Objective Criterion of Aesthetic Judgment

Jonathan · January 28, 2008

Yes, even if we dismiss the second half of the title as a joke it's still absurd. And in view of Perigo's silly posts about music we can only conclude that he's a rank amateur in that field who doesn't have the education nor the qualifications to make any sensible contribution to a discussion about music.

Some SOLOP members have said that they'd still like to hear Perigo's speeches and that he should do them as podcasts or something. I hope he does. I'd love to learn on what grounds he disagrees with Rand that there is no objectively valid criterion of aesthetic judgment possible in the field of music and that no one can claim the objective superiority of his musical tastes.

My guess is that if he does end up podcasting a speech on music, he'll claim that the first half of his announced title was supposed to be just as much a "joke" as the second half.

J

Roger Bissell · January 28, 2008

Yes, even if we dismiss the second half of the title as a joke it's still absurd. And in view of Perigo's silly posts about music we can only conclude that he's a rank amateur in that field who doesn't have the education nor the qualifications to make any sensible contribution to a discussion about music.
Some SOLOP members have said that they'd still like to hear Perigo's speeches and that he should do them as podcasts or something. I hope he does. I'd love to learn on what grounds he disagrees with Rand that there is no objectively valid criterion of aesthetic judgment possible in the field of music and that no one can claim the objective superiority of his musical tastes.
My guess is that if he does end up podcasting a speech on music, he'll claim that the first half of his announced title was supposed to be just as much a "joke" as the second half.
J

Jonathan, I think you're not accurately representing Rand's position on aesthetic judgment in music. She did not say that there is no criterion that is possible, merely that we don't presently possess one. And the reason was that we don't have a common musical vocabulary that critics, philosophers, and lay listeners can all use to discuss the meaning and value of music.

Personally, I think we have always been a lot closer to having that vocabulary and criterion than Rand did. Other than reading Helmholtz's admittedly interesting treatise on music and auditory perception, I don't know if she cracked a single book on music, or whether she even understood what a harmonic progression was and how it creates expectations, suspense, &c.

To me, the crucial question is not: does some music present a dramatic, value-seeking soundscape? but instead: if such dramatic, value-seeking art is "the most valuable," then to who whom and for what is it the most valuable? This issue needs to be reconciled with Rand's discussion of "philosophically" vs. "social" objective in her essay "What is Capitalism?"

In other words, I suspect that even if Linz has the knowledge and insight to prove his case about Romantic music (which I doubt, regardless of however poetic and descriptive he waxes, alternating between pointing to climactic chords and tossing around adjectives like "sunlit"), he still is going to come off sounding like an intrinsicist who wants to browbeat or shame others.

But let me emphasize one thing: it doesn't really require a massive computer database in order to develop a rational criterion for evaluating music. Just a solid knowledge of music theory and composition and lots of different examples. There are actually only several main musical factors that (IMO) generate most of the emotionality of music.

There is a parallel in the field of personality theory. Although there are dozens of subtle facets of personality that work together to produce each unique, unrepeatable individual human being, psychologists doing factor analysis have managed to boil them down to about five major aspects of personality that account for well over 50% of the variation between individuals.

I think that rather than striving for complete minute detail and omniscience, we ought to be trying to nail down this amount of understanding, which is do-able, in the aesthetics of music. That is what I'm aiming at in my "Passionate Pop and Serious Schmaltz" project, which I have talked about in San Francisco, Nashville, and Orange, California. Eventually, I'll write a book on it.

Did Linz mean his title in its entirety? I don't know, but as I suggested above, I think that unless he has worked through the full meaning of the objective, like Rand did in "What is Capitalism?", he is going to fall headlong into the pitfall of intrinsicism. It doesn't make it any better that he is trying to champion great music in the process.

REB

Jonathan · January 28, 2008

Jonathan, I think you're not accurately representing Rand's position on aesthetic judgment in music. She did not say that there is no criterion that is possible, merely that we don't presently possess one. And the reason was that we don't have a common musical vocabulary that critics, philosophers, and lay listeners can all use to discuss the meaning and value of music.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Rand believed that no Objective criterion would ever be possible, but only that without a conceptual vocabulary of music there is no criterion possible. Since there is currently no conceptual vocabulary, and since the chances are about zero that Perigo will define one, there is, as Rand said, currently no objective aesthetic judgment of music possible.

As I said here:

...Linz would have to reveal that his disagreement with Objectivism (Objectivist Esthetics holds that Romantic music is NOT objectively superior) is based on some secret scholarly research that he's done which has allowed him to discover and define, per Rand's requirements, a conceptual vocabulary of music. Failing that, he'd be left with the option of intelligently demonstrating why Rand's requirements were wrong.
I think it's pretty safe to assume that he'll do neither, but will instead resort to his typical bluff and bluster...

But let me emphasize one thing: it doesn't really require a massive computer database in order to develop a rational criterion for evaluating music. Just a solid knowledge of music theory and composition and lots of different examples. There are actually only several main musical factors that (IMO) generate most of the emotionality of music.

I look forward to hearing more details and examples of your theory, as well as testing your ability to "read" the main musical factors that generate the emotionality of music, including in pieces or entire genres that you don't like or identify with, and which you've never heard, played or studied before. I also look forward to seeing how you plan to resolve issues such as creators rejecting the notion of a conceptual language of music, denying that it applies to their work, stating that their music has nothing resembling the meaning that your proposed "language" claims it does, etc.

J

Roger Bissell · January 28, 2008

Jonathan, I think you're not accurately representing Rand's position on aesthetic judgment in music. She did not say that there is no criterion that is possible, merely that we don't presently possess one. And the reason was that we don't have a common musical vocabulary that critics, philosophers, and lay listeners can all use to discuss the meaning and value of music.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Rand believed that no Objective criterion would ever be possible, but only that without a conceptual vocabulary of music there is no criterion possible. Since there is currently no conceptual vocabulary, and since the chances are about zero that Perigo will define one, there is, as Rand said, currently no objective aesthetic judgment of music possible.

Agreed.

As I said here:
...Linz would have to reveal that his disagreement with Objectivism (Objectivist Esthetics holds that Romantic music is NOT objectively superior) is based on some secret scholarly research that he's done which has allowed him to discover and define, per Rand's requirements, a conceptual vocabulary of music. Failing that, he'd be left with the option of intelligently demonstrating why Rand's requirements were wrong.
I think it's pretty safe to assume that he'll do neither, but will instead resort to his typical bluff and bluster...
But let me emphasize one thing: it doesn't really require a massive computer database in order to develop a rational criterion for evaluating music. Just a solid knowledge of music theory and composition and lots of different examples. There are actually only several main musical factors that (IMO) generate most of the emotionality of music.
I look forward to hearing more details and examples of your theory, as well as testing your ability to "read" the main musical factors that generate the emotionality of music, including in pieces or entire genres that you don't like or identify with, and which you've never heard, played or studied before. I also look forward to seeing how you plan to resolve issues such as creators rejecting the notion of a conceptual language of music, denying that it applies to their work, stating that their music has nothing resembling the meaning that your proposed "language" claims it does, etc.
J

Hey, my first stab at all this is ~not~ going to be a Theory of Everything about Music! I'll happily settle for being able to explain why people typically experience certain emotions and not others in response to popular songs and familiar themes from the classical repertoire. We are told not just that explanation of our emotional responses is not possible for genres we dislike or aren't familiar with, but also not for those we like and are familiar with as well. There is already sufficient musical theoretical knowledge available to explain the familiar, the main problem being how to convey that understanding to the layman, who often does not know musical terminology. In this respect, I think Rand's lack of information led her to characterize the current potential for understanding the music ~she~ cared about as being far more primitive than it really was/is.

As for composers who would reject such an analysis of their work, that is the furthest thing from my concern. I want to understand why I respond to music as I do, and to help others to do so as well, on the premise that there is a great deal of commonality in how our minds and emotions work in processing the music. I'm sure there are novelists and literary creators who would prefer that we just absorb their works and deny that there is anything to understand about them. But that doesn't stop those who understand literary structure and process from analyzing and sharing the results with others. Some literature is truly difficult to penetrate, due to the author's idiosyncratic style, and the same is no doubt true of composers. But in studying a field, you try to establish a beachhead, a point of first landing, from which you venture out to explore and understand more and more of the region. There may always be wilderness areas that frustrate the explorer. That's really not my concern. Nor is my concern the wilderness denizens who indignantly rail against my attempts to explore their personal domain, as though I were doing something wrong in trying to understand them on my terms.

REB

P.S. -- I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade. I'm just trying to understand what I listen and respond to, and to help others do the same. If I fail to make myself clear, or to help others understand better their musical experience, I'm sure I will hear about it ~from them~.

Jonathan · January 28, 2008

Hey, my first stab at all this is ~not~ going to be a Theory of Everything about Music!

I'm not expecting it to be. I'm just commenting on the what I think would be required for your theory, or any theory, to comply with Rand's definitions and requirements for making objective aesthetic judgments of music.

I'll happily settle for being able to explain why people typically experience certain emotions and not others in response to popular songs and familiar themes from the classical repertoire. We are told not just that explanation of our emotional responses is not possible for genres we dislike or aren't familiar with, but also not for those we like and are familiar with as well. There is already sufficient musical theoretical knowledge available to explain the familiar, the main problem being how to convey that understanding to the layman, who often does not know musical terminology. In this respect, I think Rand's lack of information led her to characterize the current potential for understanding the music ~she~ cared about as being far more primitive than it really was/is.
As for composers who would reject such an analysis of their work, that is the furthest thing from my concern. I want to understand why I respond to music as I do, and to help others to do so as well, on the premise that there is a great deal of commonality in how our minds and emotions work in processing the music.

Then I think that your theory is probably a departure from Objectivism rather than an elaboration or expansion on it. In order to be Objectivist, I think your theory would have to be very concerned -- primarily concerned, in fact -- with what composers think, since identifying their intended themes or meanings is what Rand's notion of objective aesthetic judgment means.

The Objectivist view of aesthetic objectivity requires that art be "intelligible" and that it "communicate." I don't think that a truly Objectivist theory can start by assuming that the theorist's own emotional responses are the emotions that a work of music was intended to convey. It can't assume that a common emotional response among a majority of people is evidence of intelligible communication. It can't even assume, in the cases when music is accompanied by lyrics, that the lyrics are what the music is "about." And, as I understand it, the Objectivist Esthetics opposes the idea that a viewer or listener can claim objectivity while merely finding his own meaning in a work of art, as opposed to identifying the creator's meaning, so simply explaining what you feel and why you think that you feel it isn't enough.

An Objectivist theory would have to recognize that a creator's intended meaning would need to be discovered and then compared to any perceived meanings -- when objectively evaluating communication between a transmitter and a variety of receivers, one would have to confirm, by means independent of the receivers, which message was actually transmitted, if any. The fact that 98 receivers might interpret a transmission one way, and that 2 interpret it in another, would not mean that the 98 correctly received the message. It could be that the 2 were much higher quality receivers, or that the 98 were all impeded in one way or another, etc.

I'm sure there are novelists and literary creators who would prefer that we just absorb their works and deny that there is anything to understand about them. But that doesn't stop those who understand literary structure and process from analyzing and sharing the results with others. Some literature is truly difficult to penetrate, due to the author's idiosyncratic style, and the same is no doubt true of composers. But in studying a field, you try to establish a beachhead, a point of first landing, from which you venture out to explore and understand more and more of the region.

I think it's valuable to ask ourselves and others which emotions we experience while listening to a piece of music, and to then contemplate what it is about the music that may have caused the emotional responses, but I don't think that such an approach gets to the core of Objectivism's idea of objectivity in evaluating art. Such a method could be applied to anything, including abstract art, which is why I was suggesting here that we try to apply your method to abstract sculptures. I know enough about various theories of color and form that I think I'd be able to offer a reasonable-sounding explanation as to why a person might feel any number of emotional responses while looking at a painting by Pollock, a sculpture by Kapoor, or even non-art things like a flower in nature, the Grand Canyon, a weathered barn, etc. The fact that I can point to attributes, infer possible emotional associations and speculate how they might have caused you to experience certain emotions doesn't mean that I've identified a work of art's theme by Rand's definition and requirements. Being able to find and explain a meaning is not at all the same as being able to comprehend the meaning that Rand's theory demands must be communicated.

There may always be wilderness areas that frustrate the explorer. That's really not my concern. Nor is my concern the wilderness denizens who indignantly rail against my attempts to explore their personal domain, as though I were doing something wrong in trying to understand them on my terms.

I wasn't talking about anyone indignantly railing against your ideas. A composer who disagrees with you, criticizes your theory, or rejects the idea that it applies to his work isn't necessarily "indignantly railing."

J

[Edit]: I just re-read a little of what I wrote in this post, and I have to admit that parts are pretty sloppily written. So sorry if it's a pain to read. No time at present to clean it up.

Edited January 29, 2008 by Jonathan

Roger Bissell · January 29, 2008

Hey, my first stab at all this is ~not~ going to be a Theory of Everything about Music!
I'm not expecting it to be. I'm just commenting on the what I think would be required for your theory, or any theory, to comply with Rand's definitions and requirements for making objective aesthetic judgments of music....I think that your theory is probably a departure from Objectivism rather than an elaboration or expansion on it. In order to be Objectivist, I think your theory would have to be very concerned -- primarily concerned, in fact -- with what composers think, since identifying their intended themes or meanings is what Rand's notion of objective aesthetic judgment means.[emphasis added]

That is absolutely incorrect. Objective (i.e., Objectivist) aethetic judgment is based not on "intended themes or meanings" but ~actual~ themes or meanings, i.e., themes and meaning ~there, in the artwork~. It's in the same vein as Rand's policy of judging people or identifying people's values not by their intentions, but by their actions. (Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep -- not that which one intends to act to gain and/or keep.)

I'm very surprised that you would invoke Rand and Objectivism, and then misrepresent her view so grossly. I'd almost think that you wrote this off the top of your head, and then didn't bother to double-check it. Not a wise policy when purporting to accurately present someone else's views. Anyway, as Rand wrote in "Art and Sense of Life":

The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist's philosophy is irrelevant to an esthetic appraisal of his work qua art. One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist's theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it--i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his sense of life. (p. 42, emphasis added)

Now, granted, it's supposed to be the artist's theme and sense of life -- not the critic's or viewer's -- that are one's proper focus in an objective evaluation of his work of art. However, the artist's theme and sense of life are not what he says or "thinks" they are, or what he "intends" them to be. They are what they are, as displayed in his artwork. Either they are intelligible and detectable, or they are not.

If you can't detect them, you might ask the artist what he was trying to say in his artwork, but even then, there must be objective evidence to back up his claim, or it's just subjective rambling. Here is what I wrote on the subject in an essay called "The Essence of Art," which was published in December 1997 in Objectivity :

Art as selective re-creation of reality, according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments, is the only fundamental and objective criterion that allows an intelligent observer to judge what is or is not art. For an object to be a re-creation of reality, it must present something (i.e., some content) somehow (i.e., by some means). And if the aspect of reality allegedly presented is claimed to be more “abstract” or difficult to grasp, but no one can demonstrate that it is really there, we can and must presume that it is not.
We can now objectively examine, and accept or reject, the asserted purpose of the creator and the asserted experience of the viewer, in terms of what is actually there in the object:
• If a creator claims to have re-created reality in terms of his metaphysical value-judgments, but cannot specifically show or explain by reference to his creation exactly what metaphysical aspect of reality he views therein, then we know that he is either a poor artist or worse: a person trying to undercut and destroy the field of art.
• If a viewer claims to have viewed a re-creation of reality according to the artist’s metaphysical value-judgments, but cannot specifically show or explain by reference to the object viewed exactly what metaphysical aspect of reality he views therein, then we know that he is either deluded or worse: someone trying to delude us.

I insist that both creator and viewer be held to the same standard. If you want to justify your claim to have conveyed or expressed a particular emotion in your creation, or if you want to understand what it is about the music that evoked an emotion you experienced in response to the creation, you must look at the artwork. The artist's "thoughts" or "intentions" are not the artist's theme. They are part of what Rand called "outside considerations." They are not part of the "evidence contained in the work," which must be, Rand says, your "exclusive" concern, if you want to identify his theme.

The Objectivist view of aesthetic objectivity requires that art be "intelligible" and that it "communicate." I don't think that a truly Objectivist theory can start by assuming that the theorist's own emotional responses are the emotions that a work of music was intended to convey. It can't assume that a common emotional response among a majority of people is evidence of intelligible communication. It can't even assume, in the cases when music is accompanied by lyrics, that the lyrics are what the music is "about." And, as I understand it, the Objectivist Esthetics opposes the idea that a viewer or listener can claim objectivity while merely finding his own meaning in a work of art, as opposed to identifying the creator's meaning, so simply explaining what you feel and why you think that you feel it isn't enough.
An Objectivist theory would have to recognize that a creator's intended meaning would need to be discovered and then compared to any perceived meanings -- when objectively evaluating communication between a transmitter and a variety of receivers, one would have to confirm, by means independent of the receivers, which message was actually transmitted, if any. The fact that 98 receivers might interpret a transmission one way, and that 2 interpret it in another, would not mean that the 98 correctly received the message. It could be that the 2 were much higher quality receivers, or that the 98 were all impeded in one way or another, etc.[emphasis added]

I don't see art as being fundamentally about communication, so I think this entire focus on "intended meaning" is misplaced. Art is fundamentally about embodying certain basic abstractions in an imaginary world, "concretizing metaphysical value-judgments" in a "re-creation of reality." Setting aside the penchant for some composers to embed secret coded messages in their works, it's much more likely that such 98 vs. 2 disparities have to do with the fact that much music is layered, and that not everyone grasps all the layers and subtleties and nuances. My favorite example of this is from cinema: supposedly the Italian government allowed "We the Living" to be filmed and shown during the Fascist regime, because the concrete-bound chowderheads in the censor department could only grasp that it was about evil Soviet Russia, and they totally missed the more general point about evil totalitarianism. Eventually I think they caught on. Similarly, I think that even fairly unsophisticated musical listeners are grasping, on some level, what is going on in a complicated piece of music such as a symphony, and responding to it on some level, even if they can't point to what it is they're responding to. And I don't think that telling them the composer's "intentions" is going to help them very much, unless they're bewildered or bored.

I think it's valuable to ask ourselves and others which emotions we experience while listening to a piece of music, and to ten contemplate what it is about the music that may have caused the emotional responses, but I don't think that such an approach gets to the core of Objectivism's idea of objectivity in evaluating art....The fact that I can point to attributes, infer possible emotional associations and speculate how they might have caused you to experience certain emotions doesn't mean that I've identified a work of art's theme by Rand's definition and requirements. Being able to find and explain a meaning is not at all the same as being able to comprehend the meaning that Rand's theory demands must be communicated.

In general, that's true. But specifically in music, the viewer's strongest clue about what is in the artwork is precisely his emotional response to it. That, plus some basic music appreciation tools (concepts, principles), will get him a long way toward understanding what makes the piece of music tick, i.e., what it's saying and how. Once you identify the subject and style, the realization of what the theme is emerges out of that, even if the piece is something as abstract as a melody without words. This approach really works well in appreciating and analyzing sonata-movement form in Classical and Romantic music, for instance; sonata form is very much like plot-form in literature, and we all know Rand's views on the philosophical meaning of plot. Working within that general framework on down to specific musical developments and how those generate sense of conflict, suspense, expectation, resolution, etc. in a particular case, you can see with considerable specificity (if you have the musical vocabulary and principles to identify it) what a given piece is saying. Not specificity like "the passion of St. John the Baptist," but specificity like "the main theme and secondary theme alternated in a manner that suggested a struggle, but finally the main theme prevailed after a particularly suspenseful prolongation of the diminished 7th chord in the recapitulation." (You can add more specificity by noting the major vs. minor mode and the upward vs. downward melodic character and the end-accented vs. beginning-accented rhythmic character of the two main themes.)

All of this is in the artwork, and it's all fraught with meaning. Whether or not the composer intended it, or consciously realized he was imbuing his creation with it, it's there. Asking the composer ~might~ help you zero in on it more quickly. But he might instead be in denial about what he has presented in his piece. He might instead say, "I just wrote a sonata, that's it, take it or leave it." But imagine a novelist denying all the plot and character elements in his story and instead saying, "I just wrote a novel, that's it, take it or leave it." We know that such an unintellectual, even unaware (disowning? in denial?) stance is ridiculous and not to be taken seriously in literature. I think we're not far away from being able to do that in music--at least, in a great deal of music, if not all. And even if the creator is able to be articulate about his thoughts and feelings and intentions, I think that all of that is ~irrelevant~ to what's actually in the artwork, unless you just aren't able to zero in on it without his help. Like Rand said, it's an "outside consideration." It's not "evidence contained in the work."

REB

Jonathan · January 30, 2008

Hey, my first stab at all this is ~not~ going to be a Theory of Everything about Music!
I'm not expecting it to be. I'm just commenting on the what I think would be required for your theory, or any theory, to comply with Rand's definitions and requirements for making objective aesthetic judgments of music....I think that your theory is probably a departure from Objectivism rather than an elaboration or expansion on it. In order to be Objectivist, I think your theory would have to be very concerned -- primarily concerned, in fact -- with what composers think, since identifying their intended themes or meanings is what Rand's notion of objective aesthetic judgment means.[emphasis added]
That is absolutely incorrect. Objective (i.e., Objectivist) aethetic judgment is based not on "intended themes or meanings" but ~actual~ themes or meanings, i.e., themes and meaning ~there, in the artwork~. It's in the same vein as Rand's policy of judging people or identifying people's values not by their intentions, but by their actions. (Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep -- not that which one intends to act to gain and/or keep.)
I'm very surprised that you would invoke Rand and Objectivism, and then misrepresent her view so grossly. I'd almost think that you wrote this off the top of your head, and then didn't bother to double-check it. Not a wise policy when purporting to accurately present someone else's views. Anyway, as Rand wrote in "Art and Sense of Life":
The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist's philosophy is irrelevant to an esthetic appraisal of his work qua art. One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist's theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it--i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his sense of life. (p. 42, emphasis added)
Now, granted, it's supposed to be the artist's theme and sense of life -- not the critic's or viewer's -- that are one's proper focus in an objective evaluation of his work of art. However, the artist's theme and sense of life are not what he says or "thinks" they are, or what he "intends" them to be. They are what they are, as displayed in his artwork. Either they are intelligible and detectable, or they are not.

Why would Rand specifically say that we must identify the artist's meaning and stress that we must use his theme as criterion if she actually meant that we should identify the artwork's theme? I've been under the impression that she was quite capable of saying exactly what she meant.

You seem to be saying that she meant that critics should not judge art based on their theme. If so, I have no idea what that means. Does it mean that critics should not find their own meaning based on what they see in a work of art? If so, how is finding their own meaning different from finding the artwork's meaning, if by "the artwork's meaning" we do not mean "the artist's intended meaning"?

Or are you saying that Rand's position was that critics should not avoid considering the content of an artwork when evaluating it? If so, which critics were going around not considering the content of the art that they were evaluating?

In addition to Rand's emphasis on the artist's meaning as opposed to the art's meaning, she also wrote that art must be intelligible and that it must communicate. Intelligibility and communication mean that a person successfully conveys information to others. It means that those receiving the information understand it as it was intended. If Rand had said instead that art must evoke some sort of emotional response in people, or inspire them to contemplate what it means to them, then I'd agree with you that she wasn't concerned with the artist's intentions. But clearly she was adamant about art communicating.

I did a quick search, and I found this quote on SOLOP:

Since all art is communication, there can be nothing more viciously contradictory than the idea of nonobjective art. Anyone who wants to communicate with others has to rely on an objective reality and an objective language. The 'nonobjective' is that which is dependent only on the individual subject, not on any standard of outside reality, and which is therefore incommunicable to others.
When a man announces that he is a nonobjective artist, he is saying that what he is presenting cannot be communicated. Why then does he present it, and why does he claim that it is art?
A nonobjective artist, whether a painter or a writer, is counting on the existence of objective art—and using it in order to destroy it.
Take a nonobjective painter. He creates some blobs of paint and proclaims that they are an expression of his subconscious, that they cannot be defined in any other terms, and that either you understand their meaning or you do not. Then he hangs them in a gallery. What does his work have in common with real art, which by definition represents recognizable physical objects? Only that it is hung on a wall. He has switched the definition of painting to "a piece of canvas in a frame."
— Ayn Rand, The Art of Fiction

First of all, I guess the first paragraph means that Rand was "viciously contradictory" because she believed that music was art despite the fact that it doesn't (yet) have an "objective language." And, btw, why is music given a pass and abstract art is not? Why doesn't Objectivism say that abstract art is currently a valid art form despite the fact that, like music, it doesn't yet have an objective language, but will in the future?

Secondly, a nonobjective artist is not necessarily saying that "what he is presenting cannot be communicated." He might be saying that his paintings are basically visual equivalents of music: that they are more emotionally evocative than directly figurative or representational. Kandinsky, the father of non-objective abstract art, was actually quite objective in contemplating the "language" of color and form. I've posted excerpts in the past.

Thirdly, and back to this thread's topic, Rand was clearly rejecting abstract art because she thought that it doesn't communicate, which means that it doesn't convey the artist's intended meaning. It was not enough for her that millions of people find meaning in abstract art based on the evidence contained in the art -- just as much meaning, if not more, than Rand found in music (and perhaps more than she found in figurative visual art). No, fans of abstract art were required to be able to identify the artist's meaning. They were required to understand his "communications."

However, the artist's theme and sense of life are not what he says or "thinks" they are, or what he "intends" them to be. They are what they are, as displayed in his artwork.

No. You could say that you infer a theme and a sense of life based on what a work of art contains, but that doesn't mean that it's the artist's theme and sense of life. It's your interpretation of the art, and should not be called "the artist's theme" or "the artist's sense of life." For example, a typical Objectivist interpretation of Marc Quinn's sculpture of Alison Lapper is that "mankind is a mangled heap, and a deformed body equals a deformed soul," where the artist's theme is "the triumph of the human spirit; free will conquering the concept of biological destiny." You don't get to claim that your interpretations are the artist's theme and sense of life "as displayed in his artwork."

However, since Rand did claim that she was identifying artists' themes and senses of life, and since she even went so far as to make psychological pronouncements about some of them based on her interpretations of their art, obviously she thought that she was identifying their intended meanings -- one cannot talk of an artist's alleged "inner conflicts" or "malevolent" view of existence unless she thinks she has identified his intended meaning.

Either they are intelligible and detectable, or they are not. If you can't detect them, you might ask the artist what he was trying to say in his artwork...

How are you to know whether or not you've "detected" the artist's meaning if you haven't asked him what he was trying to say in his artwork? Art is notorious for being interpreted differently by different people. If I see an artwork as representing one thing, and you see it as representing another, we'll both be able to point to the artwork's contents to support our opposing views.

...but even then, there must be objective evidence to back up his claim, or it's just subjective rambling. Here is what I wrote on the subject in an essay called "The Essence of Art," which was published in December 1997 in Objectivity :
Art as selective re-creation of reality, according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments, is the only fundamental and objective criterion that allows an intelligent observer to judge what is or is not art. For an object to be a re-creation of reality, it must present something (i.e., some content) somehow (i.e., by some means). And if the aspect of reality allegedly presented is claimed to be more “abstract” or difficult to grasp, but no one can demonstrate that it is really there, we can and must presume that it is not.
We can now objectively examine, and accept or reject, the asserted purpose of the creator and the asserted experience of the viewer, in terms of what is actually there in the object:
• If a creator claims to have re-created reality in terms of his metaphysical value-judgments, but cannot specifically show or explain by reference to his creation exactly what metaphysical aspect of reality he views therein, then we know that he is either a poor artist or worse: a person trying to undercut and destroy the field of art.
• If a viewer claims to have viewed a re-creation of reality according to the artist’s metaphysical value-judgments, but cannot specifically show or explain by reference to the object viewed exactly what metaphysical aspect of reality he views therein, then we know that he is either deluded or worse: someone trying to delude us.

Can you give examples of people who have not specifically shown or explained by reference to the object viewed exactly what metaphysical aspect of reality they view therein?

I insist that both creator and viewer be held to the same standard. If you want to justify your claim to have conveyed or expressed a particular emotion in your creation, or if you want to understand what it is about the music that evoked an emotion you experienced in response to the creation, you must look at the artwork. The artist's "thoughts" or "intentions" are not the artist's theme. They are part of what Rand called "outside considerations." They are not part of the "evidence contained in the work," which must be, Rand says, your "exclusive" concern, if you want to identify his theme.

Again with "his theme."

The Objectivist view of aesthetic objectivity requires that art be "intelligible" and that it "communicate." I don't think that a truly Objectivist theory can start by assuming that the theorist's own emotional responses are the emotions that a work of music was intended to convey. It can't assume that a common emotional response among a majority of people is evidence of intelligible communication. It can't even assume, in the cases when music is accompanied by lyrics, that the lyrics are what the music is "about." And, as I understand it, the Objectivist Esthetics opposes the idea that a viewer or listener can claim objectivity while merely finding his own meaning in a work of art, as opposed to identifying the creator's meaning, so simply explaining what you feel and why you think that you feel it isn't enough.
An Objectivist theory would have to recognize that a creator's intended meaning would need to be discovered and then compared to any perceived meanings -- when objectively evaluating communication between a transmitter and a variety of receivers, one would have to confirm, by means independent of the receivers, which message was actually transmitted, if any. The fact that 98 receivers might interpret a transmission one way, and that 2 interpret it in another, would not mean that the 98 correctly received the message. It could be that the 2 were much higher quality receivers, or that the 98 were all impeded in one way or another, etc.[emphasis added]
I don't see art as being fundamentally about communication, so I think this entire focus on "intended meaning" is misplaced. Art is fundamentally about embodying certain basic abstractions in an imaginary world, "concretizing metaphysical value-judgments" in a "re-creation of reality." Setting aside the penchant for some composers to embed secret coded messages in their works, it's much more likely that such 98 vs. 2 disparities have to do with the fact that much music is layered, and that not everyone grasps all the layers and subtleties and nuances. My favorite example of this is from cinema: supposedly the Italian government allowed "We the Living" to be filmed and shown during the Fascist regime, because the concrete-bound chowderheads in the censor department could only grasp that it was about evil Soviet Russia, and they totally missed the more general point about evil totalitarianism. Eventually I think they caught on. Similarly, I think that even fairly unsophisticated musical listeners are grasping, on some level, what is going on in a complicated piece of music such as a symphony, and responding to it on some level, even if they can't point to what it is they're responding to. And I don't think that telling them the composer's "intentions" is going to help them very much, unless they're bewildered or bored.

I think you're missing my point. I'm saying that if we are to judge how well an artist has conveyed his theme, then we have to know, by means other than his art, what his intended theme was. In order to comply with Rand's requirements of objective aesthetic evaluation, we'd have to verify that we've judged how well the artist has presented his theme, and that we have not blundered and misidentified his theme. None of us can assume that our interpretation of an artwork is the "correct" interpretation. We can't presume to measure the success or failure of the transmitter when we are receivers whose ability to clearly receive is just as much in question as the transmitter's ability to clearly transmit. In order to be objective, we'd have to define a means of gauging the aesthetic competence of those doing the judging as well as those doing the creating.

I think it's valuable to ask ourselves and others which emotions we experience while listening to a piece of music, and to ten contemplate what it is about the music that may have caused the emotional responses, but I don't think that such an approach gets to the core of Objectivism's idea of objectivity in evaluating art....The fact that I can point to attributes, infer possible emotional associations and speculate how they might have caused you to experience certain emotions doesn't mean that I've identified a work of art's theme by Rand's definition and requirements. Being able to find and explain a meaning is not at all the same as being able to comprehend the meaning that Rand's theory demands must be communicated.
In general, that's true. But specifically in music, the viewer's strongest clue about what is in the artwork is precisely his emotional response to it. That, plus some basic music appreciation tools (concepts, principles), will get him a long way toward understanding what makes the piece of music tick, i.e., what it's saying and how. Once you identify the subject and style, the realization of what the theme is emerges out of that, even if the piece is something as abstract as a melody without words. This approach really works well in appreciating and analyzing sonata-movement form in Classical and Romantic music, for instance; sonata form is very much like plot-form in literature, and we all know Rand's views on the philosophical meaning of plot. Working within that general framework on down to specific musical developments and how those generate sense of conflict, suspense, expectation, resolution, etc. in a particular case, you can see with considerable specificity (if you have the musical vocabulary and principles to identify it) what a given piece is saying. Not specificity like "the passion of St. John the Baptist," but specificity like "the main theme and secondary theme alternated in a manner that suggested a struggle, but finally the main theme prevailed after a particularly suspenseful prolongation of the diminished 7th chord in the recapitulation." (You can add more specificity by noting the major vs. minor mode and the upward vs. downward melodic character and the end-accented vs. beginning-accented rhythmic character of the two main themes.)
All of this is in the artwork, and it's all fraught with meaning. Whether or not the composer intended it, or consciously realized he was imbuing his creation with it, it's there. Asking the composer ~might~ help you zero in on it more quickly. But he might instead be in denial about what he has presented in his piece...

What if the composer intended to express the opposite of what you think his work means, and I and millions of others agree that his work expresses what he thinks it means? Would everyone except you be "in denial"?

J

Edited January 30, 2008 by Jonathan

Wolf DeVoon · January 30, 2008

Time out. I can't quote everything and react line by line. What I'm going to say is simple, based on 40 years of music producing, arranging, mixing, film production, editing, graphic design, interacting with countless painters, composers, musicians and sculptors, and having authored about a quarter million words of fiction.

1. 'Artistic intent' should be excluded from scholarship, criticism and appreciation.

2. 'Communication' is a term that pertains to advertising and polemics, not art qua art.

3. Artistic ambition is personal, non-social, probably unteachable.

I've written about this in the context of moral philosophy: The 51 Percent Solution

The term "artistic achievement" does not refer to one specific instance of achievement, nor to a precise outcome that can be gained by following a formula for success. The value of an artist's career is determined by an enormously complex context, including his native talents, his cultural environment, the history of art, and a long chain of events (study, experimentation, spiritual development) that may or may not culminate in a body of works. Acceptance of those works by others is irrelevant to the artist, because he is primarily concerned with his own subjective evaluation of the outcome as a lifelong process of inner refinement. It is an evolving, abstract statement of value that cannot be reduced to a laundry list of want-satisfactions. Indeed, the outcome cannot be described in advance. Every artist embarks upon the quest for achievement with the knowledge that he will probably fail. Painters are in competition with Vermeer and Monet. Writers must exceed the benchmarks of excellence set by Victor Hugo and Simone de Beauvoir. Anything less is failure — and the structure of achievement is undefined. One can only paint or write with his whole heart, struggling to reach something beautiful, original and previously nonexistent.

Sorry to interrupt. Carry on. You guys are doing important work.

W.

Ellen Stuttle · January 30, 2008

Two questions, the first a general one to anyone who wants to reply:

What's the theme of Hamlet?

Quick. You have three minutes or less, and please answer in twenty words or fewer. I'm not asking for elaboration, just for Naming That Theme.

If Rand's naming-the-theme approach to art is valid, surely with so well-known an art work, the theme ought to be easy to name, yes?

==

My second question is specifically for Roger: Can you define "romantic music"? And, again, I request a succinct response. If the meaning is so obvious as to give any viability to Linz's "Why Romantic Music Is Objectively Superior" (never mind the subtitle), shouldn't it be easy to give a quick definition of what "romantic music" is?

Ellen

___

BaalChatzaf · January 30, 2008

Two questions, the first a general one to anyone who wants to reply:
What's the theme of Hamlet?
___

Revenge. Hamlet gets even with his Uncle for the murder of his father.

Did I get it right?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Roger Bissell · January 30, 2008

Two questions, the first a general one to anyone who wants to reply:
What's the theme of Hamlet?
Quick. You have three minutes or less, and please answer in twenty words or fewer. I'm not asking for elaboration, just for Naming That Theme.
If Rand's naming-the-theme approach to art is valid, surely with so well-known an art work, the theme ought to be easy to name, yes?
==
My second question is specifically for Roger: Can you define "romantic music"? And, again, I request a succinct response. If the meaning is so obvious as to give any viability to Linz's "Why Romantic Music Is Objectively Superior" (never mind the subtitle), shouldn't it be easy to give a quick definition of what "romantic music" is?
Ellen

Ellen, I think that the theme of Hamlet is moral-philosophical: maintaining one's moral integrity in the face of social corruption and personal grief. (Twenty words, but it took me more than three minutes. I don't do this regularly, and I'm a bit rusty!)

Yes, I can define "romantic music," but you might not like the definition!

Cribbing from Rand's definition of Romanticism: Romantic music is the category of music based on the recognition that man possesses volition.

Take a look at pp. 100-101 of The Romantic Manifesto, where Rand discusses the attribute of plot or plotlessness as the "main distinguishing characteristic" for classifying a literary work as Romantic or not. Applying this to music, I maintain that Romantic music is music that has a purposeful progression of events, logical continuity, resolution, and climax(es).

Yes, there are Romantic elements in Mozart and Haydn--even Bach and Handel--but during the Baroque and Classical eras, musical forms such as the sonata were still under development and hadn't reached their full potential for drama. Just one example of a very Romantic (musically "volitional", striving, goal-directed, etc.) piece from an essentially non-Romantic era: the slow movement to Mozart's piano concerto that was used as a theme for the movie "Elvira Madigen." It's very lovely and very "teleological" -- Romantic, in Rand's sense.

And yes, I'm sure that some essentially Romantic composers at times wrote rather plotlessly, and though I hear that Brahms, for instance, wrote rather more in the Classical vein (restrained emotionality), I can't cite any examples for those of you who want either proof of my claim or some plotless Romantic-era music to listen to.

REB

Roger Bissell · January 30, 2008

What if the composer intended to express the opposite of what you think his work means, and I and millions of others agree that his work expresses what he thinks it means? Would everyone except you be "in denial"?
J

Quite possibly! Ever hear of "The Emperor's New Concerto?"

I'm surprised to hear anyone connected with Objectivism engaging in the "50 million Frenchman can't be wrong" fallacy. Tsk, tsk.

REB

Dragonfly · January 30, 2008

Cribbing from Rand's definition of Romanticism: Romantic music is the category of music based on the recognition that man possesses volition.
Take a look at pp. 100-101 of The Romantic Manifesto, where Rand discusses the attribute of plot or plotlessness as the "main distinguishing characteristic" for classifying a literary work as Romantic or not. Applying this to music, I maintain that Romantic music is music that has a purposeful progression of events, logical continuity, resolution, and climax(es).
Yes, there are Romantic elements in Mozart and Haydn--even Bach and Handel--

Elements of purposeful progression of events, logical continuity, resolution and climaxes in Bach??!! He is the greates musical plotter of them all! (And of course the notion that such things occur only occasionally in Mozart or Haydn is equally ludicrous).

And yes, I'm sure that some essentially Romantic composers at times wrote rather plotlessly, and though I hear that Brahms, for instance, wrote rather more in the Classical vein (restrained emotionality),

Brahms used classical forms (like the sonata form) in a time when it was less in vogue (Liszt, Wagner), but that doesn't make him a lesser plotter (in fact he was a better plotter than them), and his emotionality wasn't that restrained, certainly no less than that of earlier Romanticists like Schumann, Chopin or Mendelssohn.

The problem with Rand's definition is of course that it is quite contrary to the usual definition of Romantic music, which is characterized by its strong emotional appeal. In that sense there is a difference between the Romantic period and earlier styles (which certainly doesn't mean that there is no emotion in that earlier music!). But to characterize that earlier music as plotless is absurd, and shows only that Rand was completely unmusical.

Roger Bissell · January 30, 2008

Hey, my first stab at all this is ~not~ going to be a Theory of Everything about Music!
I'm not expecting it to be. I'm just commenting on the what I think would be required for your theory, or any theory, to comply with Rand's definitions and requirements for making objective aesthetic judgments of music....I think that your theory is probably a departure from Objectivism rather than an elaboration or expansion on it. In order to be Objectivist, I think your theory would have to be very concerned -- primarily concerned, in fact -- with what composers think, since identifying their intended themes or meanings is what Rand's notion of objective aesthetic judgment means.[emphasis added]
That is absolutely incorrect. Objective (i.e., Objectivist) aethetic judgment is based not on "intended themes or meanings" but ~actual~ themes or meanings, i.e., themes and meaning ~there, in the artwork~. It's in the same vein as Rand's policy of judging people or identifying people's values not by their intentions, but by their actions. (Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep -- not that which one intends to act to gain and/or keep.)
I'm very surprised that you would invoke Rand and Objectivism, and then misrepresent her view so grossly. I'd almost think that you wrote this off the top of your head, and then didn't bother to double-check it. Not a wise policy when purporting to accurately present someone else's views. Anyway, as Rand wrote in "Art and Sense of Life":
The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist's philosophy is irrelevant to an esthetic appraisal of his work qua art. One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist's theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it--i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his sense of life. (p. 42, emphasis added)
Now, granted, it's supposed to be the artist's theme and sense of life -- not the critic's or viewer's -- that are one's proper focus in an objective evaluation of his work of art. However, the artist's theme and sense of life are not what he says or "thinks" they are, or what he "intends" them to be. They are what they are, as displayed in his artwork. Either they are intelligible and detectable, or they are not.
Why would Rand specifically say that we must identify the artist's meaning and stress that we must use his theme as criterion if she actually meant that we should identify the artwork's theme? I've been under the impression that she was quite capable of saying exactly what she meant.

Yes, she was. And for that very reason, you cannot interpret "his theme" or "the artist's meaning," as Rand uses those phrases, to mean: what the artist said or intended. In explaining what she meant by "identify the artist's theme," Rand explicitly and carefully said: "the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations)..."

What the artist says or intends is NOT "evidence contained in the work." It is an "outside consideration."

If an artist puts on a white tee shirt, and he says I am wearing a blue silk shirt, the artist's shirt is not blue and silk just because he says it is. If he says I intended to put on a blue silk shirt, his shirt is not blue and silk just because he intended to put one on.

I identify the color and style of the shirt by looking at the shirt, focusing exclusively on evidence contained in the shirt, and not allowing any outside considerations to enter in -- including the artist's statements about his shirt's color and style or his intentions.

And even if 50,000,000 Frenchmen gang up on me and perversely or befuddledly agree with the artist, that doesn't change the facts!

Again, "his theme" does not, as Rand uses it, refer to what the artist thinks or says his theme is, nor what he intends it to be. It refers to what the theme of the artwork actually is, the theme of the artwork created by the artist.

You seem to be saying that she meant that critics should not judge art based on their theme. If so, I have no idea what that means. Does it mean that critics should not find their own meaning based on what they see in a work of art? If so, how is finding their own meaning different from finding the artwork's meaning, if by "the artwork's meaning" we do not mean "the artist's intended meaning"?

How do you get that from what I say? "Their theme"? They did not create the artwork. I (and Rand) say "his theme," because the artist created the artwork. Even if the artist does not know or realize what theme his artwork actually conveys, it is still his theme, because his subconscious did the work that he did not consciously get clear about. This is not psychologizing. It happens a lot of the time in art, and in human life more generally. Our subconsciousnesses are integrating mechanisms, and they operate with or without our conscious, conceptual direction. We are philosophy-driven, even if it is tacit and by default. Thus, artworks have the themes they have, even if artists don't deliberately try to imbue them with one--even if they err in introspectively identifying the abstract meaning they were trying to convey in their artwork.

Critics and consumers of art are free and welcome to find "their own meaning" in an artwork, but if they want to objectively evaluate the artwork in terms of its abstract meaning, they need to figure out what it is saying, not just what they appreciate it for. They can take note of and exclaim approvingly over the clean, crisp appearance of the artist's white tee shirt, but that is not an identification of the color and style of the shirt.

...she also wrote that art must be intelligible and that it must communicate. Intelligibility and communication mean that a person successfully conveys information to others. It means that those receiving the information understand it as it was intended. If Rand had said instead that art must evoke some sort of emotional response in people, or inspire them to contemplate what it means to them, then I'd agree with you that she wasn't concerned with the artist's intentions. But clearly she was adamant about art communicating.

This is a false alternative. First, Rand said ("Art and Sense of Life", p. 35) that the artist's "primary purpose is to bring his view of man and of existence into reality." Even if he doesn't realize that that is what he is doing! This is the essence of artistic creation, whether or not the artist realizes or agrees that it is. Which means that the artist's view of man and existence, his theme, can be unknown to him conceptually, and only operating on the level of his subconscious -- which, again, is why an artist's actual theme, as evidenced by the artwork itself, can differ from what the artist says it is or consciously intended it to be.

Secondly, the fundamental purpose of art is not to evoke emotions in others or inspire them to contemplate, but to present them with a view of man and existence. And it does so, whether or not they recognize it, whether or not the artist recognizes it. That is the sense in which Rand means that art communicates--it presents a view of man and existence in "objective, communicable terms." That is the only way a view of man and existence can be "brought into reality," as opposed to remaining locked inside an artist's mind (conscious or sub-).

REB

Ellen Stuttle · January 30, 2008

The problem with Rand's definition is of course that it is quite contrary to the usual definition of Romantic music, which is characterized by its strong emotional appeal. In that sense there is a difference between the Romantic period and earlier styles (which certainly doesn't mean that there is no emotion in that earlier music!). But to characterize that earlier music as plotless is absurd, and shows only that Rand was completely unmusical.

Wait a sec. I don't think it's Rand doing that; it's Roger doing that, attempting to apply what Rand said about literature to music. Did Rand herself give any definition of "romantic" music? What she meant in practice was a certain sort of soaring melody that she liked -- Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, sections of other composers.

Ellen

___

Roger Bissell · January 30, 2008

The problem with Rand's definition is of course that it is quite contrary to the usual definition of Romantic music, which is characterized by its strong emotional appeal. In that sense there is a difference between the Romantic period and earlier styles (which certainly doesn't mean that there is no emotion in that earlier music!). But to characterize that earlier music as plotless is absurd, and shows only that Rand was completely unmusical.
Wait a sec. I don't think it's Rand doing that; it's Roger doing that, attempting to apply what Rand said about literature to music. Did Rand herself give any definition of "romantic" music? What she meant in practice was a certain sort of soaring melody that she liked -- Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, sections of other composers.
Ellen
___

That's right, Ellen, thank you.

However, while Rand never said anything about plot or plotlessness in music, she ~did~ say that Mozart was "pre-music," which makes absolutely ~no~ sense to me. So, I think Dragonfly's assessment of Rand as "completely unmusical" is painfully close to the mark. (Unless someone out there has a reasonable explanation for why she would have said such a thing.)

Also...Dragonfly...I did ~not~ mean that Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, etc. did not use plot in their music, nor that they only "occasionally" (not my word!) used plot elements in their music.

By Bach's time, the standard harmonic progressions of tonal music had been well established, and Bach slung 'em around better than any of his contemporaries and many of his successors. Harmonic progression, in case there's any doubt, ~is~ "plot" in music. The melodic themes are the "characters." The Blumenthals talked about this in their lectures, and I came to independent realizations about it, back in the 70s. Bach did not engage in thematic ("character") development nearly as much as Haydn and Mozart, who initiated a veritable explosion in this quasi-literary form of musical expression, contemporaneous with the rise of the modern novel. (Charles Rosen writes about this, as do others.) With multiple themes, you have the opportunity for conflict and complexity of "character" development, which adds to the richness of the musical "plot" and its unfolding and dramatic power.

As the Classical and Romantic eras progressed, so did the richness of the Romantic nature of the music. But since tonal music coalesced in the 1600s (or so), it's always been that way, just more and more so over time, until we reach "modern" music, which tried to dispense with it entirely, leading listeners to turn to movie and pop music for enjoyment and inspiration. (Serves 'em right. Now if we could just get them off the public dole at their tax-supported college and symphony gigs.)

REB

Ellen Stuttle · January 31, 2008

Roger,

Is what you're attempting to do to use the term "romantic" in music as meaning the whole of the Western tonal-system development?

(If so, you're bucking standard music classification. You're also, although this is much less of a problem for your being understood, meaning something different than Linz was talking about in his speech title, or than Rand herself was talking about when she used the term in regard to music.)

Ellen

___

Roger Bissell · January 31, 2008

Roger,
Is what you're attempting to do to use the term "romantic" in music as meaning the whole of the Western tonal-system development?
(If so, you're bucking standard music classification. You're also, although this is much less of a problem for your being understood, meaning something different than Linz was talking about in his speech title, or than Rand herself was talking about when she used the term in regard to music.)
Ellen
___

No. Please allow me to clarify by quoting the eminent authority, Professor Ted Drakottami, who wrote:

...the same meaning that Rand attaches to Romanticism in literature applies wholesale to dramatic music. Most music of the past 400 years or so is “Romantic” to a degree, in being goal-directed in character, because of its deep reliance on the progressions of tonal harmony. However, the music that most strongly emphasizes the plot attribute of the climax was written right in the heart of the era commonly referred to as the Romantic Period (approximately 1820–1900).

Dragonfly has drawn attention to the "strong emotional appeal" of music of the Romantic era -- some would even call it "hyper-emotionality." But as Rand pointed out (in "What is Romanticism?" in The Romantic Manifesto) regarding Romantic literature, defining Romanticism in terms of emotions (as some do) is "intellectually disastrous," being a definition by non-essentials. The source of emotions, she says, is values and value-judgments, and "a great deal of emotional intensity was projected in the work of the Romanticists and in the reactions of their audiences, as well as a great deal of color, imagination, originality, excitement and all the other consequences of a value-oriented life." (pp. 104-105, emphasis added)

In other words, the typical conception of the Romantic Era is based on secondary characteristics of Romanticism, the fundamental being man's ability to choose and act for his values (Rand specifically named volition and reason as the primaries), which requires him to set goals and engage in purposeful action to achieve them. Temporal art, including music, that presents a semblance of such purposeful action is, to that extent, Romantic--and the more dramatic such action is presented as being, the more undeniably Romantic it is.

People usually have no problem categorizing such music when they hear it, even though they don't have the music theory vocabulary and principles to technically discuss it. That is because the typical listener in our culture can hear and follow a harmonic progression, and experience it as being "logically" unified and "goal-directed", even if they don't know the name of a single note or chord they're hearing, the names of the instruments playing them, etc.

Again, as Prof. Drakottami suggests, it is specifically the musical plot aspect of the climax that is the telltale mark of Romantic music, not the emotionality and expressiveness, but the deliberate, self-conscious marshalling of musical forces into wrenching or anguishing or towering peaks of excitement. And now, if you'll excuse me, my lovely wife is summoning me to the boudoir, where I must go over some of the more subtle aspects of this topic with her, before I fly off tomorrow with the Side Street Strutters Jazz Band to the frigid wasteland of the northeastern United States for two days of symphony pops concerts with the Rochester Symphony Orchestra at Eastman Hall.

REB

Wolf DeVoon · January 31, 2008

deliberate, self-conscious marshalling of musical forces

Like Jimmy Page did, for instance. My experience with classical music consists of two experiences. I mixed the front of house, monitors, and a recording of Cosi Fan Tuti, and (like most other parents of small children) I've heard more than few renditions of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. Both of these miserably droll, contrived, camp compositions were forced. Made to order like medieval frescos. Both composers disiked the results -- and, boy oh boy, so did I. If we're talking about emotionally compelling, thrilling experiences, Mozart and Tchaikovsky were pre-music indeed.

W.

Jonathan · January 31, 2008

What if the composer intended to express the opposite of what you think his work means, and I and millions of others agree that his work expresses what he thinks it means? Would everyone except you be "in denial"?
J
Quite possibly! Ever hear of "The Emperor's New Concerto?"
I'm surprised to hear anyone connected with Objectivism engaging in the "50 million Frenchman can't be wrong" fallacy. Tsk, tsk.

I don't think that "50 million Frenchman can't be wrong." But I do think that if a professional composer and 50 million fans of his work disagreed with your interpretation of a piece of his music -- a medium that doesn't have an "objective language" -- it would be just a tad arrogant to conclude that they must be "in denial" as opposed to simply having a different interpretation than you do.

Yes, she was. And for that very reason, you cannot interpret "his theme" or "the artist's meaning," as Rand uses those phrases, to mean: what the artist said or intended. In explaining what she meant by "identify the artist's theme," Rand explicitly and carefully said: "the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations)..."
What the artist says or intends is NOT "evidence contained in the work." It is an "outside consideration."

I'm not saying that what the artist says or intends is "evidence contained in the work," and I'm not saying that Rand expected us to decide what we think an artwork means by asking the artist what he intended. I'm saying that Rand's concept of "objective esthetic judgment" demands that we grasp the artist's intended meaning based on the evidence contained in his art. Rand's view is that his art must "communicate" his meaning.

In addition to that, I think that Rand's concept of "objective esthetic judgment" requires that we discover the artist's intentions after we have decided what we think his art means, since there is no other way to verify if he has succeeded in communicating his meaning. I'm not saying that Rand believed that we need to verify that we've understood the artist's meaning. I'm saying that verification is required whether Rand realized it or not.

How else are we to objectively judge how well the artist "projects (or fails to project) his view of life" when we are viewing or listening to pieces that are created in media that are very open to different interpretations?

If an artist puts on a white tee shirt, and he says I am wearing a blue silk shirt, the artist's shirt is not blue and silk just because he says it is. If he says I intended to put on a blue silk shirt, his shirt is not blue and silk just because he intended to put one on.
I identify the color and style of the shirt by looking at the shirt, focusing exclusively on evidence contained in the shirt, and not allowing any outside considerations to enter in -- including the artist's statements about his shirt's color and style or his intentions.

Identifying something as simple as a color and a fabric based on evidence is quite different from identifying something as complex as an artwork's meaning. I personally know of no one who would claim that a white shirt is blue. I know plenty of people who would think that a work of art means something quite different from what other people would think that it means. It's not even unusual for people with similar philosophies, levels of intelligence, and "senses of life" to find exact opposite meanings in a work of art.

So let's try a more appropriate example:

Diane von Furstenberg says that the new light gray-green dress that she has designed compliments her skin tones, and that the overall effect when she wears the color, as opposed to when others wear it, is that it's more fresh and playful than dressy and elegant.

She talks in detail with fellow designers about the "evidence." She explains that the slightly dominant yellow tone in the material's green is the same proportion of yellow-dominance in her skin tones, which results in a sort of visual chord in which the dominant yellow tone brings out the cyans in the dress and the magentas in her skin, and that those pastel magentas, yellows and cyans are very natural looking and reminiscent of the colors of spring, which makes them seem fresh and playful. In contrast, she says, an olive, tan or porcelain skin tone with the dress would have more of a cooling effect, and that would result in a feeling of reserved elegance as opposed to playfulness.

Heidi Klum and 50 million Frenchman following her around Disneyland Paris see Furstenberg wearing her dress. They have no knowledge of her views of the effects of its color when worn next to her skin. They see the common yellow dominance and the enhanced magenta and cyan, and think that the effect is fresh and playful. They compliment her on her dress, and explain in detail why they like it, and she says, "Yes! Oui! Exactly! That's precisely how I see it as well. That's why I chose this color."

Enter you, Roger Bissell, just arrived at Disneyland Paris on special assignment. You say that the gray-green dress against Furstenberg's skin isn't fresh and playful, but that it clashes horribly with her skin's "season," and that the true and objective effect, as determined by properly looking at the evidence contained in the dress and the skin tones, is discord and frumpiness. You tell Furstenberg, Klum and the Frenchmen that they're "in denial," that you're evaluation is the correct evaluation, and that despite what Furstenberg says about her intentions, she subconsciously wants to look dowdy because her choice of color reveals that she has a gloomy sense of life.

And even if 50,000,000 Frenchmen gang up on me and perversely or befuddledly agree with the artist, that doesn't change the facts!
Again, "his theme" does not, as Rand uses it, refer to what the artist thinks or says his theme is, nor what he intends it to be. It refers to what the theme of the artwork actually is, the theme of the artwork created by the artist.

So, in aesthetic matters involving media which have no "objective language," or are otherwise open to a wide variety of interpretations, you have a monopoly on "the facts," and anyone who has a different interpretation of an artwork than you do is "in denial"?

You seem to be saying that she meant that critics should not judge art based on their theme. If so, I have no idea what that means. Does it mean that critics should not find their own meaning based on what they see in a work of art? If so, how is finding their own meaning different from finding the artwork's meaning, if by "the artwork's meaning" we do not mean "the artist's intended meaning"?
How do you get that from what I say? "Their theme"? They did not create the artwork.

I got "their theme" from your statement:

"Now, granted, it's supposed to be the artist's theme and sense of life -- not the critic's or viewer's -- that are one's proper focus in an objective evaluation of his work of art."

I took you to be saying that a critic is supposed to focus on the artist's theme and sense of life, not on the critic's theme and sense of life. And Rand stressed that we are to judge the artist's theme. Who else's theme was she imagining that people were going to judge? Their own? Who knows?

I (and Rand) say "his theme," because the artist created the artwork. Even if the artist does not know or realize what theme his artwork actually conveys, it is still his theme, because his subconscious did the work that he did not consciously get clear about. This is not psychologizing.

Let's say that an Objectvist says that an artist's meaning, as revealed in his art, is that mankind is evil, and that the artist's sense of life is "anti-life and anti-reason." He points to the evidence in the art to support his conclusion. I have the exact opposite response to the art. After considering only the evidence contained in the art and allowing no ouside considerations, I think the artwork represents a heroic vision. The difference of opinion inspires me to research what the artist has said about his work, and it turns out that I identified his intended meaning. He meant to portray the heroic vision that I took his art to be representing. Would you say that the Objectivist identified the "artist's meaning" and the "artist's sense of life"?

It happens a lot of the time in art, and in human life more generally. Our subconsciousnesses are integrating mechanisms, and they operate with or without our conscious, conceptual direction. We are philosophy-driven, even if it is tacit and by default. Thus, artworks have the themes they have, even if artists don't deliberately try to imbue them with one--even if they err in introspectively identifying the abstract meaning they were trying to convey in their artwork.

An artist isn't subconsciously expressing what you claim his work means just because you've decided that your interpretation of his art is the only objective interpretation. You're ignoring the fact that it's possible that you or any other art consumer might be inept at interpreting certain works of art.

Critics and consumers of art are free and welcome to find "their own meaning" in an artwork, but if they want to objectively evaluate the artwork in terms of its abstract meaning, they need to figure out what it is saying, not just what they appreciate it for. They can take note of and exclaim approvingly over the clean, crisp appearance of the artist's white tee shirt, but that is not an identification of the color and style of the shirt.

Yes or no, is it possible for someone to objectively evaluate an artwork and conclude that it means something other than what you've objectively determined it to mean, perhaps even the opposite of what you think it means?

...she also wrote that art must be intelligible and that it must communicate. Intelligibility and communication mean that a person successfully conveys information to others. It means that those receiving the information understand it as it was intended. If Rand had said instead that art must evoke some sort of emotional response in people, or inspire them to contemplate what it means to them, then I'd agree with you that she wasn't concerned with the artist's intentions. But clearly she was adamant about art communicating.
This is a false alternative. First, Rand said ("Art and Sense of Life", p. 35) that the artist's "primary purpose is to bring his view of man and of existence into reality." Even if he doesn't realize that that is what he is doing! This is the essence of artistic creation, whether or not the artist realizes or agrees that it is. Which means that the artist's view of man and existence, his theme, can be unknown to him conceptually, and only operating on the level of his subconscious -- which, again, is why an artist's actual theme, as evidenced by the artwork itself, can differ from what the artist says it is or consciously intended it to be.

If ten of us here at OL view a painting, and we each have a different view of what it means (based only on the evidence contained in the painting), which of us has identified the artist's "actual" theme? You?

J

Edited January 31, 2008 by Jonathan

Ellen Stuttle · January 31, 2008

Roger,

I think I'm starting to understand what you're arguing, but I'm going to need some specifics here to be sure. I believe you claimed, toward the start of this side-thread -- or maybe in the posts still on the other thread -- that indeed you think "romantic music" IS "objectively superior." (Sorry, I haven't yet read through all the posts between you and Jonathan; enough to kill my eyes just to look at them, and it will be awhile before I can really trace the course of your two's debate; I'm meanwhile just trying to get a handle on your thesis about music.)

When you return from your visit to the cold Northeast, could you provide some comparisons, such as:

Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto, with its multiple "climaxes," is objectively superior to Bach's Goldberg Variations?

Or...some kind of basis which would give me specifics as to compositions you're claiming are better than other compositions because the former are more "romantic" by your meaning than the latter?

Ellen

___

Roger Bissell · January 31, 2008

Roger,
I think I'm starting to understand what you're arguing, but I'm going to need some specifics here to be sure. I believe you claimed, toward the start of this side-thread -- or maybe in the posts still on the other thread -- that indeed you think "romantic music" IS "objectively superior." (Sorry, I haven't yet read through all the posts between you and Jonathan; enough to kill my eyes just to look at them, and it will be awhile before I can really trace the course of your two's debate; I'm meanwhile just trying to get a handle on your thesis about music.)
When you return from your visit to the cold Northeast, could you provide some comparisons, such as:
Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto, with its multiple "climaxes," is objectively superior to Bach's Goldberg Variations?
Or...some kind of basis which would give me specifics as to compositions you're claiming are better than other compositions because the former are more "romantic" by your meaning than the latter?
Ellen
___

Ellen, I'm not arguing the "objective superiority" of, say, Chopin or Rachmaninoff over Bach or Mozart. Or the specific two pieces you mentioned, in relation to one another.

Romantic values (intense goal-directedness, etc.) are not ~all~ that I listen to music for, and I wouldn't say that they are what a given listener "should" value most. So, I don't buy into Linz's thesis, OK?

I'm just saying that, in general, the former were more clearly "Romantic" than the latter. I'd be happy to try to delve into the two pieces you mention and try to be more specific, but that will take some study time, which I don't have right now.

REB

Rich Engle · January 31, 2008

This topic always makes me feel like I am walking through a swamp with a dull, but workable machete'.

I applaud Roger's efforts: this is good work that needs done, it will help to increase understanding, "circumspection of the problem," I think William James once said... We are always hovering over the problem, gleaning understanding from so doing.

But, to fully "understand?" To have a guaranteed methodology that absolutely, comprehensively, reliably identifies purpose, values?

I don't think so, and even if I am wrong, I hope not because that would just ruin art, it would compromise. It would be like cutting a diamond and saying that there are

only "X," er, valid or identifiable facets. We do princess cuts now because no more are significant. Something like that.

Even at the highest levels of mastery, a composer can only just aim. Regardless of how refined his tool is, it does not allow for all things. Language is close to

precision, but even it is subject to what happens when it is run through a filter that is any other than the maker's.

I do not see this as so much of a problem, but rather, generally, a virtue. It's nice to compose something that you loaded a lot of value into, and then get some type of reaction that is, not so much radically different from one's intent, but "in addition to" one's intent. Yes, sometimes interpretations fall wildly off track, of course. That is the burden of the informed listener/consumer/whatever.

A good simple example comes from re-visiting compositions of which one thinks they had a fairly hardened, formulated opinion/interpretation. As life progresses, as our context, knowledge grows, it is very frequent to see something in a new, additional light. This is why great works are so lovely. I still hear different new things when I listen to Mozart, for the ba-zillionth time. That is shining talent.

There is a dynamic between creator and audience. It is a living, breathing, evolving relationship. I do not consider it useful, but rather self-limiting, to attempt to apply evaluative methodologies in a way that creates a fixed, formed evaluation of something, meaning, no need to go more into it. I'd get bored quick, and I know music, for one, is way, way bigger than that. That's why I can still listen to, say, Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain" and get something new out of it, even after all these years.

No guarantees, nope. That would ruin it. But it doesn't mean we don't work to be better-informed listeners.

rde

Edited January 31, 2008 by Rich Engle

Ellen Stuttle · February 1, 2008

Ellen, I'm not arguing the "objective superiority" of, say, Chopin or Rachmaninoff over Bach or Mozart. Or the specific two pieces you mentioned [Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto and Bach's Goldberg Variations], in relation to one another.
Romantic values (intense goal-directedness, etc.) are not ~all~ that I listen to music for, and I wouldn't say that they are what a given listener "should" value most. So, I don't buy into Linz's thesis, OK?
I'm just saying that, in general, the former were more clearly "Romantic" than the latter.

I'm glad to read that you "don't buy into Linz's thesis." But then I'm back to puzzlement as to why you'd want to "buy" at all Rand's way of approach on the issue of "romanticism."

It's time for me to state my strongest objection to the whole idea: I consider her approach nothing better than a thinly disguised attempt to demonstrate the moral superiority of her own literary preferences. More widely, I consider her whole theory of aesthetics geared to demonstrating that her tastes are those of the superior person, but I think the "pay off," as it were, is particularly obvious in what she writes about "romanticism" versus "naturalism" in literature.

Thus I think that, in attempting to follow her way of differentiating the two, you're becoming snarled in a tangle over the issue of whether or not you are trying to say that "romanticism" is superior.

Backing up the thread, in response to my request for a definition of "romanticism" in music, you replied:

Cribbing from Rand's definition of Romanticism: Romantic music is the category of music based on the recognition that man possesses volition.
Take a look at pp. 100-101 of The Romantic Manifesto, where Rand discusses the attribute of plot or plotlessness as the "main distinguishing characteristic" for classifying a literary work as Romantic or not. Applying this to music, I maintain that Romantic music is music that has a purposeful progression of events, logical continuity, resolution, and climax(es).
Yes, there are Romantic elements in Mozart and Haydn--even Bach and Handel--but during the Baroque and Classical eras, musical forms such as the sonata were still under development and hadn't reached their full potential for drama. [....]

Because of some comments you then made in a reply to Dragonfly, next I wondered if you were meaning the whole Western tonal-system development as "romantic," but you re-affirmed that you were talking about specific emphases in that history. But now I don't know why you would call those particular emphases relatively "based on the recognition that man possesses volition" -- as distinguished from "Bach and Handel." The question immediately recycles, most especially in regard to Bach -- who, as Dragonfly pointed out, was a master "plotter": how would you demonstrate that, in overall proportion, Bach's music displays less "purposeful progression of events, logical continuity, resolution, and climax(es)" than say Rachmaninoff's?

More basically, why would you want to attempt such a demonstration -- unless there's some sort of superiority pay-off, a la Rand, who held that literature "based on the recognition that man possesses volition" is ethically superior?

I.e., the whole approach, to me, sounds suspiciously like Rand's own attempt to turn aesthetics into the handmaiden of ethics.

Along these lines...

I don't want to get "cluttered" with too many topics in a particular post, both because I have troubles reading the result and because the resultant discussion then becomes diffuse and loses the main points. However, the answers I got to my query about Hamlet are of interest here.

I posed the challenge to quickly Name That Theme re Hamlet because I was expecting to get answers which would be useful in showing something about the invalidity of Rand's "naming-the-theme approach to [analyzing] art" [editing to clarify my own meaning]. The two replies I got are of use for my intended purpose but also for another which I wasn't thinking of at the moment, that of showing the caricatured nature of her differentiation between "romantic" and "naturalist" in literature.

She considered Shakespeare a "naturalist." So what were the two replies to my name-the-theme of Hamlet request?

From Bob Kolker:

Revenge. Hamlet gets even with his Uncle for the murder of his father.

From you:

[...] maintaining one's moral integrity in the face of social corruption and personal grief.

Hello? The respective description which each of you thinks of zeroes in on a highly volitional issue -- this in a writer Rand called a "naturalist."

I'd say that the replies rather neatly demonstrate how easily her way of defining "romanticism" in literature crumbles upon examination. And if "the recognition that man possesses volition" doesn't work well even in the area of literature, then it does seem to me that the thing to do is to challenge the approach rather than attempt to extend it to art forms in relation to which it will crumble still more easily.

I.e., Roger, I'm not feeling enthused about the "program." The idea that there are plot-like features of music, I agree with. But I'm not only skeptical, I'm unfavorably inclined toward trying to apply Rand's ethics-geared views on "plot" (and her supposed metaphysical underpinning of "plot") to other forms of art besides literature. I think it's wrong to begin with as applied to literature.

Ellen

___

Edited February 1, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

Wolf DeVoon · February 1, 2008

It's time for me to state my strongest objection to the whole idea: I consider her approach nothing better than a thinly disguised attempt to demonstrate the moral superiority of her own literary preferences. More widely, I consider her whole theory of aesthetics geared to demonstrating that her tastes are those of the superior person, but I think the "pay off," as it were, is particularly obvious in what she writes about "romanticism" versus "naturalism" in literature.

Rand's praise for Victor Hugo led me to Notre Dame and Les Miserables, two highly naturalist-fatalist novels which, while interesting to read, offered little inspiration. Who can really admire stories where the innocent and worthy are deluded and doomed? When I discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald years later, it was a literary bombshell. No one could touch him for use of language, and certainly not Rand. He was a Naturalist by choice and in keeping with fashion, but also told some of the most imaginative and life-giving short stories in history. Lastly, I have to mention Eugene Manlove Rhodes, a Western writer who topped them all in romantic storytelling. Almost completely unknown today, Rhodes and Fitzgerald together made the mass circulation 'slicks' a booming success in the 1920s. Sorry to interrupt your discussion (again), but I had to stand up for the uniquely gifted American romantics who, with Raymond Chandler, C.S. Forester, and Ayn Rand, inspired and influenced me.

W.

Objective Criterion of Aesthetic Judgment

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in