buildings which one classifies as art are hybrids serving different functions. All photographs which one classifies as art are not hybrids serving different functions.

J

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Subject: Thinking Skills - Learning to Define in Essentials

> If you call photography hybrid, then painting is also a hybrid. Before photography was invented, paintings and drawings fulfilled its utilitarian role, for example illustrations in books about plants or animals, or in medical works (like anatomy books). [Dragonfly]

By that same reasoning, not just bio-chemistry, but chemistry as a subject would be a hybrid of chemistry and biology because occasionally you find a biological issue. You need to define things in terms of essentials. Not in terms of exceptions or borderline issues. And that implicit context is then assumed in the definition.

You define man as a rational animal because ESSENTIALLY with few exceptions or borderline cases, such as someone who is profoundly mentally ill or had his brain shot up, he possesses that capacity.

You define architecture as a hybrid form because ESSENTIALLY with few exceptions or borderline cases....

The implicit context when one speaks of painting as an art form, its purpose, its principles is that one is -not- talking of medical illustrations, crime scene sketches, and the like. It's implicit and most people grasp that context.

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Subject: Thinking Skills - Learning to Define in Essentials

It's good to see you working on your thinking skills, Phil, as well as struggling to focus on the essentials of photography as an art form despite apparently knowing very little about the medium.

> If you call photography hybrid, then painting is also a hybrid. Before photography was invented, paintings and drawings fulfilled its utilitarian role, for example illustrations in books about plants or animals, or in medical works (like anatomy books). [Dragonfly]

By that same reasoning, not just bio-chemistry, but chemistry as a subject would be a hybrid of chemistry and biology because occasionally you find a biological issue. You need to define things in terms of essentials. Not in terms of exceptions or borderline issues. And that implicit context is then assumed in the definition.

You define man as a rational animal because ESSENTIALLY with few exceptions or borderline cases, such as someone who is profoundly mentally ill or had his brain shot up, he possesses that capacity.

You define architecture as a hybrid form because ESSENTIALLY with few exceptions or borderline cases....

The same is not true of photography. As an art form, it is NOT ESSENTIALLY a hybrid. A building cannot avoid being utilitarian where photography can. Phil, I think the problem may be that you need to familiarize yourself with art-photography. You should think about actually learning something about art photographers and their purposes and techniques before trying to define the "essentials" of the medium.

The implicit context when one speaks of painting as an art form, its purpose, its principles is that one is -not- talking of medical illustrations, crime scene sketches, and the like. It's implicit and most people grasp that context.

Ditto photography. When people speak of photography as an art form, they are not talking about medical photos, crime scene photos, and the like. They are talking about photos whose purpose is fictional or symbolic.

J

Edited by Jonathan
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Jonathan; "Objectivists, whether they're successful businessmen or not, tend to think that they've got quite an eye for aesthetics. They often believe that their tastes in art are 'objectively superior,' and believing in the objective superiority of their tastes seems to be very important to them, even when they admit to having very little knowledge or interest in art."

Apparently you'v been spending too much time with ARI-type Objectivists. I simply do not know who you're talking about. You're taking a fringe, cultist element and equating it with the total of Objectivists. You'd have do do better than this in order to make your point.

Jonathan: "It's not an expression of contempt to suspect (based on having met a few of them, [Objectivist businessmen ]and based on having met countless other Objectivists that most of them probably don't have much of a clue about the arts, and to think that they would probably be more concerned with moral issues rather than aesthetic ones when funding the arts.....I haven't found them to be aware of their weaknesses, especially when it comes to the arts. In my experience, they seem to act as if their business success should somehow make their views on art carry more weight. And, again, add Objectivism to the mix, and the hubris is magnified -- Objectivists tend to act as if their having read Rand's views on art makes their views 'objectively superior.'"

These ae incredihle floating generalizations to base on your statement that "I've known a few, but mostly through online correspondene,." I have knpwn personally any number of Objectivist businessmen whio are highly knowledgeable about the arts, and who certainluy do not suppose that their business success lends added weight to their views on art. "Suspect" and 'probably" are not arguments or evidence, nor are they grounds for equating Objectivist businessmen with Babbitts.

I see little but a string of asertions in your post , and an unjustified put-down of Objectivists generally and Objectivist businessmen in particular -- as meaningless as if you'd written that .you suspect that probably most Objetivist businessmen know more about art than the greatest artists.

Barbara

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I'd like to go on record as believing that Jeff probably knows more about beer than even the very greatest businessmen. :lol:

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I'd like to say - totally off the record - that this thread has begun to need some comic relief.

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Jonathan; "Objectivists, whether they're successful businessmen or not, tend to think that they've got quite an eye for aesthetics. They often believe that their tastes in art are 'objectively superior,' and believing in the objective superiority of their tastes seems to be very important to them, even when they admit to having very little knowledge or interest in art."

Apparently you'v been spending too much time with ARI-type Objectivists. I simply do not know who you're talking about. You're taking a fringe, cultist element and equating it with the total of Objectivists. You'd have do do better than this in order to make your point.

Jonathan: "It's not an expression of contempt to suspect (based on having met a few of them, [Objectivist businessmen ]and based on having met countless other Objectivists that most of them probably don't have much of a clue about the arts, and to think that they would probably be more concerned with moral issues rather than aesthetic ones when funding the arts.....I haven't found them to be aware of their weaknesses, especially when it comes to the arts. In my experience, they seem to act as if their business success should somehow make their views on art carry more weight. And, again, add Objectivism to the mix, and the hubris is magnified -- Objectivists tend to act as if their having read Rand's views on art makes their views 'objectively superior.'"

These ae incredihle floating generalizations to base on your statement that "I've known a few, but mostly through online correspondene,." I have knpwn personally any number of Objectivist businessmen whio are highly knowledgeable about the arts, and who certainluy do not suppose that their business success lends added weight to their views on art. "Suspect" and 'probably" are not arguments or evidence, nor are they grounds for equating Objectivist businessmen with Babbitts.

I see little but a string of asertions in your post , and an unjustified put-down of Objectivists generally and Objectivist businessmen in particular -- as meaningless as if you'd written that .you suspect that probably most Objetivist businessmen know more about art than the greatest artists.

Barbara

Okay, well, let me ask you this: If you were very wealthy and decided to establish an arts foundation which financially supported young talent, and then a skilled realist painter or romantic filmmaker, who you felt was more than qualified to receive support from your program, began spending all of his time (and your money) exploring wild abstraction as a means of expression which excited him, or if he was suddenly inspired by postmodernist architecture, performance and installation art and decided to incorporate its dark, eclectic aesthetic ideas into his work, would he still receive your foundation's support and encouragement, or would be seen as someone who became a part of the problem in the culture that your foundation sought to change, and, therefore, would he be cut off from your money if he continued to pursue those modes of expression?

Do you think that most of the Objectivists you've known would allow their money to support such an artist's explorations, or do you think it's more likely that they would have expectations and requirements that the artists whom they would support must create in realistic styles with romantic content in order to receive funding?

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I personally can't think of any Objectivists I've known who I think would not expect to impose strict style and content requirements on the artists they'd financially support through such a foundation.

J

Edited by Jonathan
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Well, gee, imagine people not being willing to fund Piss Christ or the "Leaning Tower of Excrement"* or a sculpture of rusting twisted scrap metal in front of corporate HQ!

Sounds like a bunch of real close-minded, anal-retentive Nazis to me!!

-----

* my idea, so don't steal it.

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Perhaps I'm wrong, but I personally can't think of any Objectivists I've known who I think would not expect to impose strict style and content requirements on the artists they'd financially support through such a foundation.

J

It's a free country. Let them do what they want. If I were a mind and wallet I'd just give them a big dollop of cash with no restrictions but no more later. Maybe they'd like to spend a year or two in Italy and Spain too. Go for it! I wouldn't try to ape a welfare situation. Or I might commission a series of work or buy something already done. I once did the last. Not much money was involved. This thread consists of two parts: If I were rich .... and If you were rich ....

--Brant

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Jonathan: "If you were very wealthy and decided to establish an arts foundation which financially supported young talent, and then a skilled realist painter or romantic filmmaker, who you felt was more than qualified to receive support from your program, began spending all of his time (and your money) exploring wild abstraction as a means of exp​ression which excited him, or if he was suddenly inspired by postmodernist architecture, performance and installation art and decided to incorporate its dark, eclectic aesthetic ideas into his work, would he still receive your foundation's support and encouragement, or would be seen as someone who became a part of the problem in the culture that your foundation sought to change, and, therefore, would he be cut off from your money if he continued to pursue those modes of exp​ression?"

I would not care what they explored. In fact, I would be uneasy if they didn't explore, especially the young ones. An artist is an explorer. (I rather doubt, however, that a mature realist painter would be tempted by installation art, or a romantic filmmaker by postmodernism.) And I would not be standing over them to judge them moment by moment. The purppse of my help would be to enable them to find their own voices, not my voice.

But surely you are not suggesting that I must reject any standards. Surely you don't think that I would be narrow-minded and bigoted, more concerned with morality than art, if I believed that silence is not equivalent to a great concerto and that three dots of paint on a wall are not a gteat painting. I've never heard that the head of a foundation is expected to choose and to judge without the guidance of standards. Is art without identity, so that anything goes? If a young composer whom the foundation was sponsoring decided to abandon his talent and devote his career to creating equvialents of John Cage's "4'33", then I, too, would abandon his talent,. Should I not do so?

Barbara

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On the photography thing, the moment you "create" lights that reality does not naturally provide, and the moment you distort images through lenses so that the images are not presented as normally perceived by human beings, you have "recreated reality."

There are other issues in photography where reality is recreated, also.

Photography is art. Snapshots might not be, but neither is paint-by-the-numbers.

Michael

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I would not care what they explored. In fact, I would be uneasy if they didn't explore, especially the young ones. An artist is an explorer. (I rather doubt, however, that a mature realist painter would be tempted by installation art, or a romantic filmmaker by postmodernism.)

I know of many mature realist artists who have been inspired by a variety of art and ideas, including postmodernism. Mark Tansey and Gerhard Richter are two of my favorites whom I'd classify as postmodernist artists (and Richter even alternates between styles ranging from photo-realism to abstraction).

Postmodernist aesthetic ideas aren't limited to things like placing crucifixes in jars of urine. I would guess that if you saw certain examples of art without knowing in advance that it was postmodernist, you wouldn't know that it was postmodernist. Generally, I think most artists would see postmodernism in art as essentially meaning "eclectic" and "witty." Not necessarily as shocking or unconventional. Personally, I find most postmodernist architecture to be much more aesthetically appealing than most previous styles. It's generally more warm and human to me than modernist styles, which can be rather sparse and hard (which is how I would describe Ralph's painting above), and I've seen installations and performance art that I thought was very dramatic and creatively inspirational, including Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, which was stylistically inspired in part by the film version of The Fountainhead.

And I would not be standing over them to judge them moment by moment. The purppse of my help would be to enable them to find their own voices, not my voice.

That's great to hear, but I don't think that most Objectivists I've met would feel the same way. They'd want their money being spent on creating an army of dedicated Romantic Realists™.

But surely you are not suggesting that I must reject any standards. Surely you don't think that I would be narrow-minded and bigoted, more concerned with morality than art, if I believed that silence is not equivalent to a great concerto and that three dots of paint on a wall are not a gteat painting.

No, I'm not suggesting that you're narrow-minded and bigoted.

I've never heard that the head of a foundation is expected to choose and to judge without the guidance of standards. Is art without identity, so that anything goes? If a young composer whom the foundation was sponsoring decided to abandon his talent and devote his career to creating equvialents of John Cage's "4'33", then I, too, would abandon his talent,. Should I not do so?

I think that every foundation would have standards. I just think that liberals and libertarians would be much more open to encouraging genuinely free artistic expression than the majority of Objectivists would.

J

Here are some examples of paintings by Richter and Tansey:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/65/196857433_1700d79b51_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/71/196857435_f77340eb23_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/71/196857436_010c1ccf26_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/74/196857437_7232f8d7aa_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/75/196857439_bacaa071ac_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/67/196857441_bd1a8d139d_o.jpg

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I would not care what they explored. In fact, I would be uneasy if they didn't explore, especially the young ones. An artist is an explorer. (I rather doubt, however, that a mature realist painter would be tempted by installation art, or a romantic filmmaker by postmodernism.)

I know of many mature realist artists who have been inspired by a variety of art and ideas, including postmodernism. Mark Tansey and Gerhard Richter are two of my favorites whom I'd classify as postmodernist artists (and Richter even alternates between styles ranging from photo-realism to abstraction).

Postmodernist aesthetic ideas aren't limited to things like placing crucifixes in jars of urine. I would guess that if you saw certain examples of art without knowing in advance that it was postmodernist, you wouldn't know that it was postmodernist. Generally, I think most artists would see postmodernism in art as essentially meaning "eclectic" and "witty." Not necessarily as shocking or unconventional. Personally, I find most postmodernist architecture to be much more aesthetically appealing than most previous styles. It's generally more warm and human to me than modernist styles, which can be rather sparse and hard (which is how I would describe Ralph's painting above), and I've seen installations and performance art that I thought was very dramatic and creatively inspirational, including Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, which was stylistically inspired in part by the film version of The Fountainhead.

And I would not be standing over them to judge them moment by moment. The purppse of my help would be to enable them to find their own voices, not my voice.

That's great to hear, but I don't think that most Objectivists I've met would feel the same way. They'd want their money being spent on creating an army of dedicated Romantic Realists™.

But surely you are not suggesting that I must reject any standards. Surely you don't think that I would be narrow-minded and bigoted, more concerned with morality than art, if I believed that silence is not equivalent to a great concerto and that three dots of paint on a wall are not a gteat painting.

No, I'm not suggesting that you're narrow-minded and bigoted.

I've never heard that the head of a foundation is expected to choose and to judge without the guidance of standards. Is art without identity, so that anything goes? If a young composer whom the foundation was sponsoring decided to abandon his talent and devote his career to creating equvialents of John Cage's "4'33", then I, too, would abandon his talent,. Should I not do so?

I think that every foundation would have standards. I just think that liberals and libertarians would be much more open to encouraging genuinely free artistic exp​ression than the majority of Objectivists would.

J

Here are some examples of paintings by Richter and Tansey:

http://farm1.static....700d79b51_o.jpg

http://farm1.static....77340eb23_o.jpg

http://farm1.static....10c1ccf26_o.jpg

http://farm1.static....232f8d7aa_o.jpg

http://farm1.static....acaa071ac_o.jpg

http://farm1.static....d1a8d139d_o.jpg

Jonathan:

I really like the last one with the three separate lighting.

Adam

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Jonathan: "They'd [Objectivists] want their money being spent on creating an army of dedicated Romantic Realists."

Jonathan: "I just think that liberals and libertarians would be much more open to encouraging genuinely free artistic expression than the majority of Objectivists would."

What would it take to convince you to reconsider your policcy of making vast, global generalizations as if they were self-evident?

Barbara

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What would it take to convince you to reconsider your policcy of making vast, global generalizations as if they were self-evident?

Let me just weigh in here by saying that, though I cannot speak for Jonathan, absolutely nothing would ever convince me to reconsider my own policy of making vast, global generalizations as if they were self-evident. :rolleyes:

JR

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"Until Now" is a great, inspired, remarkable painting - if anything a 20 thousand dollar painting or 200 thousand dollar not even a 2 thousand. It probably wasn't Rand but one of the two intermediaries who tried to pay him a lot less than the sweat and imagination and effort he must have put into it. Rand was often very generous. It's actually a false concept of egoism applied to trade to try to squeeze the other party for less than what is needed to allow mutual profit. Nor does it lead to good future relations, either with that potential partner, who will stay away from you, as Ralph did, or by word of mouth to others.

I would go say far as to say the $200 firm price was actually -immoral- in this one particular instance. Because it was not egoistic in the sense of a mutually proper trade in the context of a great work of art, a struggling artist who needs a sign of success, and a purchaser who can clearly afford a proper trading relationship.

And, no, it ain't Objectivism.

Adjusted for inflation and other considerations, paying $200 for a painting in the mid 60s to early 70s (assuming that that's when Ralph's painting was sold) would be like paying about $1300 today. Paying $2000 would be like paying $13,000 today. From what I've seen of the art market, Ralph's painting was probably a bit underpriced at $200, but would have been overpriced at $2000. I'd estimate that in a reputable gallery today at last year's prices, it might sell for somewhere between $2800 and $3600.

J

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Hello Jonathan,

Thanks for the remarks.

I don't know that a price is immoral; its not a concept of morality. Its just a number (or equation of numbers) that is posted and that may be agreed upon for the purposes of a bargain. Having lived in New York City for many years one becomes aware of the art (qua knowledge) of pricing items for sale. Its a Jewish tradition that is embedded in the culture of NYC, and that is also universal as well. In NYC the roots of pricing go way back in history all the way to the Phoenicians (and the trading city of Beruit, for example) and to their predecessors, the Phillistines. Prior to that the eastern kingdom of the Minoan civilization (located in what is now Lebanon), and the eastern coast of the Mediteranian Sea, held that part of the highest trading civilization of the world.

The tradition of pricing has a unique location in history. It is a common concept in a certain few countries even today: Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, and Tunis. The war of platonic Islam against civilization has resulted in the of destruction of Lebanon and Palestine. Except for Egypt all have Minoan roots.

Obamanomics is setting prices, too, however, the price to be paid for the altruist money balloon is too great. People will not pay for it. The buyer may balk at the high prices and not trade. The buyer may resort to force when extortion is used to boost prices and collect revenues. The purpose of Obamanomics is physical control of the citizenry and acceptance by groups. The purpose of captialism is the action of free enterprize welfare and happiness of the individual.

Buy low and sell high. That provides for the accumulation of money.

Wealth is the material, intellectual, or emotional value that is traded, or not traded, for money.

BTW, how does one have the writings that one posts on the OL Forum automatically sent, or CCd, to one's own email location?

Ralph Hertle

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Jonathan; "Objectivists, whether they're successful businessmen or not, tend to think that they've got quite an eye for aesthetics. They often believe that their tastes in art are 'objectively superior,' and believing in the objective superiority of their tastes seems to be very important to them, even when they admit to having very little knowledge or interest in art."

Apparently you'v been spending too much time with ARI-type Objectivists. I simply do not know who you're talking about. You're taking a fringe, cultist element and equating it with the total of Objectivists. You'd have do do better than this in order to make your point.

Jonathan: "It's not an expression of contempt to suspect (based on having met a few of them, [Objectivist businessmen ]and based on having met countless other Objectivists that most of them probably don't have much of a clue about the arts, and to think that they would probably be more concerned with moral issues rather than aesthetic ones when funding the arts.....I haven't found them to be aware of their weaknesses, especially when it comes to the arts. In my experience, they seem to act as if their business success should somehow make their views on art carry more weight. And, again, add Objectivism to the mix, and the hubris is magnified -- Objectivists tend to act as if their having read Rand's views on art makes their views 'objectively superior.'"

These ae incredihle floating generalizations to base on your statement that "I've known a few, but mostly through online correspondene,." I have knpwn personally any number of Objectivist businessmen whio are highly knowledgeable about the arts, and who certainluy do not suppose that their business success lends added weight to their views on art. "Suspect" and 'probably" are not arguments or evidence, nor are they grounds for equating Objectivist businessmen with Babbitts.

I see little but a string of asertions in your post , and an unjustified put-down of Objectivists generally and Objectivist businessmen in particular -- as meaningless as if you'd written that .you suspect that probably most Objetivist businessmen know more about art than the greatest artists.

Barbara

Okay, well, let me ask you this: If you were very wealthy and decided to establish an arts foundation which financially supported young talent, and then a skilled realist painter or romantic filmmaker, who you felt was more than qualified to receive support from your program, began spending all of his time (and your money) exploring wild abstraction as a means of expression which excited him, or if he was suddenly inspired by postmodernist architecture, performance and installation art and decided to incorporate its dark, eclectic aesthetic ideas into his work, would he still receive your foundation's support and encouragement, or would be seen as someone who became a part of the problem in the culture that your foundation sought to change, and, therefore, would he be cut off from your money if he continued to pursue those modes of expression?

Do you think that most of the Objectivists you've known would allow their money to support such an artist's explorations, or do you think it's more likely that they would have expectations and requirements that the artists whom they would support must create in realistic styles with romantic content in order to receive funding?

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I personally can't think of any Objectivists I've known who I think would not expect to impose strict style and content requirements on the artists they'd financially support through such a foundation.

J

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hello Jonathan,

I completely agree with all that you've said in this and the quoted posts by you with the exception of your last sentence.

I don't agree that Objectivists would impose style and content requirements upon the arts. That notion simply runs counter to the ethical realities of Objectivism. Whether one may make aesthetic emotional errors or mistakes regarding one's preferences or values is a matter that could be evaluated by Objectivist philosophers.

I am of the ARI closed type of Objectivism (the Aristotelian proved vs. Platonic or open or socially-based type). I agree with everything that Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff have written, and that I mostly have read.

That's where I draw the line. I have found viewpoints that have been expressed by others of the ARI camp that are disagreeable, for example, the viewpoint of Harry Binswanger that the entire science of mathematics that rests upon the scientific geometry of the Ancient Greeks should be discarded, and that a new mathematics based upon Modern Mathematics should replace it. To do that you have to discard the works of Thales, Pythagoras, Eudoxus, Aristotle (Logic and parts of his criticisms of the contemporary geometry of the ACs.), Euclid, Archimedes, and the works of one hundred or more others to the present time. The demands by HB to revise all such knowledge in favor of Modern Philosophical and modern Mathematical systems that are claimed to be true without formal proof (e.g., using the methods of proof given by Aristotle and Euclid, for example) is rationally unacceptable. That HB has failed to re-evaluate his assertions implies a serious moral deficiency. Nor will anyone challenge such an intellectual pit.

The ARI crowd, in general offers a rich collection of philosophic and scientific commentary, and in general, I agree with most of what I've read.

When it comes to art, I am more alert to the factual logic of the arguments. One argument that I have heard over and over again is that that when you ask an Objectivist why they think that this or that art work, feature, characterization, quality, or moral (oops - did I highlight something secret by saying that a work could have moral import?) of a work, the Objectivist in question, when asked many questions as to why his values are held, will repair to one type of defense. He will say that it is that way because it is that way, not because he feels that is why it is, rather, that the idea is important because that's the way it is. That's Positivism not Objectivism. If you argue one or two steps beyond that you get a non-aesthetic argument that the person will claim that he has the right to value whatever idea or work that he may wish. If you challenge his aesthetic opinions further he will say that to suggest otherwise you are violating his rights. Note the strong tendency to switch contexts from aesthetic values and content to politics or morality, and to refuse to examine the new idea.

Here, I may use two pictures that I made, as examples, and not as an advert. I want to draw a comparison, and that some readers may have made some choices. I painted a picture called Dynamis, and that was a sequel to the picture called Until Now. I made the second picture as a more advanced work that was based on more highly developed principles and skills. I said to an Objectivist aquaintance that the second picture was a better one. He disagreed, and he offered the reason that the first one was better because, after all, Ayn Rand had selected it. My opinion wasn't even on the short list to be qualified.

The ARI and the Kelly groups each have no organized viewpoints regarding any advancements from Ayn Rand's Objectivist aesthetics. Its up to the individual. No theoretician (except for myself, of course) has dared to challenge the official Objectivist philosophy of esthetics. AR left intellectual land mines all over the philosophical aesthetic scene. Why aren't these being discussed? Are there too many followers? Was Ayn Rand polling the degree of pacificity of the students of Objectivism? For example: 1. is photography an art? 2. Is architecture an art? 3. Why is music an art when it is non-representational, and when representation is a requirement of the other arts? 4. Is dance an art? Is the design of, or the architecture of, manufactured products an art? 5. And, why is modern (design) art not an art approved of in Objectivism? (Not counting the irrationalists and subjectivists.) 6.) Why have not the principles of Aristoteleanism and Platonism been applied to the modern arts as they have been to the traditional forms of art? My answer is that many Objectivists are too busy with following political concepts, and not concerned enough with value and wealth creation.

Ralph Hertle

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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