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

[Ellen Stuttle]

I think the "abstract" in abstract art is a mislabeling or misnomer, little more than spin put on something nobody really understood.

I'm tentatively concluding from my explorings (mentioned in the PS to post #447) that what happened was a confused borrowing, by Kandinsky and then others, of the term "abstract" from the history of music's linkage with mathematics.

Music has been seen at least since Pythagoras as having commonality with mathematics. The commonality between music and mathematics pertains both to form and to exactitude. Whereas number theory and geometry have been elaborated from the idealized "entities" of mathematics, systematic compositional principles have been elaborated from the pure tones employed in music.

The early "abstract" painters borrowed the mathematics/music link in their attempt to develop compositional principles of a "new form" of painting, meanwhile mixing up the form-based meaning of "abstract" with the (content) issue of "representation" in painting.

In the source material of the quotes Jonathan listed (#401), the usage is various and often ambiguous. A few of the sources, in calling music "abstract," mean music's formal similarity with mathematics. Some partly mean that but partly mean "non-representational" (as if music could be "representational"), and a few entirely mean "non-representational."

Murky.

One of the sources, although it uses the "representational"/"non-representational" differentiation, summarizes a theory of music in relation to emotion and other life-dynamic processes which is along the lines of Roger's views and maybe even more along those of a suggestion I made in a letter to Rand years ago (1967). (Rand never saw the letter. Like most letters sent to her, it didn't get past the office staff's screening.)

I'll provide quotes from that source today or tomorrow.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

I sent Rand a letter, of sorts, not signed, to her home, not office address, in May 1968.

I had made a copy, now somewhere in my files. I had forgotten about it for years. It was kind of a prose poem; more prose than poem. Ellen jogged my memory. I might post it here if I find it. Must have been handwritten.

--Brant

a year earlier I had sent her a letter from Vietnam on my Special Forces stationary--there was a green beret and knife printed in the upper left corner--I'm pretty sure she read it; I have no copy; it was handwritten: I explained to her how army soldiers needed brains in combat, in response to something she had written about how brains were distributed in the military (she was right [and I was right too] and I didn't contradict her, but I was blinded by how I was surrounded by the smartest enlisted men in the US army)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, do you have anything further to that? I'd like to track down just what you are describing here (not sure if it is/was done under DARPA auspices).

William,

A further, more recent, interview with Paul Zak:

Michael

[Jonathan]

I think the "abstract" in abstract art is a mislabeling or misnomer, little more than spin put on something nobody really understood.

I'm tentatively concluding from my explorings (mentioned in the PS to post #447) that what happened was a confused borrowing, by Kandinsky and then others, of the term "abstract" from the history of music's linkage with mathematics.

Good luck with that. Before going public with your theory, you might want to familiarize yourself with the event that triggered Kandinsky's interest in exploring the possibility of non-representational visual art. You might also want to refamiliarize yourself with Kandinsky's descriptions of the effects of color. They're not mathematical, and they're not confusedly borrowed from music's linkage with mathematical proportions.

Music has been seen at least since Pythagoras as having commonality with mathematics. The commonality between music and mathematics pertains both to form and to exactitude. Whereas number theory and geometry have been elaborated from the idealized "entities" of mathematics, systematic compositional principles have been elaborated from the pure tones employed in music.

The early "abstract" painters borrowed the mathematics/music link in their attempt to develop compositional principles of a "new form" of painting, meanwhile mixing up the form-based meaning of "abstract" with the (content) issue of "representation" in painting.

Yes, music's form was one of the things that inspired abstract art's pioneers to explore the effects of visual compositional proportionality more deeply than representational artists had. Hmmm. I wonder if you imagine that you're going disprove the existence of the expressiveness of visual proportionality.

In the source material of the quotes Jonathan listed (#401), the usage is various and often ambiguous.

No, they're not ambiguous. Rather, you're electron-chasing and hoping to find ambiguity, and therefore you're imagining/believing that you're finding it. They all mean that music is non-representational/non-mimetic/doesn't-directly-imitate-or-"re-create"-likenesses-of-things-in-reality.

J

[Jonathan]

Before going public with your theory, you might want to familiarize yourself with the event that triggered Kandinsky's interest in exploring the possibility of non-representational visual art. You might also want to refamiliarize yourself with Kandinsky's desriptions of the effects of color. They're not mathematical, and they're not confusedly borrowed from music's linkage with mathematical proportions.

You might also want to refamiliarize yourself with your own previously stated views on the effects of Kandisky's work, and of his views on the effects of color.

J

P.S. An additional avenue that you might find worth pursuing is Kandinsky's fascination with exploring synesthesia. Timbre was the issue, not the proportionality of the overtone series.

[moralist]

If you're all interested in the epistemological efficacy and limits of "man's mind," then why are all of my opponents in these discussions only interested in the single issue of the rejection of abstract art due to its alleged lack of content and depth...

Jonathan, I look for the bottom line of what's actually going on behind the wall of verbiage:

You make abstracts and are offended when someone says they aren't art,

because they're also saying that you aren't an artist.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Jonathan, I look for the bottom line of what's actually going on behind the wall of verbiage:

You make abstracts and are offended when someone says they aren't art,

because they're also saying that you aren't an artist.

Greg

That's one hypothetical. I can do a dozen. Shall we then vote on the result?

--Brant

but I'd say he's objecting to their lack of competence and lack of competence is all they are demonstrating--that's the ostensible data of this thread, not what you've mined beneath the "verbiage": there's no data there, just seeking of inferences and you've brought nothing to the surface--except verbiage

art or not art: if you pay for it thinking it is art and call it "art" it's art and the maker of it is an artist and the esthetician is unemployed--unless someone pays him money to be one he's not even an esthetician except in his own mind somehow convincing himself he's superior to the artists and their art just like movie reviewers think they are superior to movie makers, a dubious proposition even with absolutely horrible movies for making is creation fed on by the unconsuming commentating, but not even they say the movie-maker ain't a movie-maker

[Jonathan]

You make abstracts and are offended when someone says they aren't art...

I've very rarely made abstract visual art. The proportion of realist/representational visual art that I make in comparison to abstract visual art is probably about 10,000 to 1.

The only abstract art form that I've made quite frequently and regularly has been music.

I'm not offended about any opinion that anyone has about my art, or about its qualifying as art.

...because they're also saying that you aren't an artist.

No, my position isn't based on being offended. It's based on my having an appreciation for rationality and consistency. It's based on my rejection of contradictions, double standards and arbitrary assertions. It's based on my respect for logic and proof, and my not accepting others' use of the fallacy of the argument from personal incredulity.

J

[Jonathan]

art or not art: if you pay for it thinking it is art and call it "art" it's art and the maker of it is an artist and the esthetician is unemployed--unless someone pays him money to be one he's not even an esthetician except in his own mind somehow convincing himself he's superior to the artists and their art just like movie reviewers think they are superior to movie makers, a dubious proposition even with absolutely horrible movies for making is creation fed on by the unconsuming commentating, but not even they say the movie-maker ain't a movie-maker

I've said it before many times in the past, but it's really surprising and unfortunate how many Tooheys versus Roarks are attracted to Objectivishism -- consumers/commentators and wannabe opinion-makers/influencers versus creators/producers/originators.

J

[Jonathan]

A few interesting quotes from Sweet Anticipation by David Huron:

In music, composers absorb a number of clichés—useful devices that are most easily observed in film scores. Trained musicians will readily recognize some commonplace examples: tragedy can be evoked by using predominantly minor chords played with rich sonorities in the bass register. Suspense can be evoked using a diminished seventh chord with rapid tremolo. Surprise can be evoked by introducing a loud chromatic chord on a weak beat.

It's interesting that Huron describes these devices as clichés!

For many thoughtful musicians, such clichés raise the question, “Why do these techniques work?” To this question, an ethnomusicologist might add a second: “Why do they often fail to work for listeners not familiar with Western music?” And an experienced film composer might insist on adding a third: “Why do they sometimes fail to work, even for those who are familiar with Western music?” [emphasis added]

Music too involves mimicry of some natural emotional expressions. But aesthetic philosophers and music commentators have long noted that music is not a “representational” art in the way that painting or sculpture can be.

Where the poet or playwright can evoke sadness by narrating a recognizably sad story, musicians must create sadness through abstract nonrepresentational sounds. Where a comedian might evoke laughter through parody, wordplay, or absurd tales, musicians must find more abstract forms of parody and absurdity. [emphasis added]

J

[anthony]

The object of the exercise is not to replace one dogmatic view with another, it's to establish whether one is able to see what's there. Identification. The competence is not artistic appreciation: that's not hard to do, or to learn to understand further; it's competence with one's sight and recognition, as primary.

If 'abstract' art is directed at those few with supposedly superior insight, it falls flat anyway as a medium of any significance. And if, with the best will and intent, one cannot *see* it, does one trust the word of experts, or one's own perception? Which route is more certain to disparage one's own mind, and create self-doubt?

Art is that complex and variable, one could merely duck all attempt at classification of it, in favour of the easy way, and so: 'anything goes'.

When 'anything goes', the ramifications on the individual and society, eventually, will be something like we see it to be. Moral relativism.

For their - moral - effect on society, artists ironically enough, seem to greatly underestimate their own importance.

[Jonathan]

And if, with the best will and intent, one cannot *see* it, does one trust the experts, or one's own perception? Which route is more certain to disparage one's own mind, and create self-doubt?

By all means, trust your own perception and your own mind! If you don't see something, then you don't see it. No one is asking you to doubt yourself or to pretend to see or experience what you don't.

Rand said,

“In listening to music, a man cannot tell clearly, neither to himself nor to others—and therefore, cannot prove—which aspects of his experience are inherent in the music and which are contributed by his own consciousness. He experiences it as an indivisible whole, he feels as if the magnificent exaltation were there in the music—and he is helplessly bewildered when he discovers that some men do experience it and some do not.”

When someone else is bewildered that you don't experience what he does in a piece of art, his bewilderment isn't an attempt to create self-doubt in you.

J

[Brant Gaede]

The object of the exercise is not to replace one dogmatic view with another, it's to establish whether one is able to see what's there. Identification. The competence is not artistic appreciation: that's not hard to do, or to learn to understand further; it's competence with one's sight and recognition, as primary.

If 'abstract' art is directed at those few with supposedly superior insight, it falls flat anyway as a medium of any significance. And if, with the best will and intent, one cannot *see* it, does one trust the word of experts, or one's own perception? Which route is more certain to disparage one's own mind, and create self-doubt?

Art is that complex and variable, one could merely duck all attempt at classification of it, in favour of the easy way, and so: 'anything goes'.

When 'anything goes', the ramifications on the individual and society, eventually, will be something like we see it to be. Moral relativism.

For their - moral - effect on society, artists ironically enough, seem to greatly underestimate their own importance.

Philosophy as a bulldozer.

--Brant

[anthony]

J: Very neat, quoting Rand...on music!

However - if you looked further, you would see she does not conflate music with 'abstract' art - as you want to do.

"The concept "entity" is (implicitly) the start of man's conceptual development and the building block of his entire conceptual structure. It is by perceiving entities that man perceives the universe. And *in order to concretize his view of existence, it is by means of concepts (language) or by means of his entity-perceiving senses (sight and touch) that he has to do it*.

Music does not deal with entities, which is the reason its psycho-epistemological function is different from that of the other arts..."

[Art and Cognition]

[moralist]

That's one hypothetical. I can do a dozen. Shall we then vote on the result?

Nah, it's just my subjective opinion from reading Jonathan's lengthy expressions of his personal investment in his view of "art".

Greg

[moralist]

I've very rarely made abstract visual art.

It's odd behavior to be so heavily emotionally invested (even to the point of hostility) in something you claim not to do.

No, my position isn't based on being offended.

It's your demeanor that is.

Greg

[Jonathan]

That's one hypothetical. I can do a dozen. Shall we then vote on the result?

Nah, it's just my subjective opinion from reading Jonathan's lengthy expressions of his heavy personal emotional investment in his view of "art". Greg

I'm an artist, so I think it's only natural that I would have a "heavy personal investment" in my view of art. What isn't so natural is others, who are not artists, having a much heavier personal investment in their view of art than I have in mine! What's up with that? Greg, it would be like if I had a heavier personal investment in electrical theory than you do.

J

[anthony]

The object of the exercise is not to replace one dogmatic view with another, it's to establish whether one is able to see what's there. Identification. The competence is not artistic appreciation: that's not hard to do, or to learn to understand further; it's competence with one's sight and recognition, as primary.

If 'abstract' art is directed at those few with supposedly superior insight, it falls flat anyway as a medium of any significance. And if, with the best will and intent, one cannot *see* it, does one trust the word of experts, or one's own perception? Which route is more certain to disparage one's own mind, and create self-doubt?

Art is that complex and variable, one could merely duck all attempt at classification of it, in favour of the easy way, and so: 'anything goes'.

When 'anything goes', the ramifications on the individual and society, eventually, will be something like we see it to be. Moral relativism.

For their - moral - effect on society, artists ironically enough, seem to greatly underestimate their own importance.

Philosophy as a bulldozer.

--Brant

A bulldozer, or a rapier...

Is it in fact at all possible to consider art as apart from, and above, one's life, values and morality?

Everybody needs it (as the artists produce it), I think, the same as they implicitly need philosophy and morality. It's just not widely acknowledged or stated this way.

I'm always looking for a good and rational argument which shows that art is only to provide men with Platonic beauty - and nothing more.

(I understand that it appears crass to some people, that art should have any 'purpose' apart from that).

[Jonathan]

I've very rarely made abstract visual art.

It's odd behavior to be so heavily emotionally invested (even to the point of hostility) in something you claim not to do.

No, my position isn't based on being offended.

It's your demeanor that is.

Greg

I see the opposite. I see others, like Kamhi and Torres, as being highly offended that I and others can experience in architecture and abstract paintings and sculptures what they can't. They have dedicated their entire lives to telling other people "That's not art!!!!!" They're not artists, so why are they so heavily emotionally invested in arbitrarily denying others' aesthetic experiences?

As I keep asking, while no one answers:

Well, we're right back at the unanswered question: To whom? Profound to whom? Why would anyone have a problem with another person's finding a work of art to be profound? Why would anyone be upset about another person experiencing deep emotion and meaning in a work of art that did nothing for the person who was getting upset? What's the problem? What's with the need to deny others' responses, or to attempt to invalidate them?

J

[Jonathan]

J: Very neat, quoting Rand...on music!

However - if you looked further, you would see she does not conflate music with 'abstract' art - as you want to do.

"The concept "entity" is (implicitly) the start of man's conceptual development and the building block of his entire conceptual structure. It is by perceiving entities that man perceives the universe. And *in order to concretize his view of existence, it is by means of concepts (language) or by means of his entity-perceiving senses (sight and touch) that he has to do it*.

Music does not deal with entities, which is the reason its psycho-epistemological function is different from that of the other arts..."

[Art and Cognition]

My point in quoting Rand was that there is no reason to be upset about others getting something out of a work of art that does nothing for you. My point was that their getting something of depth out of it isn't an attack on you or on "man's mind." There's no reason to feel so "heavily emotionally invested" (to borrow Greg's term in recent posts) in denying and fighting against others' aesthetic responses. The point was that Rand recognized that different people have different sensitivities to different works of art, and so should you.

J

[Brant Gaede]

I think the real issue--the elephant in the room--isn't is it art or not but whether it is good, bad, or what-have-you art. This isn't being discussed because of the philosophical overlay/underlay which is considered more important. Now the most pissed off here is the only artist, Newberry being absent, who doesn't care to be told by moralists and philosophers he can be thrown out of the loop at their whim. Not calling Howard Roark an architect is only a legality by a licensing authority. Take the authority away and not calling him an architect is a silly-ism by those involved in building esthetics. Arrogating unto oneself such cultural authority respecting arts generally is beyond silly, it's horribly offensive. Art is the artificial augmentation of reality through an act of creation. Prioritizing philosophy respecting that is interjecting morality and smashing or preventing or otherwise discouraging such creation and, frankly, cultural fascism. Rand was much better than that for The Fountainhead was exponentially better than her old age animadversions upon what offended her then--"hippies" and what they created, and it was much more than esthetics.

I wonder if she thought felt her philosophy was a work of art and as such no one was allowed to fuck with it. If so, qua art, Jonathan is on her side.

If one says something is not art for esthetic reasons one is actually affirming it is art for if it wasn't the esthetician--the sayer has to be an esthetician of some sort--wouldn't have bothered even saying it wasn't. It's affirmation through denial. Denial is declaration of a turf, as in a turf war. That's why the thread is so long. The bullets aren't real in spite of the continuous firing of our metaphorical guns. It's self defense from the assaulting estheticians.

--Brant

[moralist]

I'm an artist, so I think it's only natural that I would have a "heavy personal investment" in my view of art.

A view of defending abstract art to the point of belligerence, and yet in which you claim to have no actual involvement. That's strange behavior, Jonathan. There is something missing from your story.

Greg

[Ellen Stuttle]

You might also want to refamiliarize yourself with your own previously stated views on the effects of Kandisky's work, and of his views on the effects of color.

J

I don't know that I've commented on Kandinsky's views on the effects of colors. From quotes you've provided and material I've read elsewhere, his views sound overgeneralized, and with an underlay of stuff from Theosophy.

I've said that I think that Kandinsky was incredibly skilled, and that I like his work a lot. Do you see this as discrepant from anything I've said on this thread?

I've very rarely made abstract visual art.

I make lots of "abstract" visual art. Not with paint. With materials. And just for myself and friends. I get a great deal of pleasure in doing it, and I think the results are beautiful. But I'd laugh if anyone told me that any of it means moral dicta or evaluative generalizations.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

You might also want to refamiliarize yourself with your own previously stated views on the effects of Kandisky's work, and of his views on the effects of color.

J

I don't know that I've commented on Kandinsky's views on the effects of colors. From quotes you've provided and material I've read elsewhere, his views sound overgeneralized, and with an underlay of stuff from Theosophy.

I've said that I think that Kandinsky was incredibly skilled, and that I like his work a lot. Do you see this as discrepant from anything I've said on this thread?

I've very rarely made abstract visual art.

I make lots of "abstract" visual art. Not with paint. With materials. And just for myself and friends. I get a great deal of pleasure in doing it, and I think the results are beautiful. But I'd laugh if anyone told me that any of it means moral dicta or evaluative generalizations.

Ellen

Creative hoarding?

--Brant

[anthony]

J: Very neat, quoting Rand...on music!

However - if you looked further, you would see she does not conflate music with 'abstract' art - as you want to do.

"The concept "entity" is (implicitly) the start of man's conceptual development and the building block of his entire conceptual structure. It is by perceiving entities that man perceives the universe. And *in order to concretize his view of existence, it is by means of concepts (language) or by means of his entity-perceiving senses (sight and touch) that he has to do it*.

Music does not deal with entities, which is the reason its psycho-epistemological function is different from that of the other arts..."

[Art and Cognition]

My point in quoting Rand was that there is no reason to be upset about others getting something out of a work of art that does nothing for you. My point was that their getting something of depth out of it isn't an attack on you or on "man's mind." There's no reason to feel so "heavily emotionally invested" (to borrow Greg's term in recent posts) in denying and fighting against others' aesthetic responses. The point was that Rand recognized that different people have different sensitivities to different works of art, and so should you.

J

I understand. But - and seeing you brought in Rand - she was referring to ~only~ music. Epistemologically (not metaphysically) she allowed that music was 'a special case' (not her phrase). It would need more advanced research to understand its effect, and so for now, no one person's judgments could be considered right or wrong.

So what you're saying is that other people's aesthetic responses are little matter to one? As far as that goes, I agree.

First, the central issue is not really aesthetic, it is of identity of art, identification and consciousness. Second, one doesn't exist alone, we live in societies. Others' ethics, politics and the predominant philosophy of our times are inescapable. So its not about me or you, it's about objective standards of man's nature and his relationship with existence. If you follow the above magnanimous position further, you may admit it would lead to relaxed definitions, on to relativism/subjectivity. By way of fine art/abstract art, first - then down the line into popular arts (film and music) so into the 'collective consciousness'.

The main question is, do you think art does have a moral influence?