Kandinsky's Spiritual Quest


Ellen Stuttle

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The position of an electron makes a huge difference to possible chemical reactions.

Yet all of your electron-chasing hasn't made the slightest bit of difference here. You've failed in every chase, and you've done so while evading lots and lots of much larger, substantive questions. It's petty and foolish. You nitpick and electron-chase, I respond and totally destroy your little argument, then you instantly abandon it and move on to the next nitpick electron-chase, get wiped out and abandon it. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I thought that your idea in bringing up "magical beliefs" was what you describe. I don't agree with the premise and classification.

Yes, I could say that the blue sky is blue, and you'd disagree with my premise and classification.

Possibly you classify "mystical" as a subcategory of "magical" because you don't believe that there is an underlying spiritual reality.

Or possibly not.

Thus, in thinking that a mystical worldview is factually wrong, you think that it necessarily involves belief in magic. But that's importing your ideas of the nature of causality into the framework of someone who doesn't share your views and who doesn't necessarily think that there's anything "magical" about the operations of the spiritual reality in which the person believes.

I didn't say anything about anyone else's framework. I'm sure that Rand wouldn't have regarded her need to believe in her own perfect objectivity as a "magical belief." Uri Geller insisted that his "powers" weren't magical. I don't give a rat's ass how they would classify their beliefs. Their alleged powers and mindsets do not reflect reality. I therefore call them "magical," and will continue to do so. And you, Miss Petty Nitpick Electron-Chase Copy Editor, are free to call them whatever you wish.

J

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Jonathan,

The "big picture" I see is that Kandinsky's hoped for art of "pure composition" hasn't arrived, that instead developments occurred which I think he would have considered "poisoned food" spreading in the spiritual triangle and not what he meant at all.

But how would you measure and know any of the above? You're just reading some of Kandinsky for the first time now, and you really don't know much of anything about those who followed him and practiced abstract composition. So, what do you think you're basing your opinion on? Identify which conditions would have to be met so that art of "pure composition" could be judged to have "arrived." Then demonstrate that those conditions have not been met.

At this point I've read a high percentage of Kandinsky's complete writings on art, some of it multiple times, plus a lot about Kandinsky.

I don't know much about immediate successors, but I am aware of the development called "abstract expressionism," which I think isn't what Kandinsky had in mind but instead a wallowing in emotionalism - Kandinsky's "inner need" misinterpreted and turned into a subjectivist paradise. And then there was the backlash with Andy Warhol and subsequent.

As to Kandinsky's desired art of "pure composition" arriving, actually I don't think it could, I think that he was hoping for something impossible, but I love the work that he produced himself in his quest, and I much admire his intellect and enjoy reading his writing.

Ellen

And once again you evaded the questions.

I asked:

It didn't? None of it? On what grounds do you make such a statement? By what means would you measure what he hoped for and whether or not it came to pass?

...So, again, by what criteria do you base your conclusion that he didn't succeed?

J

When you responded by repeating your opinion without offering anything to support it, I asked again:

Identify which conditions would have to be met so that art of "pure composition" could be judged to have "arrived." Then demonstrate that those conditions have not been met.

Will I have to ask a third time? How long will you continue to evade the questions while indulging in the next random, fruitless electron-chase distraction?

J

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The weather is too frosty for a backstage Personal Messenger exchange, I think, Brant.

I'd settle for a symposium, and that's kinda what we get. But you have to be interested in each turn, twist, and tiny ramification in the argument. I am glad the mutual hostility has settled back to a mild throbbing. I wish for a more festive, Greekish symposium, with libations and laughter, but hey.

Wisdom thrives where disagreements lie. A telling one-liner or a judgement call?

Edited by william.scherk
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Would this conversation exist if done through PM or be substantially different?

--Brant

this is like watching a hurricane attacking a tree that won't fall down

I couldn't disagree more. You're totally and completely wrong, Brant. Neither Ellen nor I are weather phenomena or plants, so, therefore your statement can't be true.

J

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this is like watching a hurricane attacking a tree that won't fall down

A hurricane? A tempest in a teapot, on a lopsided and misplaced teatable.

Ellen

The phrase was too good. I had to use it.

--Brant

opportunist

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