Apples - Rand on Still Life Paintings, Plus

[anthony]

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)

Put up, or shut up, eh? I don't see how everybody can't recall their own examples, personal to them.

If there's no consensus on the simplest expression on a face in a sculpture, I've got no chance.

If the process of abstracting a concept from a concrete is treated skeptically, I've even less chance.

If everything I say about my thoughts and experience is a. a lie, or b. brain-washed by Rand -- according to J. who seems to psychically see the contents of my mind, I'm very uninterested.

I would rather shut up and think I will. ;)

[Brant Gaede]

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)

Put up, or shut up, eh? I don't see how everybody can't recall their own examples, personal to them.

If there's no consensus on the simplest expression on a face in a sculpture, I've got no chance.

If the process of abstracting a concept from a concrete is treated skeptically, I've even less chance.

If everything I say about my thoughts and experience is a. a lie, or b. brain-washed by Rand -- according to J. who seems to psychically see the contents of my mind, I'm very uninterested.

I would rather shut up and think I will. ;)

Well, I like Frank O'Connor's "Diminishing Returns" very much. I gave a print to Cathy and traded another to Barbara Branden. (How did you like what Alex Heveri put up on the Web?) But you're right, you're entitled to no consensus, doesn't mean there can't be one ("Guernica"?), neither was Rand, but she made a better go at it through her rhetorical power and earned reputation as a novelist. But take her husband's painting, "Man Also Rises," she had plastered on the 25th Aniversary edition of The Fountainhead. It was horrible technically, not so bad compositionally (IMHO) and I sort of liked it on the hard cover dust jacket nicely framed in the white of the jacket. I wonder if she asked him to paint something for it and he said okay and dashed it off (in protest?), because when I see any painting I could have done with little training or thought I get suspicious as hell, except I would have crashed and burned on the composition which is the only thing that makes that painting work, so there is talent there. The ironical use of bad perspective did it--the painting thus positively embraced itself with its honest negatives.

--Brant

no, I'm not an esthetician, but I play one on OL

"I would rather shut up and think [I will]" (just funnin')

[Brant Gaede]

dup

[Jonathan]

Right then. Throw art to the wolves.

Jesus. There's no need to panic, Tony.

Do you have the same panicky response to being told that you can't objectively judge a person to be guilty of a crime based on nothing but a photo of him holding a woman? When I tell you that you don't have enough information to make such a judgment, do you become so irrationally frantic as to believe that I'm throwing justice to the wolves?

No? Okay, so calm the fuck down, get control of your emotions, and start actually thinking about these things instead of stampeding to the most irrational and terrifying conclusions that you can imagine.

It can't be known, it's all the same, and experts (or our feelings) will tell us what is 'good'.

The objective fact of reality that artistic creation and response necessarily contain a high degree of subjectivity doesn't become untrue just because you don't like it and you don't want it to be true.

As for your continuing to misinterpret my view by claiming that I'm saying that "experts" will "tell us what is good," I'm actually rejecting your posing as an "expert" who insists on telling everyone else that his interpretations of art are "axiomatic." You're the one who is posing as superior. You're the one who is trying to pretend that his subjective responses to art are objective and universally, axiomatically true.

Above all, to think of selfishly utilizing art for oneself is unacceptable!

I don't know how you twisted everything around to come up with that. You seem to emotionally misinterpret what people say even more than you emotionally misinterpret images. Total la-la land. Loopy Solipsist/Subjectivism pretending to be objective.

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.

No one has said anything like that. I've said nothing about "our" puny minds, only yours. Each individual looks at the evidence contained in a work of art, just as he would look at the evidence contained in a photograph of a moment of reality, and, then, lacking the necessary information to come to an objective conclusion about it, he will allow his subjective preferences to take over in order to come to tentative conclusion about what the image means to him. That's how art works. It's exactly the method that you practice, except for the fact that you refuse to recognize the tentative and subjective nature of the conclusions. For some reason, you need to believe that your subjective conclusion about an artwork is actually the one and only truly objective and axiomatic conclusion.

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.

Tony, I understand that you don't like the fact that when the Objectivist PseudoEsthetics meets reality, it doesn't do so well. I think you're just upset with the idea that someone -- me -- has come along and not only questioned Rand's silly notions of art, but has actually put them to the test, demanded proof, and overwhelmingly demonstrated them to be highly irrational. You're not the first person to become angry with me for applying Objectivist Epistemology to the Objectivist PseudoEsthetics, and I'm sure that you won't be the last.

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

You're the only one who is leaving it up to someone else -- Ayn Rand -- to tell you what's good for you. You're the one who thinks that his having read Rand has made his aesthetic interpretations "axiomatic." Heh. Clown.

An excess of clarity is bad for man.

I don't think you'd know clarity if it bit you in the ass. You'd twist it around in your Rand-poisoned skull to mean its opposite.

J

[Jonathan]

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--I met her when she moved into a house two blocks away from me:

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

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

Here's the link:

http://www.alexheveri.com/

I really like her work. To me it's got some similarities to Frank Lloyd Wright, but much freer and happier. And more casual and friendly.

Speaking of Wright, I think that Heveri's work could be considered to be valid art by Rand if, before presenting images of it to her, she was told that it should be considered as "architecture." It's amazing how much Objectivists can see in abstract sculptures when you attach the name "architecture" to them. It's like a magic on-off switch:

Artist: "Here, look at this abstract sculpture. What effect does it have on you. What does it mean."

Obedient Objectivist: "It's meaningless crap, and a vicious attack on man's method of cognition!"

Artist: "Here, look at this same exact thing, only ignore that I called it abstract sculpture earlier. I meant to say architecture. What effect does it have on you. What does it mean."

Obedient Objectivist: "Oh, it's fabulous! It clearly and axiomatically represents life as it ought to be. Its forms objectively convey the joy of upward soaring and ecstasy and heroism!"

J

[Brant Gaede]

If Rand's philosophy were the Stoddard Temple (it's not) and Dominique's modelled statue the Objectivist Esthetics (it's not) then what's going on here (nothing) apropos to that?

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Alex thinks nothing of cutting up steel I-beams and using cranes to move and set up her work. She's also a hard-working Pima County defense attorney whose job is to review homocide convictions to see if any redress is justifiable. There was a Navajo freshman University of Arizona college student who murdered her roommate and got life without parole. Alex got that, after considerable review, reduced to life with the possibility of parole, the right sentence.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Does she have any of her art up near Starr Pass? I was up there briefly a few years ago, and I have a vague memory of possibly seeing a piece similar to the works on her website.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Does she have any of her art up near Starr Pass? I was up there briefly a few years ago, and I have a vague memory of possibly seeing a piece similar to the works on her website.

J

No idea where most of her stuff is, but last fall I was driving around the west side and saw a gated long driveway with her work the gate. It's the gate with the four vertical flankers. Interestingly, it was the last property I brokered the sale on before I left real estate in 2000, long before the gate went up or I knew about her.

--Brant

Starr Pass would be one place I'd go look for it (and I could ask her, heh)

[Brant Gaede]

Tony, do you think you're fighting nihilism?

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

I am not a critic of Rand's views on art here but her mixing up esthetics with her philosophy, even morality. That's why she was right to say her Objectivism was a dangerous philosophy to fool around with or accept half way--it will destroy you. She thoroughly mixed up Objectivism as a philosophy with her application of it. For instance, as I have said, esthetics is Objectivism applied but so is any other discipline from science to sociology if one uses reason applied to reality--metaphysics and epistemology--so we shouldn't talk of an Objectivist Esthetics any more than an Objectivist Psychology or Chemistry or Biology. Of the four mentioned, esthetics is the most problematic.

Now take any science well and properly done temporarily ending in the standard hypothesis-theory model. "Temporary" means the validity of a theory because it is factual and falsifiable but not yet--if ever--falsified. This science and Objectivism rest on the same axioms, but they've been doing good science before Objectivism was created. All Objectivism adds is clarification and more formal structure. We can say the next basic principle of Objecivism--its ethics--while much more than integrity thoroughly encompasses integrity and integrity--truth seeking and truth living, if you will--is essential to good and proper science as with any truth seeking enterprise. But all truth is tentative if only that it might be expanded as opposed to outright contradicted. Absolutism and certainty is acceptable if when the nature of factual knowledge changes one correspondingly changes one's mind. This way we can take the calculated risk of we might be wrong but charge ahead and get things done. There is a virtue in definitness. That's why education is so important, too. There should be an essential modesty to it all, however. That doesn't come with dogmatism, a catechism or the philosophy of Ayn Rand and Ayn Rand herself. Having a high opinion of oneself can be deserved and she deserved it, but then she went over the top.

--Brant

[anthony]

Tony, do you think you're fighting nihilism?

--Brant

Easy. I fight for man's mind, which means the individual's, which means for my own. That takes care of all the 'isms', nihilism, elitism, egalitarianism, determinism, collectivism[..]

"Man's mind" gets over-weighted toward one side in O'ist circles, I think I notice. Progress, technology, science and all those undeniably inspiring crucials, represent input and output of the mind (simply). Well in advance of those is the individual's consciousness, which is where the real "survival" and "flourishing" of the individual stems from.

[This to J., is nothing more than "solipsism". Silly boy.]

[Brant Gaede]

Tony, do you think you're fighting nihilism?

--Brant

Easy. I fight for man's mind, which means the individual's, which means for my own. That takes care of all the 'isms', nihilism, elitism, egalitarianism, determinism, collectivism[..]

"Man's mind" gets over-weighted toward one side in O'ist circles, I think I notice. Progress, technology, science and all those undeniably inspiring crucials, represent input and output of the mind (simply). Well in advance of those is the individual's consciousness, which is where the real "survival" and "flourishing" of the individual stems from.

[This to J., is nothing more than "solipsism". Silly boy.]

You're the bull and Jonathan is the matador. You haven't figured that out yet.

--Brant

your only chance is to get more empirical (and the crowd roars for you)

[anthony]

Nice imagery! I take the empirical for granted here, of course. The facts are one's own life: the needs and struggles and demands of living are so 'self-evident' and so 'implicit' to everyone who is aware and possesses imagination, that I don't see the necessity for belaboring the point. Ideas don't become real until you apply them to yourself and put them in motion..

[Brant Gaede]

More cowbell.

--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.

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

I got the idea that you acknowledge that Vermeer depicted volitional man from your not denying that his paintings are full of volitional activities but instead countering with, in effect, a claim that "a 'volitional' framework" isn't essential to Rand's differentiation of "Romanticiam" and "Naturalism," as she defined those terms.

However, you now go on to provide a stipulated narrow meaning of "volitional":

The mere token of painting anybody doing anything, doesn't -necessarily- show man overcoming obstacles for his rational ends. [....] I'm puzzled by your and J's attempts to make "volitional" the works of artists which are anything but.

So, for instance, playing a musical instrument isn't a "volitional" activity unless it's...what? Something like Chopin playing the piano while fighting against consumption (as tuberculosis was called then)? Something of this sort?

Your cavils have occasioned my thinking of a fatal Catch 22 in Rand's "life as it is" versus "life as it could and should be." Since Rand took as the defining difference between her meanings of "Romanticism" and "Naturalism" that the former acknowledges whereas the latter denies volition, and since "life as it is" inescapably exhibits volition, Naturalist artists fulfill her defining requirement for "Romanticist" artists and Romanticist artists, in order not to show "life as it is," have to show man as non-volitional.

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

There's no such premise on my part, nor, insofar as I've noticed, on the part of anyone else posting on the thread. She didn't invent the categories. But she did cook up a particular way of defining the categories which misses what was going on historically and caricatures "Naturalism" to suit her moral agenda, and misapplies the categories even in regard to literature as well as extending her meanings in non-applicable ways to other art forms.

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.

Tony, how many times have I said that I think that Rand was describing the function that art served for her, and that I sympathize? I get an impression that your own story has a comparable feature of a life-line provided by certain artworks. If so, I sympathize. I do not sympathize with an attempt to construct a universal theory on the basis of one's particular psychology.

Ellen

[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

I finished the text part, and some of the endnotes, of The Man Who Made Vermeers.

I'm now starting another book, published the same year - 2008 - titled The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century, by Edward Dolnick.

I'm finding the Van Meegeren tale a case of "life as it is" being incredibly fascinating.

Ellen

[anthony]

I am not a critic of Rand's views on art here but her mixing up esthetics with her philosophy, even morality. That's why she was right to say her Objectivism was a dangerous philosophy to fool around with or accept half way--it will destroy you. She thoroughly mixed up Objectivism as a philosophy with her application of it. For instance, as I have said, esthetics is Objectivism applied but so is any other discipline from science to sociology if one uses reason applied to reality--metaphysics and epistemology--so we shouldn't talk of an Objectivist Esthetics any more than an Objectivist Psychology or Chemistry or Biology. Of the four mentioned, esthetics is the most problematic.

Now take any science well and properly done temporarily ending in the standard hypothesis-theory model. "Temporary" means the validity of a theory because it is factual and falsifiable but not yet--if ever--falsified. This science and Objectivism rest on the same axioms, but they've been doing good science before Objectivism was created. All Objectivism adds is clarification and more formal structure. We can say the next basic principle of Objecivism--its ethics--while much more than integrity thoroughly encompasses integrity and integrity--truth seeking and truth living, if you will--is essential to good and proper science as with any truth seeking enterprise. But all truth is tentative if only that it might be expanded as opposed to outright contradicted. Absolutism and certainty is acceptable if when the nature of factual knowledge changes one correspondingly changes one's mind. This way we can take the calculated risk of we might be wrong but charge ahead and get things done. There is a virtue in definitness. That's why education is so important, too. There should be an essential modesty to it all, however. That doesn't come with dogmatism, a catechism or the philosophy of Ayn Rand and Ayn Rand herself. Having a high opinion of oneself can be deserved and she deserved it, but then she went over the top.

--Brant

Brant, You've gone so overboard on empiricism, I don't recognise philosophy here, let alone Objectivism.

(Science answers to the What?, epistemology answers the How? In that sense, special sciences are dependent on the second - and while over-lapping, are distinct).

I don't get any prizes for pointing out that Objectivism is centred on the individual, body and 'soul'. ALL of it begins with him, leads to him and defends his existence. Art - while I think not always - included.

To fracture consciousness from existence, and morality from consciousness, explains why art, all along here, is being separated from the conscious mind and morality, and why this debate began on wrong premises, and has since become de-railed.

[Jules Troy]

Is it flyin faster than my bird?

http://jestephotography.deviantart.com/art/Marbled-Godwit-Mach-1-461430970

That guy was MOTORINGggggggg!

[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.

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

I got the idea that you acknowledge that Vermeer depicted volitional man from your not denying that his paintings are full of volitional activities but instead countering with, in effect, a claim that "a 'volitional' framework" isn't essential to Rand's differentiation of "Romanticiam" and "Naturalism," as she defined those terms.

However, you now go on to provide a stipulated narrow meaning of "volitional":

The mere token of painting anybody doing anything, doesn't -necessarily- show man overcoming obstacles for his rational ends. [....] I'm puzzled by your and J's attempts to make "volitional" the works of artists which are anything but.

So, for instance, playing a musical instrument isn't a "volitional" activity unless it's...what? Something like Chopin playing the piano while fighting against consumption (as tuberculosis was called then)? Something of this sort?

Your cavils have occasioned my thinking of a fatal Catch 22 in Rand's "life as it is" versus "life as it could and should be." Since Rand took as the defining difference between her meanings of "Romanticism" and "Naturalism" that the former acknowledges whereas the latter denies volition, and since "life as it is" inescapably exhibits volition, Naturalist artists fulfill her defining requirement for "Romanticist" artists and Romanticist artists, in order not to show "life as it is," have to show man as non-volitional.

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

There's no such premise on my part, nor, insofar as I've noticed, on the part of anyone else posting on the thread. She didn't invent the categories. But she did cook up a particular way of defining the categories which misses what was going on historically and caricatures "Naturalism" to suit her moral agenda, and misapplies the categories even in regard to literature as well as extending her meanings in non-applicable ways to other art forms.

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.

Tony, how many times have I said that I think that Rand was describing the function that art served for her, and that I sympathize? I get an impression that your own story has a comparable feature of a life-line provided by certain artworks. If so, I sympathize. I do not sympathize with an attempt to construct a universal theory on the basis of one's particular psychology.

Ellen

Haha, very neat! You put the four components in a blender and came up with a pretty novel outcome.

By your reckoning then, whatever is voluntary is "volitional". In that case, doing ~any~ activity at all, represents Rand's "a being of volitional consciousness". Whether it's a man at his desk writing, a man being violent, a woman knitting ...in fact any and every picture portraying a human, fits the bill. To say nothing of adding "life as it should be"- on top of them!!.

Nuh-uh. Unpack the concept "volitional", (in Objectivism) and one comes up with a whole other bunch of concepts: reason; conviction; virtues; principles; commitment; character; courage -- which are dependent on it. These--are what "volitional" implies and contains. These--require the existential affirmation and confirmation that's apparent in some art works. If any one of them is explicitly portrayed, the others are often implied too, in my experience.

I appreciate your sympathy (really) - though a few things come to mind. First, to gain spiritual fuel from art as Rand advocated (and I discovered) is not so unusual. I've noticed it in several people, (although often sub-conscious) and it's within everybody's capability. Maybe all it takes is the desire to squeeze every last drop out of an artwork, for one's lasting pleasure and moral sustenance. I'll repeat, not always, and at times there's also lasting value in Naturalist art too.

Second, if there's one great feat of Rand's, I think it is this: She expanded art.

Nothing changes, your senses are pulled in by the visuals - sure. Beauty - it's still there. You want great aesthetics - its a given. But additionally, following on top (when one finds it), is the availability of an artist's value judgments which prompt our cognitive and normative abstractions - which broaden and deepen art appreciation enormously. It is win-win.

[Brant Gaede]

By your reckoning, whatever is voluntary is "volitional". In that case, doing ~anything~ at all, represents Rand's "being of volitional consciousness". Whether it's a man at his desk writing, a man stabbing another, a woman knitting ...in fact any and every picture portraying a human, fits the bill. Heh. To say nothing of adding "life as it should be"- on top of them!!.

Nuh-uh. Unpack the concept "volitional", (in Objectivism) and one comes up with a whole other bunch of concepts: reason; conviction; virtues; principles; commitment; character; courage -- which are dependent on it. These--are what "volitional" implies and contains. These--require the existential affirmation and confirmation that's apparent in some art works. If any one of them is explicitly portrayed, the others are often implied too, in my experience.

I appreciate your sympathy (really) - though a few things come to mind. First, to gain spiritual fuel from art as Rand advocated (and I discovered) is not so unusual. I've noticed it in several people, (although often sub-conscious) and it's within everybody's capability. Maybe all it takes is the desire to squeeze every last drop out of an artwork, for one's lasting pleasure and moral sustenance. I'll repeat, not always, and at times there's also lasting value in Naturalist art too.

Second, if there's one great feat of Rand's, I think it is this: She expanded art.

Nothing changes, your senses are pulled in by the visuals - sure. Beauty - it's still there. You want great aesthetics - its a given. But additionally, following on top (when one finds it), is the availability of an artist's value judgments which prompt our cognitive and normative abstractions - which broaden and deepen art appreciation enormously. It is win-win.

"Cognitive . . . abstractions" is a gross redundancy. It's not that the sentence they are used in is necessarily wrong, it's that it's bloviated. Of course one is considering an artist's "value judgments," but that doesn't mean one knows what they are only how they are perceived through one's own. An artist's value judgments may be shit, but yours not shit so you don't see shit. Or vice versa and all the stuff in between, even shit to shit--think of Hitler and architecture--or great to great. Imagining you, the great art appreciator, and the other guy, the great artist, are normatively-esthetically separated at birth twins, finally gloriously finding each other through his art, dancing through the tulips with a positively altered state of consciousness and good for him and good for you, but it's all you!

There is no "should be" in value judgments in art. You keep trying to introduce a moral universal into esthetics, but esthetics are after the fact. Prior, they are restrictive and destructive--to the artist! In this sense Howard Roark was a true--free-artist. He was not in the least existentially restrained in the creative realm by people and their good or bad ideas on esthetics. That's why he used dynamite! His constraint was reality only. He built his man caves his way--for people to live and be in considering human nature, sure, but if they didn't like the esthetics go find yourself another architect! Do you desire to put Howard Roark in chains?

--Brant

Mallory might shoot you (where's the "normative" in that?)

Rand: you and me and my husband are in a lifeboat and one has to go so the others survive--fuck your "rights": so long!

there are two philosophy of Ayn Rand Objectivisms: she never gave up the proto (her will) philosophy even when she dished out the official one (her will on you)--and then there is the basic and simple and universal Objectivism (no esthetics!)

[Ellen Stuttle]

By your reckoning then, whatever is voluntary is "volitional". In that case, doing ~any~ activity at all, represents Rand's "a being of volitional consciousness". Whether it's a man at his desk writing, a man being violent, a woman knitting ...in fact any and every picture portraying a human, fits the bill. To say nothing of adding "life as it should be"- on top of them!!.

Nuh-uh. Unpack the concept "volitional", (in Objectivism) and one comes up with a whole other bunch of concepts: reason; conviction; virtues; principles; commitment; character; courage -- which are dependent on it. These--are what "volitional" implies and contains. These--require the existential affirmation and confirmation that's apparent in some art works. If any one of them is explicitly portrayed, the others are often implied too, in my experience.

Ah, that might be a clue. So you're taking "volition" in an art work as meaning the display of Rand's idea of a properly human, volitionally activated consciousness? Yes?

Repeating a previous statement of yours and a question I asked. Please answer the question directly.

The mere token of painting anybody doing anything, doesn't -necessarily- show man overcoming obstacles for his rational ends. [....] I'm puzzled by your and J's attempts to make "volitional" the works of artists which are anything but.

So, for instance, playing a musical instrument isn't a "volitional" activity unless it's...what? Something like Chopin playing the piano while fighting against consumption (as tuberculosis was called then)? Something of this sort?

Ellen

[anthony]

By your reckoning then, whatever is voluntary is "volitional". In that case, doing ~any~ activity at all, represents Rand's "a being of volitional consciousness". Whether it's a man at his desk writing, a man being violent, a woman knitting ...in fact any and every picture portraying a human, fits the bill. To say nothing of adding "life as it should be"- on top of them!!.

Nuh-uh. Unpack the concept "volitional", (in Objectivism) and one comes up with a whole other bunch of concepts: reason; conviction; virtues; principles; commitment; character; courage -- which are dependent on it. These--are what "volitional" implies and contains. These--require the existential affirmation and confirmation that's apparent in some art works. If any one of them is explicitly portrayed, the others are often implied too, in my experience.

Ah, that might be a clue. So you're taking "volition" in an art work as meaning the display of Rand's idea of a properly human, volitionally activated consciousness? Yes?

Repeating a previous statement of yours and a question I asked. Please answer the question directly.

The mere token of painting anybody doing anything, doesn't -necessarily- show man overcoming obstacles for his rational ends. [....] I'm puzzled by your and J's attempts to make "volitional" the works of artists which are anything but.

So, for instance, playing a musical instrument isn't a "volitional" activity unless it's...what? Something like Chopin playing the piano while fighting against consumption (as tuberculosis was called then)? Something of this sort?

Ellen

Yes. No.

I'd think that advocating volitional consciousness demands the question, "Volition, to what ends?"

The purpose, objectively-speaking, is to gain those attributes and virtues I listed roughly. It follows then, that a depiction in art representing at least one of those attributes - would also depict man is a being of volitional consciousness. Broadly. To repeat, a youngster should recognise many such attributes, and mostly will imo.(Depending on the artist's skill).

The last question is remarkably literalist by premise. How would you know the subject is Chopin, or what he's suffering from, or that he is courageously overcoming his disease to create and compose? Ive gone on about the art work as "stand alone" and "end in itself", as you know well. This is an imaginary painting, not an imaginary novel, yeah? A hell of an ask, for a visual artist to portray Romantically.

But it gives me a clue about jumping to cognitive conclusions too early...which has interested me.

[Jonathan]

By your reckoning then, whatever is voluntary is "volitional". In that case, doing ~any~ activity at all, represents Rand's "a being of volitional consciousness". Whether it's a man at his desk writing, a man being violent, a woman knitting ...in fact any and every picture portraying a human, fits the bill. To say nothing of adding "life as it should be"- on top of them!!.

Nuh-uh. Unpack the concept "volitional", (in Objectivism) and one comes up with a whole other bunch of concepts: reason; conviction; virtues; principles; commitment; character; courage -- which are dependent on it. These--are what "volitional" implies and contains. These--require the existential affirmation and confirmation that's apparent in some art works. If any one of them is explicitly portrayed, the others are often implied too, in my experience.

I think that the above perfectly represents the mindset which gives birth to all of the characters leaping about with their heads thrown back in ObjectiKitsch, and all of the other tasteless over-posing, blunt signaling and artlessness.

The funny thing is that I think that Rand would vomit if she were alive to see her followers attempting to apply her literary theory to the visual arts. They'd get another scolding about their being so impossibly stupid as to misunderstand her, and then she'd praise her husband again as being the only person who could unerringly identify which works of art she would appreciate for their true Romanticism.

Second, if there's one great feat of Rand's, I think it is this: She expanded art.

No, she didn't expand art, but unsuccessfully attempted to contract it and limit it to her personal, subjective tastes. The only people who think that she expanded it are her followers who were ignorant of art to begin with, and who naively bought into her posing as an expert on the subject.

Anyway, here are some examples of visual art. I was hoping, Tony, that you could tell us, using your powers of Objectivist objectivity and volition detection, which, if any, are "Romantic" by Rand's meaning of the term:

Are any of these "Romantic"? If so, where, specifically, is the volition (the "reason; conviction; virtues; principles; commitment; character; courage" that you assert that a "child should recognize")?

J

[Brant Gaede]

I saw the last one in person at the Hammer Gallery in early 1970. The artist was of the opinion it was a composite of Ayn Rand and some actress (or maybe his wife)--that is, he emphatically agreed with the observation (not mine; I only saw Rand as she ought to be-should be). I thought at the time he was looking for a sale so he painted it for NYC and wealthy Objectivists. Peikoff finally ended up with it, I think. Must have got it from his mentor as part of her estate. Somebody paid way too much--everything was way over-priced. I'd only put the second on my wall. I like the first but it really does nothing for me. The repro of the third is too dark. It's bad but not that bad. The fourth work is a nice combo sea and skyscape. Unfortunately, the artist added to it. Next, why a lovely naked woman would be looking at a bunch of poorly rendered ugly skyscrapers across the harbor is beyond me. (She needs a warship going by with a deck full of whistling sailors giving them a wave? No, but she's not getting what she needs.)

The Hammer Gallery was the baby, I think, of the notorious Sovietphile Armand Hammer. I didn't see Rand there, but she was at the reception and Blumerthal piano recital elsewhere that evening. I left after the reception with Allan banging away in the attached auditorium as I went out the door. He didn't sound bad, but I had to catch the last bus to Jersey.

--Brant