Why is modern art so bad?

[tmj]

What grabs at me with this image , and the subsequent edited images is the accusatory nature of the girl's stare. Apropos of the thread was this the artist's intention, if so he merits on skill. Not to mention what it says about the nature of the original image a al mvj, why was that particualr segment of the original image the one replicated?

[Jonathan]

Using that standard, the artist in the painting above thinks existence unfolds in poverty. Not that there is no abundance. There might be to the artist. But the important thing is the poverty. That is what the world mostly looks like to the artist.

That's one of many possible Objectivish interpretations.

Another would be that the artist thinks that war is valuable and fun, and that killing parents and destroying little girls' lives are virtues (that's the type of judgment that people like Rowlands and Newberry would make).

Another interpretation would be that what is important to the artist is compassion for victims of statist initiation of force, and condemnation of the violators of innocence.

Which interpretation to go with would depend on how erratic was the mood of the Objectivist doing the judging of the art, as well as whether or not there were any "outside considerations" available to sway his or her subjective opinion toward a positive judgment and away from the Objectivist default negative judgment, such as whether or not the artist was known to be an admirer of Rand and Objectivism, or that the artist was Rand herself (after all, good, true Objectivists ARE NOT to judge Rand as viewing poverty, statism and the inevitable victory of evil as being metaphysically important when reading her tragic We The Living).

It's all very subjective, emotional, irrational, and laden with double standards.

J

[Jonathan]

Where are her parents?

Maybe they're out indulging in their virtuous hobby of stalking a very minor celebrity.

Children who aren't old enough to be morally responsible for their own behavior,

are fully exposed to the consequences set into motion by the behavior of their parents.

Yeah, um, I see that affirming the consequent is still your favorite logical fallacy to use. Greg, remember when you studied electricity? You know, you read books and stuff, actually learned real ideas, and didn't just invent nutty shit that randomly popped into your head? You should do the same with the subject of logic.

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Using that standard, the artist in the painting above thinks existence unfolds in poverty. Not that there is no abundance. There might be to the artist. But the important thing is the poverty. That is what the world mostly looks like to the artist.

That's one of many possible Objectivish interpretations.

Another would be that the artist thinks that war is valuable and fun, and that killing parents and destroying little girls' lives are virtues (that's the type of judgment that people like Rowlands and Newberry would make).

Another interpretation would be that what is important to the artist is compassion for victims of statist initiation of force, and condemnation of the violators of innocence.

Jonathan,

Maybe, but those examples you gave have nothing to do with metaphysical importance in the way I understand Rand to mean. Your examples deal with ethical value judgments, not metaphysical value judgments.

Notice my comment. There is no judgment of fun (good), condemnation (bad) and so forth. There is an identification of what the world looks like to the artist--in other words, before making those judgments. That is what I understand her discussion of metaphysical value judgments to mean. A vision of the world before things are judged good or bad. And, as I understand her argument, the ability to choose is a fundamental part of that vision, i.e., Romantics believe volition has a major part of that world vision, and Naturalists believe volition, if it exists at all, has a minor part.

This is different than saying something is good or bad. That comes later after the metaphysical part. (And, like you, I get appalled by the monkeyshines some people present based on this theory.)

Once again, not that I am agreeing with Rand's theory here or even defending her. (But for the record, I partially agree with her and I believe she needs no defense from me.)

I just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing.

Michael

[moralist]

Here's a bit of art to offer another side-exit to the imponderables above. It's by Syrian artist Hammam Jarabani.

_______________________

That picture evokes the question:

Where are her parents?

It's by a Syrian artist, as I noted. Looking at the background, it looks to be a city scene after many explosive destructive events, so it could be anywhere from Aleppo to the dense suburbs of Damascus. So, the parents will likely be under the rubble, combing the rubble for other children, or, I suppose, already dead from a previous bombing -- or perhaps the parents have disappeared into the maw of the Syrian detention system.

Or she may be an orphan, in the care of the two stunned people in the mid-ground. In any case, I thought this picture would please you, Greg, since it puts forward a simple, straightforward character -- in the midst of a type of 'hell.'

A little probably unnecessary background -- roughly half of Syrian children have been displaced. Around thirty thousand children have lost their lives, and a larger number maimed.

Here's a picture with a slightly changed background. This might make the subject matter and sense of life and metaphysical values more clearly apparent:

Children who aren't old enough to be morally responsible for their own behavior,

are fully exposed to the consequences set into motion by the behavior of their parents.

There's a lot of that stuff -- consequential behaviour -- going around, in Syria, if not in that picture; I thought the largest consequences attach to the largest events depicted. In other words, raining bombs on civilian areas under seige has consequences. Like the little girl.

If I give a Christian reading to the picture, using Greg's apothegm about responsibility, then the orphan girl's losses of parents, home, normal life -- are probably a direct result of the parents' actions. If the background is Aleppo, then the girl is receiving the just and deserved consequences of the parents' behaviour.

With the background Aleppo replaced by the bomb scene in Oklahoma City, I imagine a Greg-ish question would be the same: where are the parents? As in the Aleppo scene, I'd say probably dead or maimed.

Maybe by 'parents' we could think of the entire older generation, not only the parents, but the actual forces governing the larger conflict. Then the bad guys would not necessarily be young Jasmine's parents, who were stupid enough to bring their children to work, knowing that McVeigh's plan was in motion. The bad actors might be at the top of the chain of command that unleashed the destruction.

Which would make McVeigh responsible for the losses in the second place, and Bashar Assad responsible for the losses in the first. Which neatly absolves the girl of moral responsibility.

Another image that might raise other questions:

I don't believe that Greg, had he raised children, would ever give his children free rein to be irresponsible, to be cruel, to be hateful, to be needlessly aggressive, to steal, to use physical force unprovoked, to lie, to bully or degrade another child ... I tend to believe that Greg would hold his children morally responsible for their own behavior -- when that behaviour is under the control of the children.

Greg, did you beget children in this life? If so, at what age did you consider your boy (your girl) morally accountable for their own actions? I'm guessing somewhere around puberty, maybe later.

Our daughter had her freedom within our reasonable boundaries, to make her own mistakes so that she could learn for herself. And happily she freely chose to follow our example and married a decent man who takes very good care of her and their daughter... with another on the way.

Grandkids are so much fun!

Greg

[william.scherk]

What grabs at me with this image , and the subsequent edited images is the accusatory nature of the girl's stare. Apropos of the thread was this the artist's intention, if so he merits on skill. Not to mention what it says about the nature of the original image a al mvj, why was that particualr segment of the original image the one replicated?

Tad, the second and third image were constructed by me, not Tammam Jaramani. I replaced his slightly diffuse background image of destruction with an image from Oklahoma City bombing, and from the aftermath of 9/11 at the WTC.**

I don't know what 'a al mvj' means. I replaced the background to make more evident its character as a site of a crime.

Funny that no one yet fastened onto the most Randian aspect of the original painting, the Teddy Bear. Here I have given it more prominence:

Using that standard, the artist in the painting above thinks existence unfolds in poverty. Not that there is no abundance. There might be to the artist. But the important thing is the poverty. That is what the world mostly looks like to the artist.

That's one of many possible Objectivish interpretations.

[...]

Another interpretation would be that what is important to the artist is compassion for victims of statist initiation of force, and condemnation of the violators of innocence.

Yeah, I don't quite agree that MSK's Randian framework will have correctly identified the artist's inchoate sense of life as "Jaramani's 'Syrian Girl' shows he thinks existence unfolds in poverty." Firstly because a more accurate ID of the background would be a world under military assault. Secondly, the focus is not on the background, of course, but on the figure of a girl, and her meagre possession. A bloody survivor.

So, I would say that a Randian framework would identify the girl and her consciousness as important, not the background, not the momentary aftermath of terror. Though perhaps silly, I find the battered Teddy more poignant that the blood on the girl's face or her having lost her shoes in the attack.

(a righteously benevolent Randian read of the picture might see her as a symbol of inviolable humanity. Having seemingly lost all but a stuffed animal friend, she is Alive, and in her expression is a steadfast determination. She will not take revenge. She will prevail over the monster. She will bear witness to his crimes. She will remember this moment and her remembrance will stoke the fires of justice!)

Of course, I have the advantage of having looked through Jaramani's works as posted to Facebook. His work there is primarily portraits of children (presumably Syrian children). These paintings are not as successful as that posted here, to my eyes. They seem without spirit or presence even though they probably catch likenesses. They have no discernible background. This one stands out from the rest, gives a much more apparent personality to the girl.

So, all things considered. I think your reading above is better and more accurately Randian, Jonathan. The sense of life is more nuanced than can possibly be summed up as 'life is poverty' ... in my opinion.

One final image, now with a different actor in the frontal position of importance. I can almost imagine Greg exclaiming, "where are the dang parents?!"

___________________

** -- Tad, I used two online tools: Pixlr.com editor and Postimg.com uploader.

Edited September 14, 2014 by william.scherk

[moralist]

Wow... you guys are really getting off on that picture!

People can get fascinated by the ugliness of destruction. Although if that destruction was of malevolent Islamic fascists it wouldn't be so ugly.

It takes a lot of shitty people to make a shitty nation.

Greg

[Jonathan]

I just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing.

Michael

Yes, we're talking about the same thing. In considering possible Objectivish interpretations of the painting, I was referring to the ~metaphysical~ values that Objectivists might subjectively accuse the artist of possessing and portraying in his art, while daring not to apply the same methods and "reasoning" to Rand and her art. It really is a sort of Rorschach test/witch hunt in its methodology.

J

[Jonathan]

(a righteously benevolent Randian read of the picture might see her as a symbol of inviolable humanity.

The righteously benevolent Rand is the one that I love. The one who bitch-slaps bullies and defends victims of brutality. The one who admired the story of Helen Keller, and who stood up for Marilyn Monroe.

Having seemingly lost all but a stuffed animal friend, she is Alive, and in her expression is a steadfast determination. She will not take revenge. She will prevail over the monster. She will bear witness to his crimes. She will remember this moment and her remembrance will stoke the fires of justice!)

You could say that she's a young Ayn Rand in Russia, and a Kira.

J

[Brant Gaede]

You guys are smokin'!

--Brant

[moralist]

You guys are smokin'

...and I think I know what.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Yeah, I don't quite agree that MSK's Randian framework will have correctly identified the artist's inchoate sense of life as "Jaramani's 'Syrian Girl' shows he thinks existence unfolds in poverty."

. . .

So, all things considered. I think your reading above is better and more accurately Randian, Jonathan. The sense of life is more nuanced than can possibly be summed up as 'life is poverty' ... in my opinion.

William,

Don't forget that I was using Rand's metaphysical value judgments only--in other words, only one half of the equation. And the feeling would not be the oversimplification that existence unfolds ONLY in poverty (which my clunky phrase insinuates), but that poverty (or disaster from war, etc.) are the only things worth talking about to the artist.

Another point, that's only for the background.

You correctly point out the subject of the painting, the child's resolve, her clinging to the teddy bear and so on. Those can be filtered through the same metaphysical value judgment prism, meaning the artist believes those things are important, too.

Nuance comes with the interaction of these things, style, etc., and other half (the ethical value judgments, i.e., good and bad).

I'm speaking strictly according to how I interpret Rand's views here, not according to my own views of art, which add a lot more to the mix.

But still, I think identifying the importance of what is presented by noticing what has prominence is common sense. If there is poverty prominently presented, the artist judges poverty is important. If there is destruction all over the place, the artist judges destruction all over the place is important. If there is a teddy bear, the artist judges the teddy bear is important. And so on.

Also, before I would ever attribute an artist with an overall view of existence, I would want to see if he or she keeps repeating certain themes over different works over a relatively long time. I think it's impossible to get such a broad view of an artist's inner life from one work only. I would have to read some, but I believe it is safe to say that this is in line with what Rand intended in her theory (although maybe not in her behavior).

btw - The following is incidental to the point of my post, but I have one problem with Rand's concept of metaphysical value judgments. By stating that what is excluded is metaphysically unimportant to the artist, there is an insinuation that the artist considered the excluded things in the first place. Maybe he or she did not. Maybe these things just did not occur to the artist. How can one judge or evaluate what one does not consider?

As a creative person, I know from experience that the spark happens when I take two disparate things, throw them together and find a way to unite them into something else. I find delight in doing this and it has nothing to do with the things that got excluded. These so-called excluded things were never there in the first place. So, actually, they were not "excluded" at all. They did not exist, and never existed, as part of that creative thought. There was nothing to judge in them because there was nothing to judge.

Michael

[Jonathan]

But still, I think identifying the importance of what is presented by noticing what has prominence is common sense. If there is poverty prominently presented, the artist judges poverty is important. If there is destruction all over the place, the artist judges destruction all over the place is important. If there is a teddy bear, the artist judges the teddy bear is important. And so on.

I think that's too literalistic. I think it would be more accurate to say that the teddy bear is not important, but rather what it symbolizes is. Poverty or war are not important, but rather are the plot or conflict which allow a contrast to be shown revealing character.

And, again, if Rand's art is exempted from the same method, then it can't be a very good method. Rand's art prominently displays poverty, corruption, envy, and various other evils. Were those things therefore metaphysically important and valuable to her? Or were they an artistic means of contrast through which to display what she actually found to be important?

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Rand's art prominently displays poverty, corruption, envy, and various other evils. Were those things therefore metaphysically important and valuable to her?

Jonathan,

Of course they were. They were things she choose to judge ethically (i.e., as bad or evil), or present the causes of them also and judge those causes (like with poverty in Russia).

What is she going to judge as evil, indigestion, cold weather, old age, etc.? Those things do not have metaphysical importance to her other than inconvenience.

She judges as evil the things she finds important and valuable to judge as evil. By choosing things like corruption, envy, poverty, etc., she automatically says they are important to judge in the first place.

That's part of her world view.

She chooses what to judge (the thing) according to her metaphysical normative abstractions, and she judges these things good or bad (or evil) according to her ethical normative abstractions.

How are you going to present a story of good and bad if you don't choose what's important to blast as bad?

I find this easy to understand, so maybe my words are not communicating well.

Michael

[tmj]

William

I realized that you edited the images, my point was about what (if any) metaphysical value judgements the artist was implying, and what(if any) you as viewer inferred. The artist created an image of recognizable forms and you/ we respond to the image, what part of that process is governed by 'objective' criteria held by both parties( the creator and viewer) , if any? Is this particular piece solely political propoganda, it seems that way given the current discussion, was that the intent of the artist if so was he skilled and successful in his execution , is it possible to know without knowing his explicit intentions?

[Jonathan]

Rand's art prominently displays poverty, corruption, envy, and various other evils. Were those things therefore metaphysically important and valuable to her?

Jonathan,

Of course they were. They were things she choose to judge ethically (i.e., as bad or evil), or present the causes of them also and judge those causes (like with poverty in Russia).

What is she going to judge as evil, indigestion, cold weather, old age, etc.? Those things do not have metaphysical importance to her other than inconvenience.

She judges as evil the things she finds important and valuable to judge as evil. By choosing things like corruption, envy, poverty, etc., she automatically says they are important to judge in the first place.

That's part of her world view.

She chooses what to judge (the thing) according to her metaphysical normative abstractions, and she judges these things good or bad (or evil) according to her ethical normative abstractions.

How are you going to present a story of good and bad if you don't choose what's important to blast as bad?

I find this easy to understand, so maybe my words are not communicating well.

Michael

I think the problem is that Rand claimed that she believed that evil was not metaphysically important. And she didn't mean what you mean when judging artists to place "importance" on certain things. She meant that those artists who included evil in their art saw evil as the essence of existence, that they loved and adored evil, and their art was a vehicle for promoting it.

I think that she would have been outraged at your suggesting that her art reveals that she felt that evil was metaphysically important. She would have taken you to mean that you were employing her own method against her and condemning her for advocating evil in her art.

Now, you seem to be using the term differently than she did, and I'm fine with that. If you're removing the hyper-condemnation aspects and the double standards, great, but that's not Rand's Objectivism, but a modification to it.

J

[Jonathan]

Wow... you guys are really getting off on that picture!

People can get fascinated by the ugliness of destruction.

You're really getting off on the eagerness to condemn and the desire to misidentify. You should change your last name to Dunning-Kruger. Seriously, you really should. Zero critical thinking skills. Not even the slightest hint of awareness of what a fool you are.

J

[william.scherk]

I have to do some homework on art, romanticism, sense of life, and metaphysical value-judgments -- in order to adequately answer the comments by Michael and by Tad. I don't rightly understand how Rand's process of evaluating art would render such differing outcomes as those written by Michael and Jonathan in respect to the 'Syrian Girl' by Tammam Jarabani.

Luckily, Ellen Stuttle did yeoman's work assembling a dozen pertinent passages of Rand's, in the thread "Metaphysical Value-Judgments -- Rand Quotes."

Here's two excerpts of Rand, on subject and theme in art, from Ellen's excellent compilation:

The choice of subject declares what aspects of existence the artist regards as important - as worthy of being re-created and contemplated. He may choose to present heroic figures, as exponents of man's nature - or he may choose statistical composites of the average, the undistinguished, the mediocre - or he may choose crawling specimens of depravity. He may present the triumph of heroes, in fact or in spirit (Victor Hugo), or their struggle (Michelangelo), or their defeat (Shakespeare). He may present the folks next door: next door to palaces (Tolstoy), or to drugstores (Sinclair Lewis), or to kitchens (Vermeer), or to sewers (Zola). He may present monsters as objects of moral denunciation (Dostoevsky), or as objects of terror (Goya) - or he may demand sympathy for his monsters, and thus crawl outside the limits of the realm of values, including esthetic ones.

Whatever the case may be, it is the subject (qualified by the theme) that projects an art work's view of man's place in the universe.

The theme of an art work is the link uniting its subject and its style. "Style" is a particular, distinctive or characteristic mode of execution. An artist's style is the product of his own psycho-epistemology - and, by implication, a projection of his view of man's consciousness, of its efficacy or impotence, of its proper method and level of functioning.

Predominantly (though not exclusively), a man whose normal mental state is a state of full focus, will create and respond to a style of radiant clarity and ruthless precision - a style that projects sharp outlines, cleanliness, purpose, an intransigent commitment to full awareness and clear-cut identity - a level of awareness appropriate to a universe where A is A, where everything is open to man's consciousness and demands its constant functioning.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I think the problem is that Rand claimed that she believed that evil was not metaphysically important. And she didn't mean what you mean when judging artists to place "importance" on certain things.

Jonathan,

Actually she did. But she also meant what you said. I'm beginning to see the reason for the confusion. You take evil to mean only an ethical judgment, not as a metaphysical subject for focusing on. And you believe Rand only meant ethics. Since you are also taking Rand's own words (if I remember them correctly), I don't blame you.

I agree that Rand said she did not give metaphysical importance to evil, but when she said that, it had a specific meaning within a comparative context to the good--it was a tortured way for her to say evil had no efficacy to build things or promote life. It could only destroy. She did consider evil important enough as a topic to portray, though. Look at her villains.

Granted, as she claimed in several places, she made the main conflicts between her heroes, i.e, conflicts between the good and the good, so she did not consider evil to be on the same footing as the good. But she did find evil metaphysically important enough to portray as the source of many obstacles for her heroes.

(Apropos, but slightly beside the point, a Randian theme Ron Merrill mentions over and over in The Ideas of Ayn Rand, but one I have not seen mentioned in other places, is how a moral man is to exist in a hostile, immoral world. That is so obvious in her fiction once you see it spelled out like that, I don't think anyone can deny it. But that is a case of Rand elevating the metaphysical importance of evil to--I believe--way beyond anything she would ever admit to.)

I have to look deeper and check Rand's own words, but I think this could be one of those cases where she used two meanings for the same expression without telling the reader about the difference. It's fascinating to see this because it is like a cybernetic system correcting itself after going off course. (For example, altruism is a moral code, altruism is evil, altruism is an evil morality, oh wait!... altruism is immoral, altruism is not morality at all. I have to flesh this one out with quotes one day.)

Here is another case of this same error I discussed earlier, but with quotes:

... an error Rand sometimes falls into when she gets wound up, like talking about modern art and saying it is not art. If it is not art, why call it modern art?

Here is a quote from "Art and Cognition" where Rand uses the term "modern art" to mean a valid category of school of art (my bold):

Decomposition is the postscript to the death of a human body; disintegration is the preface to the death of a human mind. Disintegration is the keynote and goal of modern art—the disintegration of man’s conceptual faculty, and the retrogression of an adult mind to the state of a mewling infant.

To reduce man’s consciousness to the level of sensations, with no capacity to integrate them, is the intention behind the reducing of language to grunts, of literature to “moods,” of painting to smears, of sculpture to slabs, of music to noise.

But there is a philosophically and psychopathologically instructive element in the spectacle of that gutter. It demonstrates—by the negative means of an absence—the relationships of art to philosophy, of reason to man’s survival, of hatred for reason to hatred for existence.

In other words, to Rand, modern art is an art form that demonstrates disintegration, i.e., hatred for reason and hatred of existence. Note that she cannot classify "the relationships of art to philosophy" if she is not talking about art. Thus modern art is a form of art.

Yet in the same essay, she wrote the following:

As a re-creation of reality, a work of art has to be representational; its freedom of stylization is limited by the requirement of intelligibility; if it does not present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art.

In other words, since modern art (the kind Rand blasts) does not "present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art." Does that mean it was art in the first place?

Even if that way of saying it is nothing but a form of rhetorical emphasis and modern art was never art in her view, I cannot reconcile as logically consistent when she denies that it is art and still calls it modern art and, further, discusses it as a school of art. At best, if one gives her an enormous benefit of the doubt and claims she is using two different concepts of art, using two different meanings for the word "art" in the same essay without clarifying this difference is sloppy.

Michael

[Jonathan]

Actually she did. But she also meant what you said. I'm beginning to see the reason for the confusion. You take evil to mean only an ethical judgment, not as a metaphysical subject for focusing on. And you believe Rand only meant ethics. Since you are also taking Rand's own words (if I remember them correctly), I don't blame you.

No, I don't take evil to mean only an ethical judgment, and I don't believe that Rand only meant ethics. Rand was talking about "metaphysical value-judgments," and she meant that any artist other than her who included evil in his art viewed evil as being the nature of existence.

I agree that Rand said she did not give metaphysical importance to evil, but when she said that, it had a specific meaning within a comparative context to the good--it was a tortured way for her to say evil had no efficacy to build things or promote life. It could only destroy. She did consider evil important enough as a topic to portray, though. Look at her villains.

So, We The Living, a story about characters who are destroyed by evil, somehow doesn't qualify as a portrayal of the topic of evil, and its potency?

Granted, as she claimed in several places, she made the main conflicts between her heroes, i.e, conflicts between the good and the good, so she did not consider evil to be on the same footing as the good. But she did find evil metaphysically important enough to portray as the source of many obstacles for her heroes.

And so do other artists, but when they do it, they are condemned by Rand and her followers. Double standards. Pure subjectivity.

(Apropos, but slightly beside the point, a Randian theme Ron Merrill mentions over and over in The Ideas of Ayn Rand, but one I have not seen mentioned in other places, is how a moral man is to exist in a hostile, immoral world. That is so obvious in her fiction once you see it spelled out like that, I don't think anyone can deny it. But that is a case of Rand elevating the metaphysical importance of evil to--I believe--way beyond anything she would ever admit to.)

Right. So the issue is, how good can the theory be when its creator would blow a gasket if the theory were consistently applied to her own art in exactly the same way that she applied it to others' art?

I have to look deeper and check Rand's own words, but I think this could be one of those cases where she used two meanings for the same expression without telling the reader about the difference. It's fascinating to see this because it is like a cybernetic system correcting itself after going off course. (For example, altruism is a moral code, altruism is evil, altruism is an evil morality, oh wait!... altruism is immoral, altruism is not morality at all. I have to flesh this one out with quotes one day.)

Here is another case of this same error I discussed earlier, but with quotes:

... an error Rand sometimes falls into when she gets wound up, like talking about modern art and saying it is not art. If it is not art, why call it modern art?

Here is a quote from "Art and Cognition" where Rand uses the term "modern art" to mean a valid category of school of art (my bold):

Decomposition is the postscript to the death of a human body; disintegration is the preface to the death of a human mind. Disintegration is the keynote and goal of modern art—the disintegration of man’s conceptual faculty, and the retrogression of an adult mind to the state of a mewling infant.

To reduce man’s consciousness to the level of sensations, with no capacity to integrate them, is the intention behind the reducing of language to grunts, of literature to “moods,” of painting to smears, of sculpture to slabs, of music to noise.

But there is a philosophically and psychopathologically instructive element in the spectacle of that gutter. It demonstrates—by the negative means of an absence—the relationships of art to philosophy, of reason to man’s survival, of hatred for reason to hatred for existence.

In other words, to Rand, modern art is an art form that demonstrates disintegration, i.e., hatred for reason and hatred of existence. Note that she cannot classify "the relationships of art to philosophy" if she is not talking about art. Thus modern art is a form of art.

Yet in the same essay, she wrote the following:

As a re-creation of reality, a work of art has to be representational; its freedom of stylization is limited by the requirement of intelligibility; if it does not present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art.

In other words, since modern art (the kind Rand blasts) does not "present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art." Does that mean it was art in the first place?

Even if that way of saying it is nothing but a form of rhetorical emphasis and modern art was never art in her view, I cannot reconcile as logically consistent when she denies that it is art and still calls it modern art and, further, discusses it as a school of art. At best, if one gives her an enormous benefit of the doubt and claims she is using two different concepts of art, using two different meanings for the word "art" in the same essay without clarifying this difference is sloppy.

Michael

Yeah, and added to that, Rand never actually tested her theory that art needed to "present an intelligible subject," and that if it didn't, it "ceased to be art." She didn't apply it in reality to dance, architecture and music. In other words, her stated philosophical methods and rules about what qualifies as art were ignored when it came to the abstract art forms that she liked and therefore wanted to classify as art, and her methods of judging content and of condemning other artists for their evil metaphysical value-judments were not to be applied to her own art.

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... and she meant that any artist other than her who included evil in his art viewed evil as being the nature of existence.

Jonathan,

Mickey Spillane, for instance? Ian Fleming?

Michael

[Jonathan]

... and she meant that any artist other than her who included evil in his art viewed evil as being the nature of existence.

Jonathan,

Mickey Spillane, for instance? Ian Fleming?

Michael

Good point. So, let me correct my statement: She meant any artist other than herself and a few others whom she subjectively liked enough to selectively, if not arbitrarily, interpret as not advocating evil.

Rand's praise for Spillane and Fleming are examples of the Rand that I earlier said that I love. The benevolent Rand who wasn't coming to an artwork with a prejudiced, malicious intention to condemn. It's the heroic Rand, rather than the bullying Rand. It's the Rand who saw the Miracle Worker and felt it in her bones rather than the irrational guru who threw a hateful fit over the handicapped and the imaged hellish torture of forcing young Galts, Roarks and Dagnys to suffer the indignity and horror of riding "kneeling buses" with young Helen Kellers.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

So, We The Living, a story about characters who are destroyed by evil, somehow doesn't qualify as a portrayal of the topic of evil, and its potency?

The original title of We the Living was Air-Tight, the emphasis being placed on the negative in the circumstances she was portraying.

The original title of The Fountainhead was Second-hand Lives. Someone, I forget who, pointed out to her that this gave the negative the emphasis.

~~~

J, I'm still puzzled and questioning on your views about skill (both in art and generally). I'll get back to it when I can.

Other stuff pending, too.

William, thanks for linking to the resources thread I started with pertinent Rand quotes. There are other key passages to be added.

Relevant to this discussion, note the excerpt where Rand talks about some subjects being aesthetic crimes - post #4 in the thread, title "Subject in Art as a Moral Issue."

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

So, We The Living, a story about characters who are destroyed by evil, somehow doesn't qualify as a portrayal of the topic of evil, and its potency?

The original title of We the Living was Air-Tight,

Ellen, what's the reference? I don't usually draw a blank on this sort of thing.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

The original title of The Fountainhead was Second-hand Lives. Someone, I forget who, pointed out to her that this gave the negative the emphasis.

What is the reference? No reference, no go. Sorry. The final title was perfectly right, however.

--Brant