Flame War Rant

[Jonathan]

Incidentally, those who approach art history by focusing on the supreme importance and influence of philosophy, while avoiding reading art history, might be interested in learning about the artist Alexander Cozens, who I wrote about here.

I can understand where philosophers would want, or need, to believe that those who have practiced their profession were all-powerful gods who had influence over everything, and therefore would be eager to frame the question as "Which of us philosophers caused abstract art to come into existence?" But it's really kind of comical that they would be so presumptuous and elitist as to assume that any and every idea must have come from members of their profession.

Cozens was an artist who painted abstract "blotscapes," and he did so after he had read a comment by Da Vinci about staring at stains on walls and letting them stimulate one's imagination. Cozens experimented with the abstract blot images prior to Kant's Critique of Judgment. He wasn't motivated to destroy man's mind or to deny its efficacy. He wasn't following philosphers. He was just a visual artist exploring visual art's means.

Artists explore abstraction because they are artists and they, unlike certain philosophers (and philosophy hobbyists), understand the expressiveness of visual form and composition. Artists didn't need Kant or any other philosopher-god to lead them around and tell them what to do. The beginnings of abstract art were already under way before Kant, and had nothing to do with philosophical theories.

J

Edited August 14, 2010 by Jonathan

[Ellen Stuttle]

A couple of points:

People "snort" at Rand's assertion because she was suggesting that Kant was the cause of Modern art (and the implied destroyer of Romanticism and all other art ideas and movements that she liked). If people don't "snort" at Kimball, it's because his is a much more modest and reasonable proposal: that Kant's ideas on Beauty -- and, note, not his ideas on the Sublime -- were of importance to those who were interested in abstract art (which, again, isn't at all the same thing as asserting that the ideas are "the foundation" or cause of Modernist art, let alone of Postmodern art, which was a rejection of Modernist art ideas).

In saying that without Kant, aesthetics would not exist in its modern form, [the quoted scholars] might also mean that Rand's aesthetics would not exist as she presented them -- she would not have been influenced by the brand of Romanticism and the approach to aesthetic thinking that Kant influenced.

And what role did that "assumption of the subjective character of aesthetic judgment" play in the emotionalism of Romanticism?

So from Kant’s Critique to Christo — an interesting fill-in-the-blanks intellectual-history project awaits.

I hope that when the blanks are finally filled in, Kant's influence over Romanticism isn't conveniently ignored because its inclusion wouldn't support the goal of vindicating Rand. Beginning with the conclusion that Kant caused Christo because Rand made an unsupported assertion about Kant and "modern art," and then seeking to "fill in the blanks," is a very odd approach to history and ideas.

Filling in the blanks would also require noticing that Rand's view of "Romanticism" in the arts was a "selective recreation" of history. Many of those classified as "romantic" artists saw themselves as rebelling against Enlightenment values, and against the beginnings of industrialization. Rand discerns a "real" meaning which wasn't the perceived meaning of many of the artists, and of the philosophers called "Romanticists."

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Jonathan, a couple questions.

[...] abstract art (which, again, isn't at all the same thing as asserting that the ideas are "the foundation" or cause of Modernist art, let alone of Postmodern art, which was a rejection of Modernist art ideas).

I hope that Hicks is not so unfamiliar with art history that he doesn't yet realize that there's a difference between what he means by "modern art" (as well as what Rand meant by it) and what others can mean by "modern aesthetics." Does Hicks not know that the terms "the modern world" in the arts, "The Age of Revolution," and "modern aesthetics" generally refer to the time period beginning with Romanticism, and that the people he quotes above may be talking about that period?

If I understand you right, "Modern art," in the art world, means Romanticism through to "Postmodern art." When is "Postmodern art" said to begin?

Also, could you say more about your description of "Postmodern art" as "a rejection of Modernist art ideas"?

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Would you say that Haydn's and others' "Sturm und Drang" period had nothing to do with philosophic and literary influences?

Well, from the same wikipedia article from which you quote:

...Haydn never mentions Sturm und Drang as a motivation for his new compositional style,[9] and there remains an overarching adherence to classical form and motivic unity. Though Haydn may not have been consciously affirming the anti-rational ideals of Sturm und Drang, one can certainly perceive the influence of contemporary trends in musical theatre on his instrumental works during this period.

So there is no evidence that some particular philosophical theories directly influenced Haydn for his stylistic change.

OK on that point. However...

I think you've to think in more general terms, it was the "Zeitgeist", a change in thinking that cannot be attributed to one or a few particular thinkers but to a general evolution of society that does have a cyclic nature: periods of renovation, revolution, breaking with the past (Sturm und Drang, the roaring twenties, the revolution of the sixties) alternating with periods of consolidation, reaction, conservatism.

There you sound outright Hegelian -- a "Zeitgeist" as a reified force resulting from "a general evolution of society that does have a cyclic nature."

Ellen

[Dragonfly]

There you sound outright Hegelian -- a "Zeitgeist" as a reified force resulting from "a general evolution of society that does have a cyclic nature."

That doesn't sound as a compliment, as Hegel wrote a lot of nonsense... But that Zeitgeist is no more a reified force than Adam Smith's "invisible hand" which is so popular in libertarian and Randian circles. It's just a convenient shortcut description of the fluctuations in the complex system that society is, with its myriad connections and influences. That such a system is characterized by a cyclic behavior is to be expected, due to the unavoidable negative feedback processes in such a system.

[Ellen Stuttle]

There you sound outright Hegelian -- a "Zeitgeist" as a reified force resulting from "a general evolution of society that does have a cyclic nature."

That doesn't sound as a compliment, as Hegel wrote a lot of nonsense...

Well, it wasn't meant as a compliment. I think that Hegel's "thesis->antithesis->synthesis" theory force fits the course of history to preconceived specs.

But that Zeitgeist is no more a reified force than Adam Smith's "invisible hand" which is so popular in libertarian and Randian circles.

Depends how "Zeitgeist" is used whether it's implying a reified force or not. You continue in the next comment to sound as if you are reifying, since here you reify "society":

It's just a convenient shortcut description of the fluctuations in the complex system that society is, with its myriad connections and influences. That such a system is characterized by a cyclic behavior is to be expected, due to the unavoidable negative feedback processes in such a system.

Why would "such a system" as "society" be expected to be "characterized by a cyclic behavior"? Is it a system like a physics system where there might be some reason to expect "negative feedback processes"? And you're in danger of doing just what those Randists who see what they expect to see re philosophy-causing-history do. Presuming the truth of the thesis, they then see examples of it without proposing a way of testing the thesis. You're in danger of presuming cyclicity and similarly seeing it without testing the thesis. How would you propose that one *would* test the thesis of cyclic behavior in "society" viewed as a "system"?

Ellen

[Philip Coates]

> Rand's view of "Romanticism" in the arts was a "selective recreation" of history. Many of those classified as "romantic" artists saw themselves as rebelling against Enlightenment values [Ellen]

Rand made clear - more than once - the difference between romanticism (anti-reason) in philosophy, epistemology in this case and between romanticism (values) in the arts. Not a selective recreation, as you so snidely put it, but a different meaning entirely.

Peikoff has also made this clear, so I'm surprised you missed it. (Maybe you were just posting sloppily or in a hurry.)

Rand's discussion of Hugo and other specific figures makes it clear she understood that one could have good premises in art, write great novels, but bad philosophy in other respects. Such as with regard to socialism in the case of Hugo.

[Rich Engle]

Rand's discussion of Hugo and other specific figures makes it clear she understood that one could have good premises in art, write great novels, but bad philosophy in other respects. Such as with regard to socialism in the case of Hugo.

Well, yeah. That's pretty obvious, it would seem. It's always been like that. And that's why I would not stop listening to someone's music, or looking at their work if I came upon information about their philosophy that I found to be hateful. Artists dabble in philosophy and politics all the time. Keyword (usually) dabble. That is, I would not stop looking at their work unless they have contributed their art (and maybe their strong reputation/audience) towards something that is doing evil. If an artist contributes to fascism, they're off my books. Sometimes, this is hard to figure out.

A good way is to be around them, but that doesn't happen very often. I do not think I have gotten this out exactly right, but I hope you get the main thrust of it.

You struggle with things like that, you try to understand. Consider Leni Riefenstahl--that's a nice example. Great filmmaker. Was she just there for her own purposes (to be a great cinematographer, documentary maker)? The best cameras, the best everything. Excellent distribution. Did she have a choice? Do you go to work for Hitler? Not me. Some things don't have a price tag.

Edited August 15, 2010 by Rich Engle

[Jonathan]

If I understand you right, "Modern art," in the art world, means Romanticism through to "Postmodern art."

It depends on which critic or historian you're reading. The general impression I get is that the Modern Era is usually seen as beginning with Romanticism, or sometimes a little earlier with NeoClassicism, with Modernism then being a subcategory, like Romanticism, within the Modern Era, only being unlike Romanticism in that it covers several movements. Where to place the beginning of the subcategory of Modernism seems to vary a lot.

When people speak of "modern art," depending on the context, they could mean Romanticism through today, they could mean Van Gogh or Picasso through the 70s, or they could mean, as Rand did and Hicks seem to, abstract art which contains no elements of direct representation.

When is "Postmodern art" said to begin?

It depends on how any given historian would define the term and what he thinks is essential to it. If he thinks the return to representation is essential, he'll have a different starting point than someone who thinks eclecticism or irony/humor is essential. But from what I've seen, the beginning is usually identified somewhere between the 50s and 70s.

Also, could you say more about your description of "Postmodern art" as "a rejection of Modernist art ideas"?

Again, it depends on who you talk to, but Postmodernists have rejected Modernism's rejection of representation. Some say that they reject what they see as Modernism's claim to universality. Some have rejected the avant-garde -- the idea of art for the sake of novelty or aesthetic revolution. Many Postmodernists have embraced things that Modernists threw out, like the use of ornamentation and classical painting and sculpting techniques. Depending on how philosophical an artist is, he might reject any number of esoteric or complex ideas which he felt Modernism stood for.

And adding to the confusion is that "Postmodern" can simply mean "after Modernism," or it can mean "based on or inspired by Postmodernist philosophical and/or aesthetic ideas."

J

[Jonathan]

> Rand's view of "Romanticism" in the arts was a "selective recreation" of history. Many of those classified as "romantic" artists saw themselves as rebelling against Enlightenment values [Ellen]

Rand made clear - more than once - the difference between romanticism (anti-reason) in philosophy, epistemology in this case and between romanticism (values) in the arts. Not a selective recreation, as you so snidely put it, but a different meaning entirely.

Rand did discuss the fact that Romanticism was based in ideas she disagreed with, but she also implied that she was discerning the "real" or essential meaning that the Romantic artists and philosophers weren't perceiving.

Also, she claimed that they had had an "Aristotilean sense of life," yet elsewhere she had claimed that one couldn't know the "sense of life" of any fictional characters or of existing people whom one hadn't know intimately for years -- your spouse, maybe your best friend.

J

[Dragonfly]

Why would "such a system" as "society" be expected to be "characterized by a cyclic behavior"? Is it a system like a physics system where there might be some reason to expect "negative feedback processes"?

Because there is enough evidence for such negative feedback. History is full of examples in which a generation reacts to the life style of a previous generation. I've seen it during my own lifetime. After the ravages of the great depression and the second world war we had here a period of return to a safe, conservative society solidly rebuilding. Then came in the sixties the reaction to what was perceived by a new generation as a dull, stagnant and oppressive atmosphere, characterized by conformity with the existing institutions, a generation demanding freedom, revolution, breaking barriers, etc. A lot of cobwebs were blown away and stuffy institutions turned over. Nevertheless, over the years the disadvantages of the new thinking, the new Zeitgeist, became more and more obvious, some aspects that in "small amounts" were beneficial became in "large amounts" deleterial and the next generation was again swinging back to a more conservative view. Of course this is just a very simplified picture, there are far too many variables and non-linearities to give an exact description with fixed periods, but throughout history we can see this kind of alternation between revolt and conformity which is reflected in the art, music and literature of the time. Therefore, if we see such a change in a certain period of history, it's much more logical to attribute it to a general, collective change by a natural reaction of millions of individuals to the situation that they perceive than to the influence of the writings of one particular individual, which, even if these become some kind of reference, in fact reflect the change rather than causing it. Possibly there were also no less eloquent writings with the opposite view, but they are forgotten as it wasn't their time (or they might later be considered to be prophetic).

[Jonathan]

Question:

Shouldn't We The Living be considered the ultimate example of the Kantian Sublime in art?

It contains an overwhelming object of terror -- political tyranny -- which is amorphous and of immense magnitude, and which crushes the novel's characters. Its terror stimulates readers' will to resist, to adhere to their highest principles, and to regard their estate as exalted above it.

And The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged also contain societies and political forces which represent similar formless and destructive objects of terror. All of Rand's art features the Kantian Sublime!

Therefore, Kant's views on the Sublime are the foundation of Rand's art, and Kant is the true father of Romantic Realism, of the Objectivist Esthetics, and perhaps of Objectivist philosophy as a whole? Despite what Rand may have said or believed to the contrary, the "real" or essential foundations of her ideas were those that she must have absorbed from Kant, perhaps without knowing it?

J

P.S. The Fountainhead had a double dose of the Sublime. First, the formless society tries to threaten Howard Roark with the terror of their magnitude, and then, in response, he opens up his own can of terror and incomprehensible magnitude on their asses.

Edited August 16, 2010 by Jonathan

[Brant Gaede]

Objectivist esthetics are quite arbitrary qua Objectivism. There is actually no more than that than Objectivist psychology, physics, acting or how to take a bath and brush your teeth.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

In his continued effort to justify Rand's opinion that Kant's views on aesthetics made him the evil "father of modern art," Stephen Hicks, in a recent post on his blog, quotes art critic Jerry Saltz as saying that Duchamp's Fountain is a "manifestation of the Kantian sublime":

Incidentally, Jerry Saltz, a senior art critic for New York Magazine, makes a strong connection between Duchamp and Immanuel Kant’s theory of the sublime in art. Writing in the Village Voice, Saltz says: “Fountain brings us into contact with an original that is still an original but that also exists in an altered philosophical and metaphysical state. It is a manifestation of the Kantian sublime: A work of art that transcends a form but that is also intelligible, an object that strikes down an idea while allowing it to spring up stronger. Its presence is grace.”

Hicks is not correct that Saltz has made a "strong connection" between Duchamp and Kant’s theory of the Sublime. Much as Newberry does, Saltz has only made what I would call a strained analogy. Kant would have seen Fountain as neither a manifestation of the Sublime, nor as art.

In post #62 on this thread, I identified Rand's novels as examples of Kant's theory of the Sublime. Kant would have agreed. So, I wonder if Hicks will be quoting me any time soon as having established a stronger "connection" between Rand and Kant than Saltz has between Duchamp and Kant?

Isn't it finally about time for Rand's defenders to shit or get off the pot -- to get around to quoting the artists who changed the course of history, as opposed to all of this pussyfooting around by quoting contemporary critics' interpretations or by sloppily misinterpreting historians' statements about Kant and "modern aesthetics"? Instead of rushing to report every strained example that they can find of people seeing "connections" between "modern art" and some aspect of Kant's ideas, will Rand's defenders ever present any evidence of the artists themselves identifying Kant's aesthetics as a major influence in their decisions to create their "modern art"?

J

Edited December 21, 2010 by Jonathan

[kiaer.ts]

Isn't it finally about time for Rand's defenders to shit or get off the pot -- to get around to quoting the artists who changed the course of history, as opposed to all of this pussyfooting around by quoting contemporary critics' interpretations or by sloppily misinterpreting historians' statements about Kant and "modern aesthetics"? Instead of rushing to report every strained example that they can find of people seeing "connections" between "modern art" and some aspect of Kant's ideas, will Rand's defenders ever present any evidence of the artists themselves identifying Kant's aesthetics as a major influence in their decisions to create their "modern art"?

LOL. You certainly picked the best forum in (two senses) to utter that challenge - if you intention is to sound like an insincere crank Why not start a new thread, if not write a coherent essay, rather than rant?

[Jonathan]

LOL. You certainly picked the best forum in (two senses) to utter that challenge - if you intention is to sound like an insincere crank Why not start a new thread, if not write a coherent essay, rather than rant?

I didn't start a new thread because the information I posted ties in well to this thread, and I don't think that Hicks's attempts (or Newberry's) to vindicate Rand's unsupported opinion of Kant's aesthetics are worthy of a brand new thread or an essay.

J

[Jonathan]

Did anyone else here find it curious that Hicks used the Saltz quote? After all, Saltz claims that, as a work of art, Duchamp's Fountain is intelligible, and so much so that it can be identified as an example of the Sublime:

"It is a manifestation of the Kantian sublime: A work of art that transcends a form but that is also intelligible, an object that strikes down an idea while allowing it to spring up stronger."

Should we take Hicks's quoting of Saltz as agreement that Fountain is intelligible as a work of art? Or should we see it as a case of Hicks, in his rush to vindicate Rand, overlooking the fact that he has cited someone as a credible source whose argument depends on Fountain's being intelligible as a work of art, thus defeating Rand's position that such works are unintelligible and non-art?

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jonathan,

I tend to lean in your direction about Kant, but I have not read the pertinent material myself to agree or disagree. (I fully intend to since this is important to me.)

I am coming to a theory of art of my own, anyway.

But I started at--and am still on--a deeper level. I am questioning the idea that philosophy is the puppetmaster of mankind (i.e., if a bad philosophical argument gets into the culture, the bad guys can take over). I now think philosophy is one tool among several used by good guys and bad guys--and the masses they seek to operate with.

Ditto for philosophy and art.

I am also mulling over that slippery-slope word for aesthetics: context.

And context includes (on the part of the audience) learning the language of a particular art form, the nature of the mainstream works in that particular art form, the setting where the art is presented, the behavior habits of typical consumers and the artist, and a host of other things. Most particularly, all this is what I am starting to perceive as the "story" of the art work, which accounts for a good portion of its meaning.

I'm not 100% sure for 100% of all audience members for all time, but I'm pretty sure that a Wagnerian opera would mean next to nothing in a Japanese geisha house, just as the exquisite symbolism of the kabuki stage would be lost in a half-time show of an American football game.

Art works only have meaning when there is an appropriate social context for them to be consumed. That's not the only element, of course, but it is one that I don't find treated well when the influence of Kant on the arts is discussed in our corner of the world.

Michael

[Jonathan]

Jonathan,

I tend to lean in your direction about Kant, but I have not read the pertinent material myself to agree or disagree. (I fully intend to since this is important to me.)

I am coming to a theory of art of my own, anyway.

But I started at--and am still on--a deeper level. I am questioning the idea that philosophy is the puppetmaster of mankind (i.e., if a bad philosophical argument gets into the culture, the bad guys can take over). I now think philosophy is one tool among several used by good guys and bad guys--and the masses they seek to operate with.

Ditto for philosophy and art.

I think that you and I probably have very similar views. I generally see the history of the philosophy of aesthetics as philosophers analyzing what artists did, and how and why their art affects us. The artists went off in new directions, and the philosophers followed along and tried to explain what happened. A lot of Rand's followers like to reverse it. For some reason they need to believe in the power and influence of philosophers, perhaps because Rand told them to, or perhaps because they envision themselves as potentially having more power and influence while doing little more than sitting around thinking and opining about what other people are accomplishing.

You've observed a few times in the past that Rand's art still hugely outsells her strictly philosophical works, as well as all of the writings of her followers. She was much more influential as an artist than as a philosopher. I think it's a good example of the perspective that I'm coming from -- that of recognizing the power of the creators who actually inspired masses of people, and the means they used to do so, instead of trying twist reality around in order to credit or blame philosopher-gods because Rand said so.

I am also mulling over that slippery-slope word for aesthetics: context.

And context includes (on the part of the audience) learning the language of a particular art form, the nature of the mainstream works in that particular art form, the setting where the art is presented, the behavior habits of typical consumers and the artist, and a host of other things. Most particularly, all this is what I am starting to perceive as the "story" of the art work, which accounts for a good portion of its meaning.

I'm not 100% sure for 100% of all audience members for all time, but I'm pretty sure that a Wagnerian opera would mean next to nothing in a Japanese geisha house, just as the exquisite symbolism of the kabuki stage would be lost in a half-time show of an American football game.

Art works only have meaning when there is an appropriate social context for them to be consumed. That's not the only element, of course, but it is one that I don't find treated well when the influence of Kant on the arts is discussed in our corner of the world.

I agree that there's a lot of context to the various art forms that has been overlooked. I think Rand began her inquiry into aesthetics by thinking pretty deeply about her own approach to literature, and she produced a lot of valuable ideas, but then ended up carelessly rushing to bend all of the other art forms into the shape of her theory of literature. She wasn't very concerned about discovering the contexts that you mention, and was perhaps emotionally invested in not doing so.

J

[Jonathan]

After seeing here that all back issue essays of JARS are now online, I began reading parts of the "aesthetics symposium" issue (Volume 2, No. 2 - Spring 2001), and found the following in Barry Vacker's essay, Guggenheims and Grand Canyons:

Further, as Gregory Johnson (2000,232) observers: "Rand's aesthetic signature is captured better by the concept of the sublime, an experience in which elements of chaos — mind boggling magnitudes and fearsome powers — are incorporated into an elevating aesthetic phenomenon by the experience of man's cognitive mastery and moral superiority over them."

Clearly,

The Fountainhead

and

Atlas Shrugged

express the natural and technological sublime, a modern aesthetic style born of post-Kantian aesthetics and industrial utopianism (Nye 1994). Rand's passionate explication of the sublime is the main reason those novels have become such revolutionary classics. Yet,

What Art Is

claims to present Rand's theory of aesthetics, not only absent the beautiful, but even without discussion of the sublime, the aesthetic style most emblematic of Rand's own writing.

And here I had thought that I was the first to prove that Kant was the father of the Objectivist Esthetics — that his concept of the Sublime was the foundation of Romantic Realism. Oh well.

J

[Philip Coates]

Feel free to claim the honor of being not alone in making that foolish mistake.

[Jonathan]

But Phil, I've used the exact same methods employed by Rand, Hicks and Newberry to prove that Kant's ideas were the foundation of Rand's aesthetics and the main influence over her art. In fact, I've been much more thorough in presenting my evidence than the three of them combined have been in claiming that the ideas presented in Kant's Critique of Judgment made him the evil "father of modern art."

Or was that your point — that Rand, Hicks and Newberry have been foolishly mistaken in vilifying Kant's aesthetics?

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jonathan,

I want to take a shot at this and have stood back because (1) I am developing my own theory of art (including an epistemological notion I am clunkily calling "story concept" for now), and (2) I have not yet read Kant's Critique of Pure Judgment, nor Hicks's Explaining Postmodernism, both of which I have and are on my "to read" list.

That being said, I suspect Rand's aesthetics are identical to Kant's with respect to logical derivation from the premise, but her concept of "sublime" is totally different. In her world, sublime holds reason--especially volitional conceptual human consciousness--as a fundamental component and Kant's does not (I presume). This makes it easy for Kant's version to logically arrive at modern art and hers to arrive at imitation stylized reality (with respect to visual arts).

The fundamental premise that leads to the different results is not the aesthetics per se, but the metaphysics and epistemology underlying it.

And I believe Rand admirers go ballistic when you suggest a similarity between their aesthetics--rather than go off in a direction like I just did--because Rand attacked Kant and they are continuing the good fight.

As I said, I am shooting in the dark right now, but from the discussions I have read up to this point, my understanding seems to be the case.

At any rate, I believe your concept is worth looking into rather than dismissing it outright.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

We Objectivists can't have Kant or even some cant without the Rand decant of Kant

--Bkant

can't say what Kant said and Kant can't care about Kant or cant or can't or Bkant

[Selene]

We Objectivists can't have Kant or even some cant without the Rand decant of Kant

--Bkant

can't say what Kant said and Kant can't care about Kant or cant or can't or Bkant

Bkant just can't help himself...