Art and Subobjectivity

[Dragonfly]

Abstract art, as stated, was spawned by an absolute subjectivism—both metaphysically and epistemologically. If I demonstrate this--to your satisfaction--would you still call this an art form?

What spawned abstract art is completely irrelevant. Alchemy spawned chemistry, astrology spawned astronomy, that doesn't invalidate chemistry and astronomy. Newton's theology and alchemy don't invalidate his Principia, neither is Wagner's music bad while Wagner was a virulent antisemite. Abstract art should be judged on its own, not on the theories of some of its founders.

[Victor Pross]

Abstract art, as stated, was spawned by an absolute subjectivism—both metaphysically and epistemologically. If I demonstrate this--to your satisfaction--would you still call this an art form?

What spawned abstract art is completely irrelevant. Alchemy spawned chemistry, astrology spawned astronomy, that doesn't invalidate chemistry and astronomy. Newton's theology and alchemy don't invalidate his Principia, neither is Wagner's music bad while Wagner was a virulent antisemite. Abstract art should be judged on its own, not on the theories of some of its founders.

Dragonfly,

Art should be judged on its own? I agree. However, Abstract Expressionism is not art. It is an alleged art form. At best, it is really decoration or a design. Look, given the origins of art and the purpose art fulfills in life—abstract expressionism fails to accomplish what I have already stated —and it’s purpose was to do exactly that! Therefore, it is not art.

-Victor

Edit: let me ask you this: IS Alchemy chemistry? IS astrology astronomy?

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Dragonfly]

Art should be judged on its own? I agree. However, Abstract Expressionism is not art. It is an alleged art form. At best, it is really decoration or a design.

Now you've switched from "abstract art" to "Abstract Expressionism". Is that the same thing or not?

[Victor Pross]

Art should be judged on its own? I agree. However, Abstract Expressionism is not art. It is an alleged art form. At best, it is really decoration or a design.

Now you've switched from "abstract art" to "Abstract Expressionism". Is that the same thing or not?

I use it interchangeably as one would “communism” and “socialism”—as both political systems [whatever differences can be ascribed to either] share the same philosophical foundation: collectivism.

By the way, the fountainheads of ‘abstract art’ are Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian—not Jackson Pollock as is so commonly thought.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Jonathan]

Victor wrote,

The problem I have with your scenarios is that such a “play” would never be successful without support from the NEA [National Endowment for the Arts].

You may be right. But then again, how "successful" would much of the art throughout history have been -- paintings, sculptures and symphonies (forgive me if my referring to symphonies as "art" upsets you; I know that it really pisses you off when someone says that something is "art" when it's non-representational and unintelligible, and when no objectively valid criterion of aesthetic judgment is possible for that type of "art," and, therefore, that we have to treat our tastes or preferences regarding that "art" form as a subjective matter) -- if it had not been for monarchs and dictators supporting it?

J

[Danneskjold]

Just because monarchs and dictators supported it does not mean that it would not have thrived on the free market.

[Victor Pross]

Victor wrote,

The problem I have with your scenarios is that such a “play” would never be successful without support from the NEA [National Endowment for the Arts].

You may be right. But then again, how "successful" would much of the art throughout history have been -- paintings, sculptures and symphonies (forgive me if my referring to symphonies as "art" upsets you; I know that it really pisses you off when someone says that something is "art" when it's non-representational and unintelligible, and when no objectively valid criterion of aesthetic judgment is possible for that type of "art," and, therefore, that we have to treat our tastes or preferences regarding that "art" form as a subjective matter) -- if it had not been for monarchs and dictators supporting it?

J

Jonathan,

Step back from the computer, grab a paint brush and break it to release some of the huff n’ puff energy you have. I haven’t forgotten your question about music—it’s just that I’m thinking about it and sometimes my life outside of OL takes me away. Will you give me some time?

Victor

ps

I also don't think computers are art either....you aren't planning an assemblage work are you?

[Jonathan]

I haven’t forgotten your question about music—it’s just that I’m thinking about it and sometimes my life outside of OL takes me away. Will you give me some time?

Certainly. Thanks for acknowledging that you've read my questions and that you're thinking about them.

Best,

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Semantics aside, how about we try this approach: if I demonstrate that the birth of abstract art [or abstract Expressionism] was spawned by a “primacy of consciousness” or an “absolute subjectivism” orientation—as a matter of fact, beyond any reasonable doubt—would you still confer the status of 'art' upon it?

Victor,

I thought I made that clear. Cognitively you are talking about a category of art. Normatively, in your system of values (and probably in mine), it is not.

Here, this might help. We have romantic art, academic art, etc. Here are a few other terms:

Junk Art

Trash Art

Malevolent Art

Meaningless Art

Nihilistic Art

Idiotic Art

Unintelligible Art

Futile Art

Irrelevant Art

Pointless Art

Stupid Art

Ridiculous Art

Compost Art (heh)

Should I go on? Cognitively it is all art. Most of it is worth nothing aesthetically to a person who values the heroic, but cognitively it is still a category of art.

I think it is highly more effective to explain what is being transmitted by this art than to deny that it is art. In this manner, people learn proper standards of judging art rather than attempting to come to terms with an incorrect characterization of a common cognitive concept (which most will dismiss anyway with something like "Oh, that's just so-and-so sounding off").

Michael

[Victor Pross]

Semantics aside, how about we try this approach: if I demonstrate that the birth of abstract art [or abstract Expressionism] was spawned by a “primacy of consciousness” or an “absolute subjectivism” orientation—as a matter of fact, beyond any reasonable doubt—would you still confer the status of 'art' upon it?

Victor,

I thought I made that clear. Cognitively you are talking about a category of art. Normatively, in your system of values (and probably in mine), it is not.

Here, this might help. We have romantic art, academic art, etc. Here are a few other terms:

Junk Art

Trash Art

Malevolent Art

Meaningless Art

Nihilistic Art

Idiotic Art

Unintelligible Art

Futile Art

Irrelevant Art

Pointless Art

Stupid Art

Ridiculous Art

Compost Art (heh)

Should I go on? Cognitively it is all art. Most of it is worth nothing aesthetically to a person who values the heroic, but cognitively it is still a category of art.

I think it is highly more effective to explain what is being transmitted by this art than to deny that it is art. In this manner, people learn proper standards of judging art rather than attempting to come to terms with an incorrect characterization of a common cognitive concept (which most will dismiss anyway with something like "Oh, that's just so-and-so sounding off").

Michael

M,

You haven’t answered my question or challenge—if you wish to call it that.

I still don’t grant the premise that Abstract Expressionism is art—and not because I ascribe to a given school of art, namely Romanism—that is totally irrelevant right now. Art—from its very inception from the dawn of man—was and is conceptual--but that doesn’t mean it was Rand’s idea of “Romantic Realism.” That is merely a specific school of art, based on actual art.

I’m sorry, but your ignorance of art history shows, and that is okay---we can’t all be well versed on ever topic in the world. It just so happens that this is a keen interest of mine…for understandable reasons. [Mind you, your smattering of knowledge on art is impressive.]

-V

I will write the essay, and others may judge what I have to say on the subject by their own individual judgment. What else have they to go on? I’m not worried, the facts are on my side.

-Victor

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Danneskjold]

Most of those are redundant. However you are begging the question at hand. We are asking what art is and you are claiming that your list there is all under the category of art in spite of the fact that we are trying to define it.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I’m sorry, but your ignorance of art history shows, and that is okay---we can’t all be well versed on ever topic in the world.

Victor,

You see, this is the kind of bombastic presumptuous rhetoric that constantly flaws your reasoning. I don't agree with your premise at all, but that is not due to my knowledge of art history.

Let's call it the obviousness premise. I see people all over the world engaged in an activity they all call "art." They buy it and sell it (often for oodles of money). They make it and exhibit it in the most important cultural centers of practically all the major cities of the world. They contemplate it. I look in several dictionaries and see it so characterized there.

Then along comes Victor Pross and says it is not really art. All these people throughout ages are and have been engaged in something else entirely. The concept for what they do does not really exist.

Right.

And the fact that I disagree with this must be because of my knowledge of art history.

Right.

Who can take this seriously? I certainly can't. The only reason I still listen is because I like you, not because I respect your position. It's wrong.

Michael

[Danneskjold]

Your post is based on that the concept of what they are trading doesn't exist. Victor and I are not saying that. It exists, it is just not the concept that they are calling it.

If the concept in contention, that being the type of painting that does not represent anything in reality and is not a recreation of reality, is based on negating art altogether then it is not art.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Jeff Kremer

[Victor Pross]

I’m sorry, but your ignorance of art history shows, and that is okay---we can’t all be well versed on ever topic in the world.

Victor,

You see, this is the kind of bombastic presumptuous rhetoric that constantly flaws your reasoning. I don't agree with your premise at all, but that is not due to my knowledge of art history.

Let's call it the obviousness premise. I see people all over the world engaged in an activity they all call "art." They buy it and sell it (often for oodles of money). They make it and exhibit it in the most important cultural centers of practically all the major cities of the world. They contemplate it. I look in several dictionaries and see it so characterized there.

Then along comes Victor Pross and says it is not really art. All these people throughout ages are and have been engaged in something else entirely. The concept for what they do does not really exist.

Right.

And the fact that I disagree with this must be because of my knowledge of art history.

Right.

Who can take this seriously? I certainly can't. The only reason I still listen is because I like you, not because I respect your position. It's wrong.

Michael

M,

I like you too. :turned:

Modernism and Abstract Expressionism is of the 20th century only—not of “all history.”

Yes, along came Victor Pross and a coterie of many others.

I also don’t believe in God. Who am I to say all those millions of people are wrong? The facts of reality.

Let’s deal with the facts—not an appeal to authority or census. Can we do that? Let me write the essay...then talk.

-Victor

[Danneskjold]

I eagerly await your essay Victor.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Victor,

God is a perfect example. Cognitively there is a concept called "God." It does not correspond to anything man is aware of in existence, but the concept still exists (based on speculation and subjective experiences).

Cognitively, "God" is a being who created everything. Whether He exists or not in reality has very little to do with what the concept "God" means on a cognitive level. Normatively (adding value, thus a standard, for example, reason), God does not exist. The same word is used for two different concepts--one with added value and one without.

Art is the same way.

Jeff,

When you say: "It exists, it is just not the concept that they are calling it," you are using a standard other than "what exists." You are judging "what exists according to..." That is a normative concept.

This is why it is important to define terms. According to a standard definition used all over the world, modern art is art. I find it a folly to say that the standard definition does not exist when it is in widespread use.

Even when Rand redefined "selfishness," she did not deny that the other definitions existed. On the contrary, she heralded her new definition as a novelty. Can you imagine her saying at the outset that "trampling over people to satisfy urges is not selfishness"? Her way was something more along the lines of "trampling over people to satisfy urges is what people traditionally mean by selfishness, but not what I mean here."

There's a big difference here in being able to convince people.

(I will deal with my own view of abstract art further after this question is resolved. As it stands, there is no common ground to discuss it.)

Michael

[Victor Pross]

Abstract artists have one talent: they have a talent for winning foundation grants and garnering critic’s kudos by making an impression at the right parties. B)

[Danneskjold]

They're artists like James Taggart was a businessman.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

They're artists like James Taggart was a businessman.

Jeff,

I'll buy that (for the junk). Lousy businessman. Lousy artist.

Michael

[Danneskjold]

James Taggart wasn't a businessman he was a figurehead. He didn't do business, he did poltics. Dagny did business. Saying that James Taggart was a businessman is a gross misconception about either that Taggart did business or what a businessman is.

[Victor Pross]

In my 20s, I use to proposition girls up to my room using that old saw: “hey, would you like to see my etchings?” or better still: “Let me draw you.” This got me a lot of brownie points with woman--and sometimes I managed to get their clothes off for a still life. Now if I was painting abstract while the young lady was posing—how far would I get with her once she saw the results? She would be insulted.

“Does my figure really look like that?"

"No, no, baby. This inscrutable swirl of blobs and drips speaks to what a gorgeous woman you are…come back!"

"No, don’t touch me!”

Really, what kind of a love life would I have? I think MSK is out to ruin my love life. :cry:

Edited January 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Danneskjold]

I'm going to assume that that was not a point, but an anecdote. Then again we could put "helps get women" into the definition. How's this for the new Objectivist definition of art:

"The selective recreation of reality based on based on a metaphysical value judgement that helps get women."

Edited January 7, 2007 by Jeff Kremer

[Victor Pross]

I'm going to assume that that was not a point, but an anecdote. Then again we could put "helps get women" into the definition. How's this for the new Objectivist definition of art:

"The selective recreation of reality based on based on a metaphysical value judgement that helps get women."

It was a point then—now it’s an anecdote. It better be, or Angie will kill me.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

James Taggart wasn't a businessman he was a figurehead. He didn't do business, he did poltics. Dagny did business. Saying that James Taggart was a businessman is a gross misconception about either that Taggart did business or what a businessman is.

Jeff,

(sigh)

You still don't get the difference between the cognitive and the normative--and you have the intelligence to see it. There is nothing wrong with having a normative concept of something, but that does not obliterate the cognitive one.

Hell, don't let me convince you. Let Ayn Rand. She did not start out calling James Taggart a businessman, but she certainly did with Paul Larkin (who represented the foul side in Atlas Shrugged just as much as JT). All quotes below are from Atlas Shrugged.

Paul Larkin had always been unlucky. Nothing he touched ever came off quite well, nothing ever quite failed or succeeded. He was a businessman, but he could not manage to remain for long in any one line of business.

You may not consider Larkin a businessman, but Rand did--enough to call him one. Does Rand think there are good businessmen and bad businessmen (the normative concept)? Of course (Dagny to Eddie):

Look, Eddie. You've got the makings of a good businessman, so you'd better get a few things straight.

Rand also granted that James Taggart would be called a businessman by the public (JT to Cherryl):

All the newspapers said that I was a great example for all businessmen to follow—a businessman with a sense of social responsibility.

Betram Scudder, however, would agree with you. The following is an excellent use of mixing the cognitive concept with the normative one to underscore a literary meaning

"Jim," said Bertram Scudder, slapping his shoulder, "the best compliment I can pay you is that you're not a real businessman!"

Here is another instance where James Taggart is called a businessman in the cognitive sense (Mr. Weatherby to JT):

"Nobody can deny it, Jim, that Wesley feels a high regard for you as an enlightened businessman, a valuable adviser and one of his closest personal friends."

Here is another baddie who was a businessman:

The man in Bedroom H, Car No. 5, was a businessman who had acquired his business, an ore mine, with the help of a government loan, under the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.

Now the following quote not only mentions "modern artists" (and artists do what if not create art? Hmmmm?), it also gives the word "real" as a synonym of "good." Note that the word "real" in this context, and in the statement by Bertram Scudder above, does not mean "real businessman" as opposed to "inexistent businessman" or "imaginary businessman," or even "politician" or "fireman" or some other profession. It is used normatively as a metaphor for high quality and integrity, not cognitively. As a cognitive concept, a businessman is merely the profession of someone who works in business, not how he works. Rand even mentions the bad guys implying that they are businessmen, but poor-quality and dishonest ones, not inexistent ones. As an aside and apropos of another discussion, notice the reference to an innate quality, "tone deaf." (Richard Halley to Dagny):

Miss Taggart, do you see why I'd give three dozen modern artists for one real businessman? Why I have much more in common with Ellis Wyatt or Ken Danagger—who happens to be tone deaf—than with men like Mort Liddy and Balph Eubank?

The following is a dishonest business practice. According to your statement, this would not be a practice of a businessman. If you understand the difference between the cognitive and the normative, you will see that this is the practice of a businessman, but an unscrupulous one, which is why John Galt called him a businessman. (Galt to Dagny):

The businessman who wishes to gain a market by throttling a superior competitor...

Here is another unscrupulous soul almost worse than JT, Señor Rodrigo Gonzales, who is famous for government connections and parties. He is called a businessman. I wonders how a person can be a "progressive businessman" if he is not a businessman, if I take your statement as true.

His guests described him as a progressive businessman.

How about the famous John Galt speech?

... the businessman who, to protect his stagnation, takes pleasure in chaining the ability of competitors...

I could go to Rand's nonfiction for many, many more quotes, but I think you get the idea. I do trust that you will not say that Rand did not mean what she wrote.

Michael

[Danneskjold]

Ahh, ya, upon dictionary.com-ing normative I see what you mean. When I give a normative definition of something I am comparing something to what the normal is or giving it a standard. When something is cognitive it is based on fact, not a standard, it is what something is not a value judgement.

All the same, the type of painting we are referring to as not art is the type that has no basis in reality. Eliminating this from our definition of art is not necessarily a normative definition because it is a different kind of painting. If it was in the same style as a type of painting that we are referring to as art then we would be trying to create a normative definition and not a cognitive one. However we are perfectly able to create a cognitive defintion of art that does not include art that is not a selective recreation of reality and still have it be a cognitive definition and not a normative one.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Jeff Kremer