Art and Subobjectivity

[Victor Pross]

Ahh, ya, upon dictionary.com-ing normative I see what you mean. When I give a normative definition of something I am comparing something to what the normal is or giving it a standard. When something is cognitive it is based on fact, not a standard, it is what something is not a value judgement.

All the same, the type of painting we are referring to as not art is the type that has no basis in reality. Eliminating this from our definition of art is not necessarily a normative definition because it is a different kind of painting. If it was in the same style as a type of painting that we are referring to as art then we would be trying to create a normative definition and not a cognitive one. However we are perfectly able to create a cognitive defintion of art that does not include art that is not a selective recreation of reality and still have it be a cognitive definition and not a normative one.

Here’s the thing: an art work—in this case, painting, has a specific nature like anything else in the universe [metaphysical or man-made] A is A. Facts are facts. It is a mistake to simply take the materials, the art supplies of painting, [namely the canvas and paints] and slap it down where you would be unable to distinguish it from Bessie the ape work, a seven year old or a critic cuddled ‘artist.’ Presenting such a thing as art and labeling it as art, shouting it out 'this is art!' …does not make it art…this is subjectivism. And I don’t mean one’s response to the work, but rather—it is the subjectivity of concepts. The definition of art does not lay within the materials of art or the fact that it is hanging against a wall in a gallery. That’s not a definition of art.

However we are perfectly able to create a cognitive defintion of art that does not include art that is not a selective recreation of reality and still have it be a cognitive definition and not a normative one.

Agree.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Danneskjold]

I agree with you completely as my second paragraph imply. The problem is if it is art, us shouting "THIS IS NOT ART" will not make it art. This is why I eagerly await your essay, if completely abstract art is made in order to break down the standards we call art, then as Rand said, it is anti-art.

[Victor Pross]

I agree with you completely as my second paragraph imply. The problem is if it is art, us shouting "THIS IS NOT ART" will not make it art. This is why I eagerly await your essay, if completely abstract art is made in order to break down the standards we call art, then as Rand said, it is anti-art.

Something has occurred to me after much thinking. I think MSK is taking ‘abstract art’ as an unquestioned axiom, as an undisputed fact, no questions, no doubt about it, damn it 'it is art'—and thus relegating the “cognitive” tag on it. And then comes along Victor Pross declaring “That’s not art, that’s bullshit.” From here, it is easily concluded that I’m making a “normative judgment." Yep, so typical of those Objectivists, it is thought.

But I can’t help it if the flat-earth enthusiasts call this art. I’m focused on the nature of things and definitions.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Danneskjold]

Personally I am reluctant to speculate on what Michael does or does not think.

[Victor Pross]

Personally I am reluctant to speculate on what Michael does or does not think.

Not that I’m able to read a person’s thoughts, it’s not that. I’m merely inferring it from the facts. That he has concluded that abstract art is art—“why, look at the industry around it”—and all of this makes me conclude that it is a solidified fact in his mind. Still, I could be wrong.

He can tell us.

You know, I don't like to post behind someone's back. B)

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Danneskjold]

Agreed. Geez how invonvenient of him to not be up to tell us his thoughts at our beck and call at two in the morning.

[Victor Pross]

Agreed. Geez how invonvenient of him to not be up to tell us his thoughts at our beck and call at two in the morning.

Life would be so much easier if Michael would just agree with every word I utter. :shifty:

[Danneskjold]

Use logic, then he will have to.

[Victor Pross]

Use logic, then he will have to.

Reality, reason and logic: the final arbiter of honest men.

[Dragonfly]

Here’s the thing: an art work—in this case, painting, has a specific nature like anything else in the universe [metaphysical or man-made] A is A.

When an Objectivist comes up with "A is A" in an argument, you can be sure that the argument is invalid.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Dragonfly

[Victor Pross]

Here’s the thing: an art work—in this case, painting, has a specific nature like anything else in the universe [metaphysical or man-made] A is A.

When an Objectivist comes up with "A is A" in an argument, you can be sure that the argument is invalid.

Dragonfly,

I'm a Canadian...I meant to say 'Eh is Eh'. So my arguments are safe.

[Danneskjold]

LOL

The post quality dips once we get past 1 in the morning.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Jeff Kremer

[Jonathan]

Kandinsky on artists, art and values:

I value only those artists who really are artists, that is, who, consciously or unconsciously, in an entirely original form, embody the expression of their inner life; who work only for this end and cannot work otherwise.

Painting is an art, and art is not vague production, transitory and isolated, but a power which must be directed toward the improvement and refinement of the human soul.

It is very important for the artist to gauge his position aright, to realize that he has a duty to his art and to himself, that he is not king of the castle but rather a servant of a nobler purpose. He must search deeply into his own soul, develop and tend it, so that his art has something to clothe, and does not remain a glove without a hand.

The artist must have something to say, for mastery over form is not his goal but rather adapting of form to its inner meaning.

If the artist be priest of beauty, nevertheless this beauty is to be sought only according to the principle of the inner need, and can be measured only according to the size and intensity of that need.

That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul.

Kandinsky on painting:

Suppose a rhomboidal composition, made up of a number of human figures. The artist asks himself: Are these human figures an absolute necessity to the composition, or should they be replaced by other forms, and that without affecting the fundamental harmony of the whole? If the answer is "Yes," we have a case in which the material appeal directly weakens the abstract appeal. The human form must either be replaced by another object which, whether by similarity or contrast, will strengthen the abstract appeal, or must remain a purely non-material symbol.

Must we then abandon utterly all material objects and paint only in abstractions? The problem of harmonizing the appeal of the material and the non-material shows us the answer to this question. As every word spoken arouses an inner vibration, so likewise does every object represented. To deprive oneself of this possibility is to limit one's powers of expression. That is at any rate the case at present. But besides this answer to the question, there is another, and one which art can always employ to any question beginning with "must": There is no "must" in art because art is free.

Kandinsky on certain types of people:

In science these men are positivists, only recognizing those things that can be weighed and measured. Anything beyond that they consider as rather discreditable nonsense, that same nonsense about which they held yesterday the theories that today are proven.

Kandinsky being very objective in describing the "language" of color:

There is no need to engage in the finer shades of complicated color, but rather at first to consider only the direct use of simple colors.

Two great divisions of color occur to the mind at the outset: into warm and cold, and into dark and light. To each color there are therefore four shades of appeal -- warm and light or warm and dark, or cold and light or cold and dark.

Generally speaking, warmth and cold in a color means an approach respectively to yellow or to blue. This distinction is, so to speak, on one basis, the color having a constant fundamental appeal, but assuming a more material or non-material quality. The movement is a horizontal one, the warm colors approaching the spectator, the cold ones retreating from him. [This is an idea later echoed by Michael Newberry with his notion of spatial "transparency."]

The colors, which cause in one another this horizontal movement, while they are themselves affected by it, have another movement of their own, which acts with a violent separative force. This is, therefore, the first antithesis in the inner appeal, and the inclination of the color to yellow or blue is of tremendous importance.

Yellow and blue have another movement which affects the first antithesis -- an ex- and concentric movement. If two circles are drawn and painted respectively yellow and blue, brief concentration will reveal in the yellow a spreading movement out from the center, and a noticeable approach to the spectator. The blue, on the other hand, moves in upon itself, like a snail retreating into its shell, and draws away from the spectator.

An attempt to make yellow colder produces a green tint and checks both the horizontal and eccentric movement. The color becomes sickly and unreal. The blue by its contrary movement acts as a brake on the yellow, and is hindered in its own movement, till the two together become stationary, and the result is green. Similarly a mixture of black and white produces gray, which is motionless and spiritually similar to green.

But while green, yellow and blue are potentially active, though temporarily paralyzed, in gray there is no possibility of movement, because gray consists of two colors that have no active force, for they stand the one in motionless discord, the other in a motionless negation, even of discord, like an endless wall or a bottomless pit. [black, white, and their mixtures of gray are always neutral, and, therefore, strictly vertical on any "chart" of their effects on us -- they are mostly limited to vertically modifying the horizontal movement of the other colors.] Because the component colors of green are active and have a movement of their own, it is possible, on the basis of this movement, to reckon their spiritual appeal.

The first movement of yellow, that of approach to the spectator (which can be increased by the intensification of the yellow), and also the second movement, that of over-spreading the boundaries, have a material parallel in the human energy which assails every obstacle blindly, and bursts forth aimlessly in every direction.

Yellow, if steadily gazed at in any geometric form, has a disturbing influence, and reveals in the color an insistent, aggressive character (it is worth noting that the sour-tasting lemon and the shrill-singing canary are both yellow). The intensification of yellow increases the painful shrillness of its note. (Any parallel between color and music can only be relative. Just as a violin can give various shades of tone, so yellow has shades, which can be expressed by various instruments.)

Yellow is the typically earthly color. It can never have profound meaning. An intermixture of blue makes it a sickly color. It may be paralleled in human nature with madness, not with melancholy or hypochondriacal mania, but rather with violent raving lunacy.

The power of profound meaning is found in blue, and first in its physical movements (1) of retreating from the spectator, (2) of turning in upon its center. The inclination to blue to depth is so strong that its inner appeal is stronger when its shade is deeper.

Blue is the typical heavenly color. The ultimate feeling it creates is one of rest. When it sinks almost to black, it echoes a grief that is hardly human. When it rises toward white, a movement little suited to it, its appeal to men grows weaker and more distant. In music, a light blue is like a flute, a darker blue like a cello; a still darker a thunderous double bass; and the darkest blue of all - an organ.

A well-balanced mixture of blue and yellow produces green. The horizontal movement ceases; likewise that from and towards the center. The effect on the soul through the eye is therefore motionless. This is a fact recognized not only by opticians, but by the world. Green is the most restful color that exists. On exhausted men this restfulness has a beneficial effect, but after a time it becomes wearisome. Pictures painted in shades of green are passive and tend to be wearisome; this contrasts with the active warmth of yellow or the active coolness of blue. In the hierarchy of colors, green is the "bourgeoisie" -- self-satisfied, immovable, narrow. It is the color of summer, the period when nature is resting from the storms of winter and the productive energy of spring.

Any preponderance in green of yellow or blue introduces a corresponding activity and changes the inner appeal. The green keeps its characteristic equanimity and restfulness, the former increasing with the inclination to lightness, the latter with the inclination to depth. In music the absolute green is represented by the placid, middle notes of a violin.

Black and white have already been discussed in general terms. More particularly speaking, white, although often considered as no color, is a symbol of a world from which all color as a definite has disappeared. This world is too far above us for its harmony to touch our souls. A great silence, like an impenetrable wall, shrouds its life from our understanding. White, therefore, has this harmony of silence, which works upon us negatively, like many pauses in music that break temporarily the melody. It is not a dead silence, but one pregnant with possibilities. White has the appeal of the nothingness that is before birth, of the world in the ice age.

A total dead silence, on the other hand, a silence with no possibilities, has the inner harmony of black. In music it is represented by one of those final pauses, after which any continuation of the melody seems the dawn of another world. Black is something burnt out, like the ashes of a funeral pyre, something motionless like a corpse. The silence of black is the silence of death. Outwardly, black is the color with the least harmony of all, a kind of neutral background against which the minutest shades of other colors stand clearly forward. It differs from white in this also, for with white nearly every color is in discord, or even mute altogether (vermilion rings dull and muddy against white, but against black with clear strength. Light yellow against white is weak, against black pure and brilliant).

Not without reason is white taken as symbolizing joy and spotless purity, and black grief and death. A blend of black and white produces gray which, as has been said, is silent and motionless, being composed of two inactive colors, its restfulness having none of the potential activity of green. A similar gray is produced by a mixture of green and red, a spiritual blend of passivity and glowing warmth (Delacroix sought to express rest by a mixture of green and red).

The unbound warmth of red has not the irresponsible appeal of yellow, but rings inwardly with a determined and powerful intensity. It glows in itself, maturely, and does not distribute its vigor aimlessly. The varied powers of red are very striking. By a skillful use of it in its different shades, its fundamental tone may be made warm or cold.

Light warm red has a certain similarity to medium yellow, alike in texture and appeal, and gives a feeling of strength, vigor, determination, triumph. In music, it is a sound of trumpets, strong, harsh, and ringing.

But there remains brown, unemotional, disinclined for movement. An admixture of red is outwardly barely audible, but there rings out a powerful harmony. Skillful blending can produce an inner appeal of extraordinary, indescribable beauty. The vermilion now rings like a great trumpet, or thunders like a drum.

Cool red (madder) like any other fundamentally cold color, can be deepened -- especially by an admixture of azure. The character of the color changes; the inward glow increases, the active element gradually disappears. But this active element is never so wholly absent as in deep green. There always remains a hint of renewed vigor, somewhere out of sight, waiting for a certain moment to burst forth afresh. In this lies the great difference between a deepened red and a deepened blue, because in red there is always a trace of the material. A parallel in music are the sad, middle tone of a cello. A cold, light red contains a very distinct bodily or material element, but it is always pure, like the fresh beauty if the face of a young girl. The singing notes of a violin express this exactly in music.

Warm red, intensified by a suitable yellow, is orange. This blend brings red almost to the point of spreading out towards the spectator. But the element of red is always sufficiently strong to keep the color from flippancy. Orange is like a man, convinced of his own powers. Its note is that of the angelus, or of an old violin.

Just as orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow, so violet is red withdrawn from humanity by blue. But the red in violet must be cold, for the spiritual need does not allow of a mixture of warm red with cold blue.

Violet is therefore both in the physical and spiritual sense a cooled red. It is consequently rather sad and ailing. It is worn by old women, and in China as a sign of mourning. In music it is an English horn, or the deep notes of wood instruments (among artists one often hears the question, "How are you?" answered gloomily by the words "Feeling very violet").

-----

J

Edited January 9, 2007 by Jonathan

[Danneskjold]

Am I the only one that completely missed the significance of that to the discussion?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

All the same, the type of painting we are referring to as not art is the type that has no basis in reality. Eliminating this from our definition of art is not necessarily a normative definition because it is a different kind of painting.

However we are perfectly able to create a cognitive defintion of art that does not include art that is not a selective recreation of reality and still have it be a cognitive definition and not a normative one.

Am I the only one that completely missed the significance of that to the discussion?

Jeff,

Whoever said that abstract painting is not a selective recreation of reality? Here is a random link on Kandinsky that came up on Google. I dare you to show me any shape or color in any of his paintings that do not exist. All of them are part of reality and can easily be found outside the painting. He selectively recreated them in his paintings.

Jonathan's post shows just how much Kandinsky was aware of reality, especially the colors that exist and their relationship to other parts of reality.

You mentioned that it is possible to make a definition of art that excluded abstract art. It is not only possible, it exists. However, it is qualified ("Objectivist art," "academic art," etc.).

But it is not possible to create an all inclusive definition of a fact and exclude a huge number of units. So it is not possible to have a definition of art that covers abstract art and excludes abstract art at the same time. And it is not possible to have a valid definition of art that covers the entire field of activity and excludes a huge chunk of what people do as if it did not exist.

As you have not read ITOE yet, here is a basic idea in epistemology. A concept is a mental unit, sort of like a file. A concept is a single unit, but it represents an entire group of things that have been (and are) perceived (or could be perceived in the future) based on similarities and/or differences that have been perceived. A concept is universal to all human beings and exists in order to understand reality.

A word is merely a tag you put on a concept. The word is not universal--it is cultural and it exists for communication--generally to communicate the concept (but also other things like emotions depending on the delivery). For example (going back a bit), businessman. I mentioned that the cognitive definition is a person who works in business. This is true for Americans, Chinese, Brazilians, etc. In Portuguese he is called "homen de negócios" or "comerciante." The concept is the same (universal). The word changes (cultural).

What I am highlighting in our present discussion of art is when the concept changes but the word stays the same. This happens with the term "art." The word means different concepts, depending on the context in which it is used.

If this is the way mankind developed the language, it is folly to say mankind shouldn't have done that and the terms people use for expression do not exist. They do exist regardless of what anyone says.

It is far better for communication to present language and terminology that is specific enough to convey the concept you mean than it is to try to deny a common definition in order to highlight a concept. People will listen to the first. They dismiss the second as some kind of fanaticism or incorrect thinking.

As an extra thought, there are not only cognitive concepts (what exists) and normative concepts (the value of what exists), but there are also subjective concepts (what is preferred by a single individual).

Here is how this works with a urinal.

If you see a urinal as part of a composition in an art gallery, cognitively you have to call it art. It is in a place used for exhibiting art works. It is exhibited as an art work. People go there and contemplate it as an art work. It is sold and bought as an art work. It is even a part of reality that the artist selectively chose for recreating reality (according to his "metaphysical value judgments"). There is a concept that covers all of this, regardless of what the value of the work is to anyone.

If a person puts this same urinal in a room in his house, it would no longer be art in cognitive terms. Men would use it for urinating. It would be a utility.

Normatively, a person who values integration and volition (Objectivists, for instance) would never present a urinal in an art gallery as an entity showing what human beings could and should be. This would be a statement that man can rise to nothing higher than his urinary tract in life, etc. The reaction would be so vehement that he would be loathe to call this art at all. This is where you and Victor are at. The content of the art work is rejected as being something not suitable for art under this manner of thinking since it is not valued positively. A manner of valuing is added to the identity of the work. The problem with making this definition a cognitive one (universal for all art) is that not all men value the same things in the same manner. But they do work in the field of art according to different values. The normative concept is more restrictive as it includes more conditions (the similarities and differences I mentioned above used for forming concepts), while the cognitive concept is broader and includes fewer conditions (it does not include the valuing or system of thought).

Here we come to an interesting take on the concept of art. Subjectively, a person could put the urinal in his own home in a room, call it art, and prohibit anyone from using it to pee in since he uses it for contemplation. That would be a valid concept of art in subjective terms (but only in subjective terms). Nobody else would consider it as art.

I believe that the reason there is so much controversy over Rand's pronouncements on art is that the cognitive, normative and subjective concepts got all jumbled up at times in her statements because the same word (art) was used for all three.

Michael

[Jonathan]

Jeff wrote,

Am I the only one that completely missed the significance of that to the discussion?

Kandinsky was the man I mentioned in post #30 who was inspired to create "abstract art" after looking at Monet's paintings of haystacks. He is one of the people who are accused by Objectivists of wanting to destroy art, meaning, individuality, values, and of being purely irrational and subjective.

Personally, I think his views on how and why abstract paintings can affect us are much more advanced, objective and detailed than Objectivists' views on how and why music and architecture affect us.

J

[Kat]

Whether the art is good or whether the art is crap does not define whether it is art or not. If that were the case there would be no such thing as bad artwork.

Kat

[Ellen Stuttle]

Jeff wrote,

Am I the only one that completely missed the significance of that to the discussion?

Kandinsky was the man I mentioned in post #30 who was inspired to create "abstract art" after looking at Monet's paintings of haystacks. He is one of the people who are accused by Objectivists of wanting to destroy art, meaning, individuality, values, and of being purely irrational and subjective.

Personally, I think his views on how and why abstract paintings can affect us are much more advanced, objective and detailed than Objectivists' views on how and why music and architecture affect us.

J

When we were in Budapest in August, 2006, one day we went to this exhibit featuring the work of a teacher who had been very influenced by Kandinsky, and the work of that teacher's students. I can't say I was bowled over by any of it, though I liked some of it; but I was impressed by the extreme earnestness and devotion; there was a kind of mystique, and certainly not along the lines of trying to "destroy art, meaning, individuality, values, and of being purely irrational and subjective." Sorry, I don't remember the teacher's name.

I found the quotes from Kandinsky interesting and with a lot of truth to them in terms of what seem to me emotional correlates of various colors, although I'm suspicious of any attempts to universalize such reactions sans context in which the colors appear.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a Kandinsky. J, do you have an easy-to-hand link to some sample works?

What I signed on for was to ask Victor a question.

Victor, what do you think of Escher, art or not? His more developed work, not his earlier woodcuts of recognizable landscapes, which I think could easily slip past O'ist radar, though I think that the landscapes as such weren't what interested him even in those, but instead the geometric juxtapositions.

Ellen

___

[Victor Pross]

Jeff wrote,

Am I the only one that completely missed the significance of that to the discussion?

Kandinsky was the man I mentioned in post #30 who was inspired to create "abstract art" after looking at Monet's paintings of haystacks. He is one of the people who are accused by Objectivists of wanting to destroy art, meaning, individuality, values, and of being purely irrational and subjective.

Personally, I think his views on how and why abstract paintings can affect us are much more advanced, objective and detailed than Objectivists' views on how and why music and architecture affect us.

J

Jonathan,

It comes down to the mind-body dichotomy: The early proponents of abstract art embraced the opposite pole of the mistaken mind-body dichotomy reacting against the “materialism” that dominated European thought in the late nineteenth century. For them, the material world of perceptible objects in three-dimensional space had no connection to the world of “pure spirit” and must therefore be eliminated. Only through the ‘annihilation’ of objective reality and time and space, could art express the “new consciousness” towards which humanity was evolving. This is a few of the ideas behind abstract art. It is absolute subjectivism that they sought—in metaphysics and epistemology.

Abstract artists entertained the belief that color is kind of formless energy---free of the material world. Before the “awakening soul” could complete its evolution, Kandinsky claimed, it must be liberated from the “nightmare of materialism”.

MSK wrote: "Jonathan's post shows just how much Kandinsky was aware of reality, especially the colors that exist and their relationship to other parts of reality."

Really?

A funny observation: Given their rejection of objective reality, they failed to recognize that color is an attribute of material objects and that the experience of color is dependent on the physical properties of those objects as well as on the psychology of human sense perception.

Victor

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Victor Pross]

Jonathan wrote:

"Kandinsky was the man I mentioned in post #30 who was inspired to create "abstract art" after looking at Monet's paintings of haystacks. He is one of the people who are accused by Objectivists of wanting to destroy art, meaning, individuality, values, and of being purely irrational and subjective."

And? This is true.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Ellen Stuttle]

I noticed that, in post #115, MSK had posted a link to a Kandinsky exhibit. I have seen VIII before, and liked it. I definitely respond to IV through VII, most strongly to VI and VII, but it's hard to tell which would have the strongest effect were I to see the originals. I felt a sense of let-down upon scrolling to IX after VIII, and then was interested to read in the accompanying text:

Composition IX is possibly the least impressive of the series. [....] There is an almost dream-like quality to the rhythm and unfurling of the forms. In the final analysis, however, Composition IX has a tangible decorative feel to it that makes it pale in comparison to the emotional intensity of the earlier compositions.

That expresses how I felt.

Myself, I'd call all the "Compositions" pictured indisputably "art," and by a masterful artist.

Ellen

___

Edited January 7, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Victor Pross]

Ellen,

Escher's artistic expression was created directly from images in his mind, an exploration of his subconsciouness mind—of things recalled in actual reality--rather than directly from observations while drawing. Not all of the time, must mostly. Escher's work has a strong mathematical component—and some people assume this as “surrealism”—which it is not—notwithstanding his spatial illusions. He is well known for his Drawing Hands, of course, a work in which two hands are shown, each drawing the other. Very cleaver and it is one of my favorities.

Ellen, of course this is art—and funny thing is: he was a representational artists that also explored design, and many of those designs have made their way to utilitarion objects, such as clothes.

Why do you ask?

-Victor

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Danneskjold]

Michael said:

Jeff,

Whoever said that abstract painting is not a selective recreation of reality? Here is a random link on Kandinsky that came up on Google. I dare you to show me any shape or color in any of his paintings that do not exist. All of them are part of reality and can easily be found outside the painting. He selectively recreated them in his paintings.

I went to that site, clicked on the first picture I saw, and noticed the scribbles in the upper left hand corner which do not exist in reality.

Jonathan said:

Personally, I think his views on how and why abstract paintings can affect us are much more advanced, objective and detailed than Objectivists' views on how and why music and architecture affect us.

J

That has no bearing on whether or not his paintings are art.

Whether the art is good or whether the art is crap does not define whether it is art or not. If that were the case there would be no such thing as bad artwork.

Kat

Yes, we know. It is not a value judgement because we are not trying to say something below x quality is not art, we are trying to say that a certain type of painting is not art.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Jeff Kremer

[Victor Pross]

MSK said: Whoever said that abstract painting is not a selective recreation of reality? Here is a random link on Kandinsky that came up on Google. I dare you to show me any shape or color in any of his paintings that do not exist. All of them are part of reality and can easily be found outside the painting. He selectively recreated them in his paintings.

Jeff,

Whoever said that abstract painting is not a selective recreation of reality, MSK asked. Reality!? Oh, so reality is the standard, is it? The implicit idea here is that Micheal is trying to salvage the idea that reality is being observed and respected in abstract art in order to give it legitimacy as a work of art. Well, if it can be shown that the first abstract artists were purposely trying to abandom reality, then we can say—objectiviely—that abstract ‘art’ is not art.

This is a simple case of art history 101 -- and proper definitons.

Victor

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Whoever said that abstract painting is not a selective recreation of reality, MSK asked. Reality!? Oh, so reality is the standard, is it?

Victor,

You have to slow down long enough to read if we are going to have any kind of mutually beneficial discussion.

The only reason I mentioned that was in response to Jeff and you (who claimed the contrary).

Please slow down so we can stay coherent.

Michael