Art and Subobjectivity


PalePower

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Once again, I'm with Victor. Sometimes I just don't see why people are so fascinated with colors clashing against each other that they simply MUST call it art. What makes it art? By what definition is it art? Does that definition encompass things that WAY overshoot the bounds of art and stretch into other things completely? You can appreciate a design, but does that make it art?

Edited by Jeff Kremer
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Yeah. It does occasion doubts as to protestations of non-interest to see someone posting on a question regarding which he or she professes unconcern.

That's simple, I can't stand by doing nothing when I see how people are confused by a load of bullshit, just as I can't keep my mouth shut when I'm confronted with quacks and pseudoscience. Art and science are dear to my heart, and pointing out the futility of some ideas isn't necessarily a futile activity itself.

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Ellen,

I have been very busy, but your posts in response to mine are fascinating and have led me to some conclusions that I think will interest you. I will prepare a long one for you later as I get the time.

For now, I would like to mention that the more I think about the cognitive concept of art, i.e., the broadest one possible for identification only, the more I am inclined to include decoration and entertainment in it. These are merely matters of degree, not substance. And the production of them comes from the same inner drive as art (reshaping reality for appreciation only, not for any utility purpose).

I am using art in the cognitive sense as a category somewhat like the cognitive concept of food. For food, you would never characterize it by which items are permitted, or even the nature of the items, without reference to the eater. For instance, you would never say that something must have been alive once as a restriction on what can actually be called food. This is a characterization that does not take the eater into account and it excludes salt. I see the same kind of analogy in trying to restrict content with art. If something is made by human beings, or even imitates what is made by human beings, and used for contemplation (or appreciation) by human beings as its main purpose for existing, cognitively it is art.

(btw - I include responding emotionally to symbols as an act of contemplation or appreciation.)

"Matter that can be ingested for nourishment by eating or drinking" is a pretty good description of the cognitive concept of food. It is on this level that I have been aiming at describing the cognitive concept of art.

Michael

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Yeah. It does occasion doubts as to protestations of non-interest to see someone posting on a question regarding which he or she professes unconcern.

That's simple, I can't stand by doing nothing when I see how people are confused by a load of bullshit, just as I can't keep my mouth shut when I'm confronted with quacks and pseudoscience. Art and science are dear to my heart, and pointing out the futility of some ideas isn't necessarily a futile activity itself.

You're wrong. If you think it is impossible to find out what the definition of something is that implies that you believe it is impossible to find out what a definition is not. Why? Because if you say "It is impossible to prove this definition any more correct than any other one" then you have given all definitions equal footing and therefore cannot prove one wrong without contradicting yourself. Conversely, if you say one definition can be more wrong than others then you acknowledge that it is possible for one definition to be the "least wrong". In this case you do not believe that it is futile to define it.

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You're wrong. If you think it is impossible to find out what the definition of something is that implies that you believe it is impossible to find out what a definition is not. Why? Because if you say "It is impossible to prove this definition any more correct than any other one" then you have given all definitions equal footing and therefore cannot prove one wrong without contradicting yourself. Conversely, if you say one definition can be more wrong than others then you acknowledge that it is possible for one definition to be the "least wrong". In this case you do not believe that it is futile to define it.

You should read better, where did I say anything about "proving definitions wrong"? I wrote:

We'll have to live with a rather general definition, somewhat like Michael's definition. As soon as you try to be more restrictive, you'll introduce subjective preferences, which will only lead to futile discussions between adherents of different definitions (such as on this forum), which I can guarantee you will never be solved, as there is no objective criterion to decide which definition is the correct one.

So I'm not at all talking about "proving definitions wrong", but about the arbitrariness of different specific definitions and about the futility of choosing one of them as the only "correct" one.

Further you're making an elementary logic error when you say that the impossibility of "finding out" what a definition of something is implies that it is impossible to find out what it is not. It's probably impossible to find out what the largest prime number is that we humans will ever be able to calculate, but we can be sure that it is not an even number.

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Ironic, your argument more or less comes full circle and is highly reminiscent of Victor's that the latin root word of "art" is "skill".

No, not really. First off, I haven't made much of an argument at all, because as I've stated I don't have a fully formed or satisfactory definition of what "art" is. Secondly, what have said is to suggest that part of the answer, at least, is "craft" or "skill" COMBINED with a high levels of intentionality. I've merely suggested that "craft" or "skill" is part of the puzzle. I don't think anyone here would argue against that.

RCR

Edited by R. Christian Ross
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So where does that leave paint splatter and other such types of modern art? Some of the stuff looks like my kindergarden fingerpainting.

Dragonfly, we may be sure that the largest prime number is not even, but that is far more concrete than the current situation. The current situation doesn't have laws, in fact half the definitions that you accept before Rand's acknowledge exactly that. When you are defining something what rules do you go by for defining it? It must portray the fundamental attributes of what you are trying to define. That is the only one I can think of.

You go back into subjective preferences when we have already established many times over that this is not a normative definition. We are working with cognitives. We believe that definitions that are broad encompass areas which are already covered by other things. That is why Victor and I prefer Rand's definition. You can feel free to call our definitions subjective if you want to continue to denegrate the discussion though.

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We've got a stickman, then a question mark because the image didn't show up, then a flower, then something that I don't consider art, then something else that I don't consider art, then a sunrise.

No, Jeff, not quite; here is what we do have.

1. Stickman

2. Rose Window (Notre Dame)

3. "Rosette" ca. 1856 (Victor Hugo)

"Pen and brown-ink wash on vellum paper folded twice. 8x7 in.What Hugo was searching for in these drawings were signs that would stimulate his imagination and suggest directions for his pen. Hugo interpreted these foldings, not for psychological purposes like the Swiss physician Hermann Rorschach with his famous tests introduced in 1921, but like a seer. He developed the symmetry, discerned resemblances, discovered figures and carried out all kinds of permutations. Reversal (or, better still, reversability), metamorphoses and fusion were themes so firmly rooted in Hugo's praxis that one commonly finds in his compositions a landscape reflected in water or a figure that reads equally well either way up."

[what is interesting here is that the drawing is an accidental ink blot, NOT an intentional form, despite its appearance to the contrary]

4. "Abstract Composition", Brown-ink wash on vellum paper 5x9 in (Victor Hugo)

5. "Lace impression", ca. 1855 (Victor Hugo)

6. "Planet", ca. 1854 (Victor Hugo)

RCR

PS--Thanks to Soze for bringing Victor Hugo's talents as a visual artist to my attention some time ago...

If any one is intested in more of Hugo's work...

http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/ka...rlins5-5-98.asp

http://www.artseensoho.com/Art/DRAWINGCENT...ugo98/hugo.html

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You go back into subjective preferences when we have already established many times over that this is not a normative definition. We are working with cognitives.

No, you are not. Repeatedly calling your normative definition a cognitive one doesn't make it one.

We believe that definitions that are broad encompass areas which are already covered by other things. That is why Victor and I prefer Rand's definition. You can feel free to call our definitions subjective if you want to continue to denegrate the discussion though.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "continue to denegrate [sic] the discussion", but I get the impression that you're going to resort to personal attacks instead of using rational arguments, which is seldom a convincing strategy.

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Really? At all times--every point and post? Wow.

Wow, indeed. I know you are Canadian and all, but really I'd expect that you be able to read and comprehend basic English. Last time I checked, the phrase "almost entirely" is not at all equivellent to "every point and post"....words have meaning, you know.

RCR

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Really? At all times--every point and post? Wow.

Wow, indeed. I know you are Canadian and all, but really I'd expect that you be able to read and comprehend basic English. Last time I checked, the phrase "almost entirely" is not at all equivellent to "every point and post"....words have meaning, you know.

RCR

It's Americans who are butt of the dumb jokes. B)

The thing of it though—and I don’t know where you stand on the issue—Abstract painting has never been proven to be ‘art’ in any sense—merely asserted to be so.

Edited by Victor Pross
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The thing of it though—and I don’t know where you stand on the issue—Abstract painting has never been proven to be ‘art’ in any sense—merely asserted to be so.

The point is that you never can 'prove' that something is 'art', as there is no objective definition against which you can test it.

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The thing of it though—and I don’t know where you stand on the issue—Abstract painting has never been proven to be ‘art’ in any sense—merely asserted to be so.

The point is that you never can 'prove' that something is 'art', as there is no objective definition against which you can test it.

It has been presented ad nauseam on this thread.

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You go back into subjective preferences when we have already established many times over that this is not a normative definition. We are working with cognitives.

No, you are not. Repeatedly calling your normative definition a cognitive one doesn't make it one.

We believe that definitions that are broad encompass areas which are already covered by other things. That is why Victor and I prefer Rand's definition. You can feel free to call our definitions subjective if you want to continue to denegrate the discussion though.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "continue to denegrate [sic] the discussion", but I get the impression that you're going to resort to personal attacks instead of using rational arguments, which is seldom a convincing strategy.

Ok, our definition is cognitive. Why? Because we say that the word "art" should have a fairly narrow meaning. We think that the easiest way to do this is to have two different words (for visual) for what is now called art. These words are art and design. For art, we have adopted Rand's definition. For design, we have more or less adopted a phantom definition (no one has explicitely stated it) encompassing anything from geometric patterns to Kandinsky's abstract without base in reality. I don't personally like Kandinsky's work, but there are plenty of works of art that I enjoy more than I enjoy plenty of works of art. Cognitive definition, not normative.

As for resorting to personal attacks, I did not mean it that way. I simply meant that we had gone over why our definition of art is cognitive and not normative, and that it was taking away from the discussion to have to continually re-explain it. No offense intended, forgive me if I came off insulting.

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It has been presented ad nauseam on this thread.

Your assertion? Sure.

Question: You're the defender of abstract painting, no? Is it art? This has been the heart of the matter for now.

I'll answer that, though it was addressed to Dragonfly. Kandinsky's work is art. Not everything that calls itself abstract painting is art. The examples have to be judged on a case by case basis. And, yes, there will remain an inevitable amount of subjectivity as to what works which person would say do the art thing for him or her.

Rand's definition is cognitive, not normative, as I've explained, although it did end up being used for normative purposes, and she might have had unacknowledged normative intent in formulating it. It is also just wrong, the first part of it, as I discussed in post 211. It's easy to see that it's wrong, I think, even prior to analyzing depth reasons why it's wrong, simply on the basis of considering music. One would have to do some mighty contortioning to get music in under her "selective recreation of reality." As I explained to Jeff in a post about definitions, when confronted with a member of a category (I was using the example "tree") to which your definition so obviously doesn't apply, the thing to do is to question the definition.

"And that, Dagny, is my complete and final answer." For now. Gotta scoot. Won't be back for several hours.

Ellen

Edit: I added links; didn't have time for linking earlier.

___

Edited by Ellen Stuttle
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For design, we have more or less adopted a phantom definition (no one has explicitely stated it) encompassing anything from geometric patterns to Kandinsky's abstract without base in reality.
Rand's definition is cognitive, not normative, as I've explained, although it did end up being used for normative purposes, and she might have had unacknowledged normative intent in formulating it. It is also just wrong, the first part of it, as I discussed in post #211. It's easy to see that it's wrong, I think, even prior to analyzing depth reasons why it's wrong, simply on the basis of considering music. One would have to do some mighty contortioning to get music in under her "selective recreation of reality."

Jeff,

Do you think that squares, circles, colors, etc., do not exist in reality? They do. If you use Rand's objection that colors are attributes of entities, not entities in themselves, we come to Ellen's objection to music. Using Rand's same standard for color, sounds are not entities, but attributes of entities instead.

Roger Bissell makes a compelling case for melodies and harmonic progressions being entities in Art as Microcosm: The Real Meaning of the Objectivist Concept of Art, but this is because he admits the existence of something he calls "virtual entities" and "virtual gestures" and even a "virtual plot." What this means is that the attributes of some entities can be organized in such a manner that they imitate other entities and their attributes and actions. (btw - Roger's idea is that each artwork creates a self-contained parallel reality—a microcosm—where entities exist and/or act, all for our contemplative needs. It is an extremely interesting idea to examine.)

The obvious question is, if you can do that with sound (and that falls under "selective recreation of reality" with both Rand and Bissell), why not with colors and shapes? There is no reason on earth to exclude them other than "I said so." Well, "I said so" is a very poor standard for a definition if it is to correspond to reality. It is a proper standard for a subjective concept, though (as per my classification of categories of concepts, i.e., cognitive, normative and subjective).

Here is Rand's way of saying "I said so" (all quotes below from The Romantic Manifesto, "Art and Cognition"):

Music employs the sounds produced by the periodic vibrations of a sonorous body, and evokes man's sense-of-life emotions.

...

Music does not deal with entities, which is the reason why its psycho-epistemological function is different from that of the other arts, as we shall discuss later.

...

The fundamental difference between music and the other arts lies in the fact that music is experienced as if it reversed man's normal psycho-epistemological process.

The other arts create a physical object (i.e., an object perceived by man's senses, be it a book or a painting) and the psycho-epistemological process goes from the perception of the object to the conceptual grasp of its meaning, to an appraisal in terms of one's basic values, to a consequent emotion. The pattern is: from perception—to conceptual understanding—to appraisal—to emotion.

The pattern of the process involved in music is: from perception—to emotion—to appraisal—to conceptual understanding.

Music is experienced as if it had the power to reach man's emotions directly.

...

Music communicates emotions, which one grasps, but does not actually feel; what one feels is a suggestion, a kind of distant, dissociated, depersonalized emotion—until and unless it unites with one's own sense of life. But since the music's emotional content is not communicated conceptually or evoked existentially, one does feel it in some peculiar, subterranean way.

...

This brings us to the great, unanswered question: Why does music make us experience emotions?

...

No one has yet discovered the answers and, I hasten to add, neither have I.

...

Until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined, no objectively valid criterion of esthetic judgment is possible in the field of music. (There are certain technical criteria, dealing mainly with the complexity of harmonic structures, but there are no criteria for identifying the content, i.e., the emotional meaning of a given piece of music and thus demonstrating the esthetic objectivity of a given response.)

That's about as "I said so" without directly saying "I said so" as you can get. And I would go even further, using Rand's standard. If you cannot even judge the content objectively, you cannot judge the form objectively either. There is no manner of saying what the cognitive concept of music is, or even if it is art.

Should you claim that music is art but constructions with other attributes of entities that discard the entities (as music does) cannot be, you are not making a cognitive definition of art. You are not even making a normative definition of art. You are making a subjective one.

Rand said clearly that "no objectively valid criterion of esthetic judgment is possible in the field of music," yet she said that music is art according to her definition (doing a Houdini maneuver of suddenly proclaiming a "reversal" of psycho-epistemological processes for music and only for music because "she said so.") Well, the opposite of objective is subjective. Unfortunately I have to take Rand at her word here. Her definition of art is subjective if it includes music and uses her own standards of logic, at least until "a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined" for music.

Michael

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MSK wrote,

Roger Bissell makes a compelling case for melodies and harmonic progressions being entities in Art as Microcosm: The Real Meaning of the Objectivist Concept of Art, but this is because he admits the existence of something he calls "virtual entities" and "virtual gestures" and even a "virtual plot." What this means is that the attributes of some entities can be organized in such a manner that they imitate other entities and their attributes and actions. (btw - Roger's idea is that each artwork creates a self-contained parallel reality—a microcosm—where entities exist and/or act, all for our contemplative needs. It is an extremely interesting idea to examine.)

Roger's notion of "virtual entities" is pretty much what Kandinsky was describing in his outline of how color and shape can affect us, and I think young Rand was seeing the actions of "virtual entities" when describing the “laughing, defiant broken lines and circles cutting triangles, and triangles splitting squares" of abstract imagery:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...p?showtopic=248

Laughter and defiance are some pretty advanced concepts to be finding in shapes, as are the virtual attributes that Rand later described as being embodied in the abstract forms of Howard Roark's architecture.

J

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Music communicates emotions, which one grasps, but does not actually feel; what one feels is a suggestion, a kind of distant, dissociated, depersonalized emotion—until and unless it unites with one's own sense of life. But since the music's emotional content is not communicated conceptually or evoked existentially, one does feel it in some peculiar, subterranean way.

That's where she ran out of gas, and she was honest enough to admit it.

Often, when I look at well-executed abstract art, the way I experience it is very much like how I experience music. Subterannean, indeed! Next thing you know, you have to start using words like soul.

Nope, I'm outta here!

r

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Michael

Jeff,

Do you think that squares, circles, colors, etc., do not exist in reality? They do. If you use Rand's objection that colors are attributes of entities, not entities in themselves, we come to Ellen's objection to music. Using Rand's same standard for color, sounds are not entities, but attributes of entities instead.

Squares and circles are generally missing the latter half of Rand's definition.

I still am wrestling with the issue of music. It is the main thing that leads me to say that Rand's definition is somewhat at fault. I still hold that it is on the right track though.

Edited by Jeff Kremer
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Re "virtual entities": ALL entities in art works are "virtual." The people evoked in paintings aren't actual. Actual people aren't composed of brush or pen or charcoal strokes or cuts in pieces of wood or etchings in a surface. The people evoked in novels are entirely figments (pun on pigments) produced by words. There are actors in plays (and movies). So in that sense, there are actual people as part of the art work. But the people being evoked aren't the persons playing the roles. Even with a statue of a person, though the statue is three-dimensional, it's a construction of stone or wood or some other material; it isn't an actual person.

Now here on the other hand is an example of something which would be a literal "recreation of reality" -- although it was depicted in a movie, so that gets tricky, but suppose this had actually happened:

The movie "Sunshine" tells the story of three generations of a Jewish family living in Europe; the paterfamilias head of the clan came from Russia, as I recall. His son, eldest grandson, and eldest great-grandson are all three played by Ralph Fieness (sp?). The grandson is interred in a Nazi prison camp. He gets into some kind of altercation with the guards when the prisoners are...drinking water at a trough? I can't clearly recall why they're at a place where there's a hose with running water. The weather is sub-freezing. A guard starts sending a stream of water from the hose onto the grandson's body. The water progressively coating him begins to freeze; the guard keeps on with the stream of water. The prisoner is frozen into an ice-encased statue.

Now is this what Rand meant by "recreation of reality"? Oh, of course not!, of course not!, I expect the reply to be. OK, so just what did she mean?

Any takers?

Ellen

___

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