Michelle Marder Kamhi's "Who Says That's Art?"

[Ellen Stuttle]

I think she meant an imaginative re-doing of abstractions formed from reality. Roger, who I see has piped in, calls this forming a "microcosm."

Abstractions? Gasp!!! As in the historical meaning of "abstract art"?!!!

No, NOT as in "the historical meaning of 'abstract art.'" As in Rand's meaning of "abstraction" - which you sometimes use and sometimes don't. See the next post.

If emotions are re-created in music, then shouldn't "ordinary citizens" of " the public" be able to identify which emotions are being re-created as easily as they'd be able to identify, say, an apple versus a walnut in a painting?

You know perfectly well that Rand thought that music contains "depersonalized" emotional-abstraction content which all hearers detect and describe in approximately equivalent terms. We went over this multiple times on the "Religious Music..." thread.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

Sometimes the Emperor really is naked.

Is it possible, in your mind, that Frank Lloyd Wright could see and experience some things in architecture that Kamhi and Torres can't? Or do you think that it's an insult to believe that he had some visual/spatial viewing skills and sensitivities that they lack?

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

Abstractions? Gasp!!! As in the historical meaning of "abstract art"?!!!

At variance with what you say is the "historic"meaning of "abstract art," you said in an earlier post, #197, that you think that some music - and some "abstract art" abstracts emotions in just the sense Rand meant by "abstraction."

I'll quote from my reply to you (#208) and emphasize your use of Rand s meaning of "abstraction" in boldface.

When Rand speaks of art forming an "abstraction," she means a generalized form - the essence - without the details of the particulars. That's the way she means it when she talks of music as presenting "an abstraction of man's emotions."

And that's what I'm saying music doesn't do, not that it sometimes does and sometimes doesn't. Thus, when you say that you agree in this response, actually you aren't agreeing.

That musical forms can suggest and can arouse emotions doesn't mean that the forms come from a distillation of, an abstraction from emotions.

I agree. Music's means may include abstractions from emotions, but it may also include other means, including abstraction from attributes and behaviors.

I'm saying that the music's suggesting or arousing emotions isn't occurring because the music is abstracting from emotions - or from anything else.

I think that emotional abstraction is one means that both music and abstract visual art might employ, but I don't think that either form is limited to emotional abstraction. Music's means may include abstractions from emotions, but it may also include other means, including abstraction from attributes and behavior.

That's you, using Rand's meaning of "abstraction" and saying that it applies to "abstract" art and to music.

On the other hand, in the same post of yours, you say that in calling music an "abstract art form," you mean that music:

[...] does not present identifiable aural likenesses of things from reality.

So which is it?

(Also, in a subsequent post, you say that you got this meaning as applied to music from Kamhi, but in recent posts you're talking about "historic tradition.")

Ellen

[Jonathan]

I think she meant an imaginative re-doing of abstractions formed from reality. Roger, who I see has piped in, calls this forming a "microcosm."

Abstractions? Gasp!!! As in the historical meaning of "abstract art"?!!!

No, NOT as in "the historical meaning of 'abstract art.'" As in Rand's meaning of "abstraction" - which you sometimes use and sometimes don't. See the next post.

I'm at the point where I don't even know if you know what "abstract art" means in the historical sense.

If emotions are re-created in music, then shouldn't "ordinary citizens" of " the public" be able to identify which emotions are being re-created as easily as they'd be able to identify, say, an apple versus a walnut in a painting?

You know perfectly well that Rand thought that music contains "depersonalized" emotional-abstraction content which all hearers detect and describe in approximately equivalent terms. We went over this multiple times on the "Religious Music..." thread.

Ellen

I know that Rand made bald assertions about what she wanted to believe about all listeners detecting and describing things in music. I have yet to see any scientific proof to back up those assertions.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

A more general comment:

Your suggestion of throwing music out of the "art" category if it presents difficulties in terms of a proffered definition is completely backward.

Music is arguably the most venerable ancestor of the very idea of "the arts." All the muses sang, and each was associated with a musical instrument. Music has been since antiquity a primary phenomenon which people are trying to understand in theorizing about "art." If there's a problem about music's fit under a definition of "art," it's the definition which needs adjusting or discarding, not music which needs abandoning.

Ditto shapes and colors and textures! And I couldn't agree more about definitions needing adjusting or discarding!

Ditto what about shapes and colors and textures? Are you now claiming that there was a muse of abstract painting and sculpture?

And if you agree about definitions needing adjusting or discarding, then why do you spend so much verbiage arguing/mocking in terms of Rand's views instead of getting about forming a theory of and definition of art of your own?

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Jonathan,

We cross-posted. Alerting you in case you missed my #353.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

A more general comment:

Your suggestion of throwing music out of the "art" category if it presents difficulties in terms of a proffered definition is completely backward.

Music is arguably the most venerable ancestor of the very idea of "the arts." All the muses sang, and each was associated with a musical instrument. Music has been since antiquity a primary phenomenon which people are trying to understand in theorizing about "art." If there's a problem about music's fit under a definition of "art," it's the definition which needs adjusting or discarding, not music which needs abandoning.

Ditto shapes and colors and textures! And I couldn't agree more about definitions needing adjusting or discarding!

Ditto what about shapes and colors and textures? Are you now claiming that there was a muse of abstract painting and sculpture?

People created arrangements of shapes, colors and textures for expressive purposes in ancient times, just as they created music. They didn't artificially divide the visual arts into "fine" versus "decorative" arts based on certain individuals' personal inabilities to experience anything of depth in non-figurative works.

And if you agree about definitions needing adjusting or discarding, then why do you spend so much verbiage arguing/mocking in terms of Rand's views instead of getting about forming a theory of and definition of art of your own?

How did you arrive at the conclusion that I can't do both at the same time?

Btw, where's your theory? Why do you spend so much verbiage attempting to not see the forest, and not because of the trees, but because you're hoping to find a slightly misplaced electron in an atom in a molecule in a cell in vein in a leaf on one of the trees? Instead of arguing/mocking my criticisms of Rand or Kamhi, post your theory!

J

[Brant Gaede]

This thread has been thrown up upon a fulminating plateau. It wants to fulminate but it can't.

--Brant

I have this hellish reddish image in my head I gotta paint: where's the nearest art school?

lava flowing out and spurting up all over the place as my brain re-creates reality using my metaphysical value judgments

(I'm beginning to understand why so many artists go nutso)

[Ellen Stuttle]

I know that Rand made bald assertions about what she wanted to believe about all listeners detecting and describing things in music. I have yet to see any scientific proof to back up those assertions.

Michael offered a slew of scientific sources. Have you looked at any of them?

Instead of arguing/mocking my criticisms of Rand or Kamhi, post your theory!

I'm actually trying to discuss Rand and Kamhi (and other theorists), but you make this difficult to do past all your distorting. (Speaking of other theorists, do you have criticisms of Dutton?)

Another thing I'm trying to do in recent posts is to get you to drop your ridiculous meaning attributions to those two paintings. You've shot your own feet full of holes with those.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

Abstractions? Gasp!!! As in the historical meaning of "abstract art"?!!!

At variance with what you say is the "historic"meaning of "abstract art," you said in an earlier post, #197, that you think that some music - and some "abstract art" abstracts emotions in just the sense Rand meant by "abstraction."

I'll quote from my reply to you (#208) and emphasize your use of Rand s meaning of "abstraction" in boldface.

When Rand speaks of art forming an "abstraction," she means a generalized form - the essence - without the details of the particulars. That's the way she means it when she talks of music as presenting "an abstraction of man's emotions."

And that's what I'm saying music doesn't do, not that it sometimes does and sometimes doesn't. Thus, when you say that you agree in this response, actually you aren't agreeing.

That musical forms can suggest and can arouse emotions doesn't mean that the forms come from a distillation of, an abstraction from emotions.

I agree. Music's means may include abstractions from emotions, but it may also include other means, including abstraction from attributes and behaviors.

I'm saying that the music's suggesting or arousing emotions isn't occurring because the music is abstracting from emotions - or from anything else.

I think that emotional abstraction is one means that both music and abstract visual art might employ, but I don't think that either form is limited to emotional abstraction. Music's means may include abstractions from emotions, but it may also include other means, including abstraction from attributes and behavior.

That's you, using Rand's meaning of "abstraction" and saying that it applies to "abstract" art and to music.

Yes, it's me using Rand's meaning of "abstraction" as it might apply to abstract art and to music because I was responding to your having brought up Rand's notion of abstraction in regard to abstract art and music. I didn't know at the time that you were confusing "abstract art" with Rand's notion of "abstraction," so I was entertaining you introducing Rand's notion of "abstraction" to the discussion.

Now, carefully reread what I wrote in response to you then (with emphasis added): "Music's means may include abstractions from emotions," and "I think that emotional abstraction is one means that both music and abstract visual art might employ."

On the other hand, in the same post of yours, you say that in calling music an "abstract art form," you mean that music:

[...] does not present identifiable aural likenesses of things from reality.

So which is it?

Do you not understand what an "identifiable aural likeness" is?

(Also, in a subsequent post, you say that you got this meaning as applied to music from Kamhi, but in recent posts you're talking about "historic tradition.")

You should start reading more carefully. I've already said that Kamhi's meaning is the historical meaning. When she writes about "abstract art," she is not referring to Rand's epistemological notion of "abstraction." Rather, she is referring to the historical definition within the arts.

J

[Jonathan]

Michael offered a slew of scientific sources. Have you looked at any of them?

Yes, I've looked at them. They don't contain scientific proof of people identifying the same emotional content in music. They don't contain what I asked about in that discussion. They're interesting speculations, and they contain mentions of certain scientific tests being used by some people in their explorations and investigations, but they don't contain what I asked about.

I'm actually trying to discuss Rand and Kamhi (and other theorists), but you make this difficult to do past all your distorting. (Speaking of other theorists, do you have criticisms of Dutton?)

I'm not distorting anything. Well, it's possible that my forest has one or two electrons slightly misplaced accidentally. But my main point -- that Kamhi's entire argument comes down to her arbitrarily promoting her own aesthetic limitations to the status of universal standard -- contains no distortion. Her position is based on nothing but her personally not getting anything of depth out of the art forms that she rejects.

Another thing I'm trying to do in recent posts is to get you to drop your ridiculous meaning attributions to those two paintings. You've shot your own feet full of holes with those.

My identifying meaning in those paintings, and others doing so as well, shouldn't be taken as my saying that I think that the identifications of such detailed meanings is possible or required in all art, or by all people.

Anyway, by what rational standard do you judge my identifications of the paintings' meanings to be ridiculous?

J

[Jonathan]

Jonathan in #340: "Do all fugues "re-create" the same thing? Do they all therefore mean the same thing or express the same emotional content? No? If they don't express the same meanings or emotions, then their "conversation" aspect is not their essential characteristic, and therefore there must be some other thing which is being "re-created" which does express the differences in meaning or emotion. Specifically what is that something?"

"The same thing"? Depends on your level of specificity. Certainly not the same emotional content, any more than one song is likely to express the same emotional content as another.

Indeed, so then, what is the answer to my question above? If two different fugues don't express the same emotions, then their "conversation" aspect is not their essential characteristic, and therefore there must be some other thing which is being "re-created" which does express the differences in emotion. Specifically what is that something?

J

[Jonathan]

Jonathan in #348: "If I personally don't feel an emotion that you say exists in the music, shouldn't I accuse you of having an Emperor's New Clothes attitude, and of pretending to experience the emotion so as to impress elitists like Deryck Cooke and Helmholtz and their mindless accolytes? In fact, doesn't my not feeling it prove that you are pretending to feel it, if we use Kamhi's method?"

Not unless your name is...Bob (see post #347).

:-)

REB

Why can't I declare myself to be the limit of aesthetic experience just as Kamhi does? Is it because my level of aesthetic competence in the visual arts actually has some demonstrable merit to back it up, and that's not the way that it works? Is the idea that only those who lack demonstrable competence are worthy of being the universal standard and limit?

You and Kamhi disagree on architecture's qualifying as an art form. So therefore are you, Roger, accepting Kamhi as the standard and limit of legitimate aesthetic response, and therefore admitting that you're pretending to have deep enough aesthetic experiences in architecture to classify it as an art form? Or do you only accept her appointing herself as the universal standard when you happen to agree with her or share her limitations?

Or are you the universal standard and limit? If so, how did you get that position? With several Objectivish-types claiming or implying that they're each the universal standard and limit, how are we outsiders to decide which one is truly The One? Wouldn't the safest bet be for us to go with whichever is the least aesthetically sensitive/competent?

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

That's you, using Rand's meaning of "abstraction" and saying that it applies to "abstract" art and to music.

Yes, it's me using Rand's meaning of "abstraction" as it might apply to abstract art and to music because I was responding to your having brought up Rand's notion of abstraction in regard to abstract art and music. I didn't know at the time that you were confusing "abstract art" with Rand's notion of "abstraction," so I was entertaining you introducing Rand's notion of "abstraction" to the discussion.

Now, carefully reread what I wrote in response to you then (with emphasis added): "Music's means may include abstractions from emotions," and "I think that emotional abstraction is one means that both music and abstract visual art might employ."

On the other hand, in the same post of yours, you say that in calling music an "abstract art form," you mean that music:

[...] does not present identifiable aural likenesses of things from reality.

So which is it?

Do you not understand what an "identifiable aural likeness" is?

If music "may" and "might" include/employ "abstractions from emotions," then sometimes - according to you - music IS presenting "identifiable aural likenesses of things in reality," unless you think that emotions don't exist in reality, or unless you're meaning narrowly visual "aural likenesses."

(Also, in a subsequent post, you say that you got this meaning as applied to music from Kamhi, but in recent posts you're talking about "historic tradition.")

You should start reading more carefully. I've already said that Kamhi's meaning is the historical meaning. When she writes about "abstract art," she is not referring to Rand's epistemological notion of "abstraction." Rather, she is referring to the historical definition within the arts.

Kamhi was referring to the historic definition within the arts as applied to visual art. She wasn't talking about music. I was asking where you got the extending of the meaning from visual arts to music.

Speaking of reading carefully, that's a joke with the way you take things Rand and Kamhi (and even I) say out of context. Plus your saying you "agree" with things I say which in fact you aren't agreeing with.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

I'm actually trying to discuss Rand and Kamhi (and other theorists), but you make this difficult to do past all your distorting. (Speaking of other theorists, do you have criticisms of Dutton?)

I'm not distorting anything. Well, it's possible that my forest has one or two electrons slightly misplaced accidentally. But my main point -- that Kamhi's entire argument comes down to her arbitrarily promoting her own aesthetic limitations to the status of universal standard -- contains no distortion. Her position is based on nothing but her personally not getting anything of depth out of the art forms that she rejects.

I don't agree. I'll possibly come back to your charges against Kamhi later.

Another thing I'm trying to do in recent posts is to get you to drop your ridiculous meaning attributions to those two paintings. You've shot your own feet full of holes with those.

My identifying meaning in those paintings, and others doing so as well, shouldn't be taken as my saying that I think that the identifications of such detailed meanings is possible or required in all art, or by all people.

Anyway, by what rational standard do you judge my identifications of the paintings' meanings to be ridiculous?

Reprising (from post #214) the two paintings Jonathan and I are talking about, with a statement by Jonathan about the "meaning" of each directly under it.

[J] "Its meaning is that mankind should be strong and bold, and pursue his passions."

[J] "Its meaning is that peace and gentleness are important human qualities."

Ellen

The paintings do not have the signifier and/or symbol capacity to carry the discursive meanings you attribute to them - unless, as I've said before, the persons who painted them handed out sign-language-type vocabulary codes, but then that would be cryptology, not art.

In short: You're making the art equivalent of a category error in logic.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

This thread has been thrown up upon a fulminating plateau. It wants to fulminate but it can't.

--Brant

I have this hellish reddish image in my head I gotta paint: where's the nearest art school?

lava flowing out and spurting up all over the place as my brain re-creates reality using my metaphysical value judgments

(I'm beginning to understand why so many artists go nutso)

That's odd. I see this thread as cool blue. I see it as me having dowsed an arsonist's little brush fire with cold, refreshing water.

J

[Jonathan]

I'm actually trying to discuss Rand and Kamhi (and other theorists), but you make this difficult to do past all your distorting. (Speaking of other theorists, do you have criticisms of Dutton?)

I'm not distorting anything. Well, it's possible that my forest has one or two electrons slightly misplaced accidentally. But my main point -- that Kamhi's entire argument comes down to her arbitrarily promoting her own aesthetic limitations to the status of universal standard -- contains no distortion. Her position is based on nothing but her personally not getting anything of depth out of the art forms that she rejects.

I don't agree. I'll possibly come back to your charges against Kamhi later.

Another thing I'm trying to do in recent posts is to get you to drop your ridiculous meaning attributions to those two paintings. You've shot your own feet full of holes with those.

My identifying meaning in those paintings, and others doing so as well, shouldn't be taken as my saying that I think that the identifications of such detailed meanings is possible or required in all art, or by all people.

Anyway, by what rational standard do you judge my identifications of the paintings' meanings to be ridiculous?

Reprising (from post #214) the two paintings Jonathan and I are talking about, with a statement by Jonathan about the "meaning" of each directly under it.

[J] "Its meaning is that mankind should be strong and bold, and pursue his passions."

[J] "Its meaning is that peace and gentleness are important human qualities."

Ellen

The paintings do not have the signifier and/or symbol capacity to carry the discursive meanings you attribute to them - unless, as I've said before, the persons who painted them handed out sign-language-type vocabulary codes, but then that would be cryptology, not art.

In short: You're making the art equivalent of a category error in logic.

Ellen

No, you're just still not grasping that a nonverbal means of communication can be translated by the receiver into a verbal explanation. You're still mistakenly insisting that communication is limited to symbols/discursive means.

You still haven't answered my question about a realistic painting of a mother and child.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

That's odd. I see this thread as cool blue. I see it as me having dowsed an arsonist's little brush fire with cold, refreshing water.

J

I see the thread as a person who can't stand anyone's having the opinion that art he likes isn't art producing hash.

It's amazing, Jonathan, the way you claim victories which you haven't won.

The usual.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

No, you're just still not grasping that a nonverbal means of communication can be translated by the receiver into a verbal explanation. You're still mistakenly insisting that communication is limited to symbols/discursive means.

You still haven't answered my question about a realistic painting of a mother and child.

J

I'm insisting on no such thing as "that communication is limited to symbols/discursive means." If that were the case, non-human earth animals couldn't communicate, and an enormous amount of human non-discursive communication which does occur couldn't occur.

You're still misunderstanding the issue.

I don't recall the question you refer to. I might not have seen all of your posts on the thread.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

I see the thread as a person who can't stand anyone's having the opinion that art he likes isn't art producing hash.

It's amazing, Jonathan, the way you claim victories which you haven't won.

The usual.

Ellen

I've said nothing about liking any of the art that I've been discussing or giving as examples.

Ellen, you're trying very hard to read into my statements what's not there. You're failing miserably. There's a lot of abstract and postmodernist art that I personally dislike. There's some that does nothing for me either way. My liking or disliking a work of art has nothing to do with my accepting it as qualifying as a work of art.

J

[Jonathan]

Kamhi was referring to the historic definition within the arts as applied to visual art. She wasn't talking about music. I was asking where you got the extending of the meaning from visual arts to music.

Heh. I applied the meaning to music, not "extended" it! What do you mean in asking where I got the "extending" of the meaning?!!!

If someone is talking about molten gold, and then I apply the concept of "molten" to chocolate, would you object that I was "extending" the meaning to chocolate? As if "molten" somehow refers exclusively to gold, and that it is an unnatural, inappropriate, and incommensurate "extension" to apply it to anything else?!!!

Jesus.

Indeed, you are correct that Kamhi was not talking about music when talking about abstract art. I was!!!! I was identifying the fact that music is the aural equivalent of visual abstract art in that it does not present identifiable aural likenesses of things in reality, just as visual abstract art does not present identifiable visual likenesses of things in reality. Both generally deal with mere inessential attributes abstracted from things in reality. Music's abstractness is the reason that Fred Seddon calls it "aural wallpaper" and describes people identifying very different things in the same piece -- or "reading into it" or "attributing to it what's not there," as you like to say.

J

[anthony]

"Whose mind?" We keep coming back to this.

Yes, we keep coming back to "whose mind?" because you keep refusing to answer the question. You keep referring to your own personal limitations as representing the limit of what "man's mind" is capable of.

Your mind. My mind. Man's mind. Objectivism, identity, consciousness.

If my mind counts as "man's mind," then why do my aesthetic responses not count as valid, but only yours, Kamhi's and Torres's do? Why do you assert that my aesthetic responses are pretend, that I'm not thinking for myself but am mindlessly following the orders of an elite arts establishment?

I believe that you can be objective and I know that I can be. But as long as you are stuck in an 'empirical-universal' mode, you aren't going to find that ultimate 'proof' you look for.

I'm not stuck in an empircal-universal mode. Jesus, you are dense! Um, have you not been paying attention to the fact that you've been referring to "man's mind" and its limitations in this discussion? Haven't you noticed that you have not been referring to only your own mind and your personal limits of experience, but that you've been asserting that "man's mind" is not capable of anything beyond what your mind is capable of? How are you not grasping that you are the one who is making a universal claim about the limits of cognitive ability of all of mankind? Idiot!

(Until the last person on earth has been interviewed, and the final scientific test completed - and even then, how does anyone know anything for certain?).

Jesus. Where do you come up with these insane misinterpretations of what I'm saying?!!!

My position is not that we can't know anything for certain. My position isn't that we would have to test the entire population for anything. My position is that "man's mind" is not limited to what your mind is limited to. "Man's mind" is also not limited to what my mind is limited to. I suck at math. That doesn't mean that all of mankind sucks at math. Understand?

J

I think I do (understand).

First - you are kidding me! I could go back, if I bothered, and count the number of times, in a few threads, you've asked me to "Prove it!" or "Show me the science" (to that effect). Other times, you have considered what the consensus of opinion of many people would be. That isn't the nature of the "mind of man", Objectively speaking.

Next, I guess from Torres - and what I know of Kamhi - that they are conceptualizing art, in the manner of Rand. That takes some doing. Abstracting abstractions until one arrives at an over all principle, or principles. It's soft and easy criticism of these efforts to point at one purported stylistic mistake or exception, and scoff: "See, he/she is wrong" and "They can't even recognize that this painting's perpective is off!" "So what authority can they have...?"

From the instance of one painting to the broadest concept of all art, ever, and back down again - from principle to a single example - is rather like herding thousands of cats, I think. Several will escape. There will be some ambiguities and ambivalence, some misinterpretations and some areas for personal disagreement among otherwise totally assenting, rational individuals. However, it's counter-reality and -reason (i.e. identity and consciousness), for one to remain concrete bound in singular instances. Additionally, it has to be rationalistic to embrace all instances of anyone's daubs of paint on some surface (and all the many, many variations on that theme) and to then decree: "This must be art - all of it - and I won't accept argument!"

[Roger Bissell]

Jonathan in #371: "Indeed, you are correct that Kamhi was not talking about music when talking about abstract art. I was!!!! I was identifying the fact that music is the aural equivalent of visual abstract art in that it does not present identifiable aural likenesses of things in reality, just as visual abstract art does not present identifiable visual likenesses of things in reality. Both generally deal with mere inessential attributes abstracted from things in reality. Music's abstractness is the reason that Fred Seddon calls it "aural wallpaper" and describes people identifying very different things in the same piece -- or "reading into it" or "attributing to it what's not there," as you like to say."

I wish we all had the shared context of the discussion by the Blumenthals in their 1974 lectures on music. They knew *so* much more than Rand (who attended) did about music. They talked at length about how the themes in a sonata form piece functioned like the characters in a novel. (I'm sure there are people who can listen to sonatas and not grasp this metaphor.) This is how such music, while not presenting visual images of entities, is nonetheless essentially *like* representational painting, and essentially *unlike* non-representational painting. Like I said before, you're conflating two very different senses of "abstract," and only one, the one not supportive of your point, applies to 18th and 19th century music (and much of 20th that did not descend into the abyss of aleatoric or serial music).

Just as non-representational painting dispenses with identifiable visual likenesses of things in reality, non-representational modern music dispenses with recognizable melody, the *analog* of identifiable visual likenesses of things in reality. That is why lumping, say, sonatas and symphonies from the 1700s and 1800s in with aleatoric or serial compositions from the early 1900s and calling them all "abstract" is a hideous package-deal. The latter are very much like non-representational modern painting and the former are very much *not.* It's smearing traditional tonal music to call it "abstract," as if it were in the fundamentally same sense as visual abstract art.

As to an earlier point - yes, colors and visual textures can convey certain moods, just as musical tone color and texture can convey moods. But this is background or foundational stuff. There is much more artistic merit in depicting a person or melody with deeply effective color, timbre, texture elements to support it, than in merely presenting those elements alone. Unlike Rand or Kamhi (I presume), I wouldn't throw out the latter and call it non-art. But I wouldn't give it the same exalted status as the former either. (My objection to "modern" abstract art isn't that it claims to be art but isn't, but that some of it claims to be profound and non-arbitrarily representing in the world.)

REB

[Jonathan]

I think I do (understand).

First - you are kidding me! I could go back, if I bothered, and count the number of times, in a few threads, you've asked me to "Prove it!" or "Show me the science" (to that effect). Other times, you have considered what the consensus of opinion of many people would be. That isn't the nature of the "mind of man", Objectively speaking.

You're so lost that I'm not even interested in responding to the above. What waste of time that would be.

Next, I guess from Torres - and what I know of Kamhi - that they are conceptualizing art, in the manner of Rand. That takes some doing. Abstracting abstractions until one arrives at an over all principle, or principles. It's soft and easy criticism of these efforts to point at one purported mistake or exception, and scoff: "See, he/she is wrong" and "They can't even recognize that this painting's perpective is off!" "So what authority can they have...?"

Oh, but they are posing as having authority, and they pretend to judge visual art objectively. So, when one or both claim that student-grade work is superior, world-class art, it most definitely has relevance to questions of the validity of their methods.

And, btw, it's not just Capuletti's perspective that is off, but his anatomy and color usage as well. He was not the quality artist that Torres rates him to be. Therefore Torres must be confusing his personal subjective tastes -- his likes -- with an objective judgment of Capuletti's talent. Perhaps he doesn't know the difference. I suspect that he doesn't. His comments on Capuletti suggest that he doesn't have even the most basic technical knowledge of the visual arts. He appears to be quite visually aesthetically incompetent.

Torres' arbitrary declaration that miniature realistic sculptures are not art is yet another example of the irrational authoritarian nature of his method, and it demonstrates the falsehood of his claims of objectivity and rationality.

From one instance of a painting to the broadest concept of all art, ever, and back down again - from principle to a single example - is rather like herding thousands of cats, I think. Several will escape. There will be some innocent errors, some misinterpretations and some areas for personal disagreement among otherwise totally assenting rational individuals. However, it's counter-reality and -reason (i.e. identity and consciousness), to remain concrete bound in singular instances. Additionally, it has to be rationalistic to embrace all instances of anyone's daubs of paint on some surface (and all the many, many variations on that theme) and to then decree: "This must be art - all of it - and I won't accept argument!"

What is actually rationalistic -- or actually I should say highly irrational -- is for people who have no real technical knowledge of the various art forms to decree: "This must not be art -- none of it -- and I won't accept argument!" That's what Kamhi and Torres do.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

I see the thread as a person who can't stand anyone's having the opinion that art he likes isn't art producing hash.

It's amazing, Jonathan, the way you claim victories which you haven't won.

The usual.

Ellen

I've said nothing about liking any of the art that I've been discussing or giving as examples.

Ellen, you're trying very hard to read into my statements what's not there. You're failing miserably. There's a lot of abstract and postmodernist art that I personally dislike. There's some that does nothing for me either way. My liking or disliking a work of art has nothing to do with my accepting it as qualifying as a work of art.

J

Jonathan, you're trying very hard to get off on a technicality, "a work" versus a type of work.

Or is it someone else I've been reading all these years talking about the deep emotional reactions he can have to non-representational painting and sculpture?

Ellen