Apples - Rand on Still Life Paintings, Plus

[Jules Troy]

This is the statement I was referencing Ellen.

[Jonathan]

So could you tell me what is there in Vermeer's paintings which denies volition?

Vermeer painted people reading and writing letters, playing musical instruments, a woman weighing pearls in a balance, a woman pouring a controlled stream of milk from a jug into a bowl, the bowl set on a table where there's fresh-baked bread, women sweeping and scrubbing the stoops of houses, persons conversing next to a canal wherein are moored Dutch vessels of commerce, sparkling clean tiles in the interiors of homes, internal paintings on the wall, some of which are maps of Dutch enterprise, a geographer, an astronomer, and more.

Where do you detect any lack of volition in all this?

I think the answer is that Rand told her followers to see Vermeer's work as "Naturalism" -- as representing the denial of volition -- so that's what Tony makes himself see. He's Obedient.

(Also, since in another post you brought up the statue of a rape supplied in one of Jonathan's posts, where do you see any lack of volition in that? I see a struggle between volitional agents with opposed goals.)

Rand didn't tell Tony what to see in that sculpture, so his Obedient response is to play it safe, and condemn it as "Naturalism." When in doubt, Obedient Objectivists denounce. I think that's largely due to their discovering how wrong they were to go off on their own and try to think for themselves when they used Rand's stated aesthetic theories to judge Parrish's work as great "Romanticism." They got a good scolding for that, and now they seem to feel safe in giving positive comments about individual works of art, and categorizing them as "Romanticism," only when they know that Rand explicitly did so herself, or when an artist is know to be dedicated to Objectivism, such as some of the artists at Cordair.com.

Btw, notice that I've been asking Tony to give examples of works of visual art which qualify as "Romanticism," but which Rand didn't comment on. What does he do instead? He goes for Michelangelo's David, which Rand and her designates praised. Obedient.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Hey, "David" is great art--both naturalistic and romantic, both the present and the future, both man as he could be and should be and is.

--Brant

according to Rand you can run your fingers all over him too--but I suggest flesh and blood (and still breathing)

[Jonathan]

Ellen, On the face of it, the differences of literature and visual art 'should' have no distinction in Romanticism and Naturalism. Art is art, essentially. We apply direct perception and elicit direct and indirect enlightenment. The processes between the literary and visual differ by degree, but not kind I think. I agree that visual art is harder to assess...

Who are you agreeing with? I didn't see Ellen write that visual art is harder to assess.

...but the basic evaluation for any Naturalism, is: Does this artwork hold a mirror up to life? Life as it is? (Or life as it could be and should be?)

Well, we still have the problem of who is answering those questions, and how? What specific method do you use to "objectively" decide that an artist's work is merely saying "this is how life is" versus "this is how life should be"? What if an artist thinks that the world contains too much strife and evil, and therefore he decides to paint an image of how he thinks that "life should be," such as an image of quiet, peaceful contemplation? Your current method is to just arbitrary and subjectively assert that his image represents "how life is."

You're very much like Rand and many of her other followers in making the very unwarranted assumption of your own visual aesthetic competence, and of the timeless universality of your own current, limited, uninformed context. I've posted the following many times, and I'll probably have to post it many more before it begins to sink in to Obedient Objectivists like you:

"Was [Rand] aware of the styles of dress, the standards of living, and the level of modernity implied by the settings and decor? Would she have been able to tell, just by looking at the paintings, that many of the costumes and coiffure were not contemporary to Vermeer, which implies that many of the scenes are presentations of myths and parables rather than statistical averages of the "folks" of his particular time and place? Did she see the paintings within Vermeer's paintings and recognize which ones represent love, moral judgment, the travel and distance of a loved one, fame, vanity, patriotism, etc., and what ~moral~ relevance they may have had to the theme of each painting? Or did she judge the paintings inside the paintings as poorly as she judged the paintings, which may have led to her poor judgment of the paintings?"

In other words, Tony, your willful ignorance and your irrational expectation that all artists -- past, present and future -- should create art to comply with your personal limits of knowledge and the standards of living and tastes of your time and neighborhood is hilariously Objecti-culty irrational.

This is the broadest evaluation, with overlap, with room for what I'd call a picture's mixed premises--but it holds for all the pictures (and sculpture) shown so far in this thread, which are Naturalist.

That would make We The Living extremely "Naturalist" (it presents a horrible view of existence -- life exactly "as it was" in the Soviet Union, and ends in tragedy), The Fountainhead mostly "Naturalist" (as explained earlier on this thread), and Atlas Shrugged moderately "Naturalist" (most of mankind is filthy and grim, with only a few rare exceptions, but even they don't practice "volition," but instead are born with a sort of predetermined heroic fate and inborn talents and abilities, and most of them don't even freely choose their own professions, but instead unquestioningly accept the paths of least resistance that were deterministically passed down to them by their ancestors).

I think that a big issue here is Tony's being too literal and self-confining in his misinterpretation of Rand's term "how life ought to be," and his not recognizing that portrayals of "how life ought not to be" fall under the same concept covered by Rand' notion of Romanticism -- of being a legitimate Romantic means of expressing how life "ought to be" via its negative.

The same issue has come up many times in the past with other Obedient Objectivists. Here's an example from way back in 2003 on the old SoloYahoo! site:

A poster named Kristin asked me:

"Why go through the trouble of showing things as they ought not to be, rather than as they could be?"

I responded:

"The subject of a work of art drives the mood, and in some cases, the presence of a hero -- or a happy ending -- can destroy the feeling of what the artist wishes to express. Imagine a painting of a woman being abducted. What do you feel? What does it make you want to do? Now imagine a painting of a hero protecting a woman from abduction. How is the feeling different? Compared to the heroless painting, how have your feelings for the abductor and the woman been altered or redirected? Might you be less involved? The artist might feel that admiration for (or identification with) the hero is less powerful than sympathy for the victim and rage for the abductor."

Kristin didn't get what I was saying (but, of course, continued to try to instruct me on the subject of art) -- that having a surrogate heroic character within the art is sometimes not as effectively Romantic as allowing the reader to experience that role himself -- and I'm sure that Tony won't get it either. But maybe this will help: Tony, Rand created art which showed how life "ought not to be," so therefore it's okay and it's "Romantic," and not just for Rand, but for all artists.

"The mirror" might depict anger, suspicion, vapidity or mundanity; or show brutishness or fear or boredom.

As with Vermeer's and Picasso's work, the "mirror" may be accurate and insightful to humanity- and aesthetically pleasing- but there's no avoiding that the artist is showing life as it IS. Naturalism has its own rewards when achieved excellently, but it cannot elevate reason, volition and rational morality as can Romanticism.

Where is your proof of the above? What objective methods did you use in testing others' ability, or lack thereof, to have their reason, volition and rational morality elevated by "Naturalism"? All of humanity is not limited to what you're capable of knowing or experiencing, Tony. So. please, quit parroting Rand, quit copying her false assumption of her own aesthetic responses as the universal limit and standard for all mankind, start to think for yourself, and try to actually think critically about this nonsense that you're spouting.

OK: By "nice" I infer the sculpture is aesthetically pleasing to you. It is beautiful, it has the same elements of superior bodily form superbly rendered as, say, Michelangelo's David. But what else? You observe the drama there? The muscular tension and the expressions on the faces? All apparent is the violence portrayed of a man over a woman.

Contrast with 'David' - a man alone, in his stance of unashamedly naked pride and confidence.

The first statue evinces one's alarm or even disgust at the plight of the woman - brute force of the more physically powerful primitive person over someone weak. We don't have to be told that life can be like that, but the artist seemed to think it was important. i.e. he showed life as he views it --as it is.

Heh. So, you think that the artist's view of existence is that it's all rapey and stuff? Tony, do you remember earlier on this thread when you claimed that my Objectivist-style interpretation of The Death of Socrates was "in jest"? And I explained that it was actually an example of the silliness of what happens when applying Rand's methods in reality? Well, your interpretation above is even sillier.

And it's made doubly so by the fact that you will not apply the same method to Rand's art.

Conversely, 'David' depicts something much more important - further towards man and life as they "should be". Therefore, once one begins looking closely and thinking about an artwork, one can't help making a moral judgment of it, of what is 'good' (for mankind as a whole, but especially for each of us to carry away, conceptually) and what is 'bad'.

Are you really incapable of identifying what is 'good' and what is 'bad' in The Rape of the Sabine, and in We The Living, both of which don't present life as it "ought to be," but rather life as it "ought not to be"? Wow!

J

[Brant Gaede]

The "Rape of the Sabine" depicts the abduction, not the presumably to come "rape."

--Brant

when I carry off my women, I don't let their hands get that close to my face (not a fool)

[Jonathan]

The "Rape of the Sabine" depicts the abduction, not the presumably to come "rape."

Yes, earlier I identified the sculpture as depicting an "abduction/rape," since "rape" in the context of that time meant something more like "abduction," and not necessarily the sexual act.

So we have yet another example of the flaw in Rand's irrational insistence on judging non-literary art without relying on any "outside considerations" such as the historical context of the events depicted, and we have yet another example of the stupidity of Tony's Obedience to that irrational theory: Once such historical/contextual "outside considerations" are known, a non-Obedient viewer will understand that the sculpture can be interpreted as women being freed from a society which had initiated force against them by telling them whom they could and could not marry, and as representing the abductors as heroically, and very "Romantically" (volitionally), choosing to use retaliatory force against those who had initiated it in order to give the women the freedom to choose for themselves which society to live in and whom to marry.

How many more examples of the absurdity of the Objectivist PseudoEsthetics will be needed before Objectivists abandon their Obedience and start to think for themselves?

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

Once such historical/contextual "outside considerations" are known, a non-Obedient viewer will understand that the sculpture can be interpreted as women being freed from a society which had initiated force against them by telling them whom they could and could not marry, and as representing the abductors as heroically, and very "Romantically" (volitionally), choosing to use retaliatory force against those who had initiated it in order to give the women the freedom to choose for themselves which society to live in and whom to marry.

I think that the non-Obiedient viewer would be stretching hard to come up with that interpretation. The woman in the sculpture does not look in the least pleased by the situation.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

Here's Mary Ann Sures on Michelangelo's David from her essay/rant Metaphysics in Marble:

"Michelangelo’s David is one of his most eloquent works. Earlier Renaissance versions of the subject had presented David after his triumph, standing with sword in hand and with the head of Goliath at his feet. Michelangelo chose to present David in the moment before he hurled the stone — to portray a youth who has to and will be triumphant. He stands with his head held high, his slender, strong body prepared for the encounter. The side of the figure facing the enemy, is posed in insolent defiance; the leg is relaxed, the arm is raised to hold the sling in readiness. The other side of the figure is tense; the straight leg supports the weight of the body, while the fingers of the powerful hand curl around the stone. The statue conveys the victory of the mind over brute, physical force. It portrays man as fearless, intelligent and triumphant, but man with a troubled brow, looking out with a touch of apprehension."

It's interesting that when Objectivists wish to offer a positive evaluation of a work of art, they conveniently forget about the Objectivist requirement of disregarding all "outside considerations." They embrace the outside information and base their judgments on it. But when they want to condemn an artwork, they specifically cite the Randian notion that it should be self-contained, and then they actively refuse to consider the outside information.

It's too bad that the David is so famous, because it think it would be hilarious to confront Obedient Objectivists, who have never heard of it and have never read Rand's opinions of it, and to ask them to employ the willfully ignorant Objectivist method that Tony applied to the Rape of the Sabine. I think they'd see it as representing "insolent defiance," as Sures did, but, lacking the historical context, they'd judge David as a vicious, destructive punk who is stoned out of his mind (which explains why he's running around naked), and is about to break his neighbor's windows and then whip them with his belt (since art must be timeless and universal, Objectivists who don't know what a sling is will insist on "objectively" misidentifying the sling as an object from their own time).

J

[Jonathan]

I think that the non-Obiedient viewer would be stretching hard to come up with that interpretation. The woman in the sculpture does not look in the least pleased by the situation.

She doesn't yet know that she is going to be freed and given more choices than she currently has. Her lack of knowledge of what's going on isn't relevant, nor is her emotional state at the moment.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

I think that the non-Obiedient viewer would be stretching hard to come up with that interpretation. The woman in the sculpture does not look in the least pleased by the situation.

She doesn't yet know that she is going to be freed and given more choices than she currently has. Her lack of knowledge of what's going on isn't relevant, nor is her emotional state at the moment.

J

I don't buy it.

Ellen

PS: With all due respect to Michelangelo and to how great an art work the David is, I like "The Rape of the Sabine" better because of the drama of motion I think it conveys.

[Brant Gaede]

The troubled look on the face of the David makes it an inferior piece of art?

I mean, look at the size of that SOB coming out to meet him!

--Brant

you wouldn't see that troubled look on my face--and in place of that sling I'd have a radio calling in an air strike (and have my clothes on too, fer Chris' sake!)

poor Goliath!

[Brant Gaede]

Art is about experiences, both the experience or experiences of creating it and that of engaging it when done.

Esthetics is apart from that and valuable for what it properly does, but it's descriptive and explanatory--not "should be." It's quite all right for an esthetician to point out moral considerations but not to ride those considerations to esthetic conclusions. That's a critic's job. An esthetician can also be a critic if he takes off the one hat and puts on the other.

The big idea is to render proscription and prescription out of existential consideration for the artist and those who experience art. Then the critic can make his hits. That's looking backwards. It's reactive. Note that the critic is not Big Brother, the esthetican can be if he's also a working politician or working politics. ("Banned in Boston!")

I am an esthetician: "Piss Jesus" is such and such.

I am a critic: "Piss Jesus" should have been "Piss the President" or burned before it left the studio.

(Morality belongs to the critic. Absent politics it shouldn't matter to the artist if the esthetician mixes it up and shouldn't matter to the consumer; it matters to esthetics! And it matters to philosophy inappropriately burdened with esthetics going off the rails claiming a place within philosophy itself.)

I am a philosopher (in the broadest sense): this is more than philosophy as such (Objectivism)--it is also philosophy applied (objectivism); everybody has a philosophy and everybody has a philosophy applied. (Philosophy is a human universal and philosophy applied is an individual particular, for it has to go through a sovereign brain. Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, is, like, 95% philosophy applied--through her own sovereign brain--and no wonder she got so pissed off when anyone seemed to screw around with it or mis-represent it. She screwed up thinking it was all universifiable and so did Nathaniel Branden and his "Students of Objectivism" and all "Randroids," some of whom are still extant about her whole ball of wax or some special applied part of it.)

--Brant

some of Rand's critics have called her philosophy "fascistic" or "fascism"--this is a cultural, not an intellectual--evaluation and I have just explained why there's some truth to that

[anthony]

Ellen, [Replying to your#298 which I messed up in quote function]

You've limited Rand's definition to a "volitional" framework. Rand opined on Romanticism very broadly too.

Only one case in point: "That one should wish to enjoy the contemplation of *values*, of the *good*--of man's greatness, intelligence, ability,, virtue, heroism--is self-explanatory. It is the contemplation of the *evil* that requires explanation and justification; and the same goes for the explanation of the mediocre, the undistinguished, the commonplace, the meaningless, the mindless".

[Ch.11, TRM]

TRM has many references to Romanticism in this vein. How could you miss them? The woman with a cold sore, you have mentioned.

Another, from The Fountainhead: "I think you're the best sculptor we've got. I think it because your figures are not what men are - but what men could be- and should be".

She then goes further in TRM to write: "Romanticism is a category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition".

----

If you take the concept "Life as it could be and should be" (and who cares if Aristotle didn't originate this), as contemplative of values, you have her wide view of Romanticism - followed with "the faculty of volition" as the distilled, core concept of Romanticism, I believe.

Therefore, it holds true for those Vermeers (which, thanks, I have seen) of people doing ordinary things, as they are, mirrors to life, much in the category "Naturalism".

It also holds for the statue - on both counts: of anti-volitional force, and of a "mirror on life".

It's enough for me to rush in where angels...etc. But I am not an obliging fool who will put his head into the lion's mouth, and supply "examples" of art! From fifty years of reading novels, and a lesser amount of viewing pictures, it must be obvious one holds some or many in high esteem - however, in this skeptical climate, they will remain private. Rand, I think, went a little too far herself with "examples" - and look how she's fared...from copy-catting, to denunciation.

It is the consciousness of art, not art primarily - I repeat- which is my interest here. If one is not prepared to think above percepts, not much of Rand on art is coherent.

As for AR and "objectivity of art", or on "normative". When was Rand anything BUT concerned with identity, identification, consciousness? Or on ethics?!! Hah.

"Art is the technology of the soul".

Art is the product of three philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics. Metaphysics and epistemology are the abstract base of ethics. Ethics is the applied science that defines a code of values to guide man's choices and actions..."[Ch.11, TRM]

--------

Hell, Ellen, this is hard work transcribing - You have your own copy of the book.

(I seem to recall a few to-and-fros between us about rational egoism. You objected to the "virtue" of selfishness, one time; another, it was the case of a medical doctor you personally know, whose house visits you (strangely) considered "selfless", and I argued for his inherent rational selfishness. Remember?)

[Jonathan]

Ellen,

You've limited Rand's definition to a "volitional" framework. Rand opined on Romanticism very broadly too.

Tony, you've limited Rand's definition of "Naturalism" to "life as it is." But Rand opined very broadly on "Naturalism." Her notion of it is that it represents a vision of helpless determinism in which mankind is fated to defeat and despair. How have you missed that?

Or are you intentionally selectively ignoring it because you want to remain Obedient and parrot Rand's judgment of Vermeer?

Only one case in point: "That one should wish to enjoy the contemplation of *values*, of the *good*--of man's greatness, intelligence, ability,, virtue, heroism--is self-explanatory. It is the contemplation of the *evil* that requires explanation and justification; and the same goes for the explanation of the mediocre, the undistinguished, the commonplace, the meaningless, the mindless".

A person would have to be a total idiot in order to interpret Vermeer's work as representing "the mediocre, the undistinguished, the commonplace, the meaningless, the mindless," and as opposing or denying "greatness, intelligence, ability, virtue, heroism," etc.

Tony, please read and comprehend the following:

Rand's view of the essence of Romanticism was that if an artist believes that man possesses volition, his art will be value-oriented. She held that the essence of Naturalism is that if an artist believes in determinism, his work will have an anti-value orientation. So Romanticism presents man as in control of his life and as seeking or achieving his values, where Naturalism presents man as controlled by external forces and fated to defeat and despair.

In looking at Vermeer's 30+ paintings, especially The Astronomer, The Geographer, The Allegory of Painting, A Woman Holding a Balance, The Music Lesson, Officer and Laughing Girl, The Love Letter, and The Lacemaker, it's hard for me to imagine anyone believing that the characters are not portrayed as choosing to live, learn, love, laugh, think, create and enjoy. There's nothing to indicate that they're controlled by external forces. They're not visions of defeat. They're not anti-value oriented. If A Woman Holding a Balance -- one of the most beautiful, peaceful, optimistic images of judgment and morality ever painted -- is a Naturalistic denial of volition and a journalistic representation of man as a statistical average, then so is Atlas Shrugged.

Rand held the view that Naturalism's method was to present uncritical, journalistic transcriptions of whatever random or average events an artist happened to observe around him -- a view of man as a statistical average. So, in judging Vermeer's art, how did she determine which characters or events were average or exceptional, beautiful or ugly, "real life" or idealized? By what standard and context did she judge?

Did she think it was relevant to have knowledge of what a 17th century Dutch painter's concept of human beauty might have been, or did she expect that his work should have been created to comply with her 20th century Russian-American novelist's tastes? Did she see Vermeer's people as mildly attractive to unattractive, and assume that he did too, and that he therefore intentionally avoided painting great beauty? Did she know that the Dutch were quite independent and had rejected the idea that the contemporary Italian forms were the default or only true ideals, and that they rebelled against any implication that their own physical type was inherently aesthetically inferior?

Was she aware of the styles of dress, the standards of living, and the level of modernity implied by the settings and decor? Would she have been able to tell, just by looking at the paintings, that many of the costumes and coiffure were not contemporary to Vermeer, which implies that many of the scenes are presentations of myths and parables rather than statistical averages of the "folks" of his particular time and place? Did she see the paintings ~within~ Vermeer's paintings and recognize which ones represent love, moral judgment, the travel and distance of a loved one, fame, vanity, patriotism, etc., and what ~moral~ relevance they may have had to the theme of each painting? Or did she judge the paintings inside the paintings as poorly as she judged the paintings, which may have led to her poor judgment of the paintings?

Do we have any evidence that Rand had the visual aptitude and experience to recognize, say, the similarities or differences between A Girl With a Wine Glass and other artists' presentations of the virtue of temperance? Would she have had the slightest inkling that The Procuress was a moral stand against cultural prudishness, and not a random bar scene that Vermeer happened to stumble across? Would she have grasped the careful sense of moral proportion in Vermeer's response to sloth or excess in A Girl Asleep (a painting which, if it had been created by Rand, would have no doubt included Dagny shooting the girl)? Would she have had a sensitive enough eye to suspect that Girl Interrupted at Her Music might represent the awakening of love or conscience? I don't think I need to ask if she would have seen simplicity, strength, and directness as The Milkmaid's virtues.

I know that when objectively evaluating a work of art, knowledge of an artist's life, times and context is an "outside consideration" and therefore an Objectivist Esthetic Sin, but, frankly, I suspect that avoidance of outside considerations is one of the primary causes of chronic Objecti-blindness. I hope that 300 years from now when the world is a century-old capitalist paradise and people read Rand's novels from their completely free, peaceful context, they'll also consider ~her~ context before denouncing her for her Naturalistic view of mankind. Without such context, it might be hard for them to imagine a moral, volition-loving novelist choosing to create a world filled with grubby, collectivist, second-hander, volition-denying, folks next door who deserved to have the motor of their world stopped by a few rare "heroes" who, from a future perspective, might be seen as just good ol' average citizens (if not extremely dopey ones who, although technically adept, were often very slow in responding appropriately to both the evil and good around them). I hope future people don't willfully ignore Rand's context and then gripe that she shouldn't have placed so much Naturalistic importance on turmoil and agony, or that she should have created art more like Vermeer's which didn't portray the overwhelming bulk of humanity as mindlessly, deterministically predisposed to moral grayness and despair.

TRM has many references to Romanticism in this vein. How could you miss them? The woman with a cold sore, you have mentioned.

The Romantic Manifesto makes many references to "Naturalism" as depicting defeat and despair, so how did you miss them, Tony? How brainwashed does a person have to be to interpret happy, active, intellectually involved people, such as those in Vermeer's work, as lacking volition and as being mired in despair?

Another, from The Fountainhead: "I think you're the best sculptor we've got. I think it because your figures are not what men are - but what men could be- and should be".

She then goes further in TRM to write: "Romanticism is a category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition".

----

If you take the concept "Life as it could be and should be" (and who cares if Aristotle didn't originate this), as contemplative of values, you have her wide view of Romanticism - followed with "the faculty of volition" as the distilled, core concept of Romanticism, I believe.

Therefore, it holds true for those Vermeers (which, thanks, I have seen) of people doing ordinary things, as they are, mirrors to life, much in the category "Naturalism".

So, you're saying that practicing astronomy and geography are "ordinary things," but practicing architecture and running a railroad or a steel mill are extraordinary things? Which other tasks or occupations are ordinary and which are extraordinary? By what objective standard are you making these idiotic judgments? Wealthy, successful, fictional characters falling in love are "ordinary" and "Naturalist" when anyone other than Rand creates them, but they are "heroic" and "Romantic" when Rand creates them?

It also holds for the statue - on both counts: of anti-volitional force, and of a "mirror on life".

The Roman society at that time was a total sausage fest, so, after asking politely to date the Sabine babes and being turned down -- not by the women, but by their rulers -- the Romans chose to abduct the women, and they chose to give the women the freedom to choose to become their wives or to return to the Sabine society. Many of the women chose to marry Romans, and the women eventually brought peace, and united the Romans and the Sabines by choosing to stand between their warring husbands and fathers.

And yet you, Tony, insist on claiming that these events are "ordinary" and represent lack of volition, the "commonplace," the "mediocre," and the "undistinguished"? Brainwashed. Obedient.

It's enough for me to rush in where angels...etc. But I am not an obliging fool who will put his head into the lion's mouth, and supply "examples" of art!

That's a good, Obedient boy! Don't supply any proof of your assertions. Don't think for yourself. Don't stray from Rand's opinions.

From fifty years of reading novels, and a lesser amount of viewing pictures, it must be obvious one holds some or many in high esteem - however, in this skeptical climate...

Anyone who interprets Vermeer the way that you do is the cynical "skeptic." It's actually really sad to see someone copying Rand at her absolute worst. It's so twisted to see people expressing angry, negative judgments about very peaceful and happy images. You've drunk the poisoned KoolAid. You've been infected by Rand's irrational hatreds.

...they will remain private. Rand, I think, went a little too far herself with "examples" - and look how she's fared...from copy-catting, to denunciation.

Oh, poor Rand! She is being "denounced"! She's a victim! Heh.

Rand didn't fare well because her examples are irrational. See, by her own stated philosophy she is deserving of criticism, and even of ridicule.

It is the consciousness of art, not art primarily - I repeat- which is my interest here. If one is not prepared to think above percepts, not much of Rand on art is coherent.

Um, thinking would involve you actually answering our questions and addressing the substance of our criticisms. It would involve you objectively proving your stupid assertions rather than refusing to do so while crying that you're being picked on.

As for AR and "objectivity of art", or on "normative". When was Rand anything BUT concerned with identity, identification, consciousness? Or on ethics?!! Hah.

When wasn't Rand concerned with identify, identification or consciousness? Answer: when concocting her aesthetic theory! It's full of errors, contradictions, double standards, and irrationality. Yet you're Obedient to it rather than to the rest of her philosophy!

J

[Jonathan]

I think that the non-Obiedient viewer would be stretching hard to come up with that interpretation. The woman in the sculpture does not look in the least pleased by the situation.

She doesn't yet know that she is going to be freed and given more choices than she currently has. Her lack of knowledge of what's going on isn't relevant, nor is her emotional state at the moment.

J

I don't buy it.

I think that the interpretation that I've given is very Randian. It's very Roarkian. When one knows the entire backstory, as Objectivists are apparently only allowed to do when they wish to make a positive appraisal of a work of art, then the interpretation that I offered is completely based on reality.

J

[Brant Gaede]

I think that the non-Obiedient viewer would be stretching hard to come up with that interpretation. The woman in the sculpture does not look in the least pleased by the situation.

She doesn't yet know that she is going to be freed and given more choices than she currently has. Her lack of knowledge of what's going on isn't relevant, nor is her emotional state at the moment.

J

I don't buy it.

I think that the interpretation that I've given is very Randian. It's very Roarkian. When one knows the entire backstory, as Objectivists are apparently only allowed to do when they wish to make a positive appraisal of a work of art, then the interpretation that I offered is completely based on reality.

J

"Only allowed to do [x]" by whom?

--Brant

themselves

[Jonathan]

The troubled look on the face of the David makes it an inferior piece of art?

I mean, look at the size of that SOB coming out to meet him!

--Brant

you wouldn't see that troubled look on my face--and in place of that sling I'd have a radio calling in an air strike (and have my clothes on too, fer Chris' sake!)

poor Goliath!

But there's no Goliath! The sculpture is only that of David, and Objectivism forbids "outside considerations," including the knowledge of Goliath's existence, and even the fact that the individual shown is David!

Well, at least it does so when it has decided ahead of time to condemn a work of art. As I mentioned above, it selectively ignores it's own rules when it wishes to praise a work of art. Then "outside considerations" are acceptable.

J

[Jonathan]

"Only allowed to do [x]" by whom?

--Brant

themselves

Only allowed by Rand and Objectivism. They don't really have "themselves." They are Obedient.

J

[Brant Gaede]

"Only allowed to do [x]" by whom?

--Brant

themselves

Only allowed by Rand and Objectivism. They don't really have "themselves." They are Obedient.

J

"Obedient" to reality, fool!

--Brant

(flashback)

[Jonathan]

"Only allowed to do [x]" by whom?

--Brant

themselves

Only allowed by Rand and Objectivism. They don't really have "themselves." They are Obedient.

J

"Obedient" to reality, fool!

--Brant

(flashback)

Yes, wouldn't it be nice if Tony were obedient to reality? And wouldn't it be nice if the Objectivist PseudoEsthetics were as well?

J

[Jonathan]

Let's revisit Tony's interpretation of the Rape of the Sabine.

He says, "It is beautiful, it has the same elements of superior bodily form superbly rendered as, say, Michelangelo's David. But what else? You observe the drama there? The muscular tension and the expressions on the faces? All apparent is the violence portrayed of a man over a woman."

Look again. There is no violence against the woman. A man is holding her, but we don't know why. His expression is not one of anger, but of care and concern. For all we know, the man could be protecting her from others, others at whom she is staring in blame.

Or perhaps the man is preventing her from thrusting herself into danger. Perhaps her family has been killed, and her emotions are overriding her common sense, making her want to be with them despite the risks.

Or perhaps she is an attacker, and the man is preventing her from harming her rivals.

Perhaps the third figure, the man at the bottom, was an abuser of the woman who is being rescued from him, and she is looking back in concern for others who have also suffered at his hand.

Now also consider the fact the sculpture was not originally intended to be a depiction of the rape of the Sabine. So, the "outside consideration" of the title of the piece is not accurate, and was added by someone else after the artist had finished the sculpture. But, see how Tony inadvertently allowed the title to influence his opinion of the piece, and how he allowed it to make him imagine seeing things in the group that are not actually there? He wanted to condemn in Randian style, so he hallucinated up some reasons to do so.

J

[anthony]

Much too much information. The "reality" is the image or the sculpture. That's the end in itself. Everything else is either superfluous, or secondary. Even the title. I think over-sophistication in the knowledge of the artist and mythological themes, times and places, styles and cultures, (etc.) is a drawback - if one can't separate them (at least momentarily) from the viewing experience. A child knows art better and sees it clearer than many adults, I've noticed. "I see what I see". I think literalism is crucial at the sensory level, in order to form accurate percepts, and then a concept. Educated sophisticates appear to jump a stage, or get locked on to aesthetics - or something - I dunno.

[Jonathan]

Much too much information. The "reality" is the image or the sculpture.

You haven't identified the reality of what the sculpture contains and what it does not. You made shit up about it. You gave a very subjective interpretation of it which was tainted by the title and your Obedience to Rand.

That's the end in itself. Everything else is either superfluous, or secondary. Even the title.

And yet you inadvertently relied on the title in order to make your stupid condemnation. The sculpture itself does not include what you claimed that it does. Only the false title does.

I think over-sophistication in the knowledge of the artist and mythological themes, times and places, styles and cultures, (etc.) is a drawback - if one can't separate them (at least momentarily) from the viewing experience.

What is "over-sophistication"? Is it sophistication beyond your capability of sophistication?

A child knows art better and sees it clearer than many adults, I've noticed.

Yeah, I think that's true, and you're one of such adults. In fact, I think that dogs, and maybe even annelids, see clearer than you, since they aren't poisoned by Rand's angry urge to condemn via a nutty theory of aesthetics as Rorschach test.

"I see what I see". I think literalism is crucial at the sensory level, in order to form accurate percepts, and then a concept. Educated sophisticates appear to jump a stage, or get locked on to aesthetics - or something - I dunno.

Yup, just as I thought. You're the universal standard and limit of human cognition and aesthetic taste, sensitivity and artistic hermeneutics.

J

[anthony]

Once such historical/contextual "outside considerations" are known, a non-Obedient viewer will understand that the sculpture can be interpreted as women being freed from a society which had initiated force against them by telling them whom they could and could not marry, and as representing the abductors as heroically, and very "Romantically" (volitionally), choosing to use retaliatory force against those who had initiated it in order to give the women the freedom to choose for themselves which society to live in and whom to marry.

I think that the non-Obiedient viewer would be stretching hard to come up with that interpretation. The woman in the sculpture does not look in the least pleased by the situation.

Ellen

Yeah. She's about to happily kiss and hug her rescuer, that's obvious.

[Jonathan]

Yeah. She's about to happily kiss and hug her rescuer, that's obvious.

No, she's not about to kiss the man. No one has claimed that she is. No one has even implied it. Are you actually so dense that you don't understand that woman doesn't have to be about to kiss the man in order for all the possible interpretations I've listed to be valid?

J