Awesome Heroic Sculpture by Living Artist


Newberry

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ZAge.jpg

A few months ago I made friends with the artist of this work, Peter Schipperheyn. http://www.users.bigpond.com/SCHIP/index.htm It's great to connect with colleague and share experiences.

I think art is our greatest medium to crystallize what it is that we live for. I am afraid that most people never connect what they live for to art.

Michael

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A few months ago I made friends with the artist of this work, Peter Schipperheyn. http://www.users.bigpond.com/SCHIP/index.htm It's great to connect with colleague and share experiences.

I think art is our greatest medium to crystallize what it is that we live for. I am afraid that most people never connect what they live for to art.

Michael

That is some herein-stuecker on the sculpture. But it is not circumcised.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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I am afraid that most people never connect what they live for to art.

What makes you think that most people don't make that connection? It's very rare that I meet a person who doesn't.

Btw, it's good to see you posting an example of a contemporary work of art that you think is awesome and which was created by someone else, and I'm looking forward to seeing which painters' works you admire when you identify the artists who you think are "worthy but unrecognized."

J

Edited by Jonathan
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I am afraid that most people never connect what they live for to art.

What makes you think that most people don't make that connection? It's very rare that I meet a person who doesn't.

Btw, it's good to see you posting an example of a contemporary work of art that you think is awesome and which was created by someone else, and I'm looking forward to seeing which painters' works you admire when you identify the artists who you think are "worthy but unrecognized."

J

Jonathan,

I don't like you.

Michael

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I think the sculpture above is an example of "it's really good but I don't like it." Well, I like aspects of it (not the overwhelming emphasis on the cock and balls), but overall, it's not something I would personally categorize as "awesome." Maybe in style, but not in content or expression. I think it's because I personally don't often identify with the whole bending backwards, looking/reaching upward, wanting to be higher type of expression. It usually implies to me a sort of uncomfortable submissiveness or perpetual incompleteness. I guess my tastes in heroic sculpture lean more toward figures making use of their powers from on high rather than appearing to be perhaps begging from below for God's guidance or assistance, or always being a bit needy in yearning to be higher, better or more than what they are.

J

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Jonathan,

I just found a point where my perspective differs from yours. I don't see upwardness in terms of a God, but instead as an affirmation in relation to a universal force on earth: gravity. To give words in an oversimplified child-like manner of how this emotion feels inside me, what goes up is alive and what can't go up anymore is dead. (Please take that as an emotion and not a definition.)

That sculpture hits this spot hard in my emotions.

The muscular tone also jumps out at me. God, how I would love to have a body like that! Unfortunately, I will have to change my exercise habits to get there and that has proven harder than I would like.

Michael

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It seems to be technically masterful (I do have a few doubts but the photos are not clear enough for a good judgement). The expression however is more like Objectikitsch. It reminded me immediately of the most ridiculous book cover ever:

romanticmanifesto.jpg

Fortunately it doesn't have wings like the weird monster on the book cover, but the posture conveys the same religious attitude, that of invoking a God who resides somewhere near the zenith. Then I prefer the quiet confidence we see in the face of the sculpture of Alice Lapper, even if she doesn't have such a perfect body as this man has (well, at least she doesn't have wings and feathers).

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The muscular tone also jumps out at me. God, how I would love to have a body like that! Unfortunately, I will have to change my exercise habits to get there and that has proven harder than I would like.

Michael

You can have a body like that. Go to the gym regularly. Cut back on the calories and do an hour a day of exercise. Include some weight work and aerobics. Have patience. In a few months you will begin to see the difference and the scale will back you up. The treadmill and the bike are your friends. Cut out some of the bread, candy and cake and there you are! A deficit of 400 calories a day will produce a 40 lb weight loss in a year.

I ride 10-20 miles a day on my bike when weather permits. When weather does not, I do an hour on the treadmill. It works just fine. Aristotle teaches (Nichomachean Ethics) that the way to virtue is habit. In that, The Philosopher is dead on right.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited by BaalChatzaf
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It seems to be technically masterful (I do have a few doubts but the photos are not clear enough for a good judgement). The expression however is more like Objectikitsch. It reminded me immediately of the most ridiculous book cover ever:

romanticmanifesto.jpg

Fortunately it doesn't have wings like the weird monster on the book cover, but the posture conveys the same religious attitude, that of invoking a God who resides somewhere near the zenith. Then I prefer the quiet confidence we see in the face of the sculpture of Alice Lapper, even if she doesn't have such a perfect body as this man has (well, at least she doesn't have wings and feathers).

Dragonfly is right on this one. To me, there's good kitsch - Odd Nerdrum - and bad kitsch, and this is bad. Technically well done as it may be, it looks cornball, overwrought, and from some other planet. I'm glad that Michael put it up for discussion, because I sometimes try to square what I love in art with what seems to be liked on this site, which often is PreRaphaelite or 19th Century French Classicism. And, this sculpture seems to represent work that might be "Objectivist Approved", but I don't like it at all.

Oddly, Soviet Social Realism is a kind of apotheosis of heroic objectivist art. Check out the portraits of hydroelectric dam builders or steel workers. John Galt and Howard Roark all the way.

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Call me corny. I like that book cover.

Michael

I was talking about the sculpture, but it goes for the book cover, too, which dwells in the realm of the bizarre. I don't see how a legless, strangely birdlike human experiencing some kind of paroxysm as it approaches light that very well could be from the sun can stand for Ayn Rand's Romantic Manifesto. There's an inevitable Icarus analogy, and look what happened to him. Does the cover mean that aspirations to Rand's particular philosophy of art result in a kind of tragic loss of mobility within the world (because of an unfortunate double amputation) and self-immolation? I like a few inspirational pieces of art that portray high aspirations, but not this.

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Look at the other stuff, though, besides the "Thus Spake Zarathustra" work.

The marble sculpture gallery:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/SCHIP/gallery.htm

including, not shown on the link page above:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/SCHIP/motherch.htm

The work-in-progress of Aboriginal leader William Barak:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/SCHIP/barak1.htm

I think there's much more to his work than would immediately meet the eye from the rather O'ist-friendly look of the Zarathustra piece.

Ellen

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The muscular tone also jumps out at me. God, how I would love to have a body like that! Unfortunately, I will have to change my exercise habits to get there and that has proven harder than I would like.

Michael

I just think it's interesting how my reaction to it was just the opposite.

I was thinking he was a rather underdeveloped and weak-looking specimen to be honest. Was this supposed to be some type of ideal? Not even close to what a man can do with his body and I mean without pharmaceutical assistance.

"I will have to change my exercise habits to get there and that has proven harder than I would like."

Change nutrition habits first and I think you might find it easier than you think - seriously. You are what you eat ...

Bob

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Look at the other stuff, though, besides the "Thus Spake Zarathustra" work.

The marble sculpture gallery:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/SCHIP/gallery.htm

including, not shown on the link page above:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/SCHIP/motherch.htm

The work-in-progress of Aboriginal leader William Barak:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/SCHIP/barak1.htm

I think there's much more to his work than would immediately meet the eye from the rather O'ist-friendly look of the Zarathustra piece.

Ellen

I agree.

___

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I was talking about the sculpture, but it goes for the book cover, too, which dwells in the realm of the bizarre. I don't see how a legless, strangely birdlike human experiencing some kind of paroxysm as it approaches light that very well could be from the sun can stand for Ayn Rand's Romantic Manifesto. There's an inevitable Icarus analogy, and look what happened to him. Does the cover mean that aspirations to Rand's particular philosophy of art result in a kind of tragic loss of mobility within the world (because of an unfortunate double amputation) and self-immolation? I like a few inspirational pieces of art that portray high aspirations, but not this.

Jim,

I have always seen this as a partial view of a ballet dancer (not a legless person) and an allusion to Icarus. I have always connected it in my mind with the following quote from Atlas Shrugged about a Richard Halley opera (p. 69) although the myth is different and I have thought ballet instead of opera:

He was forty-three years old and it was the opening night of Phaëthon, an opera he had written at the age of twenty-four. He had changed the ancient Greek myth to his own purpose and meaning: Phaëthon, the young son of Helios, who stole his father's chariot and, in ambitious audacity, attempted to drive the sun across the sky, did not perish, as he perished in the myth; in Halley's opera, Phaëthon succeeded.

I cannot say with absolute certainty that this is the intention of the painter, but I never had any doubt at all about the reference to Icarus and Rand's penchant for changing Greek myths to illustrate her points. In my mind it was always a moment of Icarus succeeding instead of having his wings melted by the sun.

Michael

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It is impossible for me to respond to subjective opinions. What would be great is more identification coming from you all and bit more care in getting from A to B. What you see and how you connected that to in conclusion is significant for me, opinions without that...not.

Michael

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I was talking about the sculpture, but it goes for the book cover, too, which dwells in the realm of the bizarre. I don't see how a legless, strangely birdlike human experiencing some kind of paroxysm as it approaches light that very well could be from the sun can stand for Ayn Rand's Romantic Manifesto. There's an inevitable Icarus analogy, and look what happened to him. Does the cover mean that aspirations to Rand's particular philosophy of art result in a kind of tragic loss of mobility within the world (because of an unfortunate double amputation) and self-immolation? I like a few inspirational pieces of art that portray high aspirations, but not this.

Jim,

I have always seen this as a partial view of a ballet dancer (not a legless person) and an allusion to Icarus. I have always connected it in my mind with the following quote from Atlas Shrugged about a Richard Halley opera (p. 69) although the myth is different and I have thought ballet instead of opera:

He was forty-three years old and it was the opening night of Phaëthon, an opera he had written at the age of twenty-four. He had changed the ancient Greek myth to his own purpose and meaning: Phaëthon, the young son of Helios, who stole his father's chariot and, in ambitious audacity, attempted to drive the sun across the sky, did not perish, as he perished in the myth; in Halley's opera, Phaëthon succeeded.

I cannot say with absolute certainty that this is the intention of the painter, but I never had any doubt at all about the reference to Icarus and Rand's penchant for changing Greek myths to illustrate her points. In my mind it was always a moment of Icarus succeeding instead of having his wings melted by the sun.

Michael

The cover makes sense if one knows Rand's reference (I didn't). But, at face value it's still bizarre to me. I hate to think that someone encountering her philosophy for the first time, especially her arts philosophy, sees Icarus on the cover. Is it explained somewhere in the book?

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I don't know the background of the illustration on the cover of The Romantic Manifesto, or Rand's role in its selection. Unlike Dragonfly (post #12) and Jim Shay (posts #14 and #23), I don't find it ridiculous at all. Instead it strikes me as expressing the human desire to fly like a bird. I've heard that this is one of the most common dreams people have. I remember as a kid I often flew in my dreams. I'd stretch my arms out to the side and soar. In reality man can fly -- not fully like a bird -- but a person flying on a hang glider or regular glider is very much like a bird soaring. Of course, man's ability to fly has been with us only about a century. Before then it was merely a dream.

I find the Icarus allusion plausible, but not very convincing. There is no sun on the cover or melting wax wings. Indeed, having either would destroy the said dream. It would be akin to a mole on the painting of a beautiful woman. Like Rand wrote somewhere in the book (I believe), a mole would make the painting a monstrosity.

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It is kind of amusing that you guys are discussing book cover illustration as if it were high fine art. It would be like comparing the film score of the Fountainhead to a Tchaikovsky symphony.

I do wonder that if your methodology is like this in this topic, that it would be the same for other topics and fields as well.

Edited by Newberry
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