anonrobt

How interesting, as I have a DVD of it... from Amazon a year or so ago... there is also a DVD of Executive Suite, another Cameron Hawley book

The Warsaw Concerto was written for a movie - thus the time limits imposed on it, and the shortness of it... [Dangerous Moonlight - 1941]

The Warsaw Concerto was written for a movie - thus the time limits imposed on it, and the shortness of it...

Very interesting.......

RoR has had a chat option - rarely used...

You might find this of interest, too.... http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/071222_beauty.htm

And, having private property, this will be maintained by all who have such an interest in preserving trees - so there will remain trees...

Remember, there are ordinal measurements as well as cardinal measurements - but they each are measurements, and as such deal with facts...

Very belated, but been gone for a wee... Happy b'day to ye, Kat... Robert

You are proving to be a most interesting person... welcome... Robert www.visioneerwindows.blogspot.com

It is almost funny how such sterling qualities come forth from those with the initials L P...

Could this have been more accurate? Objectivism "is truth." ~ Shane No, that's just dogmatism. "Objectivism is true" or "truth" is only true inside the world of Atlas Shrugged. Objectivism is four basic principles, two of them axiomatic, logically linked sequentially, the last two, ethics and politics containing many derivative statements many controversial or undemonstrated. I am not saying Objectivist epistemology is not controversial; I just don't go there personally. Anything Rand wrote about esthetics is just her opinions with no logical relationship to her philosophy as such, albeit very interesting. Rand formulated her philosophy by asking herself what her ideal man would need, not what humankind needed. Thus we have both a great overlapping and a great disconnect in realistic and desirable ethics and politics. If you are going to prescribe ethics you had better know people a lot better than she did, to put it mildly, and properly appreciate the genius of monotheistic religion, especially Christian, and come up with a real substitute and avoid the hubris of calling your own philosophy "true." --Brant Anything Rand wrote about esthetics is just her opinions with no logical relationship to her philosophy as such, albeit very interesting. of course that is just YOUR own opinion... actually, aesthetics is, properly, ethics applied in a personal context, just as politics is ethics applied in a social context...

I suppose that I'd have to say that I see everything "together" since I usually don't think in terms of the "visual" as being somehow separate or different from a "theme or idea." But if you're asking if I start by asking myself something like, "How might I show mankind as heroically exercising volition?" or "How should I depict my ideal woman embodying the role that the mind plays in human existence?" then, no, I definitely don't start with a theme or idea. J No - was referring to doing something much as I do... most my works begin with a 'theme/title' which encapsulates the essence of the idea, and the visual follows - often immediately, tho sometimes the theme/title sits in the file awhile... or, if there is a visual for stimulation [something seen or observed], a theme/title often pops in mind, and the result ends being the rendering, which is taking that theme/title and composing the visual to its best advantage [the visual, then, as such, becoming props to the idea, however detailed the rendering may become... and yes, often there are variations which pop up and thus a series evolves... Most artists, it seems, deal primarily with visual, composing the rendering from a technical standpoint, and leaving it much as that - the theme only vaguely in mind if in any conscious sense at all, thus the titles usually banal or numbered... some have conscious themes to begin with, but only happenstance it seems, and their titling reflects often a vagueness rather than clarity... yours seem to be as clear as the renderings, yet reflect a divergence from the expected consequence, so wondered how you arrive at the works and the theme/titling...

I was responding more from David Kelley's remark in The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand...

I generally prefer to have a pretty well-developed idea worked out, especially if I know it's going to be a complex image with fine details, tight perspective requirements, or a difficult lighting scheme, but even then improvisation can come into play. I find that the longer that I work on a painting, the more likely I am to envision at least one or two significant alterations that I think will greatly enhance the composition. More than anything, I think it's about getting to know the painting while I'm working on it, stepping into it and feeling its attitude or personality. I suppose it would be like writing a novel and suddenly feeling that the main character wouldn't say the words that I've been putting into his mouth. The content of what I've made him say might be right, but, after having reached a point where he's much more fleshed out and real to me, I might feel that it's just not the way that he would say it. And then it wouldn't be an issue of consciously analyzing the problem and logically planning a solution, but to just sort of feel the character's personality and listen to him. J Do you 'see' a visual first, and a theme or idea next, or together, or the idea first and look for a visual?

In going thru almost this whole thread, only the Law of Identity is given any use - and while deduction is in referent to the Law of Identity, induction is properly in referent to the Law of Causality... [and no, those Laws are not the same, else ye'd not need using the two Laws but just the one]

My approach to painting varies. Each painting is somewhat different. Some are quite carefully developed beforehand, where others are very improvisational or experimental and evolve as I go along. J Which do you prefer - or rather, is the improv a result of not having a developed one in mind to do, and as such is sort of 'filler'? or you turn to improvs even when there is a developed idea in mind [or two or three, etc.]?

I have always considered that her meaning of 'recreate ' was actually re-present - that is, to utilize the fundamental essences of that particular aspect of reality, and present it [in paintings, for instance] within those sides of the universe seen within... of course, those fundamental essence have to be proscribed by the fact that humans grasp reality in terms of perceptual concretes, not pure sensatuals [something not known then by those who initiated the 'abstract arts', but validated by science since]...

When you approach doing a painting, what is your primary emphasis - working out a theme, stressing a pattern, or what? Is the idea one developed before brush is first laid, or an evolvment while in progress?

Bob, I don't read you actually asking this question. I read it as follows: "How can anyone believe that a matter of taste be objective, since it can't be." Correct me if I am wrong. Michael Of course the first error is the presumption it is a matter of taste [that it is, it seems, a mindless emotionalism]... is taste without substance, willy-nilly, or is there a reason [or reasons] for that taste - contextual objectivity, however personal it might be...

Okay, so architecture is not a valid art form to you because it serves utilitarian purposes. How about a desktop 3-year novel/calendar in which each page contains a date and a page from Atlas Shrugged? Would Atlas Shrugged cease being art if, in addition to being a novel, it also served such a utilitarian purpose? Would it suddenly be a "craft." And how is it possible that you believe that architecture is at times filled with an "immensity of aesthetics"? After all, it's merely meaningless, abstract arrangements of shapes, colors and textures which are not direct likenesses of things from reality. There's no difference between architecture's aesthetic means of expression and that of abstract painting and sculpture. Btw, what do you think about the fact that Rand very heavily promoted the idea that architecture -- a non-mimetic and utilitarian practice -- was art? Surely she must be judged as a charlatan equal in evil to Kandinsky and his ilk for trying to destroy the meaning of art by classifying non-art as art, no? Ah, so art doesn't have to deal with specific concretes, but can use mere attributes, actions and relationships divorced from specific entities, except in the cases where Robert Malcom arbitrarily requires that an art form that he doesn't like cannot use mere attributes, actions and relationships divorced from specific entities. Got it. So, apparently the answer to my question is that, yes, you believe that music is a valid art form because you have feelings about it despite its not containing the direct, objectively identifiable likenesses of things from reality that you require in other art forms. It's amusing that you need to create drastically different meanings of the word "intelligibility" so that you can selectively apply them to art forms depending on which you want to accept as legitimate and which you don't. J Ah - I was warned this place had a resident Kantian relativist... you must be him...

My news comes from the internet - Instapundit, Google News, Salon, Slate, and so forth - each providing me with the cross-spective... on occasions, look up what is local... I find my life too important to spend too much time on 'the news' - there's a world out there to remake in my image, as it were.......

Joined a few days ago and jumped right in on the Aesthetics forums, overlooking this spot... been aware of this place since the great breakup of SOLO and its phoenix RoR, but lost the means to this place on the old pc, so only now refound it... ... some might know me from RoR - as Robert Malcom, a retired baker and now artist... and have been involved with Objectivism from the early 60's, tho influenced by Ayn since a child, having seen The Fountainhead back then and always remembering Cooper's speech at the trial - the most memorable bit of film ever, out of hundreds and hundreds seen over the years - and finally, in my teens, seeing the paperback on a rack in a store and wondered if it was the book on which the movie was based... It is good seeing another Objectivist oriented spot online... and one more inclined to discussing aesthetics, the most overlooked aspect of her philosophy, even as being an artist is, in fact, being a 'spiritual visualizer'©........

Which artists are you talking about? Could you be specific about which ones avoided contemplation and acted as mere recorders? What about the orderliness of very structured abstract paintings? Are you not capable of seeing their carefully selected proportions, color compositions, contrasts and dramas, etc.? It evokes the emotion to whom? To you? And therefore the emotion should be treated as if it is objective or universal? The above is a series of emotional responses, subjective interpretations, and stream-of-consciousness associations. It sounds like an Objectivist-theory-inspired version or tea-leaf reading. They leave little emotion to whom? To you? It sounds as if you're proposing that your personal level of emotional sensitivity should be the standard by which things are determined to be art or not, and which things should be judged to be good or bad art. How would we determine that your artistic tastes and emotional sensitivities are worthy of being the standard, versus determining that you're lacking in sensitivity and are emotionally and aesthetically inept? Again, purely subjective opinions. And, once again, you didn't address the problems that music and architecture present to your views on art. Are they valid art forms because you have feelings about them despite their not containing the direct, objectively identifiable likenesses of things from reality that you require in other art forms? J The issue here specifically was painting, but to respond to these others - the use of the word 'art' has two distinct concepts, related but distinctly different, the field of 'fine art' and the much broader umbrella field of 'aesthetics' under which reside both 'fine art' and 'craft', the distinguishing difference being that fine art is for contemplative purposes and craft is utilitarian... as such, architecture, while filled at times with an immensity of aesthetics, is utilitarian, a craft... As for music, see this from my manuscript --- What, for instance, tho, is intelligible about music? As Rand pointed out, we gain our knowledge thru the use of concepts – that is, by means of abstractions. But out cognition, however, begins with the ability to perceive. “Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him top grasp them directly, as if they were percepts,” she added. As I said earlier, this means that a work of Art takes the abstractions of metaphysics and makes them into specifics – the concretes. Now, concretes are usually thought of in terms of entities – yet Rand, writing in her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, has said that concretes subsume not only entities, but attributes, actions, and relationships. To me, this includes situations as well – what, I would say, in terms of music, as emotional situations. This brings me to conclude that Rand did indeed make a error in assuming that Helmholtz's use of sensations meant that music is auditorily experienced as sensations, not precepts. But, as David Kelley pointed out in his Evidence of the Senses, all sounds are properly to be regarded as percepts, as he goes on to explain their feature as being an attribute of specifics in an auditory context. The harmonic sounds, as tones, then get integrated into what is called a melody, the fundamental aspect of music. Aside from her misdirected mis-understanding of the sensation/perception issue of musical experience, there are two criticisms of her view of music I also find a need to address. The first is that she premised the \essence of music as being mathematical. The easiest way to respond to such a criticism is to remember that she defined mathematics as the science of measurement – and also to remember that a sheet of music, any music, is a sheet full of measurement. Yes, there are other aspects of music that give texture to the music, put the measurements into contexts – but the bottom line is that music is an expression of auditory stimulus according to mathematical means. It is on that basis, the fundamental level, that she expressed the way music is involved in one's sense of life and was concerned with. The other criticism leveled at her music theory is the one she really didn't give a satisfactory answer to – what is the re-presentational aspect of music that co-responds to reality? I suspect part of the problem in giving a good answer to this was her sensation/perception mis-understanding aspect of how the mind hears music. But, if one were to re-translate her sensation mistaken observations and put them into perceptual concretes, it seems a much more integrated and noncontradictory view emerges. While I am primarily an artist, tho I also sculpt, I also am an avid listener of serious music. One thing I've observed is that for the most part of human history, music was in accompaniment with song and dance. It wasn't until about 300 years or so ago that secular music really made its mark, and music started being played for its own sake. But, for the time music was connected with voice especially, and dance, there was never a question about its expressive meanings. This is to say there was no problem as to what aspect of reality music's meaning referred to, music's emotional respondings. The question would only arise when music per se was involved. Yet, as far as I am concerned, it seems a false problem, as the same set of pitch, beat, tone, etc. That music makes use of when accompanying vocals should elicit the same response emotionally when not accompanying vocals, when the music stands on its own. This is clearly noted in such instances as laments, or songs of joy, or the emotions of solemnity, or the gaiety of dance. Music, as such, is a very abstract Art, and in expressing what it is and does in a form similar to the definition of Art, I would have to say that music selects and styles certain important or meaningful aural experiences, making use of certain configurations which best express those qualities, drawing out the relative emotional responses – abstracting, as it were, to better the perception. Even when one deals with music beyond a single instrument or small group of instruments, as, say, the expressiveness of an orchestra, where far greater variety of tones and emotional derivations can be achieved, note that there is still a co-respondent to singing – the violins, which are analogous to the vocal, whether singly as in a violin concerto, or grouping as if a choral, as they are arranged in the orchestra itself. In any case, it is clear there is intelligibility, a definite "re-presentation of..." in music, and a definite reference to "some aspect of reality."

This is particularly true of symphonies and sonatas and the like that were written during the Classical and Romantic eras. REB But, but.... In a stage play the actors utter things that have both denotation and connotation. What is the denotation of a sequence of musical notes? Ba'al Chatzaf [from my manuscript - ] there are two criticisms of her view of music I also find a need to address. The first is that she premised the \essence of music as being mathematical. The easiest way to respond to such a criticism is to remember that she defined mathematics as the science of measurement – and also to remember that a sheet of music, any music, is a sheet full of measurement. Yes, there are other aspects of music that give texture to the music, put the measurements into contexts – but the bottom line is that music is an expression of auditory stimulus according to mathematical means. It is on that basis, the fundamental level, that she expressed the way music is involved in one's sense of life and was concerned with. The other criticism leveled at her music theory is the one she really didn't give a satisfactory answer to – what is the re-presentational aspect of music that co-responds to reality? I suspect part of the problem in giving a good answer to this was her sensation/perception mis-understanding aspect of how the mind hears music. But, if one were to re-translate her sensation mistaken observations and put them into perceptual concretes, it seems a much more integrated and noncontradictory view emerges. While I am primarily an artist, tho I also sculpt, I also am an avid listener od serious music. One thing I've observed is that for the most part of human history, music was in accompaniment with song and dance. It wasn't until about 300 years or so ago that secular music really made its mark, and music started being played for its own sake. But, for the time music was connected with voice especially, and dance, there was never a question about its expressive meanings. This is to say there was no problem as to what aspect of reality music's meaning referred to, music's emotional respondings. The question would only arise when music per se was involved. Yet, as far as I am concerned, it seems a false problem, as the same set of pitch, beat, tone, etc. That music makes use of when accompanying vocals should elicit the same response emotionally when not accompanying vocals, when the music stands on its own. This is clearly noted in such instances as laments, or songs of joy, or the emotions of solemnity, or the gaiety of dance. Music, as such, is a very abstract Art, and in expressing what it is and does in a form similar to the definition of Art, I would have to say that music selects and styles certain important or meaningful aural experiences, making use of certain configurations which best express those qualities, drawing out the relative emotional responses – abstracting, as it were, to better the perception. Even when one deals with music beyond a single instrument or small group of instruments, as, say, the expressiveness of an orchestra, where far greater variety of tones and emotional derivations can be achieved, note that there is still a co-respondent to singing – the violins, which are analogous to the vocal, whether singly as in a violin concerto, or grouping as if a choral, as they are arranged in the orchestra itself. In any case, it is clear there is intelligibility, a definite "re-presentation of..." in music, and a definite reference to "some aspect of reality."