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

[moralist]

PDS writes:...unless you're claiming Jonathan to be a "leftist"

To me, everyone else is a leftist. :laugh:Only leftists try to pawn off crap as art. But the swindle plays well to the other leftists who buy into it so each deserves the other.

Do you ever tire of saying the same thing over and over and over?

No. Because the principle aptly applies to the specific situation. But I do understand that's likely to bother the leftists who disagree with it. :wink:Greg

[Newberry]

Continuing with Kahmi's book she touches on some Zeki studies on how much and what part of the brain is engaged looking at colors as the properties of objects vs abstract color fields. Not surprisingly ""much larger parts of the brain are activated" by colored images than by colors in an abstract context." It also involved "regions of the brain traditionally associated with higher cognitive functions."

[william.scherk]

Continuing with Kahmi's book she touches on some Zeki studies on how much and what part of the brain is engaged looking at colors as the properties of objects vs abstract color fields. Not surprisingly ""much larger parts of the brain are activated" by colored images than by colors in an abstract context." It also involved "regions of the brain traditionally associated with higher cognitive functions."

Is the passage mentioning Zeki studies the same as quoted in #253?

If so, Kamhi is likely to be referring to a particular 1998 study by Zeki and collaborator Ludovica Marini, "Three cortical stages of colour processing in the human brain" -- she cites this particular study in notes to her 2012 article at Aristos -- "Understanding Contemporary Art."

I read the Zeki article -- it's fairly dense -- and scoped out a few places that may be interesting to discussants. Here's excerpts from the Zeki article that no doubt caught Kamhi's eye:

It is interesting to note that the use of the Land colour Mondrian stimulus activates relatively early parts of the visual pathways, including V4, but that the activity does not spread more anteriorly within the temporal lobe and does not involve the hippocampus or the frontal lobe, regions of the brain traditionally associated with higher cognitive functions.

[...]

The neurology of representational and abstract art

We are aware that we are exposing ourselves to possible ridicule when we say that part of the inspiration for these experiments was derived from the fauvist school of painting. Yet it is difficult to deny that that inspiration has resulted in interesting results about the functioning of the visual brain. In particular, it is evident that fauvist art had, unknowingly, used cerebral pathways that are quite distinct from those used by representational art that uses correct colours. This in turn supports our view (Zeki and Lamb, 1994) that artists are in a sense experimenting with the potentials of the visual brain, and unknowingly uncovering laws about its organization.

Perhaps the most interesting feature that comes from this study is that abstract paintings, such as the multicoloured Mondrians that we used in these and previous studies, do not activate as extensive a region of the brain as the use of coloured objects, though they activate the same regions as V4. Abstraction, by which we mean non-iconic abstraction (i.e. art which does not represent or symbolize objects), has been a very dominant tendency in modern art. Through it artists like Mondrian, Malevich and many others have tried to reduce the many features in the visual world to their constant elements (Mondrian, 1937). In this, abstract art differs from the more pervasive representational and narrative art. What our studies have shown is that, when applied to colour vision, the two broad kinds of art use common pathways up to a point and then divergent pathways beyond. The Mondrian experiments result in activation of areas up to V4 and not beyond; the experiments reported here, in which more naturalistic images were used, activate area V4 and other areas beyond.

We would be surprised if a study that is undertaken with real works of art, representing the two broad subdivisions that we have alluded to above, does not result in the activation of similar pathways to the ones that we describe here. Thus, what started off as a relatively simple experiment, inspired by the fauvist habit of painting common objects and scenes in the ‘wrong’ colours, has ended up by involving us not only in problems which we had never thought of visiting—of the difference between surface colour and object colour, of the role of memory and of the hippocampus in colour vision and of the monitoring systems in the frontal lobe—but has also, we hope, provided small insights into the grander problem of the relationship between brain physiology and visual aesthetics.

In Kamhi's Aristos article, we read:

Numerous studies have demonstrated that images activate the same areas of the brain as comparable real-life experiences. Our understanding and appreciation of art is inseparably linked to our life experience. Moreover, brain scans have shown that abstract, Mondrian-like patterns (in contrast with images of people, places, and recognizable things) fail to activate the "regions of the brain traditionally associated with higher cognitive functions"--in particular, the areas that manage both emotion and long-term memory.

[Newberry]

Continuing with Kahmi's book she touches on some Zeki studies on how much and what part of the brain is engaged looking at colors as the properties of objects vs abstract color fields. Not surprisingly ""much larger parts of the brain are activated" by colored images than by colors in an abstract context." It also involved "regions of the brain traditionally associated with higher cognitive functions."

Is the passage mentioning Zeki studies the same as quoted in #253?

It's from the same paragraph/section. It reminds me a little bit that art is the technology of the soul.

[Newberry]

Thanks for the more Indepth quotes. Kamhi is uncovering interesting and relevant information that supports her theories. She is doing a great jop.

[BaalChatzaf]

It's from the same paragraph/section. It reminds me a little bit that art is the technology of the soul.

What is a soul? Is that anything like a mind? If so a soul has as much substantial existence as a mind.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[anthony]

What is a soul? Is that anything like a mind? If so a soul has as much substantial existence as a mind.

Ba'al Chatzaf

You have that right.

[Brant Gaede]

"Soul" is a poetic summing up of consciousness sans thinking. The totality of being. Now, you don't have to have one. That's up to you. I think it could be a choice. The ingredients of "soul" vary in amount and type and cooking time person to person. One can think of it like a cake. You can eat it--maybe--but you shouldn't, for that would be diminution of self. Soul, being epistemological, not metaphysical, cannot be detected with instruments, but is the core of individualism and moral egalitarianism, where it all begins. The king and peasant are equal before God (reality).

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Continuing with Kahmi's book she touches on some Zeki studies on how much and what part of the brain is engaged looking at colors as the properties of objects vs abstract color fields. Not surprisingly ""much larger parts of the brain are activated" by colored images than by colors in an abstract context." It also involved "regions of the brain traditionally associated with higher cognitive functions."

We've already covered that here:

Excerpt From: Michelle Marder Kamhi. Who Says That's Art? A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts. iBooks.

This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/CIFH3.l

Also relevant to Mondrianas to many other abstract paintersare a telling series of experiments that Solso reported upon. Performed by the prominent British neuroscientist Semir Zeki, these experiments show significant differences in the way the brain responds to abstract patterns, on one hand, and realistic images, on the other. With his student Ludovica Marini, Zeki sought to discover what areas of the brain are normally activated when humans view colors as properties of objects rather than in abstract compositions similar to Mondrian's. They found that "much larger parts of the brain are activated" by colored images than by colors in an abstract context. Imagery not only engages more of the brain's visual processing center, it also involves "regions of the brain traditionally associated with higher cognitive functions"in particular, the hippocampus, which manages both emotion and long-term memory. Nonetheless, the authors uncritically observe that abstract work has been "a very dominant tendency in modern art."

Zeki and Marini did not employ actual works of art in their experiments, only simulations of Mondrian paintings. But they speculate in their conclusion that a study undertaken with such works would probably yield similar results. Regrettably, no such study has yet been undertaken. Studies of that kind might have the beneficial effect of countering the claims made for abstract art as a meaningful form of expression.

Heh. Um, I wonder if Kamhi would be shocked to discover that different parts of the brain are also used when listening to music without lyrics versus listening to music with lyrics. Would such information suggest to her that music is therefore meaningless? If similar studies were to show that much larger parts of the brain are activated by realistic images than by music, would Kamhi conclude that the study made a strong case against music qualifying as a meaningful form of expression? If studies of cognitive function were to show that significantly more portions of the brain are used when viewing a movie than when watching a ballet, would that also be a "telling" experiment?

And, OMG, I can't believe the folly of these people not testing actual works of art, but instead thinking that it would be acceptable to substitute them with "simulations"!!! Way to taint the science right out of the gate! What were they thinking?! It's like, if you wanted to test the effects of music on the brain, would it even occur to you to do something as stupid as not testing actual music, but to instead test simulations of music?!!! WTF? What would be the point of intentionally eliminating the actual artistry, and replacing it with a cheap approximation? It seems that the only possible purpose of doing so would be to achieve the intended result of claiming that test subjects didn't respond to the art, even though they weren't exposed to the art.

J

...and here:

If Frank Lloyd Wright were alive today, and we were able to test his brain activity in response to the abstract compositions of architecture, do you think that we might observe more brain activity in him than in some average "ordinary citizen" dope who has no interest in the art form of architecture?

If we were to show Wright examples of great architecture versus simulations of architecture, do you think that his brain activity would be the same in response to both? Would it be rational to expect that he should have the same aesthetic and cognitive response to expertly crafted architectural compositions as he had to comparatively awkward simulations?

If we were to test Kamhi and Torres's brains for activity while viewing architecture, would the results apply universally to all people? Would it be logical to conclude that enthusiastic fans and practitioners of the art form would necessarily have the same level of brain activity as people who aren't interested in the art form and who admit to not getting enough out of it to classify it as an art form?

J

[Selene]

What is a soul? Is that anything like a mind? If so a soul has as much substantial existence as a mind.

Ba'al Chatzaf

You have that right.

You have me confused which is relatively easy.

Do either of you "believe" that we have a "mind," or, a "soul?"

If so, is there any distinction between the two (2) in your opinion?

A...

I almost said "in your mind"

[Jonathan]

Re-post in case Jonathan didn't see the questions re visual art:

Unlike Roger, [Lakoff and Johnson] classify music as being more like abstract visual art than representational visual art. They see abstract visual art and music as "varying considerably" from being "realistic." And after quoting them in his article, Simon Zagorski-Thomas states that he agrees, and that he sees music as being "abstract representational." Their views are not in agreement with Roger's. In other words, Roger's position that abstract visual art = atonal music where realistic/representational art = tonal music is not a position that Jakoff and Johnson and Zagorsky-Thomas share.

I was referring to theories Roger has expressed earlier and published about regarding tonal drama, not to the statement you mention from this thread.

Music only rarely imitates natural sounds because it is generally an abstract art form. As you say, it is a medium of pure tones. It is a medium of abstract compositional relationships. The same is true of architecture and of abstract paintings and sculptures. They are media of pure forms, colors and textures. They are media of abstract compositional relationships.

I don't agree with the comparison. Exactly what is a pure form or color or texture? And although "abstract" paintings and sculptures use "compositional relationships," they don't have the precisely specifiable mathematical forms of musical relationships - a point I made earlier, I think on a different thread.

Also, again, I think the attempt to call music "representational" is unfortunate.

But this doesn't mean that I think that music should be classified with "abstract" painting and sculpture. I'd call music "abstract" in the sense of mathematics, but not in the sense applied to visual arts, which are depictive.

The term which I think is accurate regarding music's relationship to features of the world (dynamic features) is "analogical."

I've been reading Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and I think your describing Kandinsky as sharing "some of" the mysticality of Mondrian is a big understatement.

Haven't time for more at the moment.

Ellen

I think I'm understanding what Kandinsky was talking about in his desire to free visual art from material reality, and his claim that music is free from same - but as I understand his desire, and his views on the nature of music, they differ from the impression I've gotten from your posts. I don't agree with his views, but at least I'm feeling sympathetic to where he was coming from.

There was extensive discontent with the challenge to "spirituality" people of that time saw the scientific philosophy, and discoveries, as presenting.

Two other major declarations were published within a year of Kandinsky's:

Unamuno's The Tragic Sense of Life - reading some or all of which years later (1943), at Frank Lloyd Wright's suggestion, I believe catalyzed Rand's idea of beneveolent-versus-malevolent-universe premises, and her technical meaning of "sense of life."

Jung's Symbols of Transformation, the work which was the baseline work of his "Analytic Psychology" and which was the culminating and ostensive precipitator of Jung's and Freud's break (multiple other factors were contributory).

Two years later World War I started, cataclysmic end of the old order in Europe.

Ellen

I missed both of the above posts earlier.

You're still not getting what the term "abstract" means in the arts. "Abstract" subsumes the concept of "analogical."

A fugue is like a conversation, but it also like a chase, or like a reflection. Each of those analogies, and possibly many more, can be legitimately inferred from listening to a fugue. A fugue is not limited to being only one or the other of them. Its characteristics are abstract and vague enough to potentially be interpreted as possibly being analogous to many different things.

The same is true of the colors and forms of an abstract painting. Vertical lines which, if extended beyond the canvas, would converge at a zenith point, are like looking upward, or like rising, or like the motion of a pendulum swinging. Each of those analogies, and possibly many more, can be legitimately inferred from looking at the relationships that the lines have to one another. Vertical lines which, if extended beyond the canvas, would converge at a nadir point, are like looking downward, or like falling, or like the supportive structure of an arch. Each of those analogies, and possibly many more, can be legitimately inferred from looking at the relationships that the lines have to one another. Images of converging lines are not limited to being only one or the other of the analogous interpretations. The lines' characteristics are abstract and vague enough to potentially be interpreted as possibly being analogous to many different things.

That, in part, is what "abstract" means.

As for your views about Kandinsky, and about my views of comparing him to Mondrian, I'm really not interested in your speculations after having read a mere fraction of Kandinsky's work, none of Mondrian's, and none of the context of visual art history of the time. You have a predetermined outcome in search of cherry-picked factoids which can be misinterpreted/twisted to confirm your predetermined outcome.

J

[Selene]

You're still not getting what the term "abstract" means in the arts. "Abstract" subsumes the concept of "analogical."

....

The same is true of the colors and forms of an abstract painting. ... The lines' characteristics are abstract and vague enough to potentially be interpreted as possibly being analogous to many different things.

Good point.

A metaphor carries so much more power than a simile, because it’s direct. Using “like” or “as” to make an open comparison will often diminish the vivid visual you’re trying to paint in the reader’s mind. Likewise, a spot-on metaphor will spark instant understanding for a reader, without the elaboration that an analogy requires.

http://www.copyblogger.com/metaphor-simile-and-analogy-what%E2%80%99s-the-difference/

A...

[Jonathan]

I was looking back through this thread's archives to see if I might be able to make some sense of Roger's hyper sensitivity to criticism of his ideas, and to his taking everything so personally, and I think that this post of Roger's stands out as being typical and representative:

In #737, Jonathan said:

Perhaps you've actually confused yourself into believing the obvious falsehood that you've been trying to sell, which is that traditional tonal music is not abstract, and, coming from that mixed up perspective, you no longer know which way is up.

So, now I'm a confused, disoriented liar and fraud? It sure didn't take long for you to turn our exchange into a toxic verbal dump. Nice. See you later.

REB

It perfectly captures the essence of how he behaves in discussions with me.

In previous posts, I had carefully identified, in great detail, the specific logical fallacies that Roger had been employing in attempting to sell the very obviously false idea (obvious to anyone who has even a rudimentary exposure to art history) that music is "representational," and that it should be classified as being very much like representational visual art and very unlike abstract visual art.

My history with Roger is that I present a very solid case about the falsehood of one of his ideas, and then, rather than addressing the substance of my criticism, Roger whines that he is being personally abused. It's as if he believes that he is infallible, and not only that, but that I should know that he is infallible -- his behavior suggests that he believes that any criticism that I make of his ideas must be wrong, and that I know it's wrong because I know that I am arguing with the great and infallible Bissell!

So, if Roger were to claim that 1 + 2 = 17, and I were to respond that his statement was false, and that his clinging to the statement was a reputation destroyer, and that he appears to have gotten lost in his own mixed up perspective to the point of no longer knowing which way is up, his response would not be to review his thinking and his theories, but to exclaim, "Oh, so now I'm so mixed up that I can't do simple math? I'm done with your toxic attitude! See you later."

How does a person get to that point?

J

[PDS]

J:

You know I'm a fan of yours, but I feel like I kinda have to call BS on your post 1038.

In real time, I remember the exchange you reference quite well, and remember very distinctly thinking to myself, "well, there goes the chance of this being a productive exchange." If you were to call me confused and a peddler of falsehoods, I would react much like Roger, and probably worse. There is a reason the estimable Mr. Scherk has referred to your postings as J-had. This is unfortunate, because I do think your substantive points are very sound.

Honestly, I just don't understand your hostility toward Roger. I used to think you were simply needling him (and his wife, and him through his wife), and, as a fellow-fan of needling, got kind of a kick out of it. Now it makes me cringe a bit; it really does seem to cloud your ability to carry on a conversation with him.

There is a very productive conversation trying to get its head above water here, but it's not going to happen anytime soon, I am afraid.

[anthony]

What is a soul? Is that anything like a mind? If so a soul has as much substantial existence as a mind.

Ba'al Chatzaf

You have that right.

You have me confused which is relatively easy.

Do either of you "believe" that we have a "mind," or, a "soul?"

If so, is there any distinction between the two (2) in your opinion?

A...

I almost said "in your mind"

You know how it goes, A...

A conceptual consciousness is the mind is the soul. Only, it's "self-made".

Rand did an elegant job of repatriating the word from its supernatural origins, I believe.

[Jonathan]

J:

You know I'm a fan of yours, but I feel like I kinda have to call BS on your post 1038.

In real time, I remember the exchange you reference quite well, and remember very distinctly thinking to myself, "well, there goes the chance of this being a productive exchange." If you were to call me confused and a peddler of falsehoods, I would react much like Roger, and probably worse. There is a reason the estimable Mr. Scherk has referred to your postings as J-had. This is unfortunate, because I do think your substantive points are very sound.

Yes, my substantive points are indeed very sound. They are as sound as 1 + 2 = 3. And if I were to identify the fact that someone's assertion that 1 + 2 = 17 is unsound, and mixed up, and a reputation destroyer, would you seriously classify my doing so as "hostility"?!!!

Honestly, I just don't understand your hostility toward Roger. I used to think you were simply needling him (and his wife, and him through his wife), and, as a fellow-fan of needling, got kind of a kick out of it.

I am indeed needling him. But there's a reason behind it. It's not just for the sake of needling him. Roger is so self-important that he demanded that I apologize to him for mentioning his mentioning of his wife's incredulous ejaculations! That alone deserves endless needling until the time that Roger realizes that he should apologize for not only having introduced his wife's stupid comment, but for stupidly demanding that I apologize for commenting on it.

Now it makes me cringe a bit; it really does seem to cloud your ability to carry on a conversation with him.

My abilities haven't been impeded in the slightest. Review this thread to see both the high quality and quantity of unanswered substance that I've delivered. With certain people, due to their unfortunate unrealistic opinions of themselves, there are no kid gloves which are soft enough to handle their tender egos. In any discussion with them, when we reach the point of the substance showing them to be quite obviously mistaken, they will find an excuse to exit the discussion, and that excuse is usually that they have been viciously personally attacked.

There is a very productive conversation trying to get its head above water here, but it's not going to happen anytime soon, I am afraid.

A productive conversation isn't going to happen regardless of how sweetly I were to behave. There hasn't been a productive conversation here - the productivity is pretty much limited to "my side" of the discussion (I put scare quotes around "my side" because I'm not the only one who has contributed to my side of the argument). The other side isn't producing much of anything other than spin, evasion and distractions. They have been avoiding the mountain of substantive unanswered questions. They've been posing as poor little victims, and they've succeeded somewhat in that tactic: they've made you feel sorry for them.

J

[Edited to add] P.S. Notice that Bill's recent gentle sweetness elicited praise from the tender egotists, but failed to draw anything of relevant substance from them.

[Jonathan]

In O-land lately, there has been a lot of talk of the aesthetic sensitivities and hermeneutic abilities of the "average person," and of "ordinary people," and "the public." Somehow, these people's aesthetic sensitivities, or lack thereof, have been arbitrarily adopted as one of the implied "objective" standards for judging what is or is not art.

There's an administrator over at OO named "JASKN" who I would think would easily qualify as not just an "ordinary person," but as an Objectivist ordinary person.

Well, here I presented the ordinary folks over a OO with five images, four of which are by Turner, to see if they could tell the difference between great Romantic, realist works of visual art and items created by children. It turns out that they couldn't, and that JASKN, our representative of Objective ordinary people, went so far as to rate it as "lesser art." And even after I pointed out to him what had just happened, he wasn't even slightly interested in reconsidering his opinion, but in digging in his heels and preaching the gospel according to Rand and referring to the universal "human mind" when he was really talking about only the limits of his own.

So, since ordinary JASKN can't tell the difference between a Turner and an abstract painting and a child's mess, doesn't that mean that Turner's work is not art by the "ordinary people" criteria which Kamhi and other Objectivish-types have accepted as their standard?

J

[Brant Gaede]

Abstract: I understand it when I see it and don't when I don't. Or, I know it when I see it . . . .

[Brant Gaede]

Michael and Roger cannot adjust to Jonathan's style of engagement because they can't backpedal and start over. So everything is reduced to ego vs manners or Jonathan's ostensible lack of them. This leaves J one up, but not one up on much. With well over 1000 posts, where is the +1000 posts of value? If you can't precis this thread down to 10% of that, you aren't trying. The substance would then be partially revealed, encouraging another, final precis on that.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Abstract: I understand it when I see it and don't when I don't. Or, I know it when I see it . . . .

This old post might help:

What do you mean by "likeness"?

This section of a painting is an objectively identifiable likeness of the area of a human face that includes the eyes.

This section of a song...

C-------|G-------|E-------|------DE|C-------|G-------|E-------|-------E|D-------|B-------|F--------|------BD|D-Db-D-E-|F-------|

... when played on a musical instrument, is not an objectively identifiable likeness of anything in reality, including the differing emotions that different people might feel when listening to it.

The image of the eyes is an image of eyes. It isn't kind of like eyes, and also kind of like a conversation, or a chase. It's not open to being interpreted as being a landscape, or a firetruck or a still life of flowers. It's representational. It is instantly identifiable as being one specific sort of thing, and one thing only.

The same is not true of abstract works. They are not instantly identifiable as being one specific sort of thing, and one thing only. They are capable of being interpreted as possibly being similar to a few different things.

Music is abstract.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Representational merely means to me that I recognize an object_{in a painting without my mind creating it in my own mind. Abstract} means I have to use my mind to create the representation. Now I can take a representative painting and abstract from that. Abstract in a painting is one thing and how I the viewer abstract from it another. At the most basic level, though, all art seems abstract. Representational only seems to be more delimiting. Value is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. It seems insane to animadvert on any of what is abstract on its face. Regardless, most of the ugly art seems to be representational. Piss Jesus?

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Michael and Roger cannot adjust to Jonathan's style of engagement because they can't backpedal and start over.

Indeed! They have too much invested in their mistaken positions to practice the bravery of admitting to error. They have spent years publicly preaching their positions, and doing so with an attitude of infallible certainty and righteous morality. They have convinced other people to adopt their mistaken positions. It would be very embarrassing to them to have to admit to their errors and to then have to go back and clean up their messes. Consider the weight of this: Newberry's very wrongheaded opinions and judgments of Kant's notion of the Sublime have affected Stephen Hicks's views on the subject. Hicks teaches these subjects to actual students -- to real human beings who are paying for an education! There are some potentially very serious consequences to facing reality and admitting to error.

J

[Jonathan]

Representational merely means to me that I recognize an object in a painting without my mind creating it in my own mind.

I wouldn't put it quite like that. With abstract art, one isn't "creating" the recognizable object "in his own mind," but is subjectively inferring one of a few possible analogies of objects and/or actions. One is, in effect, choosing -- not creating -- from a few options, choosing which is the most personally meaningful experience that the abstract characteristics can add up to.

J

[moralist]

Adam writes:

Do either of you "believe" that we have a "mind," or, a "soul?"

If so, is there any distinction between the two (2) in your opinion?

Tony already answered,

so I'll also offer my opinion.

My mind is the where thoughts are.

My soul is me examining thoughts

while deciding upon which ones to act,

and which ones to leave unresponded.

Greg

[Roger Bissell]

Brant in #1046: "...all art seems abstract."

I would say so, too. For your consideration...

Rand in "Basic Principles of Literature" said regarding characterization: "A human being is the most complex entity on earth; a writer's task is to select the essentials out of that enormous complexity, then proceed to create an individual figure, endowing it with all the appropriate details down to the telling small touches needed to give it full reality. That figure has to be an abstraction, yet look like a concrete; it has to have the universality of an abstraction and, simultaneously, the unrepeated uniqueness of a person." (TRM, p. 87, emphasis added)

Regarding plot (same essay), she said: "...Gail Wynand's conflict, being a wide abstraction, can be reduced in scale and made applicable to the value-conflicts of a grocery clerk." (TRM, p. 84, emphasis added)

In "Art and Sense of Life," she referred to "the popular notion that a reader of fiction 'identifies himself with' some character or characters of the story. 'To identity with' is a colloquial designation for a process of abstraction: it means to observe a common element between the character and oneself, to draw an abstraction from the character's problems and apply it to one's own life. Subconsciously, without any knowledge of esthetic theory, but by virtue of the implicit nature of art, this is the way in which people react to fiction and to all other forms of art." (TRM, p. 37, emphasis added)

All art is abstract, and it conveys abstractions to you embodied in concretes - whether concrete images of people and their actions, or concrete images of colors, shapes, musical events - whether more or less realistic concrete images of entities, or in concrete images that present metaphors of entities and motion, or in concrete images that make abstract suggestions of people, events, ideas, emotions. I'm most interested in the latter two categories of art and music, usually being bored to tears or somnelescence by cuckoo and lightning music.

In my experience, some tonal music sucks, and some atonal music definitely does not suck - just as some representational art sucks and some abstract art sucks. The only reason I call atonal music "abstract" music as against tonal music, is that atonal music abstracts out, or away from, the metaphors or character-like themes and plot-like progressions which are the meat-and-potatoes of 19th century music and a lot of more recent music. Obviously, except fot the cuckoo and lightning stuff, music is "abstract," in that it doesn't present same-modality images of entities and actions.

In music, the metaphor is the thing, with melodies that "sound like" characters in action and progressions that "sound like" plot progressions unfolding in a story. That's also the reason that atonal music, which abandons those metaphors, is so hard for listeners to access and enjoy, compared to 19th century music &c. Yet, both kinds of music find effective use in sound track music, helping to amplify the emotional nature of the action in the story.

Peikoff gave a very interesting lecture about 20 years ago called "The Survival Value of Great Though Philosophical False Art," where he talked about "the life-sustaining value of certain artworks, even if they're built on anti-life themes." That pretty well summarizes my own embracing of more rather than fewer stylistic varieties and "messages" of art and music.

Peikoff talked a while about reading Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, then summarized nicely, part of which I will excerpt here:

What I retain is the sense of looking at life with the eyes of an artist. And what such art, whether true or false in its theme, keeps alive in me, as nothing else can, is a non-everyday view of the world—and therefore, a really philosophical view of the world. I also want to point out that there is an emotional reward, which is not exactly the emotion that I just hopefully invoked in you. I find, if it’s great art, a kind of emotional excitement or inspiration or even fuel.

Now, obviously, I do not mean this in the sense that I get emotional fuel from reading Ayn Rand. I don’t get a sense of man the heroic, or the possibilities of human greatness, or the ideal embodied,or what might be and ought to be. It’s a totally different sense, but nevertheless a sense that is real. There’s a certain sheer excitement in experiencing this X-ray stylization. It’s the excitement of feeling: “I am, for now, in a unique dimension, where I can experience reality profoundly, and in a way I don’t normally.” It’s like seeing the world in color and three dimensions, when normally it’s black and white and flat. Now, the fuel from reading Atlas Shrugged is pure pleasure and uplift from the fact of living on earth. But the fuel in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is more of being in outer space—a special outer space, where you prepare yourself for life once you land. Now, this kind of fuel or inspiration is often in direct contradiction to the evil theme of the book. So, the authors are giving you this, despite their theme.

For example, essential to both Dostoevsky and Tolstoy is the logic of the events and portrayals that they offer. And that implies the value, the validity, the reliability of logic, regardless of their continuous sniping attacks at it. Or, inherent in deliberate, methodical characterizations is the idea that men’s purposes do count, that chosen values do matter, regardless of what the artist may preach as his theme. Or, inherent in the clarity and logical structure in these words is the implicit message that the world is intelligible, that our minds can understand it, that we are able to function, we are important, we can be efficacious.

Now, these are messages that come through by the very nature of the art, if it’s great art, purposeful and stylized, despite the themes. So, in that sense, you can say: great art, or at least the kind I like, even if its theme is wicked, implies a valid philosophy, to an extent, by the sheer fact of its perfect, stylized integration...there’s a limit to this implication and to the fuel that it provides—an obvious limit, since the theme contradicts the implicit message. Nevertheless, the message is there, and you can be uplifted by it, despite the contradiction.

REB