Michelle Marder Kamhi's "Who Says That's Art?"


Ellen Stuttle

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What is "desaturated blue"? You don't want to stick your finger into the blue flame--or any flame of course--of a welder's torch.

--Brant

The blue of a welder's torch would be a very saturated blue.

J

If an unsaturated blue is a lighter blue then that's entropy? Blues can get so dark they might as well be black. Or do you mean a lighter blue broken up with lighter colors as if the blue were disappearing, scattering?

--Brant

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Okay. The more saturation of blue the more heat. It's the other direction I don't get qua esthetics. If a painting using daytime sky blue is cool I can see the case for that. However, not when I actually look at the sky except at dusk. I think of (sun) heat.

--Brant

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Okay. The more saturation of blue the more heat. It's the other direction I don't get qua esthetics.

Yes, some people don't get it. Some people are completely oblivious to the very long history of colors in nature and their valid reasons for being referred to as warm, cool, hot or cold. These people are often visually unaware and unobservant, and they need everything pointed out to them. They think of a single man-made exception to the overwhelming general rule of nature, and, since they're visually unaware and unobservant of the general effects of color in nature, they think that their exception is the rule.

If you don't know or understand the classification of colors along a spectrum of hot to cold as observed all around us in nature (as opposed to arbitrarily choosing to observe them under very unusual and controlled man-made conditions such as a welding torch or incandescent black body experiment), I would suggest that you should read some introductory-level books on art. It's very elementary stuff, and, sorry to be blunt, but I'm not interested in wasting my time dropping down to that level of instruction for novices here. Honestly, this is kindergarten-level stuff.

J

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From Ellen's timely and helpful citation of Kamhi's Criteria for Visual "Fine Art"

Like all art, works of visual art are made with special skill and care. They are not the product of mere whim or chance.

Visual art is representational. It consists of two- or three-dimensional images of actual or imagined persons, places, objects, or events.

Such representations are not necessarily realistic in style, but they are intelligible and emotionally meaningful within their cultural context. They embody, in recognizable forms, ideas and values that are not only of personal significance important to the individual who created them but also have the potential to interest and move others.

A true work of art is the product of more than just technical skill. It involves a distinctive sensibility, an intensity of vision that brings the subject to life in a compelling way.

Any work that does not meet all these criteria is, in my view, either failed art or non-art.

Here's a bit of seemingly abstract art:

dunn_CLobe.jpg

If one sees no referents to existence and reality in a picture, our visual centre is confused, the certainty of making an identification is compromised and our percepts remain unformed. No percept, no concept. Man seeks out reality and his reality in all things (it is his nature) and therefore looks for what he can 'relate' to in a painting, which means any sign of life, or of nature or existence.

I do I admit attach significance to morality and art, and do see a connection between collectivism-statism and the declining standards of identification of what art IS (and what it isn't).


Tony, do you want to give a try using Kamhi's criteria to sort the above image -- or give a stab at interpreting its faults and follies or strengths and morals in terms from your note above?

Does this particular image invite us to see a connection between collectivism/statism ... and the IS/ISN'Tness of it?

Is it or isn't it, to your mind?

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Have I an ongoing history of "kindergarten-level stuff" with you?

--Brant

No, you don't have a history of kindergarten-level stuff. But on the issue of desaturated blue being cool, that's kindergarten, and I'm not interested in teaching or arguing kindergarten-level stuff. If you're seriously interested, go read books on the subject. Maybe start with the knowledge that the notion of warmth and coolness of colors is not a modernist or postmodernist concoction, but rather has been around since the beginning of time. It's not something new and shocking and hard to observe and understand.

J

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Have I an ongoing history of "kindergarten-level stuff" with you?

--Brant

No, you don't have a history of kindergarten-level stuff. But on the issue of desaturated blue being cool, that's kindergarten, and I'm not interested in teaching or arguing kindergarten-level stuff. If you're seriously interested, go read books on the subject. Maybe start with the knowledge that the notion of warmth and coolness of colors is not a modernist or postmodernist concoction, but rather has been around since the beginning of time. It's not something new and shocking and hard to observe and understand.

The problem seems simply to be your saying desaturated blue instead of blue. There are two logical implications--that saturated would be hotter and that it would be colder. In any case, I note your arrogant, condescending anger. I don't accept being talked down to by anyone so you are blocked, permanently.

--Brant

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Have I an ongoing history of "kindergarten-level stuff" with you?

--Brant

No, you don't have a history of kindergarten-level stuff. But on the issue of desaturated blue being cool, that's kindergarten, and I'm not interested in teaching or arguing kindergarten-level stuff. If you're seriously interested, go read books on the subject. Maybe start with the knowledge that the notion of warmth and coolness of colors is not a modernist or postmodernist concoction, but rather has been around since the beginning of time. It's not something new and shocking and hard to observe and understand.

The problem seems simply to be your saying desaturated blue instead of blue. There are two logical implications--that saturated would be hotter and that it would be colder. In any case, I note your arrogant, condescending anger. I don't accept being talked down to by anyone so you are blocked, permanently.

--Brant

Instead of speculating and picking and nitpicking from a state of ignorance, go out and learn what cool versus warm colors are, and why.

I'm not angry. I'm just not interested in experiencing the boredom and aggravation of dealing one more time with someone who doesn't know the most elementary things about color but brings up the irrelevant objection that certain blues in certain limited conditions are hot, and then clings to that argument and refuses to learn, observe and acknowledge all of the contexts in which blue is cool.

J

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Kamhi cannot imagine and will not believe that others can experience in abstract visual forms what she experiences in abstract aural forms!

There's a difference between "abstract" aural forms and "abstract" painting and sculpture in that musical forms are systematically identifiable whereas whatever form is seen in abstract painting and sculpture is projective - similar to seeing figures in the stars in the sky.

That's false. The colors and forms in abstract paintings and sculptures are systematically identifiable. Things such as proportional relationships, color coordination, contrast and balance are systematically identifiable in abstract works. Pollock's work is often cited as reliably making use of the golden mean, for example. And keep in mind that Pollock's work does not represent the limit of abstract styles. Others' styles are quite overtly geometrical and systematic.

It occurs to me that I may have misunderstood your meaning in the above.

I'm not surprised that you didn't get what I was hinting at, since my hint was very badly expressed.

I was making an initial attempt to alert you to a problem which I think undercuts your whole way of arguing for "abstract" painting and sculpture as being art. The problem is your frequent analogizing to music, and describing music as an "abstract" art.

Ironically, though you criticize what you (mistakenly) see as Rand's attempt to turn music into a language, you appear to accept her viewing music as "an abstraction of man's emotions," and you try to perform a similar "abstraction" of emotional significance from "abstract" painting and sculpture.

But I think that Rand was wrong at base in thinking of music as "abstracting" from reality. To the contrary, music is an elaborating of forms derived from the overtone series. That musical forms can suggest and can arouse emotions doesn't mean that the forms come from a distillation of, an abstraction from emotions. Music really is a unique art in that its material is the mathematical relationships of the overtones of pure tones.

I think you'd do a lot better in making a case for "abstract" visual art if you'd sever the Rand moorings instead of trying to analogize to her treatment of an art form about which she had some fundamentally mistaken views.

Regarding systematic identifiability, I didn't mean such things as "proportional relationships, color coordination, contrast and balance," which can be identified in visual arts. I meant the tonal structures of which music is made ranging from particular tones of particular modes or scales, through chords, through compositional segment sequences (such as A-B-A) through movement forms (such as sonata form, minuet or other dance form, or scherzo, or rondo form, etc.) through large-scale compositional forms, all of these formal patterns that recur in an endless number of specific works.

Do you mean that all music is instantly identifiable as music by almost all people, where not all abstract art is? And are you therefore saying that you've somehow arrived at the notion that a requirement of art is that it must be instantly identifiable as art without relying on placards or other outside considerations which explain that it's art?

No, I didn't mean that.

However...

If so, I see no valid reason to impose such a requirement. In fact, the consistent application of such a requirement would mean that quite a lot of literature would cease to be art. Without being informed that a work of literature is a novel -- without its saying "novel" on the cover, and without its being placed in the fiction sections of book stores and libraries -- most people would not be able to tell if if was fictional or if it was a reporting of real events.

Also, the Objectivist view is that the purpose of art is to present a re-creation of reality, and to present it so that the reader or viewer experiences it "as if it were real." It would therefore be rather odd, and contradictory, for Objectivism to hold the position that art is supposed to seem real, but that it is not art if it seems real!

...I think that a novel which a person couldn't tell from the manner of writing was a novel would be an awfully poorly done novel.

You raised a suggestion like that before about We the Living - that without the label "novel" a reader couldn't tell if it was a work of fiction or a documentary. You might not have seen my response, but I replied to the effect that the reader would either have to be a very bad reader of English or reading the book in a very bad translation not to be able that the work is a work of fiction.

Ellen

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. Without being informed that a work of literature is a novel -- without its saying "novel" on the cover, and without its being placed in the fiction sections of book stores and libraries -- most people would not be able to tell if if was fictional or if it was a reporting of real events.

Also, the Objectivist view is that the purpose of art is to present a re-creation of reality, and to present it so that the reader or viewer experiences it "as if it were real." It would therefore be rather odd, and contradictory, for Objectivism to hold the position that art is supposed to seem real, but that it is not art if it seems real!

J

In support of the above, we should point out that since the advent of the New Journalism in the 1960's, non-fiction writers have been using the techniques of novelists to develop their stories: "Instead of employing traditional journalistic story structures and an institutional voice, they constructed well-developed characters, sustained dialogue, vivid scenes, and strong plotlines marked with dramatic tension." http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/411713/New-Journalism

In a lengthy article on the subject, Tom Wolfe, one of the pioneers of the genre, provided an example:

In the fall of 1962 I happened to pick up a copy of Esquire and read a story called "Joe Louis: the King as a Middle-aged Man." The piece didn't open like an ordinary magazine article at all. It opened with the tone and mood of a short story, with a rather intimate scene; or intimate by the standards of magazine journalism in 1962, in any case:

" 'Hi, sweetheart!' Joe Louis called to his wife, spotting her waiting for him at the Los Angeles airport.

"She smiled, walked toward him, and was about to stretch up on her toes and kiss him—but suddenly stopped.

" 'Joe,' she said, 'where's your tie?'

" 'Aw, sweetie,' he said, shrugging, 'I stayed out all night in New York and didn't have time—'

" 'All night!' she cut in. 'When you're out here all you do is sleep, sleep, sleep.'

" 'Sweetie,' Joe Louis said, with a tired grin, 'I'm an ole man.'

" 'Yes,' she agreed, 'but when you go to New York you try to be young again.' "

The story featured several scenes like that, showing the private life of a sports hero growing older, balder, sadder. . .

What the hell is going on? With a little reworking the whole article could have read like a short story. The passages in between the scenes, the expository passages, were conventional 1950s-style magazine journalism, but they could have been easily recast. The piece could have been turned into a non-fiction short story with very little effort.

Today, based on the prose alone, without looking at the cover to identify the work as a a "breathtaking true story" or a "dazzling new novel," it is indeed difficult to tell fiction from reportage. Here's a iist of over 100 popular non-fiction books that read like fiction.

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Yeh, Gonzo journalism - interesting in its effect, for a change of style - but like abstract art I'd quickly grow sick of a regular diet.

An outgrowth [?]of post-modernist, self-ironic art, making the reporter the hero and protagonist, instead of as unseen, 'impartial presence'. Or, casting a real subject as a quasi-fictional character. HS Thompson made it famous/notorious, and Mailer's only unreadable books were in that approximate style.

Isn't it still the rare exception, not the rule? The linked Wolfe article head "...Leading to Demise of the Novel, Rise of New Style Covering Events"--must be satirical! I don't think the style has contributed to less novel writing and sales, and hasn't replaced conventional journalism (though, possibly influenced those "As you can see behind me..."TV journalists). People will still want their fiction as art..

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From Ellen's timely and helpful citation of Kamhi's Criteria for Visual "Fine Art"

Like all art, works of visual art are made with special skill and care. They are not the product of mere whim or chance.

Visual art is representational. It consists of two- or three-dimensional images of actual or imagined persons, places, objects, or events.

Such representations are not necessarily realistic in style, but they are intelligible and emotionally meaningful within their cultural context. They embody, in recognizable forms, ideas and values that are not only of personal significance important to the individual who created them but also have the potential to interest and move others.

A true work of art is the product of more than just technical skill. It involves a distinctive sensibility, an intensity of vision that brings the subject to life in a compelling way.

Any work that does not meet all these criteria is, in my view, either failed art or non-art.

Here's a bit of seemingly abstract art:

dunn_CLobe.jpg

If one sees no referents to existence and reality in a picture, our visual centre is confused, the certainty of making an identification is compromised and our percepts remain unformed. No percept, no concept. Man seeks out reality and his reality in all things (it is his nature) and therefore looks for what he can 'relate' to in a painting, which means any sign of life, or of nature or existence.

I do I admit attach significance to morality and art, and do see a connection between collectivism-statism and the declining standards of identification of what art IS (and what it isn't).

Tony, do you want to give a try using Kamhi's criteria to sort the above image -- or give a stab at interpreting its faults and follies or strengths and morals in terms from your note above?

Does this particular image invite us to see a connection between collectivism/statism ... and the IS/ISN'Tness of it?

Is it or isn't it, to your mind?

Is the concept of 'intelligibility' unintelligible? Do you William, know exactly what you're seeing here -- in human-value terms?

I don't.

I guess it's a photomicrograph of some organic structure. Or an illustration of it. If you are proffering it as abstract art, well, you rather make my point. Visual, and therefore epistemological confusion tends to compromise consciousness, especially in the long run, so too, a rational morality.

It is interesting that many vehement proponents of art (in all its supposed forms) paradoxically back away from admitting to the moral power and influence it has over societies. (Also, at the same time mirroring a society's dominant philosophy).

Iow, in a strongly individualist, independent-minded society, would one expect incoherent, abstract art to succeed and sell prolifically? or in extreme statism to see much Romantic Realist art?

Which is it, guys? morally influential - insignificant?

Can't have it both ways.

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It is interesting that many vehement proponents of art (in all its supposed forms) paradoxically back away from admitting to the moral power and influence it has over societies. (Also, at the same time mirroring a society's dominant philosophy).

Society's dominant philosophy is secular leftism, and leftists generally do not acknowledge the existence of evil. For them, people don't do evil. They are just misunderstood, poor, under privileged, oppressed, abused, mentally impaired victims of social injustice... but never evil. Their only "evils" are politically correct, like creating carbon emissions, second hand smoke, and not recycling. And of course there is the politically correct laundry list: Racist, Bigot, Sexist, Intolerant, Homophobe, Xenophobe, Islamophobe.

So your statement of art's "moral power and influence" naturally doesn't even register on libertine leftist art sycophants, because they lack the moral awareness of evil necessary to to even consider it.

Greg

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But for them the oppressors do evil. Even if they aren't evil they are to be pushed out of the way, eliminated one way or the other--even killed, to clear the way for the new society built on malleable youth. They killed 2,000,000 in Cambodia for that. By this rationale they are not oppressors themselves but liberators, clearing the way for the glorious socialist future after the annihilation of the capitalist class and the withering away of the communist class. Somehow they never get beyond Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin, even if they themselves end up stomped to death or put up for Siberia in show trials.

--Brant

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Yeh, Gonzo journalism - interesting in its effect, for a change of style - but like abstract art I'd quickly grow sick of a regular diet.

An outgrowth [?]of post-modernist, self-ironic art, making the reporter the hero and protagonist, instead of as unseen, 'impartial presence'. Or, casting a real subject as a quasi-fictional character. HS Thompson made it famous/notorious, and Mailer's only unreadable books were in that approximate style.

Isn't it still the rare exception, not the rule? The linked Wolfe article head "...Leading to Demise of the Novel, Rise of New Style Covering Events"--must be satirical! I don't think the style has contributed to less novel writing and sales, and hasn't replaced conventional journalism (though, possibly influenced those "As you can see behind me..."TV journalists). People will still want their fiction as art..

You're confusing the part with the whole. Gonzo journalism, which has been most closely associated with Hunter Thompson, is a "subgenre of New Journalism." New Journalism, in fact, is not primarily about enlarging the role of the writer but about adopting certain techniques associated with the novel to non-fiction prose. The great majority of books on the list I linked to are not written in first person and do not make the reporter a key character. Nor is there any compelling reason to call the genre "post-modernist."

In any case, this is quite irrelevant to Jonathan's point that I sought to illustrate: New Journalism's influence is such that in regard to today's typical best seller, without a cover, "most people would not be able to tell if if was fictional or if it was a reporting of real events."

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[quoting Kamhi] Like all art, works of visual art are made with special skill and care. They are not the product of mere whim or chance.

Visual art is representational. It consists of two- or three-dimensional images of actual or imagined persons, places, objects, or events.

Such representations are not necessarily realistic in style, but they are intelligible and emotionally meaningful within their cultural context. They embody, in recognizable forms, ideas and values that are not only of personal significance important to the individual who created them but also have the potential to interest and move others.

A true work of art is the product of more than just technical skill. It involves a distinctive sensibility, an intensity of vision that brings the subject to life in a compelling way.

dunn_CLobe.jpg

Is the concept of 'intelligibility' unintelligible? Do you William, know exactly what you're seeing here -- in human-value terms?

Is the concept of 'intelligibility' unintelligible to me? No, I don't think so. Do I know exactly what I am seeing? Yes. In terms of human-value -- do I know what I am seeing?

I think I do. However, I came across this and other images by the same artist in 'cultural context' -- so I have a bit of an advantage over your cold reading.

Brant had the quickest and surest response -- these are images derived from biology, "real" things of the world that are reconstructed by the artist.

Following Kamhi's definition, this artwork:

  • is indeed made with special skill and care/not the product of mere whim or chance.
  • is indeed representational, consisting of two-dimensional images of actual or imagined places and objects
  • is quite intelligible and emotionally meaningful within its cultural context.
  • has recognizable forms, ideas and values that are not only of personal significance important to the artist who created them but also has the potential to interest and move others.

Perhaps the fourth criteria shows the weakest link in the 'fine art' chain of necessaries; from your reaction, Tony, this image does not seem to have the potential to move or interest you.

I don't.

Well, which of the criteria has failed to be demonstrated, to your eyes? Are you issuing a judgement that this piece is Not Art (or not Fine Art)?

I guess it's a photomicrograph of some organic structure. Or an illustration of it. If you are proffering it as abstract art, well, you rather make my point. Visual, and therefore epistemological confusion tends to compromise consciousness, especially in the long run, so too, a rational morality.

It is not a photomicrograph. It does depict (is a selective recreation of) an organic structure, a structure that each of us humans depends upon. It does illustrate -- in a novel manner akin to oriental Sume-E style serigraphs** -- something that is difficult to see with the naked eye.

So, it may appear to be an abstract painting, or an abstraction of well-studied slice of anatomy ... I really don't understand how you personally interpret this image as espistemologically confusing. Moreover, I do not understand how your confusion compromises any consciousness. Nor do I grasp how your confusion compromises a rational morality. Not at all. This point is not yet intelligible to me -- or rather the image does not shout 'immorality' to me in any way.

It is interesting that many vehement proponents of art (in all its supposed forms) paradoxically back away from admitting to the moral power and influence it has over societies. (Also, at the same time mirroring a society's dominant philosophy).

Sure, it is interesting, or rather intriguing to me that this particular image is seen as backing away from admitting anything (what can a piece of art admit?), let alone having power and influence over societies.

Does this item of artwork 'mirror society's dominant philosophy'? Sometimes your phraseology is a bit opaque or overloaded with signifiers.

Iow, in a strongly individualist, independent-minded society, would one expect incoherent, abstract art to succeed and sell prolifically? or in extreme statism to see much Romantic Realist art?

Well, first I would have to understand that you are writing off this example of art as an "incoherent abstract." Do I understand you correctly?

Which is it, guys? morally influential - insignificant?

You tell us, Tony, please. The artwork above is "morally influential"? Or is it "morally insignificant"?

Can't have it both ways.

Okay. We can only have it one way -- the correct way -- and since you hold that you can properly and correctly denote this artwork as allied to extreme statism, the ball is in your court. So far, I can glean that you do not think this thing is art. How this non-art accomplishes its terrible work of undermining society and acquiescing to immorality -- I would be interested in a fuller analysis.

I put below an image that follows a style of artwork simllar to the first I posted. It would be interesting and perhaps revealing if you could use the same tools of analysis to this second piece as you did with the first.

_________________________

** here's just one example of the style:

early-spring-plum-sumi-e-nancy-pahl.jpg

Edited by william.scherk
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It is interesting that many vehement proponents of art (in all its supposed forms) paradoxically back away from admitting to the moral power and influence it has over societies. (Also, at the same time mirroring a society's dominant philosophy).

Iow, in a strongly individualist, independent-minded society, would one expect incoherent, abstract art to succeed and sell prolifically? or in extreme statism to see much Romantic Realist art?

Which is it, guys? morally influential - insignificant?

Here is an example of a piece of Fine Art sculpture that could serve as an object of analysis. Tony -- the promoters of this piece celebrate Romantic Realism.

Without going down the rabbithole of 'mixed premises' that infest a 'mixed economy' like the USA, can anyone test this artwork against Kamhi's criteria?

So, yeah, guys -- is this piece of work morally influential or morally insignificant? We can't, according to Tony, have it both ways. It's one or the other.

romantic_Realism.png

(I call this one Maid in a Wind-tunnel with Broken Right Leg and Broken Neck. But don't let that influence your analysis)

Also, do not let the price of the two artworks influence you. The 'micrograph' painting -- or a print -- can be had for $400. The wind-tunnel victim sculpture can be had in 19-inch bronze copy for a mere $2900.

For those folks who cannot wait until I give the 'context' -- the name of the artist/s, the name of the artwork/s, links to the artist sites, etc -- Google has a 'search by image' function.

Edited by william.scherk
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I'm not surprised that you didn't get what I was hinting at, since my hint was very badly expressed.

I was making an initial attempt to alert you to a problem which I think undercuts your whole way of arguing for "abstract" painting and sculpture as being art. The problem is your frequent analogizing to music, and describing music as an "abstract" art.

Music IS an abstract art form: It does not present identifiable aural likenesses of things from reality.

Ironically, though you criticize what you (mistakenly) see as Rand's attempt to turn music into a language, you appear to accept her viewing music as "an abstraction of man's emotions," and you try to perform a similar "abstraction" of emotional significance from "abstract" painting and sculpture.

I think that emotional abstraction is one means that both music and abstract visual art might employ, but I don't think that either form is limited to emotional abstraction. I've mentioned many times that not all people get the same emotions out of the same work of music, and that some works or sections of music evoke no emotions in certain people. Despite such absence of emotion, these people can nevertheless experience the music as being meaningful. If effect, they skip the emotion stage that Rand identified, and go directly to an envisioning stage. They visualize virtual things such as entities, events, attributes and personalities, without necessarily experiencing emotion.

But I think that Rand was wrong at base in thinking of music as "abstracting" from reality. To the contrary, music is an elaborating of forms derived from the overtone series.

Why would forms derived from the overtone series have to be "contrary" to abstracting from reality? There's no reason to see the two as mutually exclusive.

That musical forms can suggest and can arouse emotions doesn't mean that the forms come from a distillation of, an abstraction from emotions.

I agree. Music's means may include abstractions from emotions, but it may also include other means, including abstraction from attributes and behaviors.

Music really is a unique art in that its material is the mathematical relationships of the overtones of pure tones.

The relationships of overtones don't make music non-abstract. Those relationships still have to be interpreted as meaning something, despite their not being identifiable aural likenesses of anything in reality. For example, what does a piece of music mean if it extends or delays the resolution of the overtone structure? If it lingers and does not immediately deliver an expected resolving chord, what is the experience in a listener? It is not one of conscious recognition of "mathematical relationships," but of the music seeming to behave as if it were a living thing which is behaving in a certain way. At least that's been my experience, as well as many people I've talked to. People experience deviations and nuances in the progression of the overtone relationships as what Roger Bissell calls "virtual entities," or "virtual attributes." Those attributes and behaviors are what is abstracted, and emotion, if there is any, is a reaction to the inferred behavior, personality or character of the virtual entities or attributes.

I think you'd do a lot better in making a case for "abstract" visual art if you'd sever the Rand moorings instead of trying to analogize to her treatment of an art form about which she had some fundamentally mistaken views.

My moorings aren't Randian but Kandinskian.

Regarding systematic identifiability, I didn't mean such things as "proportional relationships, color coordination, contrast and balance," which can be identified in visual arts. I meant the tonal structures of which music is made ranging from particular tones of particular modes or scales, through chords, through compositional segment sequences (such as A-B-A) through movement forms (such as sonata form, minuet or other dance form, or scherzo, or rondo form, etc.) through large-scale compositional forms, all of these formal patterns that recur in an endless number of specific works.

The tonal structure of music IS an issue of proportional relationships, as are the rhythm and phrasing structures of the movement forms that you listed. A "mathematical relationship" of overtones means a "proportional relationship." You can actually see the proportions in high-speed photographs of a vibrating guitar or violin string.

J

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William: Oh wow. That first has branch-like growths, the second is recognisably a tree.

Clever. Who'd of guessed? That proves that.

I predicted picture games.

You avoided my questions with your usual rhetoric. To expand on them:

Is art morally important?

Is romantic realism better supportive of individualism (yes-no, sometimes, irrelevant?)

Is individualism supportive of romantic realism?

Is unintelligible art supportive of a rationally-selfish mind?

Do statist-collectivists even understand "a rationally-selfish mind"?

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Jonathan,

A general question: You've said a number of times and ways that Kamhi accuses anyone who claims to experience emotional depth in abstract art of pretending. Can you document that she makes that charge?

Ellen

I don't have the book in front of me right now, but I think it's in chapter 3 where she compares fans of abstract art to the idiot characters in the Emperor's New Clothes who pretended to see clothing that wasn't there. Her position is that people who claim to be fans of abstract art are pretending to see what's not there.

J

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Jonathan,

A general question: You've said a number of times and ways that Kamhi accuses anyone who claims to experience emotional depth in abstract art of pretending. Can you document that she makes that charge?

Ellen

I don't have the book in front of me right now, but I think it's in chapter 3 where she compares fans of abstract art to the idiot characters in the Emperor's New Clothes who pretended to see clothing that wasn't there. Her position is that people who claim to be fans of abstract art are pretending to see what's not there.

J

Well, I thought that that was the passage you had in mind, and I think you're stretching what she says into a blanket charge. I'll quote the text in a separate post. First, a post which I have ready to go pertaining to the "institutional theory" of art and the "artworld."

Ellen

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