Art as Microcosm (2004)

[reason.on]

I am very pleased that you have returned to reading my posts.

Sorry, Victor...I still don't read your posts. I generally only see what is quoted by others (the above being an exception).

RCR

[James Shay]

Jim, maybe it is a matter of semantics. But when I say “abstract art” I do not refer to “rectangular grids” in the style of “checkerboards” or “color charts”—which, by definition, are meaningful shapes, even if the exact meaning of these designs are left to conjecture. When I refer to as “abstract painting” I mean the purposefully arbitrary splattering of paint that is utterly inscrutable. Sir, I invite you to check your art history and the various theories that are at the base of actual 20th century abstract painting. I certainly hope you won’t then conclude that primitive man was engaging in that type of primitivism. Hey, prehistoric man was well advanced it seems to the modernists and postmodernists to come it seems. :turned:

More in a bit.

Victor, I am not sure what you mean here. Looking at the theories contained within many different kinds of art, you could very well could find something to trash within the intellectual and spiritual content of most of them, if you were so inclined. By the time you finished, where would early Christian Renaissance be? Poor Giotto! I would greatly miss him. And what about the early sculptures of Akhenaten, designed specifically in a distorted perspective to scare the daylights out of the hoi polloi? Shall we rubbish that, as well? And so on.

Your last 2 sentences, in particular the last, are only partly intelligible to me.

RE: Human figures in caves. Check 'em out. Stick figures at best. One possible shaman in Les Trois Freres. Don't know how that fits into your 'heroic man' theories. Great paintings of animals, lousy depictions of humans.

Jim

[James Shay]

I am very pleased that you have returned to reading my posts.

Sorry, Victor...I still don't read your posts. I generally only see what is quoted by others (the above being an exception).

RCR

Christian, about the Venus sculptures: I think you raise a good question regarding what is abstract and what is figurative. It's also interesting to think about the ways in which the totemic, abstract and figurative intersect. I'll have to think about it.

Thanks for bringing this up. I love prehistoric and primitive art. My wife does what Michael rightly calls "primitive sculpture". She subscribes to "Raw Vision", which is about modern primitive art, and "Tribal", which is about the entire field of ethnographic art. Recently, she has sculpted a number of iconic female forms, which I hope to get up on the website before too long.

Jim

Jim

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen, I would like to believe the shamanistic theory, because it makes particular sense when you look at various spatial sequences of how people apparently moved through the caves. It makes them more architectural for me, in the same sense as movement through a cathedral, mosque, or whatever.

OH!! I hadn't realized that you were at all favorably disposed to the theory; I'd interpreted your remarks as your being inclined to pooh-pooh it. Maybe too much experience with the O'ist world; it's a theory which doesn't necessarily sit well with O'ist thought.

The gripe in the prehistory community is that the theory is based on ethnological comparisons, and those comparisons may very well not be valid.

As I said, I haven't read the Clottes (and Lewis-Williams) book, so I don't know how the case is argued there. But John Haule's (btw, that's pronounced like HEW-el) reasons for placing credence in it include much more than ethnological comparisons. He's including that people today who do shamanistic postures and procedures experience the same sequences of image-types. He's done some training in shamanistic methods, and has experienced this stuff himself. I, too, have experienced it spontaneously in some procedures I've done, in ignorance that there was commonality with shamanistic methods. John gave a talk on this stuff to our Ct. Association for Jungian Psychology back in the 2005-2006 lecture series. I was like, Oh, Wow! at what he was describing -- and showing; he used a slide show as well as lecturing. The general form of the image-type sequence was so familiar to me from my own experiences.

John's theory -- and he has other reasons as well behind his whole train of reasoning -- is that it's in the nature of the human nervous system that certain sequence types occur under certain conditions. The conditions can easily be thought plausible ones to have been involved in those caves, given the way they are structured, their being underground, and the way the lighting would have been. He reported experiences of people who had gone through using just torches or burning tallow as illumination.

But, it sure makes sense. When I went through the Lascaux replica the ordered progression seemed very sensible and orchestrated - especially, when one leaves the Hall of the Bulls through the keyhole opening, over which the stampeding herds seem to meet. At that point, it seems that the artists had definately built up a sense of tension meant to carry forward into the next chamber.

Oh, neat, that you've seen the Lascaux replica. Apparently, from John's report, the Chauvet cave is even more incredible.

Ellen

___

Edited February 20, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

That's odd...I see my image fine.

The first one you posted is her...

Christian,

For the record, here is what I see:

Since I see that, others also might.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

And this is what I see:

[Ellen Stuttle]

RE: Human figures in caves. Check 'em out. Stick figures at best. One possible shaman in Les Trois Freres. Don't know how that fits into your 'heroic man' theories. Great paintings of animals, lousy depictions of humans.

Here's another bit from John Ryan Haule's book in progress, Evolution and Archetype: The Biology of Jung. This touches on the issue of the human figures, and makes some further points re the shamanism thesis:

The shamans. Compared with the care devoted to the depiction of animals in the Ice Age caves, the representation of humans is surprisingly crude, even deformed. Apart from the cave entrances, there are almost no female forms; but there are many vulvas. The men are few in number, sometimes represented nearly as stick figures, and sometimes fantastically depicted as having -- or perhaps wearing -- the body parts of animals, and often displaying an erect phallus. Such figures have been called sorcerers or shamans in light of the world-wide tradition of shamanic practices based upon cultivated trance states. In his classic overview, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964), Mircea Eliade assembles a huge collection of anthropological reports from every region of the earth, and argues that shamanism is characterized by visionary journeys on the part of an expert, the shaman, who sometimes rides or takes on the figure of an animal for the purpose. Shamanism envisages a three-tiered cosmos in which the shaman, alone, is capable of descending to the underworld or ascending to the celestial realm. The depiction of shaman-like male figures on the walls of the caves, therefore, has given rise to several theories about the overall meaning of the painted caves, that they represent the visionary realm encountered in the shaman's journey.

          One of the most intriguing of these emerges from the work of Felicitas D. Goodman (1990), retired anthropology professor who specialized in possession-trance religions and decided to use her retirement to study the nature of trance states.

[....] "As soon as we controlled for posture [Goodman writes], something much more important began emerging. The experiences began falling into place. . . . we found that each posture predictably mediated not just any kind of vision, but a characteristic, distinctly different experience" (Ibid., 20).

          Hoping to find classic, tried-and-true postures that had been used since time immemorial, Goodman studied ancient art, looking for bodily postures that appeared frequently. One of the postures she selected is that of the bird-headed shaman figure from the Lascaux cave, which is nearly exactly duplicated in a painting of Osiris rising to the heavens from 12,000 years later in Egypt. Both are lying flat on their backs, but with their heads elevated thirty-seven degrees above their heels. The right arm of the shaman lies next to the body, elbow slightly bent, right hand resting on its outside edge with the thumb pointing upward. The left arm extends straight out from the shoulder, left thumb pointing downward.

[....]

Many of the participants [using this posture for the exercises] saw birds in their visions or became birds or were taken away by birds. Such imagery suggests the reason why the Lascaux shaman has a bird's head (or is wearing a bird mask). Also, beside the shaman's body is a bird-topped staff.

          Goodman found similar typical trance themes were generated by the other postures she attempted. It thereby appears that she has discovered another kind of archetype or mental module, a species-wide guiding principle characterized by patterns of bodily energy and visionary content made possible by certain typical postures. The yoga tradition has known this for millennia, and Lee Sannella's (1992) work on the Kundalini experience -- which bears some similarities to Goodman's Lascaux shaman experiments -- may be an encouraging beginning toward understanding the mechanics of the process.

Ellen

___

Edited February 20, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

Since I see that, others also might.

Me, too.

E-

[reason.on]

Since I see that, others also might.

Me, too.

Michael, I don't get it...why would the IMG REF come through ok for me, but not anyone else?

Btw, I updated the image link...

RCR

Edited February 21, 2007 by R. Christian Ross

[Victor Pross]

Jim, maybe it is a matter of semantics. But when I say “abstract art” I do not refer to “rectangular grids” in the style of “checkerboards” or “color charts”—which, by definition, are meaningful shapes, even if the exact meaning of these designs are left to conjecture. When I refer to as “abstract painting” I mean the purposefully arbitrary splattering of paint that is utterly inscrutable. Sir, I invite you to check your art history and the various theories that are at the base of actual 20th century abstract painting. I certainly hope you won’t then conclude that primitive man was engaging in that type of primitivism. Hey, prehistoric man was well advanced it seems to the modernists and postmodernists to come it seems. :turned:

More in a bit.

Victor, I am not sure what you mean here. Looking at the theories contained within many different kinds of art, you could very well could find something to trash within the intellectual and spiritual content of most of them, if you were so inclined. By the time you finished, where would early Christian Renaissance be? Poor Giotto! I would greatly miss him. And what about the early sculptures of Akhenaten, designed specifically in a distorted perspective to scare the daylights out of the hoi polloi? Shall we rubbish that, as well? And so on.

Your last 2 sentences, in particular the last, are only partly intelligible to me.

RE: Human figures in caves. Check 'em out. Stick figures at best. One possible shaman in Les Trois Freres. Don't know how that fits into your 'heroic man' theories. Great paintings of animals, lousy depictions of humans.

Jim

Jim,

We are not on the same page. What "heroic man" theories do you mean? I never said anything about "heroic art or man." Would you care to tell me what the hell you are talking about?

-Victor

edit: Oh, I think I get it. You see me as a caricature rank-and-file Ortho-type Objectivist who speaks in weepy tones of "heroic man" and "heroic art". Is that it? :no:

Edited February 21, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Christian,

The new image looks fine for me.

Michael

[Victor Pross]

I am very pleased that you have returned to reading my posts.

Sorry, Victor...I still don't read your posts. I generally only see what is quoted by others (the above being an exception).

RCR

Christian, you are reading my posts. Come on now, I know you are. Hee-hee. :turned:

-Victor

[Victor Pross]

Jim, maybe it is a matter of semantics. But when I say “abstract art” I do not refer to “rectangular grids” in the style of “checkerboards” or “color charts”—which, by definition, are meaningful shapes, even if the exact meaning of these designs are left to conjecture. When I refer to as “abstract painting” I mean the purposefully arbitrary splattering of paint that is utterly inscrutable. Sir, I invite you to check your art history and the various theories that are at the base of actual 20th century abstract painting. I certainly hope you won’t then conclude that primitive man was engaging in that type of primitivism. Hey, prehistoric man was well advanced it seems to the modernists and postmodernists to come it seems. :turned:

More in a bit.

Victor, I am not sure what you mean here. Looking at the theories contained within many different kinds of art, you could very well could find something to trash within the intellectual and spiritual content of most of them, if you were so inclined. By the time you finished, where would early Christian Renaissance be? Poor Giotto! I would greatly miss him. And what about the early sculptures of Akhenaten, designed specifically in a distorted perspective to scare the daylights out of the hoi polloi? Shall we rubbish that, as well? And so on.

Your last 2 sentences, in particular the last, are only partly intelligible to me.

RE: Human figures in caves. Check 'em out. Stick figures at best. One possible shaman in Les Trois Freres. Don't know how that fits into your 'heroic man' theories. Great paintings of animals, lousy depictions of humans.

Jim

Jim,

You are misunderstanding me. I will try, as best I can, to make my position absolutely clear.

I am a defender of representational painting—first and foremost. This is a centerpiece point that I wish to drive home. So of course I won't be "trashing early Christian Renaissance." Why would I trash art--any kind of actual art?

As I have argued and argued, that art (representational painting in this case) --whatever the subject matter--is the most powerful means of creating embodied abstractions. In art we can experience in a concrete form an astonishing prosperous meaning through the artist’s work. Human cultures have invented countless ways to embody abstractions. Rituals, ceremonies, and holidays help us appreciate the meaning of important events in personal life and social life, such as birth, marriage, death, victories.

Art has performed this function in every culture and religion. Ancient Greek culture, for example, placed a high value on physical beauty, grace, and, in men, athletic strength as seen in the sculpture by Polyclitus whose Doryphorus set the classical cannon for the proportions of the male body. Art can impart the most complex, the most precise, the subtlest, the most evocative, the most powerful and effective form of an embodied abstraction.

The pioneers of abstract Expressionism, on the other hand, sought to revert and contradict the above approach by focusing on a supernatural realm via the pipe-lines of their emotions.

I am speaking of the philosophical origins of abstract art—which is, basically, a theory driven school that has been propagated by various occult beliefs. No, I am not talking about a religious theme found in this or that representational painting.

Even Jonathan granted this: “Victor is right about some of the views that drove the artists and theorists who came up with abstract art. Some of their belief systems were pretty loopy, and if you read more of Kandinsky you'll definitely run into it.”

So-called “Abstract art” was spawned by an absolute subjectivism. We have here the mind-body dichotomy: The early proponents of abstract art embraced the opposite pole of the mistaken mind-body dichotomy by 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.

-Victor

Edited February 21, 2007 by Victor Pross

[James Shay]

Jim, maybe it is a matter of semantics. But when I say “abstract art” I do not refer to “rectangular grids” in the style of “checkerboards” or “color charts”—which, by definition, are meaningful shapes, even if the exact meaning of these designs are left to conjecture. When I refer to as “abstract painting” I mean the purposefully arbitrary splattering of paint that is utterly inscrutable. Sir, I invite you to check your art history and the various theories that are at the base of actual 20th century abstract painting. I certainly hope you won’t then conclude that primitive man was engaging in that type of primitivism. Hey, prehistoric man was well advanced it seems to the modernists and postmodernists to come it seems. :turned:

More in a bit.

Victor, I am not sure what you mean here. Looking at the theories contained within many different kinds of art, you could very well could find something to trash within the intellectual and spiritual content of most of them, if you were so inclined. By the time you finished, where would early Christian Renaissance be? Poor Giotto! I would greatly miss him. And what about the early sculptures of Akhenaten, designed specifically in a distorted perspective to scare the daylights out of the hoi polloi? Shall we rubbish that, as well? And so on.

Your last 2 sentences, in particular the last, are only partly intelligible to me.

RE: Human figures in caves. Check 'em out. Stick figures at best. One possible shaman in Les Trois Freres. Don't know how that fits into your 'heroic man' theories. Great paintings of animals, lousy depictions of humans.

Jim

Jim,

You are misunderstanding me. I will try, as best I can, to make my position absolutely clear.

I am a defender of representational painting—first and foremost. This is a centerpiece point that I wish to drive home. So of course I won't be "trashing early Christian Renaissance." Why would I trash art--any kind of actual art?

As I have argued and argued, that art (representational painting in this case) --whatever the subject matter--is the most powerful means of creating embodied abstractions. In art we can experience in a concrete form an astonishing prosperous meaning through the artist’s work. Human cultures have invented countless ways to embody abstractions. Rituals, ceremonies, and holidays help us appreciate the meaning of important events in personal life and social life, such as birth, marriage, death, victories.

Art has performed this function in every culture and religion. Ancient Greek culture, for example, placed a high value on physical beauty, grace, and, in men, athletic strength as seen in the sculpture by Polyclitus whose Doryphorus set the classical cannon for the proportions of the male body. Art can impart the most complex, the most precise, the subtlest, the most evocative, the most powerful and effective form of an embodied abstraction.

The pioneers of abstract Expressionism, on the other hand, sought to revert and contradict the above approach by focusing on a supernatural realm via the pipe-lines of their emotions.

I am speaking of the philosophical origins of abstract art—which is, basically, a theory driven school that has been propagated by various occult beliefs. No, I am not talking about a religious theme found in this or that representational painting.

Even Jonathan granted this: “Victor is right about some of the views that drove the artists and theorists who came up with abstract art. Some of their belief systems were pretty loopy, and if you read more of Kandinsky you'll definitely run into it.”

So-called “Abstract art” was spawned by an absolute subjectivism. We have here the mind-body dichotomy: The early proponents of abstract art embraced the opposite pole of the mistaken mind-body dichotomy by 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.

-Victor

Victor, thanks for your thoughtful and spirited reply.

I have read back over some of my postings to you. With regard to what I said to you above about the philosophies contained within art and other comments of mine: if I have offended you with the occasionally snarky tone of some of them, I am sorry. But, I have found your continued denigrating of the art I love to be very off-putting, and to me, offensive.

I don't know where else to go with this. No amount of wrangling over the internet is going to change my mind about abstract art.

Jim

[Victor Pross]

Jim, maybe it is a matter of semantics. But when I say “abstract art” I do not refer to “rectangular grids” in the style of “checkerboards” or “color charts”—which, by definition, are meaningful shapes, even if the exact meaning of these designs are left to conjecture. When I refer to as “abstract painting” I mean the purposefully arbitrary splattering of paint that is utterly inscrutable. Sir, I invite you to check your art history and the various theories that are at the base of actual 20th century abstract painting. I certainly hope you won’t then conclude that primitive man was engaging in that type of primitivism. Hey, prehistoric man was well advanced it seems to the modernists and postmodernists to come it seems. :turned:

More in a bit.

Victor, I am not sure what you mean here. Looking at the theories contained within many different kinds of art, you could very well could find something to trash within the intellectual and spiritual content of most of them, if you were so inclined. By the time you finished, where would early Christian Renaissance be? Poor Giotto! I would greatly miss him. And what about the early sculptures of Akhenaten, designed specifically in a distorted perspective to scare the daylights out of the hoi polloi? Shall we rubbish that, as well? And so on.

Your last 2 sentences, in particular the last, are only partly intelligible to me.

RE: Human figures in caves. Check 'em out. Stick figures at best. One possible shaman in Les Trois Freres. Don't know how that fits into your 'heroic man' theories. Great paintings of animals, lousy depictions of humans.

Jim

Jim,

You are misunderstanding me. I will try, as best I can, to make my position absolutely clear.

I am a defender of representational painting—first and foremost. This is a centerpiece point that I wish to drive home. So of course I won't be "trashing early Christian Renaissance." Why would I trash art--any kind of actual art?

As I have argued and argued, that art (representational painting in this case) --whatever the subject matter--is the most powerful means of creating embodied abstractions. In art we can experience in a concrete form an astonishing prosperous meaning through the artist’s work. Human cultures have invented countless ways to embody abstractions. Rituals, ceremonies, and holidays help us appreciate the meaning of important events in personal life and social life, such as birth, marriage, death, victories.

Art has performed this function in every culture and religion. Ancient Greek culture, for example, placed a high value on physical beauty, grace, and, in men, athletic strength as seen in the sculpture by Polyclitus whose Doryphorus set the classical cannon for the proportions of the male body. Art can impart the most complex, the most precise, the subtlest, the most evocative, the most powerful and effective form of an embodied abstraction.

The pioneers of abstract Expressionism, on the other hand, sought to revert and contradict the above approach by focusing on a supernatural realm via the pipe-lines of their emotions.

I am speaking of the philosophical origins of abstract art—which is, basically, a theory driven school that has been propagated by various occult beliefs. No, I am not talking about a religious theme found in this or that representational painting.

Even Jonathan granted this: “Victor is right about some of the views that drove the artists and theorists who came up with abstract art. Some of their belief systems were pretty loopy, and if you read more of Kandinsky you'll definitely run into it.”

So-called “Abstract art” was spawned by an absolute subjectivism. We have here the mind-body dichotomy: The early proponents of abstract art embraced the opposite pole of the mistaken mind-body dichotomy by 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.

-Victor

Victor, thanks for your thoughtful and spirited reply.

I have read back over some of my postings to you. With regard to what I said to you above about the philosophies contained within art and other comments of mine: if I have offended you with the occasionally snarky tone of some of them, I am sorry. But, I have found your continued denigrating of the art I love to be very off-putting, and to me, offensive.

I don't know where else to go with this. No amount of wrangling over the internet is going to change my mind about abstract art.

Jim

Thank you, Jim. I figured I have ruffled feathers when it comes to my views about abstract art, and I am constantly off-putted when it comes to other people’s views—here at OL or out there in the world. When feathers are ruffled and when we feel our values being attacked, we become upset and it is thereafter very, very difficult to maintain a civil discourse—even if that discourse is not a debate. That’s a worthy challenge in itself. But I’m also a strong advocate of freedom of thought and freedom of speech. Being off-putted is a small price to pay for the advantages these freedoms offer.

-Victor

Edited February 22, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jim,

OH NOOOOOOOO!!!!

You... you... you.. LOVE abstract art?

How could you?

Don't you see that this is an assault on man's mind? That by loving modern art, you are loving the irrational? That you are trampling over 1 billion years of the martyrs of mankind, who rose out of the primal ooze and strove and fought mightily to become conscious against all the forces of evil?

This is disgusting!

There are two warring camps here: the long-suffering tortured victims whose deaths bear witness to man's glory and the dishonest subjectivist parasites who hijacked an entire civilization in the early 1900's and have entrenched their maggoty claws into the very bowels of discernment and prudence ever since, in other words, the representationalists and the modern artists.

WHICH CAMP DO YOU BELONG TO?

You paint both, you say? And you are a brilliant architect to boot?

Well, that's even more disgusting. Don't you see that there are two warring camps within your very soul? That you can never be happy? That you are internally torn with an unbearable conflict where your true rational mind is trying, against all odds, to overcome the Kant/Plato mental-mush syndrome that is rotting your spirit? Even though you are hellbent on destroying your integrity while you wipe your filthy feet on reason? Don't you ever wonder why you wake up at 3 in the morning in a cold sweat?

YES! YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO YOUR MIND AND TO ALL THAT IS GOOD!

The fact that you... you... you... CHOOSE to love abstract art shows the unspeakable limits of your depravity. This is an act of evasion on such a massive scale that it can only be because you have irrevocably damaged the best within you. You are much worse than Adolf Hitler. You are a Robert Stadler. You are a Benedict Arnold of the soul. You are the ENABLER OF EVIL.

If you can't change your psycho-epistemology around and mold it with proper moral aesthetics, and I mean quick, dammit—post haste—I would suggest suicide, but that would be too good for you. You need to suffer before you die.

Michael

[reason.on]

Jim,

OH NOOOOOOOO!!!!

You... you... you.. LOVE abstract art?

How could you?

Ah, but the true sin is not in the loving of the work, it is in its classification as "art" proper. The lovers are merely ignorant, it is the cartographers who will burn in hell.

RCR

Edited February 22, 2007 by R. Christian Ross

[Victor Pross]

Jim,

OH NOOOOOOOO!!!!

You... you... you.. LOVE abstract art?

How could you?

Ah, but the true sin is not in the loving of the work, it is in its classification as "art" proper. The lovers are merely ignorant, it is the cartographers who will burn in hell.

RCR

Christian is more on the right note. I don’t see ‘abstract painting’ belonging in a category as ‘art’ by any definition, save for the institutional one. Regarding the above, I don't see MSK's characterization as a true reflection of where I stand, but it is an accurate portrayal of many who do deride modernism and abstract art. There are some glimmers that do reflect me, but they are overwrought. MSK's post has helped me to understand the light I have been casted into and why so much hostility and misunderstanding ensued this conversation.

Edited February 22, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

MSK's post has helped me to understand the light I have been casted into and why so much hostility and misunderstanding ensued this conversation.

Victor,

I'm horsing around, but you still didn't get it. Nobody is against you for holding the views on art you hold (despite disagreements), nor are they casting you in any light because of those views. (Sorry, you just ain't martyr material.)

The objection is to the way you constantly cast them for their views and the enormous quantity of posts you make doing it, trying to drown out all discussion.

But, please, carry on. I have hopes for the better.

Michael

[James Shay]

Jim,

OH NOOOOOOOO!!!!

You... you... you.. LOVE abstract art?

How could you?

Don't you see that this is an assault on man's mind? That by loving modern art, you are loving the irrational? That you are trampling over 1 billion years of the martyrs of mankind, who rose out of the primal ooze and strove and fought mightily to become conscious against all the forces of evil?

This is disgusting!

There are two warring camps here: the long-suffering tortured victims whose deaths bear witness to man's glory and the dishonest subjectivist parasites who hijacked an entire civilization in the early 1900's and have entrenched their maggoty claws into the very bowels of discernment and prudence ever since, in other words, the representationalists and the modern artists.

WHICH CAMP DO YOU BELONG TO?

You paint both, you say? And you are a brilliant architect to boot?

Well, that's even more disgusting. Don't you see that there are two warring camps within your very soul? That you can never be happy? That you are internally torn with an unbearable conflict where your true rational mind is trying, against all odds, to overcome the Kant/Plato mental-mush syndrome that is rotting your spirit? Even though you are hellbent on destroying your integrity while you wipe your filthy feet on reason? Don't you ever wonder why you wake up at 3 in the morning in a cold sweat?

YES! YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO YOUR MIND AND TO ALL THAT IS GOOD!

The fact that you... you... you... CHOOSE to love abstract art shows the unspeakable limits of your depravity. This is an act of evasion on such a massive scale that it can only be because you have irrevocably damaged the best within you. You are much worse than Adolf Hitler. You are a Robert Stadler. You are a Benedict Arnold of the soul. You are the ENABLER OF EVIL.

If you can't change your psycho-epistemology around and mold it with proper moral aesthetics, and I mean quick, dammit—post haste—I would suggest suicide, but that would be too good for you. You need to suffer before you die.

Michael

Michael, DEFENDER OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND FINE,

I have my gun in hand. Your tirade is pasted onto my coffin.

Seriously (sort of), in the above you have written many things that, from time to time throughout many years, have wandered through my sometimes irrational mind. I plan to print your words and tack them prominantly in the studio. They are really priceless. Thank you.

Instead of remaining in the studio to purposefully ponder the abstract/figurative dilemma, I am wasting precious moments better spent in contemplation as , with my daughter and her friend, I prepare for three mindless days of skiing at Squaw Valley.

Jim, NEOPRIMITIVE RUNNING DOG and SUBJECTIVIST PARASITE

[Victor Pross]

Gentlemen,

Just to make myself clear, I certainly don’t care to influence anybody’s decision to paint abstract or to avoid it, to start or stop enjoying it --either as an admirer or painter of it.

I don’t really care. Jim, you are free to paste grass on typing paper using Elmer’s glue and call it ‘art’ for all I care. Knock yourself out. Hell, MSK, stand center stage at some gallery (and not your living room or otherwise it may not be recognized by the art institution) and cut your wrists with broken glass and call it “performance art" or "glass-music." It doesn’t really matter to me. Knock yourself out--both of you. It’s your life and work.

What I am interested in is a civil dialogue as to, say, the philosophical roots of this unique 20th century phenomenon known as “abstract art” (this theory-driven movement) and the modernist movement in general. What are the origins of modernism, of ‘abstract art.’ It did not arise in a vacuum. In fact, I am developing some ideas that the root of so-called abstract art rests in Plato’s philosophy and I will post a short article on this soon.

Time being, I’m interested in the question of identifying the nature and purpose of art, exploring definitions and finding out if so-called “abstract art” fits the bill given whatever answers are offered.

Now that I think about it, a question does occur to me now: it seems to me that Roger Bissell’s article hasn’t really been discussed in this form. I was wondering if Mr. Bissell’s hypothesis of art as a microcosm (and everything such a hypothesis entails) is in dispute or agreement. People seem to be ignoring it, and I wonder why. (Parenthetically, I am sympathetic to Mr. Bissell’s article, and I am disappointed that his work hasn’t been thoroughly discussed. And I have sensed a somewhat frustrated disappointment coming from the man regarding this).

I would like to know if there is complete agreement or general agreement with Mr. Bissell’s views--particularly with his views of art as a microcosm. I would like to know how one could merge such an approach to the issue of abstract art—non-representational painting. And finally, it would be wonderful to hear from Mr. Bissell himself to have him either confirm or argue that which is discussed on this thread.

To generate a discussion, consider this excerpt from Mr. Bissell:

The term ‘art’ has been used since antiquity to refer to human creation in general. It has also been used m ore narrowly, at least since the eighteenth century,{4} to refer to a special sub-category of human creation, frequently called “fine art” and usually taken to include literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and dance. This is the usage Rand intends when she employs the term “art” in her Objectivist aesthetics writings. Numerous attempts have been made to justify this narrower application of the term “art,” and the history of aesthetics is in part a graveyard for failed definitions.

Because of the influx during the twentieth century of ‘junk pile’ art and non-representational art, as well as attempts to elevate the aesthetic status of photography, various design arts, etc., it is no longer true that anything called “art” can automatically be assumed to be art in this narrower sense.{6} There is no firm, objective criterion for differentiating all of the so-called “fine arts” from the rest of human creation.

Fortunately, there is a criterion that provides a sound basis for differentiating certain ‘fine art’ objects from all other man-made objects. This criterion, based on a nuanced understanding of Rand’s definition of ‘art,’ interprets the phrase, “selective re-creation of reality,” as referring to a certain kind of microcosm usually experienced as a kind of imaginary world.

**

I was fascinated with Mr. Bissell’s section “scholarly Support for the Microcosm View” and his discussion of Aristotle. Perhaps I could urge others to take Mr. Bissell’s article more serious and give it due consideration. Now let’s see if Mr. Bissell’s hypothosis confirms or denies “abstract art” as ART...or not. I don't see that it is.

Does anybody regard Mr. Bissell’s thesis of art as a 'microcosm' and abstract art...as a worthy discussion? I say his work deserves it.

Consider Mr. Bissell's call charge and challenge:

“I will argue, art is …a kind of ‘microcosm,’ specifically, an imaginary world-in-miniature in which the artist embodies and conveys basic abstractions about man and the world—and that the way in which it concretizes these abstractions is the way in which it functions as a cognitive tool.”

If I understand the overall tenor of his talk, I don’t see how abstract painting would fit the bill as art. But then again, Mr. Bissell can elaborate on this. Then, depending on his answer, we can flame him. :turned:

-Victor

Edited February 23, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Roger Bissell]

Victor, you wrote:

Gentlemen,

Just to make myself clear, I certainly don’t care to influence anybody’s decision to paint abstract or to avoid it, to start or stop enjoying it --either as an admirer or painter of it.

I don’t really care. Jim, you are free to paste grass on typing paper using Elmer’s glue and call it ‘art’ for all I care. Knock yourself out. Hell, MSK, stand center stage at some gallery (and not your living room or otherwise it may not be recognized by the art institution) and cut your wrists with broken glass and call it “performance art" or "glass-music." It doesn’t really matter to me. Knock yourself out--both of you. It’s your life and work.

What I am interested in is a civil dialogue as to, say, the philosophical roots of this unique 20th century phenomenon known as “abstract art” (this theory-driven movement) and the modernist movement in general. What are the origins of modernism, of ‘abstract art.’ It did not arise in a vacuum. In fact, I am developing some ideas that the root of so-called abstract art rests in Plato’s philosophy and I will post a short article on this soon.

Time being, I’m interested in the question of identifying the nature and purpose of art, exploring definitions and finding out if so-called “abstract art” fits the bill given whatever answers are offered.

Now that I think about it, a question does occur to me now: it seems to me that Roger Bissell’s article hasn’t really been discussed in this form. I was wondering if Mr. Bissell’s hypothesis of art as a microcosm (and everything such a hypothesis entails) is in dispute or agreement. People seem to be ignoring it, and I wonder why. (Parenthetically, I am sympathetic to Mr. Bissell’s article, and I am disappointed that his work hasn’t been thoroughly discussed. And I have sensed a somewhat frustrated disappointment coming from the man regarding this).

I would like to know if there is complete agreement or general agreement with Mr. Bissell’s views--particularly with his views of art as a microcosm. I would like to know how one could merge such an approach to the issue of abstract art—non-representational painting. And finally, it would be wonderful to hear from Mr. Bissell himself to have him either confirm or argue that which is discussed on this thread.

To generate a discussion, consider this excerpt from Mr. Bissell:

The term ‘art’ has been used since antiquity to refer to human creation in general. It has also been used m ore narrowly, at least since the eighteenth century,{4} to refer to a special sub-category of human creation, frequently called “fine art” and usually taken to include literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and dance. This is the usage Rand intends when she employs the term “art” in her Objectivist aesthetics writings. Numerous attempts have been made to justify this narrower application of the term “art,” and the history of aesthetics is in part a graveyard for failed definitions.

Because of the influx during the twentieth century of ‘junk pile’ art and non-representational art, as well as attempts to elevate the aesthetic status of photography, various design arts, etc., it is no longer true that anything called “art” can automatically be assumed to be art in this narrower sense.{6} There is no firm, objective criterion for differentiating all of the so-called “fine arts” from the rest of human creation.

Fortunately, there is a criterion that provides a sound basis for differentiating certain ‘fine art’ objects from all other man-made objects. This criterion, based on a nuanced understanding of Rand’s definition of ‘art,’ interprets the phrase, “selective re-creation of reality,” as referring to a certain kind of microcosm usually experienced as a kind of imaginary world.

**

I was fascinated with Mr. Bissell’s section “scholarly Support for the Microcosm View” and his discussion of Aristotle. Perhaps I could urge others to take Mr. Bissell’s article more serious and give it due consideration. Now let’s see if Mr. Bissell’s hypothosis confirms or denies “abstract art” as ART...or not. I don't see that it is.

Does anybody regard Mr. Bissell’s thesis of art as a 'microcosm' and abstract art...as a worthy discussion? I say his work deserves it.

Consider Mr. Bissell's call charge and challenge:

“I will argue, art is …a kind of ‘microcosm,’ specifically, an imaginary world-in-miniature in which the artist embodies and conveys basic abstractions about man and the world—and that the way in which it concretizes these abstractions is the way in which it functions as a cognitive tool.”

If I understand the overall tenor of his talk, I don’t see how abstract painting would fit the bill as art. But then again, Mr. Bissell can elaborate on this. Then, depending on his answer, we can flame him. :turned:

-Victor

My views on abstract art (some of which is art, IMO) were quoted recently by MSK in post #3 of the "Rational discussion of art" thread. Here are the salient points from that post:

(Jonathan @ Feb 5 2006, 06:51 AM)

Roger wrote,

"There definitely IS representation of reality and expression of metaphysical value-judgements in architecture -- at least, so I argue -- and I continue to be puzzled as to why Objectivists don't get this point."

I don't know that they don't get the point. I think it's much more likely that they're reluctant to accept it because they're worried about its implications regarding abstract painting and sculpture, which they don't want to recognize as art.

Speaking of which, Roger, am I correct in assuming that you believe that the type of abstract art Rand wrote about in the quote Michael provided above is art according to your views, and should be considered art even according to Rand's?

After all, in seeing laughter and defiance in abstract lines, circles, triangles, squares and their relationships to one another, she was describing moral qualities, feelings and intentions as reflected in actions, events and situations. She grasped the shapes as powerful imaginal symbols that represent fundamental abstractions by means of stylized embodiment, or as virtual persons engaged in certain kinds of virtual motions and actions to which she sympathetically responded as if they were a real or fictional persons, no?

J

(Roger Bissell @ Feb 5 2006, 05:41 PM)

Jonathan wrote:

...Roger, am I correct in assuming that you believe that the type of abstract art Rand wrote about in the quote Michael provided above is art according to your views, and should be considered art even according to Rand's?

According to my views, yes. According to Rand's, I'm not sure.

My view is that art fundamentally presents an imaginary world (a microcosm) which is set off from this world (with or without a frame or proscenium &c. to help one's viewing it that way), and which functions as an imaginary world to the extent that its content functions as things in the imaginary world. That's primary re-creation and secondary re-creation, respectively. This really isn't straying all that far from Rand, and how she explained the necessity of "representationalism." But it allows more latitude for representationalism than she seemed to, especially in her later years when she railed against "modern art."

My view allows, for instance, that a building primarily re-creates a world in the form of a stylized human environment and secondarily re-creates (for instance) physical masses exerting force against one another, as a column vs. a roof). It also allows that a musical piece re-creates a world in the form of a stylized tonal landscape, within which various musical events re-create symmetrical and harmonious interactions between entities or conflicting and goal-directed forces exertd by entities, etc. It also allows that, to the extent that geometric figures &c. relate to one another as various masses relate to one another in architecture, abstract art also presents an imaginary world in which even its elements can serve a representational function. [Emphasis added for reply to Victor 2/23/07.]

Teasing out the exact philosophical or emotional meaning of abstract art is the real challenge, and there is much room for scam artists to claim that they are re-creating reality. But discarding it all as non-art is throwing out the baby with the bathwater (or the Binswanger, I should say. :-) ) Whether Rand was willing to discard all modern (= abstract?) art, or just the absolute crap (such as paintings by monkeys and canvases with excrement flung at them), I don't know. She certainly would not rule out "The Scream" as art, just because it had a malevolent view of life. As for geometric/color art, she might have continued to appreciate it, but just as "pleasing pattern" (much as Kant appreciated music) or decoration, rather than "true art." Again, I don't know.

Quoting Jonathan again:

After all, in seeing laughter and defiance in abstract lines, circles, triangles, squares and their relationships to one another, she was describing moral qualities, feelings and intentions as reflected in actions, events and situations. She grasped the shapes as powerful imaginal symbols that represent fundamental abstractions by means of stylized embodiment, or as virtual persons engaged in certain kinds of virtual motions and actions to which she sympathetically responded as if they were a real or fictional persons, no?

I think that this interpretation goes way beyond the evidence. Rand certainly could have responded to abstract art that way in her younger days. But I think that's putting way too sophisticated an aesthetic spin on what she wrote in that rough draft for We the Living. It seems to me that she was simply (and simplistically) cheering anything that broke up the soul-deading regularity and state-serving rigidity of Soviet Realism. (Did that style exist in her Russian days, or did it come along later?)

Not that I'm a authority on sensitivity and insightfulness into the "true meaning of art," but it seems a stretch to me to attribute "laughter" or "defiance" specifically to shapes or colors. IMO, anything that flew in the face of official Soviet approval could potentially have been responded to by Rand as a defiant flaunting of statist authority and oppressive culture. In other words, I'm wondering if Rand wasn't simply projecting her own exultant feelings about abstract art's challenge to Soviet culture into the paintings.

Therein lies the real problem of analyzing and interpreting abstract art. Suppose you are an artist wanting to use abstract art to convey a worldview or a strong emotion of some kind. (Or an aesthetician or art critic claiming that a certain worldview or emotion is being presented by an abstract artwork.) The litmus test of your sincerity (and competence) -- especially if the general public simply does not get your work -- is this: can you point to objective indicators in your artwork that embody the artwork's supposed meaning?

If you, or your intelligent, intellectual supporters, cannot at least give some explanation of the artwork's supposed meaning, and point to the means you used to convey that meaning, how can you expect anyone else to get it? If you're using a secret code, let us in on it! If you're just pulling our leg, well, get your hand off our leg! (And stop trying to get our tax dollars to support your nonsense!)

That, I think, is what Rand, in her later, less naive approach to art, was concerned to combat: the charlatans who had the disingenuous attitude of, "To those who understand, no explanation is necessary; to those who do not understand, no explanation is possible." Rand's reply to this was: it's got to be representational somehow, and if it isn't, it isn't art. She just erred (I think) on the conservative side, when it came to what counted as representational and what didn't. (But again, I'm not sure about that, because she said very little about modern art, except vitriolic putdowns of the easiest, most despicable targets.)

Victor, that will have to do. I don't want to get into an item-by-item consideration of cutting-wrists-with-glass and excrement-smeared-on-canvas claims of being legitimate art. Personally, I think WAY too much time is spent on trying to qualify and disqualify items from categories, and way too LITTLE time on discovering and creating new things. Smacks of power struggles to me, which are not how I want to live my life. One thing I will say: I think it is a mistake to treat "modern art" or "abstract art" as a category of uniformly non-representational and/or aesthetically meaningless junk. As with so much of life, art challenges us with the task of identifying what it is and what it means, and even the unpleasant, insulting, degrading, or frightening is meaningful and valid as a perspective on the world (and a perspective on our means of viewing the world).

As for the discussing of my essay, I am glad for anyone's sincere attempt to engage with it (including those who have promised to critique it, but have not yet found time to do so), but I do not think that anything I have said, either above or in the essay, proves that all of abstract and/or modern art falls outside the category of art, as defined by Rand (and interpreted by me, of course).

I am sympathetic to those who think that Rand's ideas such as "sense of life" and "metaphysical value-judgment" have the potential to be (and have been) used perversely by those who are more interested in being judgmental and wielding power than they are in learning and engaging in civil discussion. But nonetheless, I think that the ideas themselves are very worthwhile and valid, and rejecting them (along with Rand's definition of "art") is throwing out the insightful baby along with the judgmental bathwater. (It's like so much of Objectivism, which is capable of being used as a tool of living -- or a weapon with which to defeat those one finds threatening.) So, I am somewhat at odds with the recent arguments that Ellen Stuttle and MSK have made, though I have no time to get into the tangled discussions that are still going on.

Best to everyone,

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

So, I am somewhat at odds with the recent arguments that Ellen Stuttle and MSK have made, though I have no time to get into the tangled discussions that are still going on.

Roger,

I want to make it clear that I have not thrown out Rand's ideas like "sense of life" and "metaphysical value-judgment." I have merely posited a more restricted use for them.

(Back to finding time for something more valuable, like discussing a certain valuable essay... )

Michael

[reason.on]

I want to make it clear that I have not thrown out Rand's ideas like "sense of life" and "metaphysical value-judgment." I have merely posited a more restricted use for them.

In general, the trouble with Rand's "sense-of-life" aesthetic theory is that I don't see anyway that it must necessarily be true. Sure it can be true, and it may be a useful lens, but that isn't of much use in terms of an over-arching aesthetic theory.

For example, it isn't that difficult for me to choose to create something that isn't reflective of my "sense-of-life". In other words, as I see it there is no direct, "genetic" connection (as I think Rand implies) between the creative process and one's cosmic judgments. Art doesn't necessarily carry any direct linkage to the artist's view of himself or his place in the universe. Consider, for example, the creative process involved in creating a copy of a painting...

Exposing, expressing, and realizing one's "sense-of-life" in the creative process is one way, but not the only.

RCR

Edited February 24, 2007 by R. Christian Ross

[Dragonfly]

Exposing, expressing, and realizing one's "sense-of-life" in the creative process is one way, but not the only.

It is Rand's Procrustean bed in art.