Art and Subobjectivity

[Dragonfly]

Did you take a look at the site? It's not too clear what's going on, if the trainer is specifically giving commands.

On the video that I've seen it's quite obvious that the trainer is directing the movements of the elephant; no doubt the choice of color will also be that of the trainer. It's equally obvious that some of the paintings never could have been made without such direction. It is art, but not art made by elephants. It's art made by using elephants.

[Dragonfly]

Also, under no circumstances is human excrement ever art.

Oh, but it can be, it's just shitty art.

[Danneskjold]

I am inclined to agree with Dragonfly on both of his last posts. I would also have to add that excrement has to be used a specific way for it to be art just the same as paint.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I, too, agree.

Michael

[Danneskjold]

In the case of the so-called "elephant art" the elephant, for all intensive purposes, is little more than a tool with which to hold the paint brush for as long as the trainer is directing it. Directing can be giving it a step by step process or by training it to react a certain way to certain stimuli. In either case the elephant is not consciously attempting to create art. This is in the same way as if you had a giant bar on then end of which was a paint brush and you tried to paint with it. It may not be pretty, but you did make the painting.

[sjw]

Michael,

Aping Rand's Jargon? I accept the philosophy of Objectivism--for the most part. Did so independently. Yep, thought over it a lot...all by myself. There are disagreements--even on the given topic here. But yeah, I agree with the philosophy. So what?

Yes, obviously agreeing with Rand is not "aping Rand's jargon." I think what Michael really means is that he's upset that he can't find an appropriate insult.

[Ellen Stuttle]

I only know of the animal paintings that *I* posted--and even if I thought a person had done it--no, I wouldn't think it was art. Do you have some other painting in mind? If so, I never saw it. Which specific one are you speaking of.

(Sigh.) Try a post from Jonathan addressed to you, dated January 30, in reply to your post.

Victor is so attentive to what's going on.

Well, okay, just one quick observation. [....]

Here are more animal paintings:

I think that a lot of people, if they were to encounter these images without knowing that they were created by animals, would call them art.

Those are the ones Ellen said she would call art before you went apeshit.

And those are the ones Ellen still says Victor would also call art if he saw them without being told how they were produced. Not art by a trained artist; art by an immature artist, but art nonetheless. This is all instructive about why Victor isn't seeing the skill in the Kandinskys. Because of extra-mural information so that he isn't looking at what's there to be seen in the work. Btw, I think that Jeff could do something as good (or rather something as amateur) as these paintings.

Ellen

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Edited January 31, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

The fact that these are somewhat representational is merely coincidence.

How would you know that by looking at the work itself? (Incidently, apparently it isn't coincidence; it's instruction, but the question remains: How could you tell by looking just at the painting?)

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

Did you take a look at the site? It's not too clear what's going on, if the trainer is specifically giving commands.

On the video that I've seen it's quite obvious that the trainer is directing the movements of the elephant; no doubt the choice of color will also be that of the trainer. It's equally obvious that some of the paintings never could have been made without such direction. It is art, but not art made by elephants. It's art made by using elephants.

That's a good way of describing it, "art made by using elephants."

All the paintings shown at the site which are any good at all are done by elephants in Thailand. I wonder if they all have the same trainer. And I continue to wonder just what the elephant actually sees -- a question to which I'm not expecting to learn the answer. ;-) But speaking of the colors, do elephants have color vision, do you know? A lot of mammals don't.

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael,

Aping Rand's Jargon?

In this case, the aping is more directly of Torres and Kamhi.

Ellen

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[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

I start to despair of having a decent discussion about modern art in an environment where insulting and not paying any attention (but posturing Rand) is the norm. I can't even get to the nature of entities in abstract art without a long series of posts that deal with other matters and completely ignore the issue. I think this subject is important. And the good people, the ones who have contributed with some very enlightening information, are getting tired of being ignored and misrepresented, so they are abandoning the discussion. For instance, Christian. Here is a post he made on Jan. 8:

I'm curious, does anyone here draw a meaningful distinction betwixt "art" and "design"??

For example, if the work of Kandinsky and other abstract artists doesn't qualify as "art" by Randian standards, then what about FLW's stained glass windows, etc?

Then a discussion ensued where Victor claimed that abstract art required no skill. Christian observed that this included the FLW works he referenced. Then this turned into a defense of saying that FLW had no skill (as an architect), and the fact that these works were the ones being discussed was pushed aside. Shayne came on with something about nobody could be that dishonest and then came the Keating and Toohey crap with Victor cheer-leading.

I found this particularly distracting and insulting because, by his work as NB's webmaster, Christian has done more for Objectivism than either of these guys have ever done. In your case, your hubby was directly involved with Rand in an ITOE project and you have shed a lot of light on her from various perspectives. You take her seriously and not in a way to debunk her, which is the posture of her enemies. You help keep active interest in her alive. Or look at Jonathan's work and see if this is not Romantic Realism at its finest.

But these guys think that calling people like you and Christian and Jonathan "Keating and Toohey" (who were anti-Objectivist) is actually doing something intellectual and intelligent, and the noise level without content increases.

The mistakes abound. I have to keep repeating past images and phrases to remind Victor what is actually being discussed. When he is not busy getting what was stated wrong, he even outright asks what it is. He simply doesn't pay attention before posting. (Jeff tags along, but he is young and gets seduced into heckling, but even still, once in a while he asks some good questions.)

Meanwhile, there are some very good ideas that have been discussed. I do hope those who are making intelligent contributions to this thread stick around. I am learning much despite all the heckling.

I do understand that it is frustrating when a person puts a lot of thought into a post, then it gets buried because of a large number of rapid-fire posts with hardly any content follow it. Who has time to wade through all that to find the good post from before?

It's a sad day for Objectivism when the ideas are not strong enough to speak for themselves and heckling is resorted to in order to stop people from discussing ideas. Why not start a LaRouche chapter of Objectivism? That's the actual level being attempted on this thread. Just saying words like "abstraction" and "entity" once or twice doesn't mean that the ideas were discussed and fleshed out, so it's OK to start slinging names.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

This post is a reponse to something Shayne said last night. He expressed amazement as to what some of those posting here are doing here, what they see in Objectivism at all that they're participating. Despite Shayne's denegrating way of expressing his reaction, I'd like to give a brief account of how and why I arrived here. Some others here besides Shayne might also be curious, though without the implied insults.

---

My own initial interest in Rand, ironically, was literary. I loved and love literature, and I recognizing her skill as a writer. I was unaware back then (in June 1961, when I first read Atlas) that she took herself seriously as a philosopher. I thought even then that Galt's Speech was crudely worked out qua philosophy, that parts of it were right but other parts wrong and other parts just flatly asserted (and not clearly interpretable as written), most important of these being her brief pronouncements re volition.

At the time, I'd already figured out my own ethics, proceeding along a line of reasoning similar to hers though with differences. I didn't then place importance on the differences; later I was to think the differences were of significance not only in details of derivation but in living-ones-life results. Also, more than a year prior to her starting to publish ITOE, I figured out -- in a sudden moment of so intense a "Eureka" experience, I nearly drove the car I was driving at the time off the road -- basically the same insight which she calls the "objective" nature of knowledge (I called it the "relational" nature of knowledge). The one area in which I feel truly indebted to her philosophically is that of politics, her delineating the moral case for capitalism. I don't know that I'd have come to that on my own, politics being a subject in which I had next to zero interest back then.

In spring '63, I learned that there was an organization teaching her ideas (NBI) and I subscribed to "The Objectivist Newsletter," acquiring all the back copies to that date. My reaction was always about half and half mixed between agreement and irritation with the strident tone and the frequent moralizing. I took two of the NBI courses offered in Chicago (I was enrolled at Northwestern, in Evanston): Basic Principles of Objectivism and Basic Principles of Objectivist Psychology. Again, my reactions were mixed.

I then took a course by Nathaniel called something like "A Critical Survey of Psychological Theories." Now I had no love for Behaviorism, which dominated the research environment then, including prominently at Northwestern (some top people of the Behaviorist approach taught at Northwestern; Donald Campbell was about the sole renegade). I nonetheless knew that Nathaniel's presentation was a caricature. To the extent I knew anything, which wasn't much of an extent, about other theories he presented, I could tell he was caricaturing those also. I became irritated enough I basically concluded that there was something wrong with the whole Objectivist "attitude."

I continued to read the Newsletter, and "The Objectivist" when the format changed. But I'd often get behind in reading. It's indicative of my getting behind that I wasn't aware for awhile that there'd been a hiatus in publishing schedule during the months preceeding the announcement of the split. When I caught up to my not having received new editions for two or three months, I assumed that I must have neglected to renew my subscription. (I sent in a renewal, with the result that I got duplicate copies for several months following the resumption of publication.)

Upon moving to New York City in September 1986, I was curious to see what NBI headquarters looked like, and after I'd found an apartment and started looking for a job, I toddled over to the Empire State Building to visit the NBI offices. I was informed then that there had been a split between Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden. Oh, I wondered, did she finally realize that a lot of what was being presented as psychology wasn't good? I didn't ask the question in that form, instead as, Has there been a disagreement between them? No, the issue was personal, I was told. An announcement would be forthcoming.

As things happened, I ended up being present while said announcement was being typeset (I'd happened to meet the typesetter, and she'd invited me to keep her company while she was typing the item). I've told the story elsewhere on this list. I'll skip it here.

It wasn't until after Thanksgiving that I met any of the New York area "students of," except the typesetter. I'd made no attempt to meet any of them. What happened such that I then became involved in O'ist circles was a "lucky" encounter at a little restaurant where I'd gone for lunch. I was working a few blocks from the 34th street offices to which The Objectivist staff had moved; on the ground floor was a restaurant where I sometimes ate.

One day, there was this heavy black girl talking to the counter person about paintings. She several times used the term "sense of life." I enquired as to where she'd heard the term. She and I liked each other and she invited me to go along the next week to a meeting of what was called "The Stamford New Intellectuals." This was a group which had been meeting for some while before the split but which had discontinued meetings in the first months following their learning of NBI's demise. (The New York people had learned of this before Rand's statement appeared.) The meeting that first night of resumption was heavily attended. Among the attendees was Larry Gould.

My fate was sealed.

I would have dropped out of the whole scene because of the kind of behavior and dissension I observed amongst most of the Objectivists I proceeded to meet in the months immediately after that initial meeting -- had it not been that Larry was one of them. (His behavior, I'll add, wasn't like that of most of the others.) I stayed around because of him.

Somewhat later down the road, I began to meet others whom I found interesting. Larry and I ended up with a couple interlocking circles of friends. One of those circles included some of the most intellectually aware of the New York (and environs) group. (David Kelley, who wasn't living in New York, was among them. He joined our discussions when he was in town.)

Meanwhile, in early 1970, I met Allan Blumenthal and became interested to take his psychology courses -- because he was he, not because of "who" he was in relationship to Objectivism. Through connections made via his courses, I got to know still others of the "inner circle" and "second circle" group. (I already knew Leonard Peikoff prior to the first course I took with Allan; I'd met him at Brooklyn Poly, where Larry was working at the computer center. In '72, Larry went to Temple to pursue graduate work, but meanwhile he'd participated in the Epistemology Seminars, and thus I got to know George Walsh and some others.)

The summary of this is that I ended up "being there" at some crucial moments and junctures. In a way, I'm sort of like Josephus, I suppose: he happened to be "around" for some significant portions of history in the early days of the Christian era. I became interested by the whole scene more or less as a phenomenon.

Still later, for about ten years -- through most of the 80s -- I lost interest to the extent I was barely noticing what was going on. But then David's split with Leonard reawakened my interest. Jumping ahead to 1999, through an email correspondence with Nathaniel, I indirectly learned of the then-Cornell list, later OWL. I joined that out of curiosity, just a few months before the original Atlantis was set up. Through Atlantis, I "met" a lot of other people, some of whom, though they're prominent in wider libertarian circles, I'd never heard of before, such as George Smith.

At any rate, I've continued since about 1990 to be interested as observer and fellow traveler. I don't consider myself an Objectivist and never have thought of myself as an Objectivist. Rand's theories of art are an area on which from the time she penned the articles I've had divergences I consider significant.

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen,

I start to despair of having a decent discussion about modern art in an environment where insulting and not paying any attention (but posturing Rand) is the norm.

Michael,

If it's any consolation to you (maybe in a gallows humor sort of way), I can report that this general sort of thing almost invariably happens if one tries to discuss aesthetic issues on their own terms with Objectivists. There are some deep reasons for this, deeper than I have the energy now to try to address, but I'll give a couple quick indications.

One thing is that a lot of O'ists feel that if Rand is majorly criticized in any area, the whole edifice falls. I think that that factor is less present on this list than on most, but it might be partly operative.

Another is that most people who become Objectivists do not have that much of a background in artistic areas. With many of them, although they were strongly affected by HER novels, they weren't literarily inclined before encountering those. I think that more people with a visual-arts background become interested by her than those with a literary background. But quite a number of Objectivists learned most of whatever they think they know about the visual arts from Rand.

Victor of course isn't in the category of not having a visual-arts background. But Victor is one of the most extreme I've encountered in list land at not tracking. I've encountered others who don't notice even the meaning of what they themselves are replying, given the context in which they're replying. But Victor is pretty extreme. And it is frustrating trying to have a discussion when he'll come along denying even that he said what he did say, and also not knowing what particular art works are being talked about, etc.

I agree with you, though, that despite the noise level "there are some very good ideas that have been discussed." And I too hope that those who are trying really to discuss the issues involved in painting will stick around. If nothing else, I've been much enjoying seeing the art works they post!!

Ellen

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[Danneskjold]

I actually learned Rand's explicit definition of art not long before this thread was started so I would not really count myself amongst those who have learned most of my total knowledge about visual arts from Rand. As a matter of fact, I have held that completely abstract modern art is not art since I found out that there was a such thing as completely abstract modern art.

I don't understand why an Objectivist would feel that the entirety of the philosophy is under attack if Rand's view on art was wrong. It's at the bottom of the chain in her philosophy anyway, and is by far the least directly connected to the four links above it.

I just think it is self-evident that you cannot have a subjective definition and that the insitutional definition is a subjective one. I did take the time to explain on the second (I believe) page of this thread if anyone cares to look. I also think it is pretty obvious that the skill-less forms of art are a blatant example of the enshrinement of mediocrity, although that has nothing to do with a cognitive definition of what is and is not art.

[Jonathan]

I haven't much time for discussion at the moment but wanted to make a couple of quick comments:

Kevin, that was a wonderful post (#530). I often read your posts and think, "Yeah, that pretty much says it all. Nothing to add to that." But now I realize that something really should be added: "Please post more often."

Not to make a big deal out of it, MSK, but I don't call my work "Romantic Realism." Rand was a wonderful artist and thinker, she has inspired me in countless ways, and I respect the hell out of her, but I don't want to categorize my work using her terms as she meant them. If I had to categorize my work, I'd want to place the emphasis on the visual rather than on any narrative elements. I've heard Albert Moore's work described as Abstract Realism, and I think that might be a pretty good fit for my work as well, unless others here have better suggestions.

And thank you for the "at its finest," MSK.

J

Edited February 1, 2007 by Jonathan

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jonathan,

I admit that was a bit of rhetorical excess on my part (and that extends to Helen and Christian), but I was trying to make a point. My apologies if that made you uncomfortable. (Extended to the others, too.)

I understand that you are not painting Greek gods and goddesses next to factories and so forth. (Sorry, I couldn't resist. That crack was aimed not at Rand, but at those who would denigrate the painting of Frank O'Connor in Rand's name if they came across it and did not know it was by him.)

Let's put it this way (going from the other end). According to the requisites of Romantic Realism, your work can be judged very favorably, and obviously much more favorably than, say, Kandinsky. You do not just talk about it. You can do it.

I was outraged that someone would call people of your caliber "Keatings and Tooheys," or the soul-mates of the same, claiming that they were the rational ones. All they had to do is look at what you do to see there is nothing in common.

Christian stated in an earlier post that he loved much in the Cordair gallery, but that was not the whole story in art for him. I can't speak for you, but I am pretty sure that this is your position, too. And Ellen's. It certainly is mine.

What these people get out of blanking that fact out and trying to depict you and us others as haters of Romantic Art, I don't know. I do know that it has nothing to do with reality and more to do with some fantasy in their own heads. I stand by my aping Rand comment.

Michael

[Victor Pross]

[Ellen speaking of the elephant art].

And those are the ones Ellen still says Victor would also call art if he saw them without being told how they were produced.

Ellen, I have already given my answer...so has Kat and Dragonfly, as I agree with them. They made sense. You don't. Move on.

-Victor

Edited February 1, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Victor Pross]

Victor of course isn't in the category of not having a visual-arts background. But Victor is one of the most extreme I've encountered in list land at not tracking. I've encountered others who don't notice even the meaning of what they themselves are replying, given the context in which they're replying. But Victor is pretty extreme. And it is frustrating trying to have a discussion when he'll come along denying even that he said what he did say, and also not knowing what particular art works are being talked about, etc.

That may be due to my drinking. I use the booze bottles to mix my paints. :turned:

Edited February 1, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Brant Gaede]

I'd like to read Victor's response to Kevin's post #530.

--Brant

Edited February 1, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Victor Pross]

Ellen,

I start to despair of having a decent discussion about modern art in an environment where insulting and not paying any attention (but posturing Rand) is the norm. I can't even get to the nature of entities in abstract art without a long series of posts that deal with other matters and completely ignore the issue. I think this subject is important. And the good people, the ones who have contributed with some very enlightening information, are getting tired of being ignored and misrepresented, so they are abandoning the discussion. For instance, Christian. Here is a post he made on Jan. 8:

I'm curious, does anyone here draw a meaningful distinction betwixt "art" and "design"??

For example, if the work of Kandinsky and other abstract artists doesn't qualify as "art" by Randian standards, then what about FLW's stained glass windows, etc?

Then a discussion ensued where Victor claimed that abstract art required no skill. Christian observed that this included the FLW works he referenced. Then this turned into a defense of saying that FLW had no skill (as an architect), and the fact that these works were the ones being discussed was pushed aside. Shayne came on with something about nobody could be that dishonest and then came the Keating and Toohey crap with Victor cheer-leading.

I found this particularly distracting and insulting because, by his work as NB's webmaster, Christian has done more for Objectivism than either of these guys have ever done. In your case, your hubby was directly involved with Rand in an ITOE project and you have shed a lot of light on her from various perspectives. You take her seriously and not in a way to debunk her, which is the posture of her enemies. You help keep active interest in her alive. Or look at Jonathan's work and see if this is not Romantic Realism at its finest.

But these guys think that calling people like you and Christian and Jonathan "Keating and Toohey" (who were anti-Objectivist) is actually doing something intellectual and intelligent, and the noise level without content increases.

The mistakes abound. I have to keep repeating past images and phrases to remind Victor what is actually being discussed. When he is not busy getting what was stated wrong, he even outright asks what it is. He simply doesn't pay attention before posting. (Jeff tags along, but he is young and gets seduced into heckling, but even still, once in a while he asks some good questions.)

Meanwhile, there are some very good ideas that have been discussed. I do hope those who are making intelligent contributions to this thread stick around. I am learning much despite all the heckling.

I do understand that it is frustrating when a person puts a lot of thought into a post, then it gets buried because of a large number of rapid-fire posts with hardly any content follow it. Who has time to wade through all that to find the good post from before?

It's a sad day for Objectivism when the ideas are not strong enough to speak for themselves and heckling is resorted to in order to stop people from discussing ideas. Why not start a LaRouche chapter of Objectivism? That's the actual level being attempted on this thread. Just saying words like "abstraction" and "entity" once or twice doesn't mean that the ideas were discussed and fleshed out, so it's OK to start slinging names.

Michael

Michael, Michael, Michael,

I read your post seen above. You really make it sound as if I had nothing of significance to say, nothing but flippancy. That's not right.

True, I don't answer every question flung out at me. This might be due to the fact that a, I have a life out side of OL or b, I have been asked the same questions which I have already answered. Still, I don't think a little levity is out of place.

Oh, before I continue, let me say this: How wonderful it is that Christian is doing something for Objectivism by being N. Branden's website designer. Rock on! But see, I don't give a rat's ass about doing "something" for Objectivism. I use the philosophy for my own life--and it has made me a better artist to boot. So contra to Ellen, I don't find it a "danger."

WHEW! That felt good.

Now, as to your statement here:

"Then a discussion ensued where Victor claimed that abstract art required no skill. Christian observed that this included the FLW works he referenced. Then this turned into a defense of saying that FLW had no skill (as an architect)”

:shocked:

Now once again, I never said FLW had no skill—much less having the nerve to say that he had no skill as an architect! Don’t tell me you are now as dishonest as Christian is! I have made this issue clear many times. So if you could keep up with the posts as well, (if I have been lax, sorry) that would be great.

I do maintain that abstract painting has no skill, it is not art. (I say it again!) In regards to stain glass windows, my father use to do that for a while. He was creative that way. He never considered himself an artist though, but rather a craftsman. He said I was the artist in the family. Stain glass is design—not art. Abstract painting (if it is an “abstract painting”) is neither art or design. It is paint on a canvas.

That you favor Christian, Ellen, and Jonathan on this thread is very understandable. They are on the same page with you. You more or less agree with them. That’s fine. I can live with that. But don’t pretend that your biasness isn’t transparent. Also, for what it’s worth, yes, I do get sarcastic and can bite back when I think someone is taking a cheap shot…that’s just the way I am. This does not mean I don’t respect you.

-Victor

Edited February 1, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Danneskjold]

So what's with the fascination about the psychology of the people who disagree? I couldn't tell you who started but now there are very few actual arguments to try to counter because nobody is actually talking about art so much as they are talking about the other side and why they are obviously flawed in their thinking which is made apparent by their position which shows the obvious flaw in their thinking made apparent by their position which shows the obvious flaws in their thinking. Oh...Wait...Hmm. In any case, both sides are guilty.

[Danneskjold]

In my experience, good abstract work requires a lot more real skill and a far more sophisticated and individualistic "eye" to pull off, than good figurative work. I liken abstract art to jazz or free verse. Anyone can pick up a sax and start improvising, but not everyone can play like Charlie Parker. And anyone can write

some sentences

and arrange them

haphazardly

down a page

in lines of varying length

without giving the T. S. Eliots of the world anything to worry about.

There are very obvious reasons for this. These reasons are that both of them have structure. Anybody haphazardly doing any of those things do not.

But let's return to the father of Abstract Expressionism, Mr. Jackson Pollock and his infamous masterwork, Lavender Mist:

I'm always very impressed with this work. How anyone can take a good look at it and not see a profoundly subtle, ordering mind at work, is pretty amazing to me. No, really, I'm not being fanciful in the least. To my mind a good piece of Abstract Art creates what I call a profound associative field. And that is extremely difficult to do.

Let me match your assertion with one of my own. This work has the subtleties of the aftermath of an explosion at a yarn factory.

Let me explain. Our minds seek out visual order almost compulsively. Our brains are hardwired to make the visual data we receive comprehensible. Our minds are often so obsessive about creating order that it can be very difficult to simply see what is in front of us. Beginning art students usually have to "unlearn" the mind's symbolic visual language in order to be able to draw accurately what they simply see. Ask a non-artist to draw a human eye, for instance, and you will likely get a familiar image of a circle within an almond shaped elipse. It can take weeks of hard work for the student to be able to lay these compulsive symbols aside, but once he does, a whole world of magnicent complexity and mystery opens up. The whole world is new and unknown and must be drawn to be understood!

Ok, so let's break this down. You're saying that our minds seek out visual order. I will agree with this part, and say it might have something to do with why you see order in this painting. It may be less the artist's intentions than it is your own head desperately searching for some type of order in that mess. You actually confess to exactly this later on.

Also, if you ask a non-artist to draw an eye they draw...an eye? What doese an artist draw when they are told to draw an eye (supposing we are talking about a human eye)? It doesn't seem like there's a lot more to it than the shape, at least not as far as we can percieve.

So, to my mind, a great work of Abstract Expressionism like Lavender Mist is practically a master class in unprejudiced perception in a single work. Anyone can throw random slashes of paint at a canvas, but it takes an extraordinary eye to keep the image from resolving one way or another. One can stare at a cloud and see a face or an animal, but that's as far as you get with clouds. The associative field of a great piece of Abstract Art can seem nearly infinite--the moment you think you see something in it, the larger context of the work refutes it. There is no face or animal anywere in Lavender Mist--take a good long look at it and try to track the things you almost see in it. Is Lavender Mist flat, or does it express depth? Flat like a map or deep like a foggy morning landscape? Are there objects in the mist? People? Houses? Points of fire? A city? A battle? A line of monks walking slowly up a hill?

So what you're saying is that you can't actually see anything in it? That may be because there isn't actually anything there.

And yet, like the beginning art student who doesn't really look at what's in front of him but instead looks for the symbols his brain is preconditioned to seek out, the too-literally minded viewer of Lavender Mist may become frustrated because his mind's attempts to deliniate and classify what he sees come to nothing. His inability to find the familiar and the known may cause him to lash out at the work, to try to domesticate it that way. What crap, he says. Meaningless chicken scratch! A child could do better.

This paragraph is applicable to almost anything that doesn't have form. By saying this about anything that doesn't have an explicit form you can consider absolutely anything art.

But what such a viewer misses out on, I think, is the opportunity Pollock grants him to experience the viewer's own creative soul. What meaning do we seek to impose on the work? What thoughts and associations, unbidden, arise within our own perceptive field? To look into Lavender Mist and really see the work, is to participate in the Artist's creative process. When we look at Lavender Mist on it's own perceptual terms, we are all artists caught in the moment of creation.

Same can be said for anything that is completely abstract. This does not make it skilled. Also, it means that anything you find is a product of your head, not his. He didn't depict anything, he just makes you think he did. Seems like you're the one creating the art, not him.

What I find most troubling about this whole discussion, though, is the way it tends to make visual art over as a sub-genre of literature (and literature a sub-genre of philosophy, for that matter); as if the visual in art were merely the illustration of the artist's entirely prosaic thoughts and principles. As if there's nothing worth investigating on purely visual terms, with metaphors that have no relationship to the written word. Why paint an image if you can explain it away in a few paragraphs of text? Why would anyone want to do that?

-Kevin

Why paint it if you can explain it in a paragraph? Because it is infinitely more beautiful in paint form.

Edited February 1, 2007 by Jeff Kremer

[reason.on]

Christian stated in an earlier post that he loved much in the Cordair gallery, but that was not the whole story in art for him.

Indeed; I discovered the Cordair gallery through old Atlantis (I feel like I should mumble something in Latin here...maybe Mike Hardy could help), and at various times have found a well-spring of inspiration, and comforting shelter from what I think can some times feel like a labyrinth of pretentious, cluttery noise (a sizable portion of what we most often see in the modern creative world). There are times in life, I think, when it is really important to have images, ideas, and styles such as Rand loved handy (what she would have called "Romantic Realism"); to be able to reference them, see them, experience them. And, it can seem that these particular reference points are hidden away, or non-existent. The Cordair gallery certainly makes it so they are never out of reach. I really appreciate that.

They are currently showing one of my absolute favorite paintings...It is called "Just Music", by Theo van Oostrom.

I'm also very fond of this one:

"Lunch Break", by Quent Cordair

And they also have one of my favorite Capuletti's:

Greensky

Yet, in terms of ART (the big picture) there is so much that is missing there, and I'm sure the absences are in the name of Rand. To name just a few, there are no abstract pieces, no highly stylized pieces, not even any pleasing complex design work, few intellectually challenging pieces, no tragedy, no irony, no wit, no worry, no darkness, and only any "drama" of a particular flavor.

As much as I really love or enjoy many of the paintings there, I'd never try to corral the sum total of "art" into similar works of like and kind; to attempt to do so seems to me almost barbaric.

RCR

Edited February 1, 2007 by R. Christian Ross

[Victor Pross]

Jackson Pollock was appallingly ill-prepared, by training and temperament and intellect, to the daunting challenge of becoming a skilled artist - an actual artist. That he succeeded to the extent that he did itself a remarkable feat, given his severely handicapped and unruly personality. This is due to nothing more than cleaver marketing. Pollock’s reputation as an “artist” has relied heavily on abstruse critical jargon…that has relied heavily on flowery adjectives. That art critics treat Pollock’s oeuvre as if it were a magnificent achievement rather than what one honest observer has said: It is a “highly uneven body of work which is scarcely comparable to the greatest paintings of art history.”

I am reminded of a passage from Ron Merrill’s book, The Ideas of Ayn Rand:

“As the delineates of Toohey’s little games, Rand provides an analysis of one of the most common, and frustrating, con games of our culture: intellectual snobbery. Today, more than ever, what passes for high culture is dominated by those who pretend to admire the ridiculous, the incomprehensible, the discussing, and sneer at those who ‘can’t understand.’

(NOTE FROM MSK: The passage by Merrill from p. 52 of The Ideas of Ayn Rand is slightly misquoted. The correct is: “As she delineates Toohey’s little games, Rand provides an analysis of one of the most common, and frustrating, con games of our culture: intellectual snobbery. Today, more than ever, what passes for high culture is dominated by those who pretend to admire the ridiculous, the incomprehensible, the disgusting, and sneer at those who ‘can’t understand.’”)

Any young person who has studied Heidegger; or seen Lonesco’s ‘plays’; or listened to the ‘music’ of John Cage; or looked at Andy Warhol’s ‘painting’---has experienced that feeling of incredulous puzzlement: But this is nonsense! Can I really be expected to take this seriously?

In fact, of course, it is necessary for it to be nonsense; if it made sense, it could be evaluated. The essence of modern intellectual snobbery is the ‘emperor’s new clothes’ approach. Teacher’s, critics, our self-appointed intellectual elite, make it quite clear to us that if we can’t see the superlative nature of this ‘art’—why, it merely shows our ignorance, our lack of sophistication and insight. Of course, they go beyond the storybook emperor’s tailors, who dressed their victim in nothing and called it fine garments. The modern tailors dress the emperor in garbage.

Rand brilliantly exposes this deception, and her portrait of Lois Cook, an emperor’s tailor if there ever was one, provides some of the novel’s most entertaining and illuminating moments.”

-Victor

Edited July 31, 2007 by Michael Stuart Kelly

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now once again, I never said FLW had no skill—much less having the nerve to say that he had no skill as an architect! Don’t tell me you are now as dishonest as Christian is! I have made this issue clear many times. So if you could keep up with the posts as well, (if I have been lax, sorry) that would be great.

Victor,

This right here illustrates the whole problem. Nobody ever said you claimed that FLW had no skill as an architect. Yet you defend against that charge and start hollering "dishonest!" You are defending against something that doesn't exist.

You are seeing a meaning in those words that simply isn't there, but you want to see it. (Kind of like what you claim that people do with some abstract art, as a matter of fact.)

Let me repeat. Christian never took you to task for saying FLW had no skill as an architect. That crept in because you wanted it to. He tried to show you a logical connection between your own words, but you haven't disagreed or explained or clarified. You have refused to think.

Here is the syllogism:

FLW's stained glass windows is abstract art.

Abstract art takes no skill to produce.

THEREFORE, it takes no skill to produce FLW's stained glass windows.

There is nothing about architecture in this thought and there never was. But there certainly is architecture implied when you start to holler something like, "You are a liar when you say I claim the FLW has no skill. That is ridiculous."

I don't like to tell intelligent people what they should or should not post, but you need to slow down long enough to read properly. Constant correction of your understanding is drastically lowering the level of this discussion. You stated:

"True, I don't answer every question flung out at me. This might be due to the fact that a, I have a life out side of OL..."

But you have enough of a life to make a huge volume of repetitious posts (to all posters on this thread) that contradict each other, completely misunderstand what you are criticizing, and heckle the poster or ideas you disagree with (sight unseen, or I should say, sight incorrectly seen). This same pattern has been present in several issues involving your understanding.

I am not taking YOU to task as a person, nor your views. You already know I like you. I am taking your competence to task. I HATE incompetence. I HATE it. Your posts on this thread are showing a high degree of incompetence and it pisses me off. You are better than that.

Michael