Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[pjkeeley]

...art expresses the best in us of truth beauty and goodness.

Art can also express the worst in us, and the opposites of those things you mentioned.

[Keith Russell]

Who shoud be setting the standards is people however unskilled who have at least tried to be makers of art. I mean people who have tried to express an idea about truth, goodness or beauty.

The problem even with this approach is that no two people agree as to what "art" is--let alone what "truth", "beauty", or "goodness" are.

I'm sure that Charles Manson has a very differnt idea of them than I do (and Manson was a respected singer-songwriter, and if you want the standards of "art" determined by artists, Manson's opinion would have to be heard.)

I believe that everyone must answer these questions for themselves. There are "experts"--and some of them are artists, though most are critics, academics, instructors, historians, etc.), but there are also many non-expert opinions (collectors, admirers, amateur artists, etc.)

If we desire "freedom", then everyone has the right to say what they believe to be "art", "beauty", "truth", "goodness"--and everyone has the right to pursue them in their own lives--and avoid what they wish, as well.

If I enjoy movies, books, or other works of art that you find "evil", "ugly", or "not-art", (again, if "freedom" is viewed as a virtue) then we should each agree to disagree.

You'll find me in theatre "A", while you'll probably enjoy the fare in theatre "D"...

No harm done.

This has implications for school curriculums, and schools do get children into making their own productions of dance, theatre, pictures, sculpture, music.

The fact is that the people who choose what goes into prestigious art galleries, theartres and concert halls have much influence upon what the hoi polloi think is art.

While this may be true, I don't believe it matters very much. Whatever I may think of their work, I cannot at present afford to own anything by Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, or Lisa Yuskavage, so whether I view it as "art" or not, really makes no difference.

The very wealthy folks who DO like their work, buy it--and the financial statements reflect their decisions.

(And Thomas Kinkade still finds buyers, even though most of the "tastemongers" cannot stand his paintings.)

The very fact that a pile of bricks is an exhibit in a great art gallery makes most people, many of whom will never visit the art gallery, at least consider whether or not they like the exhibit.

This brings me to another idea about who should evaluate art. I believe that art is important for everbody's personal benefit, as art expresses the best in us of truth beauty and goodness.

Again, you're not changing anything with this definition; what you call "beauty" and "goodness", I might not. The works exist.

I would prefer to allow "borderline" works that benefit of the doubt, and consider them as "art"--where they can be discussed, debated, championed, and derided.

(If it doesn't it's not art).

Then, is Schindler's List, "art"? Is Faust? What about Psycho, Citizen X, or The Godfather Trilogy? Sometimes art is created to highlight a specific evil, or type of evil, in order to try to spur folks to remedy that evil. Such works focus on the negative--even accentuating that negative--knowing full well that it IS negative.

I think there is a very valid purpose for works of "art" that do exactly this, even though they may not incorporate "truth, beauty" and "goodness", very much at all.

It's therefore important that curriculums include theories about art , such as philosophy and history of art, although these should take second place to actually doing it.

[Homicidal Pacifist]

Where there is much decline in the arts there is also much progression. It's worth it to sift through the crap to find the gold; damn shame we have to though.

[pjkeeley]

I don't feel as though there has been any decline in the quality of the arts. Then again, what each of us perceives to be the quality of the arts is entirely subjective.

[Juice]

I guess I am what art afficionados would call unsophisticated. I sort of lean towards the kind of art that is easily interpretable and more representative of reality. I must confess though that I envy those with artist talent, as I have none, except if a gift for gab and being a repository for useless information can be considered art.

I'll let you guys in on a secret though!:oops:

I am a big fan of Project Runway and have been a bit of a clothing hog, as a result. Although most of my days are spent in lumberjack sheik there is something about a well dressed and coordinated woman, no matter the physiological dimensions, that I find artistic, in a totally nonsexual way. I would rather look at a well dressed woman than a naked one. I am even better at dressing my wife than she is, and get complemented for the effort. Besides my heart skips a beat whenever I see Heidi Klum. That Seal is one lucky fellow. Especially, since it appears that she is the major breadwinner. (I would stay home, cook, clean, watch the kids and let her tell call me Hausfrau all day)(plus I think she's conservative)

PJ-You wouldn't believe the men I know who are fans of that show. It actually gets TiVo'd.

Fashion is considered art, right?

[Belinda]

True, art expresses the worst in us. Yesterday I watched 'Trainspotting'. The story is about drug taking and addiction. The sort of 'worst' it portrayed was human weakness and woe. In order to show human weakness and woe the film also had to show what was not weakness and woe. This it did very sparingly which makes the film noir. Minute details such as Begbie being given a lit cigarette by his chum, and trust that the taxi driver would take the unconscious man to the A and E department. Begbie's pathetic need to play cards on the bus journey.These details all reflect the more normal lives of people who are not the dregs of society.

There is never complete nihilism, That would be boring, not art. The stories that contain no goodness or beauty may present us with truth. It is when there is no truth that the works are false, lies and deceptions. The latter are not art.

Nazi heroic art is art because it shows us the truth about Nazism, how it is simplistically Romantic.Real people were like this and it's good for us to know that real people were like this. There is a clash of cultures. The fact that Nazi art exists is good because it enables us to know how Nazis thought. There was probably a propaganda component in it, and to the extent that there was propaganda, Nazi art is not art but lies.

The problem even with this approach is that no two people agree as to what "art" is--let alone what "truth", "beauty", or "goodness" are.

True, but it's the search that counts as art not the arrival in heaven.

[Stirling]

Not too long ago in order to be recognized by ones peers as an artist, one had to have been mentored by the greats and educated extensively in ones chosen medium…now most musicians can’t read music and the instrumentals in their songs are from machines not man made or man played instruments and our painters don’t know the different techniques mastered by their predecessors to achieve a specific effect. Basically anyone off the street can be labelled an artist without any knowledge or acknowledgement of everything that art embodied before they ventured into it. The irony is that art is expression of ones self…telling their life story the manner they find most appropriate and yet only the connoisseurs study the artists that came before them, only a small number know their stories… Is this change a result of commercialism or open mindedness: understanding that everybody has a story to tell?

My verdict…I’m all for change,open mindedness, less restrictions,evolution…however I don’t believe that the evolution of the arts ,the evolution of anything should involve the extinction of its core elements. Nor should these core elements have a single day marked to commemorate their significance they should be infused I such a manner that they are a part of what they inspired.

p.s. these are the expressions of a layman...lady

I think one must consider the importance of the Work of Art to the artist himself. If it is the case that his art is merely an introspective, that is, a self-examination of the emotions, then the importance of the Work of Art is simply some self-emotional-evocation. In what would perhaps be a second order way, the intention would be to emit the self-emotional-evocation of the Art to the audience member, whether the audience member properly understands the emotional prospect of the Artist or it ends up being a shadow of it or something utterly contrary. In either instance, the importance of the Work itself is, in some way or another, to satisfy emotional desires. This importance - or call it "meaning of" - only requires the production of the art, not the academic knowledge of it; this may be said for the artist as well as the audience member, for they are both necessarily looking for the same thing.

So what is an artist? He is an audience member to his own emotions, and with the ability to share just those emotions with whomever he wants.

Of course, what can be said for how art has supposedly "diminished," as it has? A lot has changed since Palestrina, or even since Wagner, Mahler or Shostakovich, or from Stephen Foster, George Gershwin, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra - that is, things, with social and political progression, have become more liberal, and that includes the arts. Modern arts, which seem utterly bizarre compared to even the Romantic Periods, represent what is undoubtedly one of the most liberal eras in recorded history. For that, the artist doesn't need to know what the mechanics of his art are, he doesn't need to be the protege, only that he can produce his art does the title "artist" become equated.

Ideally, of course, a certain level of academic inspiration would be wonderful. But how much of the more primal expressions of man would be extinguished by academic theory? If the emotion of an era must be expressed, it will more easily be done through the rigor of raw emotion - un-educated to the point of meaning, one might say. Whether our era is an academic era whose meaning in art would be best represented by an "academic art" is entirely up to history.

[Stirling]

Lotus4 wrote:
Not too long ago in order to be recognized by ones peers as an artist, one had to have been mentored by the greats and educated extensively in ones chosen medium…now most musicians can’t read music and the instrumentals in their songs are from machines not man made or man played instruments and our painters don’t know the different techniques mastered by their predecessors to achieve a specific effect. Basically anyone off the street can be labelled an artist without any knowledge or acknowledgement of everything that art embodied before they ventured into it. The irony is that art is expression of ones self…telling their life story the manner they find most appropriate and yet only the connoisseurs study the artists that came before them, only a small number know their stories… Is this change a result of commercialism or open mindedness: understanding that everybody has a story to tell?

My verdict…I’m all for change,open mindedness, less restrictions,evolution…however I don’t believe that the evolution of the arts ,the evolution of anything should involve the extinction of its core elements. Nor should these core elements have a single day marked to commemorate their significance they should be infused I such a manner that they are a part of what they inspired.

p.s. these are the expressions of a layman...lady

-

I think one must consider the importance of the Work of Art to the artist himself. If it is the case that his art is merely an introspective, that is, a self-examination of the emotions, then the importance of the Work of Art is simply some self-emotional-evocation. In what would perhaps be a second order way, the intention would be to emit the self-emotional-evocation of the Art to the audience member, whether the audience member properly understands the emotional prospect of the Artist or it ends up being a shadow of it or something utterly contrary. In either instance, the importance of the Work itself is, in some way or another, to satisfy emotional desires. This importance - or call it "meaning of" - only requires the production of the art, not the academic knowledge of it; this may be said for the artist as well as the audience member, for they are both necessarily looking for the same thing.

So what is an artist? He is an audience member to his own emotions, and with the ability to share just those emotions with whomever he wants.

Of course, what can be said for how art has supposedly "diminished," as it has? A lot has changed since Palestrina, or even since Wagner, Mahler or Shostakovich, or from Stephen Foster, George Gershwin, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra - that is, things, with social and political progression, have become more liberal, and that includes the arts. Modern arts, which seem utterly bizarre compared to even the Romantic Periods, represent what is undoubtedly one of the most liberal eras in recorded history. For that, the artist doesn't need to know what the mechanics of his art are, he doesn't need to be the protege, only that he can produce his art does the title "artist" become equated.

Ideally, of course, a certain level of academic inspiration would be wonderful. But how much of the more primal expressions of man would be extinguished by academic theory? If the emotion of an era must be expressed, it will more easily be done through the rigor of raw emotion - un-educated to the point of meaning, one might say. Whether our era is an academic era whose meaning in art would be best represented by an "academic art" is entirely up to history.

[Apeman]

The problem with Art is that most of the stuff that has been referred-to as "Art" was never actually Art at all. So, tons of non-art spawned tons more non-art; and any actual Art that was amongst this mess likely got passed-over or went unnoticed altogether. So you see, when you claim that the condition of art has been defiled by an un-studied "Anyman" you have only gobbled-up the gook that all the historians, curators, corporations, kings and critics have been selling throughout history. And mentors, apprenticeships, traditions, lessons and schoolings are never what made an artist good.

This is a realm of maximum subjectivity and it is the responsibility of the self-determined looker/reader/listener to sort-out the art from all the crap all by his lonesome. And it is quite there, the Art...more of it than ever. Ya just gotta quit looking EVERYWHERE for it. Dig a little (or ALOT - it might even be hard work), and you'll be delighted to know that its alive and well AND GETTING BETTER EVERYDAY.

[Stirling]

Apeman,

You must admit, however, that if art is an entirely subjective matter, then any "art" is both "good art" and "bad art." For, with a group of people looking at a work, the group may determine it to be good and bad; that would be the contradiction - showing inumerous paradoxes and evidently, fallacious thinking - of the situation. And even when considering what art may be, the crowd can determine it as both "not art" and "art," all thus illuminating another contradiction. You may consider many things to be art, or not; but under the subjective doctrine on the matter, it is both and neither, thus making not only you, but any onlooker right and wrong; another contradiction.

To begin in searching for what art may be, the general principle which may be applied is that art requires a creator - an artist, for the object "art" to exist (if I may exclude the idea that a deity "created" the world). And on from that, what the quality of the art is, its aesthetic properties - on what makes something beautiful or ugly - is the thing in question, which is indubitably the most important part of aesthetics.

The quality of art hasn't grown in any necessary way through history; art itself tends to represent the social situation of its time, of its changes, its revolutions - and dashed in, a mingling of the artists' own skill and venture, which is what makes a work distinct, and often creates its own classification or type.

To be quick, I think subjectivity, even at its most basic levels, creates contradictions and invokes a general fallaciousness. Art can, of course, be analyzed with a precision by science, which has the utmost authority; and by an analytic cue of thought in philosophy, which has more authority as it follows method than mere unadulterated opinion, or as following by one's own article of faith, which, to be frank, has no authority, either.

If there ever was to be a legitimate search for "the truth of the matter" in philosophy, or in any field, really - there must be more of an objective approach in speculation. Without that kind of approach, all the subjects within the field become beside the point, irrelevant, pointless. But that is all to discount those who take there time in philosophy who argues for the sake of arguing and who discover things for the sake of their own personal "self-deification" - in inventing there own form-religion. For them, it has all the purpose in the world... But to the extent that they intend to self-satisfy rather than satisfy any progression in thought, in furthering themselves in knowledge. I think if that is the case, then wisdom is also not something which is being sought - for what is wisdom without knowledge? Henceforth that person doesn't legitimately have the title "philosopher." But that is speculation of another matter.

For art: an artist is someone who creates something with a definitive degree of skill, as it may be recognized; or created by someone who adheres to or creates something in a fashion which is pleasurable to or in some way interests the senses.

But, I'm unsure. I think this topic requires further debate, and a more elaborated definition.

[Keith Russell]

Apeman,

You must admit, however, that if art is an entirely subjective matter, then any "art" is both "good art" and "bad art."

Well, the Impressionists were considered "scandalous", and generally dismissed (by both art critics and the general public of the day).

Today's public loves their work.

So, were the Impressionists "good"?

The Wizard of Oz was a dismal failure on its intial release, and on several attempts at reviving the film.

Now its considered a classic.

So, is it a "good" movie?

[Phil'o'Sofree]

Oz is good film because it is historical:

Tells tale of biggest con in history. Post modern philosophy can enjoy deconstructing Oz into real components. Silver shoes, yellow brick road -> silver coinage, debt free monetary system, gold standard, delusion, obedience, etc.

Read [Web of Debt] to see why Oz is a good film.
If you cannot appreciate the cold truth, then appreciate the technicolor instead, and just 'follow the yellow brick road'...

[Stirling]

Apeman,

You must admit, however, that if art is an entirely subjective matter, then any "art" is both "good art" and "bad art."

Well, the Impressionists were considered "scandalous", and generally dismissed (by both art critics and the general public of the day).

Today's public loves their work.

So, were the Impressionists "good"?

The Wizard of Oz was a dismal failure on its intial release, and on several attempts at reviving the film.

Now its considered a classic.

So, is it a "good" movie?

When something is considered "bad" or "good" by any passersby, concerning aesthetics or otherwise, he or she acts as critic toward that specific thing - arts of any kind or other objects of and with arbitrary types and qualities. Hitherto, one dedicated oneself to a series of principles and conserved them for the sake of his or her own swollen and ill-informed pedastals; of which he or she considered "true," or in what he or she called - in abundence of thoughts in self-verity, disregarding all other possibilities; being the least scientifically-willed possible - a "formula for finding that which is 'truth-in-itself.'" This is certainly wrong; as what is "true" or "untrue" withinin any given object, whether created by a human or not, is, in essence, seperate from just "opinion" or "interpritation."

That is all to say: Whether a piece of art is "good" or "bad" is something seperate from an onlookers experience and interpritation of it. That much takes away the contradictions of subjectivity and embraces the less fallacious and less stubborn - objectivity: The truth is in the object or event, not the person. In finding whether something is beautiful or ugly, or whether something is good or bad - this requires scientific speculation and method, and, forlornly so, less "real" philosophy.

[Belinda]

I got this from the webofdebt.com website

Other analysts later picked up the theme. Economist Hugh Rockoff, writing in the Journal of Political Economy in 1990, called the story a "monetary allegory."2 Professor Tim Ziaukas, writing in 1998, stated:

"The Wizard of Oz" . . . was written at a time when American society was consumed by the debate over the "financial question," that is, the creation and circulation of money. . . . The characters of "The Wizard of Oz" represented those deeply involved in the debate: the Scarecrow as the farmers, the Tin Woodman as the industrial workers, the Lion as silver advocate William Jennings Bryan and Dorothy as the archetypal American girl.3

Phil'o'Sofree wrote

If you cannot appreciate the cold truth, then appreciate the technicolor instead, and just 'follow the yellow brick road'...

Many stories, poems and pictures may be appreciated at several levels of meaning. Even when an artefact can be appreciated at no symbolic level at all, i.e. 'just follow the yellow brick road', the artefact may still be art if it is technically good enough.

[Lotus4]

Stirling Wrote:

the artist doesn't need to know what the mechanics of his art are, he doesn't need to be the protege, only that he can produce his art does the title "artist" become equated.

Apeman wrote:

And mentors, apprenticeships, traditions, lessons and schoolings are never what made an artist good.

True, the artist doesnt NEED to know what the mechanics of his art are.However if the mission is to fully express him/herself,doesnt the artist owe his/her audience to investigate and be aware of all the different manners in which he/she can communicate and convey the essence of his/her ideal or emotions?Not that this knowledge will made the artist good only that it might make him/her better.Its easier,for example,to communicate if you're not restricted to the knowledge of a single language...a wider audience can be reached.