Apples - Rand on Still Life Paintings, Plus

[Brant Gaede]

Ten different people can look at the sculpture and have ten different experiences, which is the whole point of freedom in art. The differences can be nuanced or gross. The artist may or may not take exception to your experience if he learns about it, but he can't change it if he can't change you. Why would he try?

Enter (stage left): the esthetician--the one who wants to get between you and the art, using morality and morals and intellectual "sense of life" sleight of hand--AYN RAND!

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

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.

Judging from what you proceed to write, you acknowledge that the Vermeers depict people who exhibit volition rather than its lack, but you want to call the scenes "Naturalism" anyway.

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.

On what basis do you think I missed them? They're good examples of Rand's folding in all sorts of assumptions and presumed alternatives looking as if she's presenting an argument which she isn't. I shall return to such passages later this summer.

(I'm having some sort of problem getting posts to show up. I get a message saying that size has been exceeded. So I've broken my reply into three posts.)

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

(Continuing)

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".

Do you recall in Atlas Shrugged Dagny's asking one of the people in the valley - I think the person she asked was John Galt - "What are you [those in the valley] doing here."

The answer was, "Living."

"Life as it could be and should be." Dutch life in the 17th century was as close to the "should be" according to Rand's vision as life has gotten on this planet. Prosperous, merchant-oriented, interested in science and learning generally, this-worldly, hospitable to open discussion and religious freedom.

The world of Atlas Shrugged, though it's life as life is becoming these days, is not life as it "should be" by Rand's standards, but instead life as she thought it shouldn't be.

So how does presenting people living in a near-ideal world by Rand's standards not constitute providing "the good" for contemplation?

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

(Continuing)

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.

I.e., you're not going to let us in on what art works you consider "Romantic" except for a few safe works.

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.

Yeah, yeah, the special insight which lets you discern higher wisdom in Rand's assertions, non sequiturs, contradictions.

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 know it's hard work transcribing, Tony. I've done a lot of transcribing which you don't seem to have read. I'll be doing more.

(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?)

I objected to the title of the book The Virtue of Selfishness, which I think was a tactical mistake. I don't object to rational self-interest. And you missed the point of the doctor example, but I'm not desirous of recapitulating.

Ellen

[Wolf DeVoon]

I objected to the title of the book The Virtue of Selfishness, which I think was a tactical mistake.

What a very odd thing to think or say.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Saturday I received a copy of Jonathan Lopez's The Man Who Made Vermeers.

I've read the first 100 pages of the 248 text pages. (I'll read the miles of endnotes and references later.)

Facet after facet of the story is relevant to Rand's ideas of aesthetics, including resemblances between Van Meegeren's views on the subject and Rand's.

I'll be posting stuff from and about the book.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

I objected to the title of the book The Virtue of Selfishness, which I think was a tactical mistake.

What a very odd thing to think or say.

I don't want to get into that issue on this thread, or at this time. You could search my posts for "selfishness" if you're curious about the context in which that issue arose.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

I objected to the title of the book The Virtue of Selfishness, which I think was a tactical mistake.

What a very odd thing to think or say.

I don't want to get into that issue on this thread, or at this time. You could search my posts for "selfishness" if you're curious about the context in which that issue arose.

Ellen

Just for the record, I think it was okay tactically but dubious strategically. The idea behind such a title needed beefing up inside instead of how she attentuated it in a bait and switch. She also bitch-slapped the reader as soon as he started the book with her animadversion upon "moral cowardice." Nathaniel Branden recalled it as beginning with an "insult."

--Brant

"concern with one's own interests" is not the "dictionary definition" of "selfishness" (John Hospers couldn't find it after looking through 200 contemporaneous dictionaries)

[Wolf DeVoon]

I objected to the title of the book The Virtue of Selfishness, which I think was a tactical mistake.

What a very odd thing to think or say.

I don't want to get into that issue on this thread, or at this time. You could search my posts for "selfishness" if you're curious about the context in which that issue arose.

Ellen

Just for the record, I think it was okay tactically but dubious strategically. The idea behind such a title needed beefing up inside instead of how she attentuated it in a bait and switch. She also bitch-slapped the reader as soon as he started the book with her animadversion upon "moral cowardice." Nathaniel Branden recalled it as beginning with an "insult."

--Brant

"concern with one's own interests" is not the "dictionary definition" of "selfishness" (John Hospers couldn't find it after looking through 200 contemporaneous dictionaries)

I had three battles with Hospers, the first of which put me on the Dean's List at UW with a 4.0 in philosophy. His textbook was easy to demolish. I'll skip the details of Round 2 and 3, which are a matter of public record. Hospers was an academic orchid, not unlike Machan and Sciabarra. All three involuntarily make me think of cockroaches living in a smoke detector.

Selfishness is non-negotiable in my view, thanks to Rand's "mistake."

[Jonathan]

Ten different people can look at the sculpture and have ten different experiences, which is the whole point of freedom in art. The differences can be nuanced or gross. The artist may or may not take exception to your experience if he learns about it, but he can't change it if he can't change you. Why would he try?

Enter (stage left): the esthetician--the one who wants to get between you and the art, using morality and morals and intellectual "sense of life" sleight of hand--AYN RAND!

--Brant

Maybe Tony will begin to understand if we phrase the issue in the form of jurisprudence.

Looking at a work of visual art is like looking at a snapshot of a single moment in time. If we were to present an objective Objectivist jurist -- someone like, say, Judge Narragansett, only not fictional -- with a snapshot of real people in exactly the same positions as the figures in The Rape of the Sabine, with the same facial expressions and body language, and if we were to tell the judge that the image is a photograph that captured a moment of a real event, would the judge be able to objectively determine, just by looking at the photo, whether or not anyone in the image was guilty of committing a crime? Could he say with objective certainty that the man holding the woman is guilty of committing violence against her and deserving of a specific prison sentence?

Of course a rational judge would not come to such conclusions, and the same is true of judging art.

Rand was unusual in wanting to win verdicts in her art. She wanted to pound the message home, produce as much evidence as possible, and secure convictions, and then she wanted to convince her followers that doing so is the nature and limit of art. Well, it's not. The nature of art includes Rand's prosecutorial approach, but is not limited to it. Great art usually includes much more interactivity and multiple possible meanings than what Rand liked. Most great art isn't about winning the verdict, and Rand's Obedient followers are always going to look like they're running a kangaroo court when they arrive at guilty verdicts on very slim evidence, such as that which can be contained in a single snapshot.

J

[Brant Gaede]

I objected to the title of the book The Virtue of Selfishness, which I think was a tactical mistake.

What a very odd thing to think or say.

I don't want to get into that issue on this thread, or at this time. You could search my posts for "selfishness" if you're curious about the context in which that issue arose.

Ellen

Just for the record, I think it was okay tactically but dubious strategically. The idea behind such a title needed beefing up inside instead of how she attentuated it in a bait and switch. She also bitch-slapped the reader as soon as he started the book with her animadversion upon "moral cowardice." Nathaniel Branden recalled it as beginning with an "insult."

--Brant

"concern with one's own interests" is not the "dictionary definition" of "selfishness" (John Hospers couldn't find it after looking through 200 contemporaneous dictionaries)

I had three battles with Hospers, the first of which put me on the Dean's List at UW with a 4.0 in philosophy. His textbook was easy to demolish. I'll skip the details of Round 2 and 3, which are a matter of public record. Hospers was an academic orchid, not unlike Machan and Sciabarra. All three involuntarily make me think of cockroaches living in a smoke detector.

Selfishness is non-negotiable in my view, thanks to Rand's "mistake."

All of which has nothing to do with the definition. "Selfishness" may be "non-negotiable," but what is it, really, in Objectivism and existential to it? And what should it be respecting a human being's own humanity and his self-estimation? Selfishness is all around and about us and in us and in every living creature and thing. Altruism is only a controlling vehicle of guilt. We don't need to dis-embrace what we already embrace except third party altruism. Loving, respecting and dealing with others in a variety of ways, personal, social, economic, political(?) is not altruism unless it is forced. If one wants to act against one's selfish gene(s), so to say, I'd presume it would be for selfish reasons which can make sense if human actions are considered heirarchical, not lateral, in value.

Selfishness as "non-negotiable" implies a tremendous power in altruism needing tremendous counter-vailing power, when all one has to do is kick it in the nuts after its nuts are are zeroed in on--that's the only problem--it's the impotence of evil thingy--and, puff!, it's gone

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

"Selfishness" may be "non-negotiable," but what is it, really, in Objectivism and existential to it? And what should it be respecting a human being's own humanity and his self-estimation? Selfishness is all around and about us and in us and in every living creature and thing. Altruism is only a controlling vehicle of guilt. We don't need to dis-embrace what we already embrace except third party altruism. Loving, respecting and dealing with others in a variety of ways, personal, social, economic, political(?) is not altruism unless it is forced. If one wants to act against one's selfish gene(s), so to say, I'd presume it would be for selfish reasons which can make sense if human actions are considered heirarchical, not lateral, in value.

 

Selfishness as "non-negotiable" implies a tremendous power in altruism needing tremendous counter-vailing power, when all one has to do is kick it in the nuts after its nuts are are zeroed in on--that's the only problem--it's the impotence of evil thingy--and, puff!, it's gone

 

--Brant

 

 

They get us when we're young with unearned gifts and obligations. I'm not sure which is worse? -- parents, church, state, elementary school, mass media, higher ed, literature, entertainment, employers, friends, mentors, lovers. The un-selfish nuts are everywhere.

 

"Loving, respecting and dealing with others [cooperatively?] in a variety of ways" is not the problem. The challenge is to summon up enough courage to fight when threatened by overwhelming force, to think when baffled and alone, to risk opprobrium, defeat, punishment, poverty and exile. Loving others counts for nothing in terms of fundamental human rights. Love reeks of mysticism and second-handing.

 

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another;

as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. John 13:34

[anthony]

I kinda see the charitable 'doing for others' as pretty much a most diluted altruism (when done by choice, not pushed). The greatest part of altruism is beneath the waterline, as I think of it.

The biggest fallacy to guard against is that everybody is selfish by nature. But are they?

Do most think for themselves, act by themselves - by objective reality, and with utmost integrity to it? Do they not rather twist in the wind, looking for any instant advantage and gain - always with 'others', as their benchmark of standards - and others as their source of approval - and at times, others as their prey? So Rand said once she countered altruism -not with selfishness, directly- but with independence of mind. She was dead right in my experience.

(Good thoughts, Wolf and Brant).

[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.

Judging from what you proceed to write, you acknowledge that the Vermeers depict people who exhibit volition rather than its lack, but you want to call the scenes "Naturalism" anyway.

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.

On what basis do you think I missed them? They're good examples of Rand's folding in all sorts of assumptions and presumed alternatives looking as if she's presenting an argument which she isn't. I shall return to such passages later this summer.

(I'm having some sort of problem getting posts to show up. I get a message saying that size has been exceeded. So I've broken my reply into three posts.)

Ellen

I have no idea where you got that idea - that I think Vermeer depicted volitional man. The mere token of painting anybody doing anything, doesn't -necessarily- show man overcoming obstacles for his rational ends. Not without a lot of post facto justifications which J has been expounding. I've mentioned that I think Vermeer had a remarkable eye for discerning the reality of life around him (realism, without romanticism) and an admirable eye for light. (Amazingly, I didn't need Rand to tell me that). Still, his works are a mirror on life.

I'm puzzled by your and J's attempts to make "volitional" the works of artists which are anything but.

What, fundamentally, is wrong with Naturalist art? As long as it's good and honest. Art is profoundly personal, therefore selfish. You get out of it what you want and as much as you want. To the level you need it, a piece of art satisfies you, only limited by what is actually THERE. This crap about "condemning" anything that is not Romanticist isn't my conviction; it isn't totally Rand's either, I believe - but even if it were so, I don't need her permission to find the valuable and selfishly sustaining, wherever it exists. It could be a five minute scene from a movie, one otherwise ordinary, unoriginal, implausible or plain ugly. One thoughtful paragraph from a novel. A single, virtuous fictional character who battles to overcome his situation, in an otherwise uninspiring book. Or great aestheticians and stylists like Shakespeare or Vermeer who leave you with - something: the words and phrasing, the light and scenes. Naturalist, as they are.

Great Romantic art is uncommon. I rather prefer excellent Naturalism to poorly styled, sentimental or derivative Romanticism, I say again. (And there appears to be unspoken the faulty premise that Rand invented the genres, Romanticism and Naturalism).

Rand's "assumptions" are of rationally-selfishly-striving individuals who need art to survive: morally and cognitively--i.e. spiritually. It's explicit and implicit (that word, again) in all of her writing. You don't approve, or think it an impossibility, is another story altogether. Art then, can only be judged by each rational person, according to these standards. (Inclusive of the artwork's lesser, hierarchical values, which I've remarked on).

"Judgment", though, is a word that seems to make people uncomfortable. Tough, that's for them to check their premises.

[Jonathan]

I have no idea where you got that idea - that I think Vermeer depicted volitional man.

I think Ellen got that idea by applying logic to your position, and also by noting your evasive refusal to answer direct questions directly. I think her mistake was in believing that you might also apply logic to your position. Not gonna happen.

The mere token of painting anybody doing anything, doesn't -necessarily- show man overcoming obstacles for his rational ends. Not without a lot of post facto justifications which J has been expounding.

Justifications? So, my objectively pointing out observable facts about the visual content of paintings is "post facto justification," but your judging paintings on content that they do not actually contain is "objective" and "rational"? Heh.

I've mentioned that I think Vermeer had a remarkable eye for discerning the reality of life around him (realism, without romanticism) and an admirable eye for light.

Prove that he was "discerning the reality of life around him." Several times now I've offered evidence to the contrary, which apparently you've pigheadedly ignored, or which you've been too thickheaded to understand.

Here it is one more time:

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.

When will you prove your assertions, Tony? Don't give us more subjective opinions, be they yours, Ayn Rand's or anyone else's. Prove your assertions that the characters in Vermeer's paintings are not exercising volition and that they represent "life as it is" rather than as "it could be."

(Amazingly, I didn't need Rand to tell me that).

I think that you did need Rand to tell you that. I think that you never would have heard of Vermeer had it not been for Rand. If she had said that he was a "Romanticist," you'd be telling us that he was a "Romanticist." If she had said that he was an evil student of Kant and that the goal of his art was to destroy existence, you'd be telling us that he was an evil student of Kant and that the goal of his art was to destroy existence (and you'd continue to do so even if I pointed out the fact that Vermeer lived prior to Kant). Your entire "knowledge" of art and art history comes from Rand. You uncritically accept what she said.

Still, his works are a mirror on life.

Follow the Objectivist Epistemology and prove that "his works are a mirror on life."

I'm puzzled by your and J's attempts to make "volitional" the works of artists which are anything but.

Prove that they are anything but volitional. Do so using Objectivism. Use logic. Don't just keep repeating your subjective opinion. Prove it.

What, fundamentally, is wrong with Naturalist art? As long as it's good and honest. Art is profoundly personal, therefore selfish. You get out of it what you want and as much as you want. To the level you need it, a piece of art satisfies you, only limited by what is actually THERE.

But you haven't limited your experience of The Rape of the Sabine to what is actually THERE. You've imported your own subjective misinterpretations, and you've done so based a false title. You went into it wanting to interpret it as "Naturalism," so you invented content that it does not actually contain. With Vermeer, you willfully ignore content which doesn't support your predetermined opinion.

This crap about "condemning" anything that is not Romanticist isn't my conviction; it isn't totally Rand's either, I believe - but even if it were so, I don't need her permission to find the valuable and selfishly sustaining, wherever it exists.

You do need her permission, which is why you won't come out from behind her skirt and give examples of great "Romantic" art which she and her designates hadn't commented on, or which wasn't produce by people who are known to be Objectivist loyalists.

It could be a five minute scene from a movie, one otherwise ordinary, unoriginal, implausible or plain ugly. One thoughtful paragraph from a novel. A single, virtuous fictional character who battles to overcome his situation, in an otherwise uninspiring book. Or great aestheticians and stylists like Shakespeare or Vermeer who leave you with - something: the words and phrasing, the light and scenes. Naturalist, as they are.

Prove that they are "Naturalist" by Rand's definition of the term.

Great Romantic art is uncommon. I rather prefer excellent Naturalism to poorly styled, sentimental or derivative Romanticism, I say again.

Do you have any original thoughts at all, Tony? Or is everything that comes out of your mouth a sloppy copy of what Rand said?

(And there appears to be unspoken the faulty premise that Rand invented the genres, Romanticism and Naturalism).

Rand did invent her own genres of "Romanticism" and "Naturalism." She attempted to impose her personal, subjective meanings on the existing terms. She failed. Her theory is so irrational that even her followers can't apply it in reality. Like you, they're usually afraid to even try. The only art that they accept as truly being "Romantic" is Rand's, at least until her own irrational standards are applied to it, at which point no art that has ever existed qualifies as "Romantic" by Rand's criteria.

Rand's "assumptions" are of rationally-selfishly-striving individuals who need art to survive: morally and cognitively--i.e. spiritually. It's explicit and implicit (that word, again) in all of her writing. You don't approve, or think it an impossibility, is another story altogether.

Instead of continuing to fight straw men and other phantoms, you'd do much better to answer our questions. For example, will you please objectively prove that Vermeer painted "the reality of life as it was around him"? You know, proof? The stuff that Objectivism places a hell of a lot of importance on? Prove your interpretations, just as you would have to do so in a court of law. Prove that your opinions aren't just the first subjective interpretations that popped into your uninformed, Rand-poisoned skull. Objectively prove it. Don't evade again and yap on and on about your misinterpretations of what others are saying. PROVE your judgments of Vermeer's work and of The Rape of the Sabine.

Art then, can only be judged by each rational person, according to these standards. (Inclusive of the artwork's lesser, hierarchical values, which I've remarked on).

And yet when I, a very rational person, judge paintings based on the reality of what they contain, and I repeatedly point to the content and the historical reality that Vermeer's images do not contain "the reality of life around him," and I demonstrate that The Rape of the Sabine is not actually showing violence against the woman (as you falsely stated), you tell me that I'm making "post facto justifications."

"Judgment", though, is a word that seems to make people uncomfortable. Tough, that's for them to check their premises.

What in the hell are you talking about? Who is made uncomfortable by the word "judgment"? The imaginary people living in your head? I'm certainly not uncomfortable with the word.

If I'm made uncomfortable by anything, it is your stupidity, your evasiveness and your willful refusal to think rationally, all in the name of being Obedient to Rand's silly judgments of art. "Judgment" is not what is being opposed here, Tony, but just idiotic judgments.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Spreading ideology around as the primary referent is like salting the fields of ratiocination.

--Brant

nothing grows and there's nothing to eat

[Brant Gaede]

I have no idea where you got that idea - that I think Vermeer depicted volitional man.

I think Ellen got that idea by applying logic to your position, and also by noting your evasive refusal to answer direct questions directly. I think her mistake was in believing that you might also apply logic to your position. Not gonna happen.

The mere token of painting anybody doing anything, doesn't -necessarily- show man overcoming obstacles for his rational ends. Not without a lot of post facto justifications which J has been expounding.

Justifications? So, my objectively pointing out observable facts about the visual content of paintings is "post facto justification," but your judging paintings on content that they do not actually contain is "objective" and "rational"? Heh.

I've mentioned that I think Vermeer had a remarkable eye for discerning the reality of life around him (realism, without romanticism) and an admirable eye for light.

Prove that he was "discerning the reality of life around him." Several times now I've offered evidence to the contrary, which apparently you've pigheadedly ignored, or which you've been too thickheaded to understand.

Here it is one more time:

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.

When will you prove your assertions, Tony? Don't give us more subjective opinions, be they yours, Ayn Rand's or anyone else's. Prove your assertions that the characters in Vermeer's paintings are not exercising volition and that they represent "life as it is" rather than as "it could be."

(Amazingly, I didn't need Rand to tell me that).

I think that you did need Rand to tell you that. I think that you never would have heard of Vermeer had it not been for Rand. If she had said that he was a "Romanticist," you'd be telling us that he was a "Romanticist." If she had said that he was an evil student of Kant and that the goal of his art was to destroy existence, you'd be telling us that he was an evil student of Kant and that the goal of his art was to destroy existence (and you'd continue to do so even if I pointed out the fact that Vermeer lived prior to Kant). Your entire "knowledge" of art and art history comes from Rand. You uncritically accept what she said.

Still, his works are a mirror on life.

Follow the Objectivist Epistemology and prove that "his works are a mirror on life."

I'm puzzled by your and J's attempts to make "volitional" the works of artists which are anything but.

Prove that they are anything but volitional. Do so using Objectivism. Use logic. Don't just keep repeating your subjective opinion. Prove it.

What, fundamentally, is wrong with Naturalist art? As long as it's good and honest. Art is profoundly personal, therefore selfish. You get out of it what you want and as much as you want. To the level you need it, a piece of art satisfies you, only limited by what is actually THERE.

But you haven't limited your experience of The Rape of the Sabine to what is actually THERE. You've imported your own subjective misinterpretations, and you've done so based a false title. You went into it wanting to interpret it as "Naturalism," so you invented content that it does not actually contain. With Vermeer, you willfully ignore content which doesn't support your predetermined opinion.

This crap about "condemning" anything that is not Romanticist isn't my conviction; it isn't totally Rand's either, I believe - but even if it were so, I don't need her permission to find the valuable and selfishly sustaining, wherever it exists.

You do need her permission, which is why you won't come out from behind her skirt and give examples of great "Romantic" art which she and her designates hadn't commented on, or which wasn't produce by people who are known to be Objectivist loyalists.

It could be a five minute scene from a movie, one otherwise ordinary, unoriginal, implausible or plain ugly. One thoughtful paragraph from a novel. A single, virtuous fictional character who battles to overcome his situation, in an otherwise uninspiring book. Or great aestheticians and stylists like Shakespeare or Vermeer who leave you with - something: the words and phrasing, the light and scenes. Naturalist, as they are.

Prove that they are "Naturalist" by Rand's definition of the term.

Great Romantic art is uncommon. I rather prefer excellent Naturalism to poorly styled, sentimental or derivative Romanticism, I say again.

Do you have any original thoughts at all, Tony? Or is everything that comes out of your mouth a sloppy copy of what Rand said?

(And there appears to be unspoken the faulty premise that Rand invented the genres, Romanticism and Naturalism).

Rand did invent her own genres of "Romanticism" and "Naturalism." She attempted to impose her personal, subjective meanings on the existing terms. She failed. Her theory is so irrational that even her followers can't apply it in reality. Like you, they're usually afraid to even try. The only art that they accept as truly being "Romantic" is Rand's, at least until her own irrational standards are applied to it, at which point no art that has ever existed qualifies as "Romantic" by Rand's criteria.

Rand's "assumptions" are of rationally-selfishly-striving individuals who need art to survive: morally and cognitively--i.e. spiritually. It's explicit and implicit (that word, again) in all of her writing. You don't approve, or think it an impossibility, is another story altogether.

Instead of continuing to fight straw men and other phantoms, you'd do much better to answer our questions. For example, will you please objectively prove that Vermeer painted "the reality of life as it was around him"? You know, proof? The stuff that Objectivism places a hell of a lot of importance on? Prove your interpretations, just as you would have to do so in a court of law. Prove that your opinions aren't just the first subjective interpretations that popped into your uninformed, Rand-poisoned skull. Objectively prove it. Don't evade again and yap on and on about your misinterpretations of what others are saying. PROVE your judgments of Vermeer's work and of The Rape of the Sabine.

Art then, can only be judged by each rational person, according to these standards. (Inclusive of the artwork's lesser, hierarchical values, which I've remarked on).

And yet when I, a very rational person, judge paintings based on the reality of what they contain, and I repeatedly point to the content and the historical reality that Vermeer's images do not contain "the reality of life around him," and I demonstrate that The Rape of the Sabine is not actually showing violence against the woman (as you falsely stated), you tell me that I'm making "post facto justifications."

"Judgment", though, is a word that seems to make people uncomfortable. Tough, that's for them to check their premises.

What in the hell are you talking about? Who is made uncomfortable by the word "judgment"? The imaginary people living in your head? I'm certainly not uncomfortable with the word.

If I'm made uncomfortable by anything, it is your stupidity, your evasiveness and your willful refusal to think rationally, all in the name of being Obedient to Rand's silly judgments of art. "Judgment" is not what is being opposed here, Tony, but just idiotic judgments.

J

Oh, my.

--Brant

Tony's in his fort--can't get in or out for all the Indians running around firing arrows into it

[Brant Gaede]

Is life as it could be, but should not be, romantic art?

--Brant

now, wasn't Dali's art life as it could not be?

could life as it is in art also be life as it should be?

I see a painter painted painting (life as it is) a painting depicting life as it should be (art within art)--what's the classification?

dizzy time

[anthony]

"To prove" an artwork, take a look at it and see it for what it is.

It's the same demand as "Prove existence!"

Otherwise, what options are there?

a.One has to have advanced degrees in art to see it and know it? (or any other existent in existence?)

b.The artist really does not want his work to be understood? Perhaps he means the opposite to what he shows?

Both options must be bs. It's mutual. Anyone can understand, and any artist wants to be understood.

Actually, art follows (and leads) life/philosophy in more ways than one, I think.

If one only accepts there are the three main philosophies - intrinsicism, subjectivism and objectivism.

Objectivists have to sometimes thread their way closely between the first two, (as David Kelley roughly wrote). Lean too far from the subjective and one can fall into the intrinsic trap.

Exactly with art:

The School of (mystical) Intrinsicism:- The Value of art is just 'there' - sacrosanct: It doesn't require a valuer and it can no more be questioned than it can be judged. And certainly never "used" by lowly humans. Although one is permitted to obediently admire its aesthetics. It's a hangover of religious influences and the Biblical themes upon art, I guess.

The School of subjectivism:- "I know great art when I see it! It is what I desire it to be! It is what makes me feel good. End of argument."

Therefore you either hand over art to the mystical authoritarians, or to the self-indulgent authoritarians. The third way, is to view it and judge it by objective standards - apprehending it by the identical process of reason applied to all existence: sensory-perceptual-conceptual. Then to apply its best values to one's life, for one's own rationally selfish benefit.

[Jonathan]

Is life as it could be, but should not be, romantic art?

Yes. I already covered that here:

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.

now, wasn't Dali's art life as it could not be?

Dali's art presents images of dreamlike states. Your question seems to suggest that you believe life cannot contain dreamlike states, or that an artist cannot view life as a dreamlike state.

could life as it is in art also be life as it should be?

Of course life as it is can also be life as it should be.

But not when using Tony's method. With his method, Atlas Shrugged, and all other works of "Romanticism," would become "Naturalism" in the future if reality ends up exceeding Rand's vision of how life "ought to be," which is what I said here:

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).

Tony's method logically implies that there would no longer be a rational need for art once reality became life as it ought to be: If the world was full of rational heroes who led daringly productive lives, then artworks which depicted rational heroes leading daringly productive lives would be classified under Tony's system as "life as it is" and "Naturalism," and "Romanticism" would be impossible -- it would cease to exist as a legitimate category of art since no representations of existence could exceed reality.

I see a painter painted painting (life as it is) a painting depicting life as it should be (art within art)--what's the classification?

The main question remaining is, "life as it is" versus "life as it ought to be" to WHOM?

The problem with Tony's approach is that he is imposing his own views on how he thinks "life ought to be" when trying to determine if an artist painted life "as it is" versus "life as it should be." He's not investigating if an artist has represented a vision of how the artist thought that life "ought to be."

J

[Jules Troy]

Well Geiger was an artist and NONE of his works could be said to be "art as it could or should be" (at least I sure freeking hope not!). Just the same we would not have the movie Alien without him!

His work is for the most part FREAKIng awesome even if it is chilling. Can one be an objectivist and like his work? Yes if you put on your "I'm a big boy pants".

[Jonathan]

"To prove" an artwork, take a look at it and see it for what it is.

That's exactly what I've done. I've looked at the art and seen it for what it is. Yet you then tell me that it's not what it is, but that I'm making "post facto justifications." Meanwhile, you claim that the art contains what it does not.

It's the same demand as "Prove existence!"

No, it's not. It's the same demand as saying "Prove that you can determine the guilt or innocence of people in a snapshot without any outside considerations," as I explained here.

It is hilarious, though, that you believe that your personal interpretations of artworks are the equivalent of axioms!

Otherwise, what options are there?

a.One has to have advanced degrees in art to see it and know it? (or any other existent in existence?)

b.The artist really does not want his work to be understood? Perhaps he means the opposite to what he shows?

c. There are more interpretations possible in any artwork than the one that Tony is capable of experiencing -- the nature of judging visual art is the same as the nature of judging a snapshot of an event in reality: there is not enough information to come to a definitive conclusion.

Both options must be bs. It's mutual. Anyone can understand, and any artist wants to be understood.

That's Rand's theory of literature, and it's a great example of why it's not applicable to the other art forms. The non-literary arts don't become great by trying to pound home a message so that "anyone can understand." Art becomes quite bad when it is created to reach the least intelligent and least sensitive people (Obedient Objectivists).

The idea behind objective philosophy is to actually identify the nature of the art forms, not to irrationally force them to fit Rand's personal vision of literature.

Anyway, as for artists wanting to be understood, I think you're right about that, they do want to be understood. But not by someone as limited and poisoned as you. They want to be perhaps more clever, nuanced and artistic than what you're capable of appreciating. They want to include multiple possible meanings, rather than just one bluntly shouted message. Unlike Rand, they don't want to come anywhere near creating propaganda (she often crossed that line).

The School of subjectivism:- "I know great art when I see it! It is what I desire it to be! It is what makes me feel good. End of argument."

That's your school. Subjectivism. Actually, it's more like Solipsism/Subjectivism. You think that a work of art is what you desire it to be -- "Naturalism" if it's not created by Rand -- regardless of whether or not it contains what you say it does. The Solipsistic/Subjectivist Tony approach is, "I know 'life as it is' versus 'life as it ought to be' when I see it! I can't prove it 'cuz it's an axiom! The axioms are: Existence, consciousness, identity, and my interpretations of artworks! Just mine! Anyone who has a different interpretation of an artwork is opposing axiomatic reality, including all other Obedient Objectivist who believe that their differing interpretations are just as axiomatic as mine."

It's too bad that there isn't an objective way of determining which of you axiomatic centers of the universe is the one true center of the universe.

J

[Brant Gaede]

I see a painter painted painting (life as it is) a painting depicting life as it should be (art within art)--what's the classification?

The main question remaining is, "life as it is" versus "life as it ought to be" to WHOM?

The problem with Tony's approach is that he is imposing his own views on how he thinks "life ought to be" when trying to determine if an artist painted life "as it is" versus "life as it should be." He's not investigating if an artist has represented a vision of how the artist thought that life "ought to be."

J

I think his problem--one of them--is the exclusion of the artist.

What artist is going to work out of your matrix,Tony? How could he? It's an innovation and creativity killer.

--Brant

here's an artist who works in metal and colored glass

Google Alex Heveri (the link didn't take on OL)

I don't think her work hits on any Randian category

[anthony]

Right then. Throw art to the wolves. It can't be known, it's all the same, and experts (or our feelings) will tell us what is 'good'. Above all, to think of selfishly utilizing art for oneself is unacceptable!

Art is not in reality; it isn't constructed by real persons; nor appreciated by real individuals.

That's why it can't (like the universe to some) be comprehended by our puny minds.

Philosophy of art! What a cheek. Next thing you know, men's minds will be identifying the broadest concepts of art possible, and sub-categorising them into subsets, and sub-subsets, etc, etc -- and you know what?

Individuals will have to put in all the work themselves, differentiating, integrating --conceptualizing- that multitude of variables in art at the end of the concept chain.

Too much effort, let's leave it up to the art-mystics to tell us what's good for us.

An excess of clarity is bad for man.

(Interesting to me, is that the accusers of 'Rand-authoritarianism', often have their own authoritarian agenda. But guess what? AR's methodology sets individuals free of all authority, except their own. I'll go with that, with any mistakes I may make, very happily).

[Brant Gaede]

Right then. Throw art to the wolves. It can't be known, it's all the same, and experts (or our feelings) will tell us what is 'good'. Above all, to think of selfishly utilizing art for oneself is unacceptable!

Art is not in reality; it isn't constructed by real persons; nor appreciated by real individuals.

That's why it can't (like the universe to some) be comprehended by our puny minds.

Philosophy of art! What a cheek. Next thing you know, men's minds will be identifying the broadest concepts of art possible, and sub-categorising them into subsets, and sub-subsets, etc, etc -- and you know what?

Individuals will have to put in all the work themselves, differentiating, integrating --conceptualizing- all those 1000's of variables in art at the end of the concept chain.

Too much effort, let's leave it up to the art-mystics to tell us what's good for us.

An excess of clarity is bad for man.

Interesting to me, is that the accusers of 'Rand-authoritarianism', often have their own authoritarian agenda. But guess what? AR's methodology sets individuals free of all authority, except their own. I'll go with that, with any mistakes I may make, very happily.

And if anybody with the slightest knowledge of Objectivism has to ask "what should life be?" - and, "to whom?", I'm flummoxed. "We have now sunk to a depth where the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men" [G. Orwell.]

Just put up some examples of visual art you like and explain your experience and then explain what you think are the applicable esthetics and why. Don't start with the esthetics; if you do you'll be right up there in the clouds again with these interminable go nowhere--at least for you--conversations.

--Brant

we start with freedom, let the flowers grow, then experience the flowers then do something with the appreciation besides consume it, if that's what we want to do--for instance, if we simply like a painting and buy it or tell the artist we like it he might do more of the same which done countless more times will amount to the dominant culture around us (and there is a role for esthetics in all this, of course, even Objectivist [Rand] Esthetics, if identified as such--what is not welcome is Ayn Rand control freakism; that's the Pope telling Michelangelo how to paint)

let's try the impotence of evil thingy: bad art is impotent so ignore it and let it whither--or sucker in "investors" who pay big bucks for crap

Rand described the pre-WWI European environment as wonderfully life affirming and all but forgotten, but guess what?--there was no Objectivism enlightening the world either, including its esthetics for art