Art as Microcosm (2004)

[Roger Bissell]

Roger,

I had included a link to your essay Art as Microcosm this past year,* but only today have I had the pleasure of rereading it for myself. It had been some years since I read it, and in the meantime, this past year, I had occasion to reread The Fountainhead.

Stephen, I'm glad you enjoyed re-reading my essay, and I appreciate your linking to it. I continue to realize that it's a good thing it is posted both here on OL (in segments) and on my own personal web site (in its entirety). That gives folks more chances to happen upon it and give me feedback, which I value very much.

Rand’s descriptions of Roark’s designs include deliberate relationships to the natural and manmade surroundings of his buildings.* In architecture which could count as art-as-microcosm, it would seem that the surroundings are turned into part of the frame of the artistic microcosm-window, particularly in viewing the exterior of the building. In that sort of exterior view, one could think of the view as like the view of a sculpture in its grounds (cf. a, b). Is the microcosm of an art-as-microcosm building, when viewed from the exterior, only as like a sculpture in its grounds? Or would you say the building’s general known function (or at least the idea that it has a function) is part of one’s experience of building as microcosm in the esthetic experience of the exterior?

That's a very interesting question. If I may use the term very loosely, a building is an idealized "sculpted" environment for a man, while a sculpture is an idealized "sculpted" man. This is why they often occur together, to make the implicit more explicit.

And yes, I would say that the surrounding of the building function as a kind of "frame" for the building, just as the location of a statue "frames" the statue. The difference is that the building itself is an extensive microcosm minus a person inhabiting it (in the absence of a statue, or the resident himself), while the statue is a person inhabiting a microcosm that has to be ~imagined~ (unless placed in or near a building or other idealized environment).

Interesting challenge, to tease out all the variations and subtleties in how aesthetic "frames" work, so as to "set off" an artwork from the rest of the real world in which we viewers stand while we allow ourselves to psychically dwell in the imaginary world.

I wonder if all art-as-microcosm includes (generally unconscious) expression of organic unity from the biological world, together with the organic unity of differentiating and integrating consciousness, particularly the latter organic unity in the conceptual level of consciousness. I just wonder.

That's an interesting thesis, Stephen. I can't easily wrap my mind around it, since it seems rather abstract to me. But I hope you will explore it and share more of your thoughts about it--if you can spare time from all your other worthy pursuits!

Be that as it may, is there a center of the microcosm—perhaps an abstract personality—portrayed in all art-as-microcosm? Or is there required a center—indeed a personality—only in the experience of the art, namely, the imagined mindedness of the creator making and sharing objects of esthetic experience?

In the case of architecture, you seem to pose a different center:

2. Art as Not Exclusively Non-Utilitarian

. . .

[Text, from page 333 of the original essay in JARS V5N2]

A visitor to one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterfully designed buildings [cf.], is perfectly capable of an act of selective attention, by which he abstracts away (visually tunes out) all the people living or working in it (in much the same fashion as a concert-goer can visually tune out all the people in the orchestra and the audience). He can then focus on it as an image of a world in which a certain kind of person lives in a certain kind of habitation, and on what it implies about the basic nature of the world and of human life. This is completely parallel to what he can do in regard to a statue (as an image of a certain kind of human, and what it implies about the basic nature of the world and of human life)—apart from its accepted, if not intended use as a pigeon roost!

Then, too, perhaps an imagined mindedness behind the creation and an imagined “certain kind of person” are only as the evening star and the morning star.

Perhaps, if, for instance, the mindedness-creator had projected himself as the imagined person inhabiting it, as in a house Wright designed that he designed for himself to live in.

Or, perhaps more as Venus and Mars, if the mindedness-creator had tried to somehow insightfully project himself into the psyche of his client and used that projection as the basis for the imagined person inhabiting it, as in a house Wright designed explicitly for another person to live in.

In other words, I think that a creative fine artist who wants to present an imaginary world inhabited by a certain kind of person need not be envisioning ~himself~ as that kind of person, just himself be capable of ~envisioning~ that kind of person.

Let me take this one step further and give a more nuanced reply to your question. I acknowledge that some architects are not ~explicitly~ envisioning a ~kind of person~, nor explicitly conceiving an ~abstract view~ of what they want to say about man's relationship to his environment/reality.

And I also acknowledge that ~viewers~ of a piece of architecture often do not explicitly imagine a kind of person, nor explicitly grasp an abstract view of what the architecture says about man and reality.

However, I believe that in order to function as, to be be understood as, architecture--and not just a three-dimensional sculpture--such a kind of person and abstract view of man ~must~ be present in the architect's and viewer's mind, at least ~implicitly~.

Think of it in terms of this analogy: suppose I, as a parent, told my child, "I love you. I respect and admire you, and I have great affection for you," all the while sneeringly and loathingly holding the child at arm's length, refusing him affection. I say that my message is my love for the child. That may be my ~explicit~, "official" message, but it certainly is at odds with my ~real~ message, which is conveyed by all the ~unspoken~, ~implicit~ things I am communicating with my body language and expressions. Is it ~subjective~ to point out all this nonverbal communication and to label it ~as~ communication, just because it's not in words? Certainly not! It's real, and it's what I am ~really~ telling my child, even if neither I nor my child ~realize~ it consciously. Or, if only my child, and not I, realize it consciously.

Now, what is important to realize (relevant to recent discussions of meaning in art that the creator says has ~no~ abstract meaning) is that this analysis holds true, even if I say ~nothing~ to my child, while sneering and spurning his affection. No ~explicit~, "official" message, to be sure, but plenty of ~real~ meaning being communicated.

If you were to tell me what I was ~really~ communicating, when I claimed I was saying ~nothing~, would you then be "presumptious" and "arrogant" to point out the obvious? Suppose other people disagreed with your analysis. Who are ~you~ to insist that ~your~ view of what I actually communicated was true, while theirs was not?

I hope the parallel is clear to understanding the meaning of what is communicated ~in~ art, as against what someone ~says~ is communicated, whether the creator or the viewer, and that it is ~not~ .

Stephen, thanks again for your interest and for engaging with some of the ideas I was exploring in attempting to make more sense out of Rand's view of the philosophical meaning of architecture than I think she was able to.

REB

[Jonathan]

Interesting challenge, to tease out all the variations and subtleties in how aesthetic "frames" work, so as to "set off" an artwork from the rest of the real world in which we viewers stand while we allow ourselves to psychically dwell in the imaginary world.

You may be interested in Frank Lloyd Wright's comments on frames, which I posted here. He felt that picture frames prevented the full appreciation of abstract art, saying that "frames were always an expedient that segregated and masked the paintings off from the environment to its own loss of relationship and proportion."

As for architecture's means, I quoted him on the same thread as saying that he thought that each basic geometric shape has "a certain psychic quality which we may call the 'spell-power' of the form, and with which the artist freely plays, as...the musician at his keyboard," and that "geometric forms have come to symbolize for us and potently suggest certain human ideas, moods and sentiments - as for instance: the circle, infinity [and 'universality']; the triangle, structural unity [and 'aspiration'];...the spiral, organic progress; the square, integrity," and, "In the opposition of the circle and the square I find motives for... themes with all the sentiment of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'; combining these with the octagon I find sufficient materials for symphonic development."

J

[Roger Bissell]

Interesting challenge, to tease out all the variations and subtleties in how aesthetic "frames" work, so as to "set off" an artwork from the rest of the real world in which we viewers stand while we allow ourselves to psychically dwell in the imaginary world.

You may be interested in Frank Lloyd Wright's comments on frames, which I posted here. He felt that picture frames prevented the full appreciation of abstract art, saying that "frames were always an expedient that segregated and masked the paintings off from the environment to its own loss of relationship and proportion."

As for architecture's means, I quoted him on the same thread as saying that he thought that each basic geometric shape has "a certain psychic quality which we may call the 'spell-power' of the form, and with which the artist freely plays, as...the musician at his keyboard," and that "geometric forms have come to symbolize for us and potently suggest certain human ideas, moods and sentiments - as for instance: the circle, infinity [and 'universality']; the triangle, structural unity [and 'aspiration'];...the spiral, organic progress; the square, integrity," and, "In the opposition of the circle and the square I find motives for... themes with all the sentiment of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'; combining these with the octagon I find sufficient materials for symphonic development."

J

I agree with you about frames. Actual, physical frames are like aesthetic training wheels -- good to teach people how to mentally set aside the "real world" from the "world inside the artwork," so that they can more easily take an "aesthetic attitude." But it's really not necessary, and much art only has an implicit frame. What's most important is the "frame of consciousness."

My sister has made some lovely paintings that do not use frames. Three of them are placed side by side (with space between) on her dining room wall. They are acrylic paintings of successive portions of a blossoming tree branch (forgot what kind), and they seem for all the world to function like ~windows~ to portions of an outdoors scene. Clever gal.

Shapes are ~very~ important to me in my intellectual work. In personality type theory, I've found octagons most helpful in visualizing the various types and how they relate. In philosophy, I've found squares to be useful in two ways; paradoxically, I find that many people fail to think outside the box, while others (or even the same ones) fail to think inside the box. (Different boxes, but...)

In musical creation, though, I almost always think of arcs and symmetry and repetition and variation, rather than closed figures. It's hard for me to imagine thinking developmentally in terms of closed figures. How in the world Wright could imagine using circles, squares, and octagons to organize his thoughts in writing a symphony is beyond me! Maybe that's why I haven't written a symphony yet. :-/

REB

[Jonathan]

I agree with you about frames. Actual, physical frames are like aesthetic training wheels -- good to teach people how to mentally set aside the "real world" from the "world inside the artwork," so that they can more easily take an "aesthetic attitude." But it's really not necessary, and much art only has an implicit frame. What's most important is the "frame of consciousness."

My point was that I don't think that Wright was looking to "set aside" works of art from the real world, but to blend and integrate them into it. I think if anything could be seen as a frame, it would be aspects of Wright's work framing nature rather than the other way around. When standing insided Taliesin, I haven't gotten the feeling that the focus was one of "microcosm," but of directing the eye toward, and making the mind aware of, the existing beauty of nature.

My sister has made some lovely paintings that do not use frames. Three of them are placed side by side (with space between) on her dining room wall. They are acrylic paintings of successive portions of a blossoming tree branch (forgot what kind), and they seem for all the world to function like ~windows~ to portions of an outdoors scene. Clever gal.

I've seen such triptychs painted by others, and you're right, they can give the effect of functioning like windows, but that would be an example of blurring the distinction between art and reality -- of melding rather than setting apart.

Shapes are ~very~ important to me in my intellectual work. In personality type theory, I've found octagons most helpful in visualizing the various types and how they relate. In philosophy, I've found squares to be useful in two ways; paradoxically, I find that many people fail to think outside the box, while others (or even the same ones) fail to think inside the box. (Different boxes, but...)

I think Wright's views on shapes were about what could be described as their presenting something akin to "body language." If he were to say that seeing a person with crossed arms can "potently suggest certain human ideas, moods and sentiments," and, depending on the context, can symbolize more complex traits or concepts, such as, say, defiant independence, anxious self-protectiveness, skepticism or moral disapproval, it would be missing the point to then add one's own example of the importance of body language by saying that using the points and lines of the crossed arm pattern can be useful in remembering how to rotate the tires on a car.

My view, and my reason for posting Wright's comments, is that I think that certain people, like you, are not sensitive to shapes giving off a vibe of something like body language, much like how people with Asperger's can have difficulty in reading and expressing body language and other non-verbal cues.

In musical creation, though, I almost always think of arcs and symmetry and repetition and variation, rather than closed figures. It's hard for me to imagine thinking developmentally in terms of closed figures. How in the world Wright could imagine using circles, squares, and octagons to organize his thoughts in writing a symphony is beyond me! Maybe that's why I haven't written a symphony yet. :-/

Again, that tells me that you're not seeing what Wright was getting at. Wright wasn't talking about using shapes to organize his thoughts as you do. He was talking about combining the expressive effects of the shapes, much in the same way that combining crossed arms, a wide stance and a grin could be used in different combinations to suggest different character traits and even archetypes.

J

Edited February 6, 2011 by Jonathan

[Roger Bissell]

I agree with you about frames. Actual, physical frames are like aesthetic training wheels -- good to teach people how to mentally set aside the "real world" from the "world inside the artwork," so that they can more easily take an "aesthetic attitude." But it's really not necessary, and much art only has an implicit frame. What's most important is the "frame of consciousness."

My point was that I don't think that Wright was looking to "set aside" works of art from the real world, but to blend and integrate them into it. I think if anything could be seen as a frame, it would be aspects of Wright's work framing nature rather than the other way around. When standing insided Taliesin, I haven't gotten the feeling that the focus was one of "microcosm," but of directing the eye toward, and making the mind aware of, the existing beauty of nature.

I understand that Wright wanted to make his works appropriate to their surroundings, since the surroundings were there to start with. In contrast, for a painting, there is first the painting, and then an appropriate frame (if any) selected by the artist. But in each case, the function is the same: the physical frame of the painting and the physical surroundings of the architecture act as an interface between the viewer and the art work.

Granted, also, we can step ~inside~ the art work in the case of the architecture, whereas with the painting, we can only ~imagine~ ourselves inside it. But inside of, or outside of, Wright's buildings, we get to look at his microcosm, and the beauty and the forces of nature are among the most salient aspects of that microcosm. I wrote about this in the section of my essay that appears in post #2 above.

My sister has made some lovely paintings that do not use frames. Three of them are placed side by side (with space between) on her dining room wall. They are acrylic paintings of successive portions of a blossoming tree branch (forgot what kind), and they seem for all the world to function like ~windows~ to portions of an outdoors scene. Clever gal.

I've seen such triptychs painted by others, and you're right, they can give the effect of functioning like windows, but that would be an example of blurring the distinction between art and reality -- of melding rather than setting apart.

Well, as I noted, we don't ~need~ a frame to experience a microcosm. Anything that plays an appropriate perceptual/mental trick on the viewer will do. In motion pictures, many still frames are flashed to the viewer so quickly that he sees not a succession of still frames, but one ~apparently~ moving picture. A cruder example is the phi phenomenon from seeing one of those "arrow" signs based on a succession of light bulbs activating in the direction of what you are intended to focus on. But I don't see the triptych-"windows" as blurring the art-reality distinction any more than a single painting "window" would do. It's all an illusion, a virtual world, and we either allow ourselves to "enter into it," or we don't.

Shapes are ~very~ important to me in my intellectual work. In personality type theory, I've found octagons most helpful in visualizing the various types and how they relate. In philosophy, I've found squares to be useful in two ways; paradoxically, I find that many people fail to think outside the box, while others (or even the same ones) fail to think inside the box. (Different boxes, but...)

I think Wright's views on shapes were about what could be described as their presenting something akin to "body language." If he were to say that seeing a person with crossed arms can "potently suggest certain human ideas, moods and sentiments," and, depending on the context, can symbolize more complex traits or concepts, such as, say, defiant independence, anxious self-protectiveness, skepticism or moral disapproval, it would be missing the point to then add one's own example of the importance of body language by saying that using the points and lines of the crossed arm pattern can be useful in remembering how to rotate the tires on a car.

My view, and my reason for posting Wright's comments, is that I think that certain people, like you, are not sensitive to shapes giving off a vibe of something like body language, much like how people with Asperger's can have difficulty in reading and expressing body language and other non-verbal cues.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that was what you were referring to. Yes, I certainly ~do~ get different connotations or "vibes" from different geometric shapes and colors (even being partially color-blind as I am), just as I do from different melodic arcs and harmonic trajectories in music. But I was just startled by Wright talking about using squares and circles in constructing a symphony (as you quoted him saying). Of all things! I'm sure there are composers who work that way, but I've never heard of it!

In musical creation, though, I almost always think of arcs and symmetry and repetition and variation, rather than closed figures. It's hard for me to imagine thinking developmentally in terms of closed figures. How in the world Wright could imagine using circles, squares, and octagons to organize his thoughts in writing a symphony is beyond me! Maybe that's why I haven't written a symphony yet. :-/

Again, that tells me that you're not seeing what Wright was getting at. Wright wasn't talking about using shapes to organize his thoughts as you do. He was talking about combining the expressive effects of the shapes, much in the same way that combining crossed arms, a wide stance and a grin could be used in different combinations to suggest different character traits and even archetypes.

I can see that in visual art, perfectly well. Just not in music! I ~do~ combine "arcs" of melodic and harmonic motion, as well as isolated, punctuating musical "thrusts," for certain expressive, meaningful effects. That seems to be in the same vein as what you're talking about.

REB

[Jonathan]

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that was what you were referring to. Yes, I certainly ~do~ get different connotations or "vibes" from different geometric shapes and colors (even being partially color-blind as I am), just as I do from different melodic arcs and harmonic trajectories in music. But I was just startled by Wright talking about using squares and circles in constructing a symphony (as you quoted him saying). Of all things! I'm sure there are composers who work that way, but I've never heard of it!

Yeah, Wright was speaking metaphorically, but you appear to have taken him literally. He wasn't talking about composers using circles, squares and octagons as materials for symphonic development, but of architects using them to create architecture (or lamps, or stained glass windows, etc.) which has all the sentiment of symphonic development.

J

Edited February 7, 2011 by Jonathan

[Jonathan]

Granted, also, we can step ~inside~ the art work in the case of the architecture, whereas with the painting, we can only ~imagine~ ourselves inside it. But inside of, or outside of, Wright's buildings, we get to look at his microcosm, and the beauty and the forces of nature are among the most salient aspects of that microcosm...

...But I don't see the triptych-"windows" as blurring the art-reality distinction any more than a single painting "window" would do. It's all an illusion, a virtual world, and we either allow ourselves to "enter into it," or we don't.

The above paragraphs seem to present a problem for architecture under your concept of art as microcosm. Here, and in your essays, you seem to be using two different definitions or meanings of the word "microcosm." When speaking of all of the other arts, you use the term "microcosm" interchangeably with "imaginary world." But the "world" that architecture creates is not imaginary. It's not an "illusion." It's not "virtual." It is the real environment, the real world, in which real people really live.

From my reading of Rand, I took her to believe that art did indeed create an "imaginary world," but I think that the term "simulation" would be much closer to what she meant than "microcosm." So, what I'm wondering is, where, and how, do you draw the line on which microcosms can qualify as art, if they need not be imaginary? You've rejected the idea that utilitarian issues cause a problem, so I would think that almost any man-made microcosm would quality as art by your criteria.

A nation like the United States, for example, is a microcosm of how the world "might and ought to be" according to its creators. It expresses a "sense of life," and even its utilitarian aspects -- the construction of its constitution and government -- are reflections of its creators "metaphysical value-judgments." The same was true of Nazi Germany. It was a microcosm which allowed those living in it to experience how its creator thought that life, the world, and all of existence "ought to be." Why would nations, or any other microcosms, not be art according to the same meaning of "microcosm" that you use in regard to architecture?

J

Edited February 7, 2011 by Jonathan

[Roger Bissell]

On 2/7/2011 at 9:08 AM, Jonathan said:

On 2/6/2011 at 4:09 PM, Roger Bissell said:

Granted, also, we can step ~inside~ the art work in the case of the architecture, whereas with the painting, we can only ~imagine~ ourselves inside it. But inside of, or outside of, Wright's buildings, we get to look at his microcosm, and the beauty and the forces of nature are among the most salient aspects of that microcosm...

...But I don't see the triptych-"windows" as blurring the art-reality distinction any more than a single painting "window" would do. It's all an illusion, a virtual world, and we either allow ourselves to "enter into it," or we don't.

1

The above paragraphs seem to present a problem for architecture under your concept of art as microcosm. Here, and in your essays, you seem to be using two different definitions or meanings of the word "microcosm." When speaking of all of the other arts, you use the term "microcosm" interchangeably with "imaginary world." But the "world" that architecture creates is not imaginary. It's not an "illusion." It's not "virtual." It is the real environment, the real world, in which real people really live.

 

Actually, it's ~both~. The subcategory of fine art that is also utilitarian involves a kind of cognitive double-exposure.

A piece of architecture is a real environment in which someone can live, and it's an ~idealized~ or imaginary environment, one that is designed to stand for or symbolize how man ~should~ live, to symbolize an ~ideal man's~ environment.

Similarly, a piece of processional music is a real sonic process along with which people can walk at a certain pace and in a certain manner, and it's an idealized, imaginary sonic world that symbolizes how man should live and move.

Utilitarian art is functional, and it's aesthetic. In the latter sense, it's a "virtual world," an aesthetic microcosm, one in which you or I might imagine living ourselves, or imagine who might or should live there.

Quote

From my reading of Rand, I took her to believe that art did indeed create an "imaginary world," but I think that the term "simulation" would be much closer to what she meant than "microcosm." So, what I'm wondering is, where, and how, do you draw the line on which microcosms can qualify as art, if they need not be imaginary? You've rejected the idea that utilitarian issues cause a problem, so I would think that almost any man-made microcosm would quality as art by your criteria.

 

Not really. Only a man-made microcosm that allows man to perceive his broad abstractions in perceptual form. Not his ethical values or his political values, but his view of man and the universe--Rand's "metaphysical value-judgments."

For clarity, we should call this an "aesthetic microcosm," to distinguish it from other kinds. In my essay, I listed several kinds of microcosms, according to what kind of value-judgments they embodied:

 

[From "Art as Microcosm"] Among microcosms (i.e., microcosmic re-creations), there are also several distinct types, distinguished not along a continuum, but instead by the standard of selectivity used in making the microcosm. One may exercise selectivity according to one’s ideological value-judgments and create a diorama (which is an ideologically slanted re-enactment of a segment of history). Or one may exercise selectivity according to one’s physical value-judgments and create a scale model of the galaxy or of the Earth’s eco-system. Or one may exercise selectivity according to what Rand calls one’s “metaphysical value-judgments” and create an artwork. Each of these, in its own way, is a re-creation of reality[19]—a cognitive window into the cosmos, or a portion of it.

 

We can add to this, as you note below, the political microcosm presented by a nation that has been built from the myriad choices of the people living there, according to their interacting political or ideological value-judgments.

Quote

A nation like the United States, for example, is a microcosm of how the world "might and ought to be" according to its creators. It expresses a "sense of life," and even its utilitarian aspects -- the construction of its constitution and government -- are reflections of its creator's "metaphysical value-judgments." The same was true of Nazi Germany. It was a microcosm which allowed those living in it to experience how its creator thought that life, the world, and all of existence "ought to be." Why would nations, or any other microcosms, not be art according to the same meaning of "microcosm" that you use in regard to architecture?

 

This is a very good point.

Yes, metaphysical value-judgments, according to Rand, are the root of one's ethics (and politics) ~and~ of one's aesthetics, and they are thus ~embodied~ in one's ethical and political systems and patterns of behavior, just as in one's aesthetic creations. But in the former, they are the primaries and are explicitly shown, whereas in the latter, they are the implied premises from which the ethical and political principles are ~derived~ and thus have to be inferred.

I wrote something along these lines back in 1999, which I entitled "The Esthetics of Ethics: One's Life as a Work of Art":

 

At a private gathering in May 1999, Nathaniel Branden spoke about the importance of what he called "embodying in your own actions what you want to see in the world." This, he suggested, is the root of benevolence. When I heard this, it occurred to me that a person's fashioning for him/herself a benevolent (or non) life could be regarded as an ~esthetic~ way of looking at ethics -- and, in particular, the ethical issue of benevolence. I'd like to expand on that idea a little here...

 

 

By embodying in your self what you want to see in the world, you are making a sort of artwork out of your life, actions, character. You are, in the terms of Rand's definition of "art," selectively re-creating reality -- taking the raw material of your mind, values, past experience, present context, future possibilities, etc. and fashioning them into a microcosm of what you find most significant about reality. You then, just as much as (perhaps more than) an external embodiment of your worldview (artwork), become a living symbol of that worldview. You are ~practicing~ what you preach -- or, more deeply, what you believe. You are being congruent in action and character with your deepest principles. (Integrity.)

 

 

Moreover, I think that this relates not only to esthetics, but to the psychology of friendship and romance -- what Dr. Branden calls "visibility." What happens when you perceive an embodiment of your deep values and world perspective in another's character and actions is ~like~ what happens when you perceive it in an artwork. You are understanding that other person in the same profound way that you are understanding an artwork. And when the other person gets the sense that you ~are~ understanding them in that way, they have an externalized sense of the reality of what ~they~ are embodying in a way similar to the externalized sense of that reality when ~they~ perceive it in an artwork. So, it works for both the perceiver and the perceived! And I think that's why it's so powerful.

 

 

In conclusion, I offer this example to illustrate my point. George Bernard Shaw said: "The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art." Now, relate this to my point about how embodying what you want to see in the world can be regarded as a form of self-creation or you-as-an-artwork. Sir Thomas More refused to sanction Henry VIII's divorce and remarriage by lying under oath, and as a consequence of cleaving to his principles, he and his family lived in poverty for the last period of his life. He very much exemplified the attitude of the "true artist" described by Shaw.

 

I don't disagree with any of what I wrote back then, but I do want to clarify a point.

Viewing your life as a "work of art" is just a ~perspective~ you can take on your life. It is not how people normally live their lives. (I'm not saying it's "abnormal.") They don't ask: am I fashioning a good representation of my view of reality, but: are my actions good for getting me to my goal of happiness?

Similarly, for politics. We don't normally ask: are we Americans fashioning a good representation of our view of man and realiy, but: is the system we're setting up and employing good for implementing our value of individual liberty and protection of individual rights?

Yes, those ethical or political goals are ~based on~ our metaphysical value-judgments, and if we have derived them consonant to those broad views of man and life, then yes, they ~embody~ those views, and yes, they can provide emotional fuel and perspective, just as art can, but that's not how we normally look at them.

Now, about architecture: I think that viewing architecture as a work of art ~is~ how the creator and at least his client view the resulting building--as well as viewing it as a ~functional~ (utilitarian) thing, of course. The same is true, for instance, of Elgar's processional march, "Pomp and Circumstance" and many other such compositions.

So, it's naturally a dual-perspective matter for architecture: does this thing directly embody my view of man and the world -- and does this thing fulfill the more specific function for which it was created?

If the latter, then yes, lurking in the background is the abstract view of man and the world that the functional standard of value is ~derived~ from, as it is in an ethical or political system, a nation or an individual life. But as I noted above, we do not normally build nations or lives in order to get or give inspiration and perspective on "the Big Picture," nor do others looking at those nations or lives look to them for that purpose.

Instead, in judging those things (ethics and politics, as well as medicine, education, etc.), we focus on the ~derivative~ values that we have drawn from the basic, "metaphysical" views. It's always an option to take an "aesthetic attitude" toward those things, but it's not how we typically look at them, unless they're hybrid things such as architecture or, e.g., processional music.

REB

[Jonathan]

Actually, it's ~both~. The subcategory of fine art that is also utilitarian involves a kind of cognitive double-exposure.

A piece of architecture is a real environment in which someone can live, and it's an ~idealized~ or imaginary environment, one that is designed to stand for or symbolize how man ~should~ live, to symbolize an ~ideal man's~ environment.

No, you appear to be playing games with words here. A real environment may indeed be an idealized one, but that doesn't make it an imaginary one. It is real, not imaginary. The fact that it may symbolize something, or inspire you to imagine things about it, doesn't make it imaginary.

Utilitarian art is functional, and it's aesthetic.

I understand, but it's just not imaginary. It is not "model-building," but reality-building.

In the latter sense, it's a "virtual world," an aesthetic microcosm, one in which you or I might imagine living ourselves, or imagine who might or should live there.

No, it is not a "virtual world." It is an idealization made real. The fact that it might inspire you or me to imagine living there doesn't make it "virtual" or imaginary. Likewise, if I see, say, a fighter jet on display at the local airport, and it makes me imagine what it would be like to fly it, the jet doesn't become imaginary -- it's just as real as the day it left the factory.

Similarly, for politics. We don't normally ask: are we Americans fashioning a good representation of our view of man and realiy, but: is the system we're setting up and employing good for implementing our value of individual liberty and protection of individual rights?

I disagree. I think most people ask both. Their answer to the first question informs their answer to the second.

But as I noted above, we do not normally build nations or lives in order to get or give inspiration and perspective on "the Big Picture," nor do others looking at those nations or lives look to them for that purpose.

Millions of people have looked to America for inspiration, and many people, famous political leaders included, have spoken of the importance of America's role in inspiring the world. The same is true of leaders of other nations. Nations have a "cognitive double-exposure," as you put it above.

Instead, in judging those things (ethics and politics, as well as medicine, education, etc.), we focus on the ~derivative~ values that we have drawn from the basic, "metaphysical" views.

The same is true of buildings. Their primary function is utilitarian, but they can also have an aesthetic function, which is secondary. You can remove the art from a building, but you can't remove the utility. People live and work in their buildings, they don't visit them occasionally to imagine living and working in them.

It's always an option to take an "aesthetic attitude" toward those things, but it's not how we typically look at them, unless they're hybrid things such as architecture or, e.g., processional music.

Again, I disagree. I think most people throughout the world do take an aesthetic view of nations. A person's nation is just as much his home as his house, and since most people do not live in highly stylized, art-architecture buildings, they're probably more aesthetically in touch with their national identity or national "sense of life" than they are with their houses or any other buildings.

Nations, and probably lots of other man-made microcosms, are art by your criteria.

J

Edited February 7, 2011 by Jonathan

[Jonathan]

A piece of architecture is a real environment in which someone can live, and it's an ~idealized~ or imaginary environment, one that is designed to stand for or symbolize how man ~should~ live, to symbolize an ~ideal man's~ environment.

I just wanted to add that the above sounds very Randian and limited to me. It makes it sound as if every artist approaches (or should approach) his art in the way that Rand did -- that his sole purpose is to concretize his vision of the "ideal man" (or woman).

Every artwork isn't necessarily about idealization just because Rand was into idealization in her art. Take a vase, for example, which, like architecture, combines art and utility. A specific vase may be an idealized container, but that doesn't mean that idealization is its aesthetic content. The artistic impact of a vase is not that it symbolizes the type of container qua container that mankind should or ought to have. Nor is it meant to symbolize the type of vase that the "ideal man" would have. Its aesthetic power is its form, texture, color and proportions, and may have nothing to do with its utilitarian qualities (its "vaseness").

The same is true of architecture. A building's aesthetic content isn't necessarily limited to being about "man's environment" or what type of man would live in it. Its aesthetic qualities and means of expression aren't necessarily even related to the building's utilitarian function.

J

[Roger Bissell]

On 2/5/2007 at 2:30 AM, Ellen Stuttle said:

As to Kapoor, I only just heard of him through Jonathan's post. Jonathan sent me some links to a few of his works, but none of those looked to me like heaps of cow dung. I'd be curious to see whatever examples you found to which you're referring.

 

This one looks sort of like dung from a cow that got into the grape patch. Or maybe like a blueberry bagel. Whatever.

He also produced something in 2011 called "Between Shit and Architecture." See here: http://anishkapoor.com/691/between-shit-and-architecture . It doesn't look as much like dung as it does columns of insulation. Inspiring, huh.

Kapoor seems to have a thing about sculpting enormous vaginas, too. Apparently some vicious "extreme right wingers" vandalized his "Queen's Vagina," and he had these comments about it just last year: http://anishkapoor.com/1031/dirty-corner-19-06-2015

REB

[Jonathan]

7 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

This one looks sort of like dung from a cow that got into the grape patch. Or maybe like a blueberry bagel. Whatever.

Is that still the limit of your aesthetic experience when looking at Kapoor's work? How sad!

 

7 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

He also produced something in 2011 called "Between Shit and Architecture." See here: http://anishkapoor.com/691/between-shit-and-architecture . It doesn't look as much like dung as it does columns of insulation. Inspiring, huh.

To me it looks like 3D-printed cement. The structures and their aesthetic effects are indeed inspiring. How unfortunate that you're so unobservant, dull, and angry. How pitiful that you have such a miserable, scraggy Rand bug stuck up your butt that so severely cramps you aesthetically.

 

7 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

Kapoor seems to have a thing about sculpting enormous vaginas, too. Apparently some vicious "extreme right wingers" vandalized his "Queen's Vagina," and he had these comments about it just last year: http://anishkapoor.com/1031/dirty-corner-19-06-2015

 

Is that what you interpret his work to be? Vaginas?

Not cornucopias, or conduits, corridors, or wormholes in time, or vortices, but only vaginas? Heh, and he's the one who has a "thing" about vaginas?

Since you see them as visually representing vaginas, then they should qualify as art by your standards. After all, they meet your requirement of recreating identifiable things from reality. So, then, what's your problem with the artworks? Why so upset?

Are we back again to the questions I've asked of you multiple times in the past that you've evaded? With your extreme aesthetic limitations in regard to the visual arts, and your very limited knowledge of them, you've been unable to answer my challenges that you explain why you think that a realistic painting, by Linda Mann (a fellow Rand-admirer) of an arrangement of stones (identifiable objects in reality) qualifies as art, and has wonderful, life-affirming aesthetic effects on you and deeply fulfilling meaning, but a realistic painting by a different artist of colorful square tiles (identifiable objects in reality) doesn't qualify as art, and can't possibly have the wonderful, life-affirming aesthetic effects that I described it as having, and it's very, very upsetting to you that anyone would call it art, and you felt that it needed to be ridiculed, including by dragging your wife's stupidity into the conversation as if it would supplement your own.

Do you have any substance yet in response to that challenge that I set before you, or to the many others that followed?

No?

Instead you're just going to show up occasionally and expect that your old, ineffective tactic of the "argument from personal incredulity" will suddenly work, rather than that it will once again be recognized as an inadvertent confession of your own visual, observational and aesthetic limitations?

J

 

[BaalChatzaf]

Arguing over art and other aesthetic  matters is a waste of time...

[Brant Gaede]

Why?

And why are you wasting your time?

What business is it of yours what others do with theirs?

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

I don't much like or not at all like the art Roger linked to.

You keep spiking conversations with Roger, Jonathan, by continuing to refer to his wife. I wish you'd stop.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

32 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Why?

And why are you wasting your time?

What business is it of yours what others do with theirs?

--Brant

I am just being a Good Neighbor.  Most of us, even if we are lucky,  have less than 30,000 days in which to do our little dance.  Time is limited and scarce.

[anthony]

3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Arguing over art and other aesthetic  matters is a waste of time...

Here, it is. The above efforts for me, are call-it-whatever-you-like art. As evidenced by some colorful opinions this far. If you don't know how to interpret it, it doesn't have identity, you can't make an identification, you can't pass judgment... ah, but what am I saying? Identiity, judgment? ;) Dirty words to the elitist art mainstream establishment. "If you have to ask, you cannot ever know". (You pleb). Style has long triumphed over substance - you don't believe me, look at politics - and artists who cater to 'anything goes, whatever you feel' I think are moral wimps and aesthetically empty.

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I am just being a Good Neighbor.  Most of us, even if we are lucky,  have less than 30,000 days in which to do our little dance.  Time is limited and scarce.

Telling people in an underhanded way they are morons is not being a good neighbor. Jonathan just tells them that without the pretense. While I don't like either, I like yours less.

--Brant

oh, yeah, I disagree with your statement, but the statement doesn't deserve disagreement

[Jonathan]

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

I don't much like or not at all like the art Roger linked to.

That's too bad. A lot of people like Kapoor's work. It's very popular. People find it to be inspiring and uplifting. It's too bad that you can't share that experience.

 

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

You keep spiking conversations with Roger, Jonathan, by continuing to refer to his wife. I wish you'd stop.

--Brant

One of the dull tools in the standard AFPI (Argument From Personal Incredulity) Objectivist toolbox is to claim to speak for the "average person" and "the public" when grumping and sneering about art:

"Give me a break! Only the pretentious artistic elites pretend to like and understand work X, and not the average person of the public! Therefore it's a scam, an attack on human cognition, and something for me to get majorly pissed about!"

It's really nothing but a lame tactic of attempting to congregate multiple fallacious Arguments From Personal Increduliity, and act as if they add up to something more than a pile of personal aesthetic ineptitude.

Kamhi does it a lot. Roger's version of the tactic was to cite his wife's emotional ejaculation in response to my explanation of what I experienced in a work of art, and then, after I addressed her stupid comment, he had the gall to demand that I not refer to her! My view is that he owes me an apology for using such a stupid tactic, and that I'll keep reminding OL members of it until I receive the apology.

Anyway, Kapoor's work is loved by the "average person," and "the public." It draws them in droves. What tactic will AFPI Objectivists use instead?

J

[Brant Gaede]

Oh, I'm open to changing my mind if seeing it in person.

[Brant Gaede]

I don't block. His bad manners are just flotsam on his posts. This is not the same as a post is a complete package of bad manners as with trolling or refusal of good faith ratiocination.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

12 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

I don't block. His bad manners are just flotsam on his posts.

You're right that Roger has bad manners. He used to have some substance to go along with his snarling, but not anymore.

 

Quote

--This is not the same as a post is a complete package of bad manners as with trolling or refusal of good faith ratiocination.

Roger's posts on the visual arts have become "complete packages of bad manners," and are lacking in any intellectual content or value. They're nothing but the personal emotings of someone with the attitude of being pompously unaware, unobservant, uninformed, and uninterested.

And he also refuses "good faith ratiocination." When he's politely asked substantive questions that he can't answer, he adopts the insulted scholar pose. Every substantive, pertinent question or challenge is seen as a vicious personal attack, regardless of how polite and non-personal it is.

It's bluff and whining. It's the standard tactic of people who are ignorant of a subject on which they wish to appear to be scholarly authorities.

J

[Brant Gaede]

38 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

You're right that Roger has bad manners. He used to have some substance to go along with his snarling, but not anymore.

I was replying to Roger and that was a reference to your bad manners. Where did Roger's post go to--the one he suggested I block you?

--Brant

are we posting in his corner or is there something about this new software I don't understand?

[Brant Gaede]

Does Roger have administrative powers so he can delete his posts in their entirety at will? I don't know how to completely delete my posts; something has to be left behind.

--Brant
 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

47 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Does Roger have administrative powers so he can delete his posts in their entirety at will?

Brant,

In his corner, he does like all those living who have corners on OL. And in a couple of other forums he helped set up (Veatch, etc.).

Michael