Art Thread

1. Fraymistress - April 5, 1997

With great pleasure I give you this thread.

2. Fraymistress - April 5, 1997

Some comments imported from SUGGESTIONS thread -- sorry I can't port all of them.

2261. daveroll - April 4, 1997

Pse,

Abstract painting seemed to come to a dead end in the late sixties, and much of what has come since, whether representational or not, leaves nothing much more than the question: why is this art? I remember standing in the Whitney at the Basquiatshow in front of a large, square black painting that had written on it, as if in white chalk, the titles of the songs on one side of a Charley Parker album from the complete Charley Parker. The gent next to me, a gray-haired painter type, looked at me and said, "Best thing in the show." I said, "You mean the music, of course." He said, "Yep." But representational art--and here I spePse as a practitioner--is today constantly faced with the spectre of kitsch.

2265. mondaugen - April 4, 1997

daveroll:

"why is this art?"

Appropriation by designation. To be art is to be called art, by the people who are supposedly in charge of the word: artists, critics, curators, historians, interested laymen like you and I. There's no appeal from the foundation of usage, no higher court on the issue. If something (anything) is presented as art by an artist and contextualized as art within the system, then it IS art, and there is nothing anybody can do about it. Look at some pieces like Acconic's "Following Piece" ('69) (in which he picked one random passerby to follow until it was physically impossible for him to continue), or Paul McCarthy's noodling around w/ self-castration...most traditionalists would try to argue that thisis not art, but it is; the artist has appropriated and manipulated the context, which in turn manipulates the mental focus of the viewer. Which is just a fancy way (more nominalist semantic hooey) of saying, "cuz the artist sez so!".

3. Fraymistress - April 5, 1997

A little more:

2269. PseudoErasmus - April 4, 1997

I agree with Mondaugen that art is art by designation and convention. But this is a trivial point. Those who question that such and such is art, like Dave Roll and Mondaugen's mythical "traditionalists", simply define art more narrowly. In other words, little more than a semantic difference. Even if we agree on a definition, then Dave Roll, I and other "traditionalists" need only divide art into good and shitty. And many of Mondaugen's modern heroes are pretty shitty.

2271. daveroll - April 4, 1997

Mondaugen 2265

I wouldn't Kahn you. Most artists I know haven't got the first idea what art is; I'm inclined to think that's a prerequisite for doing something worth doing, since otherwise you're working from a preconceived idea of some kind. The restis marketing, isn't it? If someone else says some painter or other kind of artist's work is art, and defines that person as an artist, nothing real changes. Vito Acconci is consistently interesting and entertaining; it's easier to accept him than, say, John Baldessari. I don't even care that much what standards there are or what they should be. A lot of judgment criteria are just blinders. If I tell an abstract painter I like Corot I may get a wierd or pitying look; if I say I like Duchamp but not his followers, or that Cornell was a poet in a visual language, but a minor artist, the result may be the same. Who cares. I used to like Morandi but now find his paintings incompetent, although his influence has been great and almost entirely benign. It's the end of the day and I've begun to wander, but the FRAYMISTRESS should know by now that we want an art thread. Where is Seguine?

Well, on second thought, if we have to deal with Bull all the time, despite his promise to avoid spreading shit all over the walls, maybe the whole thing is a bad idea. If only I could believe Bull was PsE in a manic disguise.

4. Fraymistress - April 5, 1997

Still more:

2272. mondaugen - April 4, 1997

Pse:

I never equated modernism w/ quality, and I don't think a lot of what's out there is all that great, either. But I can't dismiss it so easily, or consider it invalid solely on aesthetic merit. I try to find ways to appreciate the role of today's artists in the pantheon of art history. Talking with people like yourself helps.

2273. daveroll - April 4, 1997

Pse 2269

Pse, believe it or not we cross posted. I certainly do not say "But is it art?" But I agree with you that it's all a just a matter of whether it's good or bad. I go by my taste, but the truth is I don't think my opinion is of value except in cases where I know a large enough quantity of particular things. To illustrate: I take my children to the museum and show them how to tell the difference between Renoir and Monet. This is not hard. But can we tell Monet from Sisley and Pisarro? Certainly Pisarro, but Sisley is harder. Then we go to Sickert, than back to Sargeant and Johns. By the time they are grown, they'll have eyes. It's a matter of having seen things, compared things, and discriminated things. It's a matter of knowingsomething, though, as I'm sure you'll agree. Mondaugen ought to agree too, since he calls himself (as Seguine noted) "eyes of the world."

2274. PseudoErasmus - April 4, 1997

HARK (2270)

Re: sensibilities

You brought this up once in the Music thread, and I didn't understand the point of it then, and don't understand it now. Sure, it's all a matter of taste. That's a truism to end discussion, not to begin or nurture one.

MONDAUGEN

I didn't say you equated modernism with quality. I said your modern heroes - those whom you have mentioned here - I don't care for. I deliberately used the adjective "modern", rather than "modernist".

5. Austin - April 5, 1997

I'm sick of this snooty "what is art?" stuff. The only art I know much about is the funny pages, which some call sequential art, so I'm gonna talk about that.

The most interesting thing about comics (as I will refer to them generically) IMHO, is the attempt to show the passage of time with the use of space. I'm sure the highbrows have played with this, but don't know who and to what effect. The goals in comics have been pretty straightforward; either to tell a compelling story, or a compelling joke. Visual pacing is probably more important in the latter example. A quick glance at any well designed comic will show many ways of acheiving visual pacing; serial panels with identical images (nuances include dialogue, no dialogue; borders, noborders, and placement on the page); showing the passage of time within a single panel ( a fun way to do this is by showing characters move across a large panoramic illustation a la Billy's Travels in the Sunday Family Circus), with so much etc. that I just don't wanna mention it all at once. Those of you familiar with my postings in music know me to be particularly interested in rhythm, so let me ask this: with all these ways to make pacing and the passage of time evident, how come not even the best comics artists make me wanna dance?

6. phillipdavid - April 5, 1997

What is "art"?

Art is anything that could not be expressed in an essay.

Art must have meaning, and must be related to our own life in such a way as to increase our energy of spirit. (Paraphrase of Kenneth Clark)

Good art, IMO, requires active participation, and a certain amount of discipline, and must do more than give pleasure. It must either instruct, relate, broaden, enrich, enrapture, intrigue, captivate,etc., etc.,, in other words, it must demand our active participation.

7. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

SOME OTHER STUFF THE FM IGNORED.

2224. sierraone - April 3, 1997

mondaugen:

Thank you for beginning . . . I recall that you have a thing for Mr. Klein. Your favorite color must be royal blue. Let's see, the most I ever saw of his work inperson was in the modern art museum in Nice, France (the official name of the place escapes me). If memory serves, he had several "permanent" pieces set up in a garden on top of the museum. Very tranquil to walk through, if I recall. It was a long time ago, and someone will probably correct me. Yves was big in the 70's wasn't he?

2225. mondaugen - April 3, 1997

sierraone:

that's not just royal blue, it International Klein Blue (patent no. 63471 dated 19 May 1960). I have the chemical brePsedown for the pigment written down somewhere...I'll post it when I find it, so YOU TOO can go paint street signs, parked cars, prostitutes, whatever, in the beautiful IKB hue. And while I really do enjoy the monochromes, I'm most interested some of his other concepts: his 'Zone Of Immaterial Pictoral Sensibility' series, the 'Le Vide' series and concept, his 'Archicture ofthe Air' writings, his kinetic sculpture (made w/ Joseph Bueys), the 'Monotone Symphony' (1947), and am also intrigued by his Rosicrucianism. He may have been big in the 70s, but I can't rightly remember, as I was just a tyke then. He died in 1962 of a triple heart-attack at the age of 34, so if he was, it was a retro-fashionable popularity. The only work of his that's on permanent display in Nice that I can think of off the top of my head is his oil on canvas collaboration w/ Christo ('Portrait De Rotraut Et Yves Klein Le Jour De Leur Mariage', 1962)...what works did you get to see? I can imagine the experience would be very tranquil; this is the guy that had the sky registered in the French Ministry as a signed art piece!

2226. PseudoErasmus - April 3, 1997

Sounds like a lot of shit to me.

8. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

2227. mondaugen - April 3, 1997

Pse:

I figured you were gonna say something like that. Actually, a lot of people do, but these folks are mostly ones whose entire knowledge of Klein comes from what they saw in Mondo Cane. If you were to peruse Klein's journals, you might come awayw/ a little more understanding. While Klein was very serious about what he did, he did not take the "Art" world seriously at all (much like Duchamp, who NEVER referred to any of his works as "art"). Lemme guess, Pse, you're more ofthe Vermeer type, right?

2228. PseudoErasmus - April 3, 1997

A Vermeer type? What could that possibly mean? One who displays fondness for the skillful use of light? One who can warm up to a non-stultifying realism? Or doyou mean something else altogether? Actually, I was just being gratuitously curmudgeonly. I have no idea who Klein is. I despise non-representational art on principle, although I cannot rule out exceptions to that principle. I don't much care for art which makes people oooh and aaah at the colour blue or the texture of a mesh of scratches. Aesthetic appreciation ought to be little more than visceral paramecium-like reactions to stimuli.

9. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

2231. mondaugen - April 3, 1997

Pse:

Well, for skillful use of light and non-stulifying realism, I'll take Caravaggio over Vermeer, but that's just me. I didn't really mean anything by that, just a little ribbing. But, honestly, I'm curious...would you care to elaborate on yourset of artistic principles? It may make your opinions more clear to me, and open up new avenues of debate. I think I have a general idea of where you're coming from, but, like I say, I'm curious, and I know you like to talk,so go ahead...indulge me. And I'm not one for 'in-joke' art myself (Koons, et al). There's a fine line, though. What would you say to the work of Malevich or Fontana? Do you see blobs & scratches, or do you see a fine command of composition? What's wrong w/ non-respresentational art? Why must it be so literal?

2233. PseudoErasmus - April 3, 1997

Caravaggio is a favorite, but, really, Caravaggio a realist? If C is indeed a realist, then it's not the same kind of realism as Vermeer's.

Whatdo you mean literal? Is this more ribbing? Otherwise, it's a VERY silly comment, one which fails torecognize the distinction between realism and literalism. And that is one of my problems: facile abstractionism and crude representational literalism are both odious.

Kasimir Malevich is surely one of art history's great jesters. "White on white" - a masterpiece indeed!

The problem with non-representational art (in principle) is that it is pure formalism. And one must strike a balance between form and content. If in contemporary poetry there is too little form, then contemporary art takes formalism to the extreme.

10. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

2234. PseudoErasmus - April 3, 1997

By the way, Mondaugen, it's difficult to compare Caravaggio's and Vermeer's uses of light. C. displayed a fairly orthodox chiaroscuro. V., on the other hand, shows the "movement" of light, the way different shades of light fall on objects in interior space. Nothing like chiaroscuro.

2237. mondaugen - April 3, 1997

Oh, jeez, there's more... You got me on the literal comment...poor word choice. I meant to ask why do you so strongly reject conceptualism or idealism? I'll wait for the post, though. Or, if you wish, you could send it to me, too. I'd very much like to read it.

11. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

2238. PseudoErasmus - April 3, 1997

Mondaugen, you told me earlier to peruse Klein's journals. And this comment was quite auspicious, since Tom Wolfe's book came up later.

One thing defenders of non-representational art frequently ask its critics to do is to read up on the artists,to understand the concepts underlying the art. You might call it idealism - I call it ideational fetish.

Thus the paradox of non-representational art. While people of ersatz sophistication can "appreciate" it readily, a welter of explanatory material always looms around it. Tom Wolfe, in *The Painted Word*, saw in much of modern art a "reduction to literature." That's a brilliant and acute observation, suggesting that the swill of commentary swells as the subject of a painting dwindles. Aren't these abstractions, once stripped of the babooneries of artspePse, little more than, well, meaningless abstractions? Without the commentary, what is a Liechtenstein or a Rothko? You've probably seen those munchkins, the globs of stone, in the garden atrium of the Hirschorn Gallery in DC. How could they get into a museum and attract any attention without the gibberish, drivel, twaddle of the hipster clerisy? Yes, yes, yes, all art is contingent, and "the innocent eye sees nothing," as E.H. Gombrich said, and pre-modern art tends to be very allusive. But even an innocent eye could find a modicum of beauty in El Greco's Christ or Seurat's Saint Jatte pictures. Representational paintings like thesecontain within themselves some notion of how they might be appreciated; they don't tell the unhip audience "fuck you - go away." In other words, they are relatively self-standing. I dare you to claim that for Kasimir Malevich's "White on white"!

12. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

2239. mondaugen - April 3, 1997

pe:

I assume you mean "White on White" collectively, as a series. And personally, I would. You don't need an exhibit catalogue to tell you that Malevich was trying "to free art from the burden of the object", or that "supremacy of feeling" was the most important part of observing these works...one look at them will tell you that straight away without the aid of the "hipster" clerisy. The primary function of art is to objectify feeling, and on that level "White on White" (or Rothko's work) succeeds. All art, representational or non, is rooted in the creation of substitutes, symbols, surrogates. It has a mnemonic function, as with myth, to serve as a semblance of memory. This might sound like horse-shit to you, but I'm attempting a rather undisciplined grand statement here that covers everything from the Lascaux paintings to Manzoni's canned feces. And it's in this respect that I don't think "White on White" sez "fuck you" to anyone...on the contrary, I find it quite inviting and, yes, beautiful. Though I do think Wolfe has a point. In that respect, you might get a kick out of Klein's "Void" series of "paintings", "dramas", etc. that simply did not exist. The galleries and theaters were completely empty, only the concept was written about or discussed. Sort of puts a new spin on that one. I think it was Adorno that said something to the effect of "today it goes without saying that nothingconcerning art goes without saying, much less without thinking." That sounds like something you might agree with, though I'm not entirely sure I do...I have no problem with looking at a Rothko and just simply...looking.

13. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

2240. PseudoErasmus - April 3, 1997

MONDAUGEN

"All art, representational or non, is rooted in the creation of substitutes, symbols, surrogates."

This is the only statement I agree with.

Please show me how, without resorting to any information outside the canvas of the series White on white, you know that "Malevich was trying to free art from the burden of the object or that supremacy of feeling was the most important part of observing these works."

2241. mondaugen - April 3, 1997

well, gee, Pse: Just look at one...what do you see? Some white paint on an off-whiteish canvas...nope, no 'objects' there (other than the painting itself). And how does it make you feel? Unless you're REALLY a jaded bastard, it'sgotta get SOME emotion out of you, good or bad. Those points seem pretty obvious to me, when you take the paintings at face value alone. But this is getting kind of base, here. You agree that all art is rooted in the creation of symbols, or substitutes. So, then, is art just a set of objects, or an attitude towards objects? Or, as O. Wilde would say, Not a thing, but a way? Extend that idea a little further. This would imply a submission of its ontology to the process of metaphor, placing its content into coexistence w/experience. So, then "art's" appreciative experience depends on artistic contemplation...wait, where the hell am I going with this? Without these horseshit nominalist semantic presuppositions I guess there is no way to show you "White on White". I'm about to concede to you on this one (re: "White on White", not about art in general.) Good show. Tomorrow can we do Dubuffet?

14. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

2242. PseudoErasmus - April 3, 1997

Oh, for Christ's sPsee, sweep away the shit. On the face of it, White on white is nothing but a white canvas with a tilted square. How can this _alone_ imply anything?

15. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

2242. PseudoErasmus - April 3, 1997

Oh, for Christ's sPsee, sweep away the shit. On the face of it, White on white is nothing but a white canvas with a tilted square. How can this _alone_ imply anything?

2243. mondaugen - April 3, 1997

Pse:

ItDOESN'T! That's the point! It's not implying anything, it's a design, a composition. A tilted square on a canvas. How much more direct than that can you get? I couldn't answer your question in #2240, and the conversation is in your favor; no need to get cranky.

2244. PseudoErasmus - April 3, 1997

You say it implies nothing, yet you adduced an implication in Message #2239. Yes, it's a design, a composition, nothing more. Could be funky wallpaper.

2245. mondaugen - April 3, 1997

Pse:

I agree, it would be very funky wallpaper or groovy textile. My implication in 2239 was to illustrate how I've generally come to look at art. But, as I also said in the same message, I have no problem w/ just "looking". In fact, I prefer it (hence my love for these sorts of works). So....ixnay the Dubuffet?

16. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

DAVEROLL - Re: Message #2271

"Most artists I know haven't got the first idea what art is; I'm inclined to think that's a prerequisite for doing something worth doing, since otherwise you're working from a preconceived idea of some kind. "

I think this is something of a modern American prejudice, or possibly an Anglo-American Romantic prejudice. When Ezra Pound's volume of Provençal imitations came out, an English critic wrote that Pound ought to forget about octosyllables andambibrachs and concentrate on the "beauty of the sun and the splendour of the trees." This is what I mean by romantic prejudice.

There is ample precedent for artists contemplating in expository form what art is, especially in poetry. Coleridge, Eliot, Pound, most of the Symbolists except Baudelaire, etc. Now I'm trying to think of painters and sculptors who scribbled a lot about painting and sculpture.

17. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

FRAYMISTRESS

You should scribble in the headline to the thread that this is the venue for discussing _all_ of the arts, except for books, music, movies and TV. That is, discussions of things like theater, poetry, painting, sculpture, dance, architecture, photography, etc. belong here.

18. resonance - April 5, 1997

Ah. Art. In this little boy's humble opinion, anything and everything can be art. Just some of it would not appeal to anybody else.

19. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

Art is what an audience recognizes as art. case closed.

I don't think it's a good idea to discuss"what is art" -surely a recipe for going nowhere VERY fast.

20. resonance - April 5, 1997

Audience being an undefined term. Pse, if I paint a work that to me totally and irrevocably expresses my view on something,then it is art to me. If someone else doesn't agree on that, then that doesn't change whether or not I find it as such. But I'd suspect that this wasn't denied in your point.

21. mondaugen - April 5, 1997

on that note:

One of my initial questions when trying to get this thread going was in reference to the SLATE article on the Whitney Biennale...in it, the author describes the work of Duchamp, Burden and some others as 'Outsider Art'. Now, I was underthe impression that the generally accepted definition of Outsider Art is simply art by artists who have developed a body of work completely outside the constraints of the "art community". I don't believe this applies to Duchamp or (esp.) Burden. Anyone care to help me out on this?

22. resonance - April 5, 1997

Okay. Pse. Do you find artistic value in the works of artists like Rothko and de Kooning? How about Jackson Pollock?

23. phillipdavid - April 5, 1997

resonance,

Pollack is just dribbling, spurting, narcissistic, self-masturabatory drool on canvas. That is not art for me; the art may have been in watching him in the _act_ of painting -- if memory serves me, isn't his stuff called *Action Painting*?

#31, for instance doesn't do anything for me. There is no way I can interact with it; it doesn't evoke anything: any feeling, any connections, any sympathy, any history,any intellection, any cogitation, any anything. There is nothing for me to contemplate except his methodology. I assume it made some sort of statement to himself, but it doesn't make any kind of statement to me. It doesn't even reflect cultural forces, or society ---say in the way Picasso's Three Musicians can evoke thoughts on theterrific changes happening in the 1920's.

It may have been art for Pollack, but there is no way for me to make any sort of meaningful or worthwhile connection to his stuff at all.

24. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

RESONANCE

I had in effect answered your question in Message #22 before you posed it.

In Message #20, you say,

"...if I paint a work that to me totally and irrevocably expresses my view on something,then it is art to me. If someone else doesn't agree on that, then that doesn't change whether or not I find it as such. But I'd suspect that this wasn't denied in your point."

Most assuredly would I deny it. I find this kind of sensibility a residue of tiresome romantic critical agitprop and petulant solipsism.

25. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

RESONANCE,

Here is something I onced posted in the Movies Thread, which is most relevant to our discussion here:

Art is a public act. It is the very point of the artist's existence to communicate - within the context of publicly available knowledge and conventions, at least of his own time -something through the art to an audience. And the audience's competence need not extend beyond the ability to recognize those conventions and to acquire that knowledge. If in the art the artist addresses solely himself; or exposes as little of himself as only an acquaintance with him can fill in the lacunae; or uses his own secret symbols and conventions, then he is not communicating. The"private" artist who would write a play for an audience of his best friend should not expect a reaction any more discriminating than:

"PRIVATE" ARTIST:

Did you like my play? What did you think of it?

HIS BEST FRIEND:

Yes, it was a marvelous evocation of your syphilitic insanity.

And the poet and amateur lepidopterist who would insert into a sonnet a quatrain like

From a state of unpied unwrought beauty, Y'always rise, like a luminous larva Quick into a moth dappled and dusty, And become my winsome big-haired Darla.

either neglects to explain something to the public or ought to stay clear of parody.

26. Fraymistress - April 5, 1997

Thanks Pse, for porting the rest. I had to run to a meeting this afternoon.

And I changed the intro because, hey, I'm that kinda gal.

27. PseudoErasmus - April 5, 1997

put poetry and theater in the header, fraymistress.

28. nedfagan - April 5, 1997

FRAYMISTRESS

Any further word on creating a digest of the most heavily used threads? As an aid to you, I have written a modest monograph supporting the idea and listing reasons, benefits, particular options for implementation, and so forth.

My thinking was that this will provide a single coherent document that you can use in discussions with the "Fray gods," as you put it. It will also provide a point of departure for planning. Say what you will, I am always willing to become part of the solution -- it's just the kind of guy I am.

Because the report is a bit longer than my usual efforts (38,489 words) I will post it in increments. This will also allow everyone to digest the work slowly, 2000 words at a time. So, altogether, there will be 20 posts in addition to this one.

P.S. Please remember to print the report nicely, and don't forget to obtain a spiffy binder; presentation is always important.

Post #2 (of 21) coming up in just a sec...

29. Forward - April 5, 1997

Pse, thank you for so clearly stating the importance of communication in art. A trend I have noted in museums, and gallerys, is to have a lengthy explanation of what the artist is saying accompany his/her work. In some cases the explanation is not needed, in many it adds to the experience of viewing the work and, in a number, the explanation does not facilitate communication at all. In the last case the work is then judged solely on, of all things, how attractive it is.

30. Fraymistress - April 5, 1997

NedFagan, as I said in the Comments thread -- the SLATE gods realize there is something in your idea --they just haven't figured out what precisely, and these things take time. Within a few weeks we should know more. Remember you can also email me your treatise.

31. thejackcat - April 5, 1997

PseudoErasmus, i am glad you self-plagiarize again. i remember this post from the TV thread (Message #25) and almost responded to it then. i shall do so now. what is the point of art if it only communicates what we already know, publicly available knowledge and convention? why bother? what is the "something" the artist tries to communicate? i think that art is not only a reflection of ideas, but can also serve as the conveyor of new ideas. so someone might say, "it just doesn't *do* anything for me." well, of course it doesn't if the art deals with ideas that are foriegn or outside the context of our public knowledge. some art is only understood retrospectively, when the public finally catches up.

32. cigarlaw - April 6, 1997

Art is what an artist says is art. Whether it is good art is another question and that is determined by the viewers, present and future.

I recall listening to an Amer-Ind artist. He was asked what he does when someone comes to him for instruction and tells him that he want to be an artist. His response was that he would tell the person to do something else; One does not become an artist because one wants to, he becomes an artist because he HAS to.

Art occurs in many arenas we do not normally associate with art. For example, I consider effective trial work to be an art form. Of course, to do it well, one must have a degree of skill, but that is simply experience and training. Art comes from within us, and one either is an artist, or isnot an artist in the field chosen. It is the ability to see connections that may not be obvious to others and to somehow convey that to others.

A great deal of what passes for art today (and I suppose in the past) seems to be mere hucksterism. If you can convince others it is good, it is good. But, there is good art and there is bad art. Both are art, but good art is that which conveys something to others, and perhaps something different to others.

33. thejackcat - April 6, 1997

cigarlaw, that line about being an artist because one HAS to be has always annoyed me. this is the kind of statment i find tiresomely romantic. i think that skill--experience and training--is underrated. art coming from within sounds like the kind of transcendantal hooey carborundum was trying to espouse in the religion thread, the desire to please god. i think the desire to make a buck can be just as strong a motivation and can produce some pretty darn good art too.

34. nedfagan - April 6, 1997

FRAYMISTRESS --

No, no. E-mailing my monograph would prevent others from reading it. I want to bring the largest possible benefit to others in the Fray.

Just had a bit of trouble before with my upload procedure. Ok, should work this time. Here comes #1 of 20 parts, 38,489 words altogether. Remember, this is a labor of love, so treat it with care. I'll be interested in getting your specific reactions to the numerous points I make.

[upload; Acrobat/EPS TRACK4 MIME CODE3,6,14 go]

35. phillipdavid - April 6, 1997

cigarlaw,

Message #32

"Art occurs in many arenas we do not normally associate with art. For example, I consider effective trial work to be an art form. "

Yes. Effective trial work requires a connection to be made that transcends words. Body language, demenear, neuro linguistic programming -- all the factors that can't be written down on a piece of paper and either read or shown to a jury is "art"work.

36. PseudoErasmus - April 6, 1997

THEJACKCAT

I really don't think we are disagreeing in Message #30, except possibly on your interpretation of my Message #25. I certainly wholeheartedly share your fatigue with romantic critical delusions in Message #33.

CIGARLAW is wholly given to an insufferably naive view of art. The artist is the one person who cannot deem art that which is not thought to be art by anyone else.

37. PseudoErasmus - April 6, 1997

Just for the hell of it, I am going to mention that I am a devotee of the intentional fallacy. That is, I believe that....

the art is the definitive record of the artist's intent for that art.

The artist, after presenting the art to the public, has no further say in what the art means. He loses control of it entirely. He may never have had any if incapable of embodying his intentions in the facts of the art. He may also have been inept at reading the conventions of his time, or at understanding what the art might suggest to an audience. Therefore, any attempt to annotate that artistic record necessarily only redounds to the revelation of the artist's mind and not of the art. And all other evidences of intent are suspect. The artist may have changed his mind. He may be a horrible interpretor of his own art. He may also have lied. He may have been insane.

So whether Wodehouse intended Jeeves and Wooster to represent certain archetypes is quite irrelevant. (Phillip David's question in the Readings thread.) The question is, can the characters be cogently interpreted as such.

This doesn't of course mean that it's not worth investigating an artist's intentions or biographical data. It is simply worth mPseing these distinctions.

[note to ned fagan: who will call the above remarks functional post-modernism. they are not. it's simply modernism.]

38. thejackcat - April 6, 1997

PseudoErasmus, perhaps my post (Message #31) was a misinterpretation of your meaning; however, once you put it out there for discussion, your opinions, although worth investigating, really have no bearing on my point. i just knew that you'd like #33. (aren't you happy to see that it no longer disturbs me to agree with you? after all, you do make the occasional point). i have been dying to use the word "hooey" for weeks! is the intentional fallacy the same thing as the intensional fallacy?

39. PseudoErasmus - April 6, 1997

the jackcat #38. Very cute. There is certainly a place in the hall of irony for one as broad as yours. However, you miss the point: the "intentional fallacy" doesn't caution you against interpreting an art work with the artist's intentions in mind; rather it merely warns against supposing that somehow the one the artist (allegedly) intended is the "right" one. But in a forum such as this, where the only meaning that really matters is the one that the author intends, you can't interpret freely....

40. cigarlaw - April 6, 1997

thejackcat: Of course it is romantic. What is wrong with that. If you have never felt the burning need to create something others might find illuminating, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Money is, like in most things, very important. I would not be a trial lawyer if I did not make money at it, notwithstanding my love for what I do. I would not do it, because, like everyone else, I have to eat and support a family and I would have to find some other endevour that permitted me to do so. Money is what permits the artist to create art. Good art is what permits the artist to make money.

I agree with you that skill and experience are vastly underrated in art. That is why I said a lot of what passes for art is hucksterism. It has probably always been so, but in the modern world we seem to have forgotten that skill and experience are important. It is insufficient to merely have a creative drive to create good art -- one must have the requisite skill to go along with it. Today, marketing has replaced skill as the determining factor of what is good.

The fact that a gorilla's (or chimp) paintings were entered in an art contest and were favorably received by critics who did not know it was painted by a simian, tells agreat deal about what unskilled crap passes for good art these days.

Someone once said 90% of everything is crap. He was probably an optimist, but, then again he was spePseing 30 or 40 years ago.

41. PseudoErasmus - April 6, 1997

there is romantic art. i like turner, i like keats, i like schubert. and then there is the romantic _view_ of art. it makes me vomit.

42. Caliguy - April 6, 1997

Or maybe it tells us something about the critcs' opinions and skills.....and perhaps more about anyone who wanted to buy it.

43. PseudoErasmus - April 6, 1997

DIRECTIVE TO FRAYMISTRESS

the headline to the thread should read:

"Debate theater, painting, photography, poetry, dance, etc."

well, it should definitely include THEATER.

44. BuddhaAmida - April 6, 1997

Art is anything, if you look at it correctly. this Pse khan has far too narrow a view on art. Such a constriction stultifies, leading downward into stagnation, like shanshui.. Only through the encouragment of the new can art flourish, and only through accepting new artists and new methods of experiencing and generating art can we encourage this new growth.

45. PseudoErasmus - April 6, 1997

Amida Buddha is silly. My view is neither too narrow nor too broad. Rather, the view that "art is anything" is TOO broad a view.

In *Poetic Meter and Poetic Form* Paul Fussell indirectly bears on our little discussion. He has been insisting on form and structure in poetry and decrying the deterioration thereof in much of contemporary verse. He goes on to say:

"Those who spePse of the 'tyranny' of the iambic foot might spePse just as well of the tyranny of friction which enables us to run, or the tyranny of gravity which permits dancing and high-jumping to differ beautifully from walking."

Indeed, it is rigour and constraint which empower art.

At any rate, Amida Buddha is really confusing two questions: what is art, and what is good art. VERY different questions.

Better stick to koans.

46. Karnivore - April 6, 1997

Karnivore. Where I come from the NEA is a mortal sin. Look at Andres Serrano's photographs at "artdaily.com. That trash is obscene and the government shouldn't be funding it. Besides it is only political hacks that get that monye anyway. Usually it's somebody's dumb brother-in-law. The sort a guy who couldn't make in used cars so he decides to be a painter. I'm all for the arts though. For instance I've been to Spain and run with the bulls at Pamplona. Why can't we have that here. We subsidizeall kinds a junk. Bull fighting that's what I want to see. When I was in the joint a while back I kinda thought about this stuff while I was doing time...I'm in a halfway house now and I still think about it.

I'll be out in six months and look to the day when I can just paint and write poetry. Ex: The rain in Spain is mostly in the Plain. When you complain I shall never explain. Try so hard not to be a pain.

Anyone want to sponsor me? I wasted five years a my life here..I meant there. I wish I had that coke now. Good stuff. Right side of a Bolivin Mountain it was. It's hard to explain the pain. Unless you're talking to someone insane. I want to write. I want to make passion. let me know what all of you think. Thanks for letting me express myself. I'll be back I'm Karnivore.

47. mondaugen - April 6, 1997

re: Message #43

don't forget architecture, that's important, too. I'd be tempted to throw in design & choreography, but we can't have everything, can we?

48. aramis - April 7, 1997

Why can't you? Surely art is reflective in 'attitude' -that is, interpreted by who/whomever views it and appreciates it? Hard to explain, because art is about feelings, intangable and interpreted.

49. Karnivore - April 7, 1997

Art sir is not reflective it is active. It involves doing. It means getting up and putting pen to paper or whatever. Reflective---isn't that what spoiled college rats do when are goofing off instead of studying. When I was in the can I used to reflect atnight on my bottom bunk. I coulda made a better decisionn about drugs I realized. But when I wanted to make poetry I had to work Work Work.

Aramis art is not hard to explain. It is hard to do.

50. daveroll - April 7, 1997

Belaboring the obvious, you'd have no art without artists. I can produce many examples to illustrate the point but let me start with Van Gogh. As a technician in his medium, he was not first class, and his work came into its own only after he moved away from attempts to paint in the austere grey Dutch style and opened up to the influence of the Japanese print and the graphic effects of a reed or bamboo pen. He reached back into his own tradition, favoring the sepia inks of Rembrandt and settling in a region of France, the Crau and the Alpes-Maritime, that had much in common visually with Holland. (Flat plains.)He borrowed and bent to his own purposes the flattened perspective, conscious pictorial framing, and stylized drawing of Japanese prints. The grafting together of these disparate influences was the source of the originality in his art. In Van Gogh we have an artist who developed an individual pictorial vocabulary, invented his own technique (oil paint applied as if by bamboo pen), and painted many great paintings. Yet in his lifetime he did not sell a single work, and it was only through the efforts of his brother Theo and others who came later, right down to the Japanese buyers of recent years, who confirmed the status of Van Gogh's work as "art." Something about this situation, which repeats itself again and again, is ridiculous. However, it should be obvious to anyone who thinks about how art is actually produced--as distinct from how it is consumed--that artists define what art is, and the market confirms it. Only some innovations are accepted, even in pluralist markets like that of the 70s and again today, when anything goes because no "movement" is dominant. The artist goes out there, takes the risks, and opens up a genre or creates a vocabulary that others can use. This phenomenon is evident even in the most commercial forms of popular art, so no one should think I'm talking snobbishly about some avant-garde elite.

51. ElliottRW - April 7, 1997

PseudoErasmus, in , says "Art is what an audience recognizes as art. case closed."

Fine. Instead of focusing on the intrinsic qualities of art, perhaps we could examine how art functions. Here are some questions to drive conversation:

How does art function in the economy, in politics, in education, in marriage and divorce, in international relations, in military affairs, in religion, in popular culture?

How does the function of a work of art, as art, change over time?

How does art function in your life?

52. PseudoErasmus - April 7, 1997

oooo, elliott, that last question leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

53. ElliottRW - April 7, 1997

PseudoErasmus Message #52

Oh, I'm so sorry! I was hoping that it would make you feel all tingly inside.

Get real! Most of the effete blather in the Fray is pure crap; authentic accounts of personal experience, on the otherhand, at least have the hope of containing useful information.

54. HenryAdamRKlyce - April 7, 1997

Pse (or whatver you're calling yourself these days),

"My view is neither too narrow or too broad."

No, or course not, your view is exactly what you say it is. (uh-huh)

"Rather, the view that "art is anything" is TOO broad a view."

Not necessarily.

Anything can be art; it is the ultimate situation-dependant medium. Take a cave painting found underwater in France. At the time is served a functional purpose - now it is an artifact (art-i-fact.)

But to be serious: context, intent, purpose, situation, interpretation...everything bears on the object's classification. So maybe we're not talking about Rembrandt, or Miro but everyday objects can be made "art" simply by their inclusion in an "art" exhibit.

You don't like that? Too bad. Last time I checked you weren't the one being consulted for approval whenever a new peice of "art" was being released by an artist. In fact, who is being consulted?

There are varying degrees of art, maybe, but it's not reduced to "two questions: what is art, and what is good art."

Elliot has some very good questions, as "art" functions on different levels for different people, different cultures and different societies.

55. slaterdr9 - April 7, 1997

thejackcat - April 6, 1997 Message #33, Message #39

Yes but is real - as opposed to phony or imaginary - art material or immaterial? And, if the latter, is it truly transcendental? And, if so but not, could it be truly falsely transendental? Or just straight/unstraight "transcendantal hooey"?

My gut feel is that nedfagan - April 6, 1997 Message #34 succintly encapsulated all that is good in art and humor at the end of 20th century.

nedfagan, thanks for the funniest entries I have seen in the Fray.

56. daveroll - April 7, 1997

As a painter I have ceased to concern myself with theory; I no longer care about the 20th C. discovery of the flatness of the picture plane and the decomposition of illusive space. Nor do I care about political content or shock value. If I have a workingrule of thumb, it is to avail myself of whatever is there in the artistic tradition: a real product of the museum without walls.

What it means to me in my life: the expression of feelings, perceptions, and poetic responses that do not find anothervehicle; a way of relating myself to the world, especially the visible world but in some sense an invisible one as well (though not necessarily out there anywhere); the completion of a constant impulse to translate what I see into fixed images of some kind. Finally, painting is the only place where I can get to anything beautiful.

Its function in my life is to keep me in a dialog with the world and to a lesser degree with earlier art. I don't think anything else is more worth doing than creative activity.

57. Seguine - April 7, 1997

It used to be that the verbal Pseudo-intellection held forth on behalf of theories and practitioners of whatever lately was being called "art" occasionally succeeded in pointing at the same, otherwise ineffable *thing* toward which an artist or his work heroically grunted. In recent years, say the last 15-20, that is no longer remotely the case. I think this has to do with the fact that most artists we're made aware of now are no longer expressing anything that can't be spoken or written. So writers about art go to great lengths to intuit obscure profundities that aren't there, and artists go on happily mPseing easy banalities.

My suspicion of the view of art that largely excludes modernism from considerations of greatness is that it perhaps wants art to be like literature in the way literature is descriptive. But it's possible for a painting to express things (more specifically, to show us aspects of the physical world we thought we knew but had actually just developed mnemonics for in everyday life, or to show subtleties that have parallels in music) entirely through formalist means and without describing at all. More by imitating, actually.

Some of the things that good non-figurative work may show or point to, however, are of interest primarily to artists. Which is good: there is a place in the universe that always has been and always will be reserved for elitism, elitists, and all the usual self-aggrandizement. Elites are no threat to audiences, who have the power to employ critical thinking any time they choose.

I used to torture a friend who adored Mondrian, on what I thought were slim grounds, by insisting that Mondrian (his late work) was art-historically important but not artistically important. The arrangement of primary colors, black, and white in a flat but "perfect" composition struck me as neurotic and, like most neurotic activities, boring.

58. Seguine - April 7, 1997

Here's my theory about how art will "rise" from its "death": A renegade faction of artists will cease to show or sell their work, at least through galleries and museums. They will live in communities of near-exile from urbia, where they will make things. They will show them to one another, maybe. They will on principle never make personal appearances in conjunction with their work, which they might display for sale privately now and then. Their work will eventually no longer look likeregional variations on art school trends around the country.

Some of the work will be extremely good and will be gathered for display after they are dead. "Art world" artists will imitate it.

59. HenryAdamRKlyce - April 7, 1997

Message #58

Seguine,

I assure you, there are people out there now who are creating art, have no interest in showing it (or selling it, for that matter) and do not have a clue what art schools are doing at the moment.

Whether or not these people will be included in the Canon some day is something we will never know in our lifetime, but be content with the knowledge that they don't care.

60. PseudoErasmus - April 7, 1997

SEGUINE

Could you please inform us which poster's or which living critic's view of art "largely excludes modernism"?

And please elaborate on your 2nd paragraph.

61. phillipdavid - April 7, 1997

To ElliotRW Message #51 and HenryAdamKlyce,

daveroll's Message #56

"What it means to me in my life: the expression of feelings, perceptions, and poetic responses that do not find anothervehicle; a way of relating myself to the world, especially the visible world but in some sense an invisible one as well (though not necessarily out there anywhere); the completion of a constant impulse to translate what I see into fixed images of some kind. Finally, painting is the only place whereI can get to anything beautiful.

Its function in my life is to keep me in a dialog with the world..."

is a fantastic response. I notice that it correlates to what I said in Message #6. I stand by my description of what good art is, and the proper function of art in our culture. (4:50 PST)

62. CMudgeon - April 7, 1997

Who was it that said: "If I could have made it in my garage overnight, it ain't art"?

63. godlessclif - April 7, 1997

Who is the poet who said: Not archangel, or demon fell, but a man very much like me.

You put archangel and demon into a search engine and the cults swamp you out.

64. Mikesch - April 7, 1997

RE:daveroll's Message #56 Sa way of relating myself to the worldS

I wholly agree that your posting is just beautiful, in particular the above part. What a pleasure to read the words of someone with real artistic impulse who can alsoexpress himself eloquently AND originally. Very nice!

I'm so thrilled because I continually have to explain and defend to people why I create art (in my case songs which I perform with my band) without apparent commercial value. This part of your quote is only one aspect of what motivates me, however it is thee one I had not been able to put in words. The primary impetus for my committment to art is that I am convinced that it is the most significant means of contributing to humanity, however smallor large the numbers. And you are an example of this. As an artist you have grappled with what art means to you, found the words, bothered to post them, provided me the opportunity to read them, and thus have made a difference in my life. And to those who would say: What difference in the world does it make if one contributes to ONE person? Well, I'm the recipient and it means the world to me. Thanks.

65. godlessclif - April 7, 1997

No demon fell.
No archangel
No man like me on this thread.
Watch out for the ozone hole.

66. HenryAdamRKlyce - April 8, 1997

I wouldn't presume to put how I feel about what "art" is in words, it is everything.

Every aspect of life has room for "art."

A passage I vaguely remember: "Art gives us what life does not." I can't remember who wrote it though.

CMudgeon,

To read what a real Cormudgeon said about art:

"If more than ten percent of the population likes a painting it should be burned, for it must be bad."

George Bernard Shaw

67. Mikesch - April 8, 1997

RE: #66. HenryAdamRKlyce - April 8, 1997
"I wouldn't presume to put how I feel about what "art" is in words, it is everything".

I don't understand this sentiment. To put your thoughts into words allows you share your perception of things and, thus, to maybe offer a fresh perspective to someone else. It could invite someone elses opinion which could be new to you. I see a somewhat rigerous conversation about subjects such as art, philosophy and even religion as a process of "presence-ing" of what it IS for one. It seems in the act of that it continues to become (evolve) which I certainly think of as more valuable that canned opinions, even if we do the "canning" ourselves.

68. HenryAdamRKlyce - April 8, 1997

Dear Mikesch,

Please do not feel as if I am casting dispersions at people who are capable of putting their definition of art into words, I am merely saying that I wouldn't.

The sentiment isn't negative, it's just that to me, art is not something that fits our need to describe it. It can be, though, but it isn't always.

69. Impenitent - April 8, 1997

aren't most things that are beneficial to a person, also asthetically pleasing to the same person?

70. coralreef - April 8, 1997

Impenitent, a prostate exam for you may be beneficial but aesthetically pleasing? You tell me.

71. HenryAdamRKlyce - April 8, 1997

Yes, impenitent, please explain what you mean.

I can think of examples (like coralreef's) where aesthetics are not the primary critereon for benefit.

For instance, during Driver's Training courses, films like "Blood Runs Red on the Highway" are shown. These are not aesthetically pleasing to most people, but they are intended to have a benefit.

If we shift the subject to works of art, I believe: if you judge soley on the basis of aesthetic criteria, you are limiting yourself.

72. phillipdavid - April 8, 1997

here is a sample to consider: Pollock

I would like to hear how anyone communicates with this painting, how anyone relates this work to their own life in such a way as to increase their energy of spirit. How do you actively participate with this?

73. mgleason - April 8, 1997

I looked, PD, but couldn't find.

74. mondaugen - April 8, 1997

phild: yr link didn't work for me, either. Which Pollack are you trying to use?

75. phillipdavid - April 8, 1997

I believe that very artist knows in his heart that he is saying something to the public.

What is Pollock saying with this?

Approval of these sorts dribblings brings acceptance of the judgement it impies: the people who like Chinese scroll-painting often prefer a calm contemplative life from which extreme emotions and violent colors are banished.

Does this dribbling even imply any sort of judgement?

76. phillipdavid - April 8, 1997

oh crap! i am sorry. Pollock's Lavender mist?

77. mondaugen - April 8, 1997

try http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?55555+0+0

78. phillipdavid - April 8, 1997

Lets try this: Pollock

79. phillipdavid - April 8, 1997

the above link works!

80. PseudoErasmus - April 8, 1997

Gee, Phillip, I was convinced your link transported me to Tirana, Albania.

81. Forward - April 8, 1997

Phillip, you can't communicate with the Pollock painting. It is just there. It does not make me want to turn away. But it does draw my eye and makes me want to look at it in some detail (but not for to long). However; it says nothing. I get noclue as to what the artist is trying to say, or if he means to say anything. I had an artist, who really likes Pollock, tell me how to view Pollock's paintings but I couldn't make sense of them on that level. I can read in the art books what makes this a significant work of art. But if I ignore the words of the critics and scholars the painting says nothing to me.

I do like looking at it, however, and that is enough.

82. SharonSchroeder - April 8, 1997

I like this painting. It does not tell me anything about the artist's feelings but lets my eye wander around it to feel what I want to feel.

83. SharonSchroeder - April 8, 1997

It draws my eye while allowing my mind to wander

84. phillipdavid - April 8, 1997

Forward,

I believe that the great critics I have read, (or read about) --Vasari, Lomazzo, Rushkin, Baudelaire--would have agreed that art must do something other than give pleasure. As Kenneth Clarke (my main intellectual access point for understanding art) said : "Art is not a lollipop, or even a glass of kummel."

Now that I've thusly described myself as a snob, I would like to know why you like looking at it. Does it elicit certain thoughts, feelings, moods, curiosity? Does itcontribute to your understanding of the human condition? of history? of yourself? Does it mirror some psychic state you are in? What? is there an active word you could use to verbalize why this gives pleasure?

Time did a big write up on art such as this not too long ago. I noticed that all the talk centered around the artist, instead of the art itself. If people can't discuss it with words, then what is it? Heiddegar once said that "Language is the house of being." If it is beyond our ability to say anything meaningful about it, does it truly have any utility? any meaning?

Maybe the fact that it might transcend words holds some appeal for us? For a couple hundred years, the paradigm articulated by Descartes has held sway : I think therefore I am. Is there another paradigm that this painting spePses to? I feel therefore I am?

All the above is myself thinking outloud, rambling. Please excuse.

85. mgleason - April 9, 1997

So, anybody interested in starting any poetry discussions?

86. CMudgeon - April 9, 1997

What bothers me about much of modern art is that it looks like something I could go home and recreate over night in my garage. I know, "recreate" is the operative word here. But, I think virtuosity is a major part of my appreciation of a workof art.

The concept, idea, intent, etc. is at the heart of the creativity involved in great art. But often, originality for its own sPsee substitutes for quality. Showing that you can come up with something irreducible to the work of past masterscan't be all that there is to great art.

Consider the following:

Salieri takes dictation from Mozart while Mozart composes the Requiem on his death bed. No one would suggest that Salieri is the artist here. The same would be true if a parapelegic novelist dictated the great American novel to a secretary. But what if a sculptor or painter dictated his concept to his students who then did all of the hands-on work? What is being dictated here? A concept? An idea? An image? A feeling? Who is the artist here? Why?

Also, what if almost anyone could serve as the artist's hands, i.e, it took no skill, no technique, no craftsmanship? After all, most of us could paint a canvas black or lean a plank against a wall. In fact most ofus could have conceived of doing so while rejecting the idea as non-art.

Is someone who can copy a great masterpiece so that only the experts could spot it as a phony, or someone who can create an original in the style of a master, less of an artist than someone who could give me instructions to lean a plank against a wall? How much is novelty (creativity?) worth? How much technique or craftsmanship? How great can a work of art be when the artist is apparently communicating with only a handful of art snobs and critics who must then try to explain it to we dullards?

87. godlessclif - April 9, 1997

If you write an artificially intellgent computer program that produces novel artwork did you create the art or did you only create an artist?

88. ElliottRW - April 9, 1997

GodlessClif Message #87

Ha ha ha. The only person required for art to exist is an observer; the creator of art might be mother nature, a computer, or the village idiot.

The value of an artist lies in his/her ability to choose to create things that function as art for a set of observers. As some have pointed out, that set may include the artist alone.

How does something function as art? As PD pointed out, it must do more than simply please, or it might as well be roast mutton or a back rub. DaveRoll, in Message #56, noted that the process of creating art enabled him to express certain ineffable things; if his works evoke such ineffables in others, then they are truly art.

89. HenryAdamRKlyce - April 9, 1997

phillip, Message #75

"What is Pollock saying with this?"

Maybe he just liked how it looked.

Message #84

"...art must do something other than give pleasure."

Why? Why must it do anything at all?

"If it is beyond our ability to say anything meaningful about it, does it truly have any utility? any meaning?"

If you view art as utiltarian, then maybe this is a valid question.

90. HenryAdamRKlyce - April 9, 1997

Message #86 CMudgeon,

If you're truly interested in this vien of discussion, perhaps you'd like to read Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936)

91. daveroll - April 9, 1997

phillipdavid 84

Who is Lamozzo? You might also include Alberti, who gave us the idea of a painting as a window, which modern artists tried to overthrow.(Pollock among them.)

The best treatment of the issues of the "use" value of art I know of is found in Hannah Arendt's THE HUMAN CONDITION. She denies it has a use because use turns the work of art into a commodity, its value thus reduced to its exchange value in a materialist economy.

CMudgeon 86

The issue of handiwork is old and complex. In the renaissance artists had ateliers, and their assistants (students, wives, children) executed much of the work; artists applied finishing touches. We live in a weird climate today when much such work is being de-attributed. More recently, visual artists and critics have mounted an assault, whether misguided or not, on the handiwork requirement. Sol Lewitt's works are executed from his instructions. Donald Judd, a minimalist, was associated in the sixties with this idea of art from which the signature of handiwork had been eliminated; but when an Italian collector/entrepreneur tried to set up an art park and had someone else execute Judds of which he owned drawings, Judd was infuriated and took legal action. In his dotage, deKooning produced a lot of large sculptures, from small maquettes that were cast large by someone else; for a time there was a huge brouhaha about whether the maquettes had in fact been executed by the artist's daughter, Lisa. (This, too, was a court case; I don't know how it was resolved).

HenryAdamRKlyce 89

As soon as art is required to have utility it is captured for some ideological purpose--by the church, by the government, by the corporation. That doesn't mean an object so used isn't art, but its art qualities are perverted. Paintings are bought by corporate collectors for reasons no artist would care about. Decoration, soothing mood, colorful punctuation of drab corridors.)

92. daveroll - April 9, 1997

SharonSchroeder 83

I have often heard people say they prefer painting to music or writing because they can look at it without being forced to think or feel something in particular. Painting is less domineering than print or music, but people may prefer to read or listen to a symphony because a novel or a symphony can drive away their thoughts and replace them with others. Although a painting fills the eye, it may not succeed in filling the mind, and if it did one might feel crazy.

93. daveroll - April 9, 1997

phillipdavid 78

On my video screen it looks like a piece of linoleum. Poor Jackson.

94. daveroll - April 9, 1997

HenryAdamKlyce 90

vien indeed.

95. godlessclif - April 9, 1997

Elliot

The inportant thing the Artist does is to be the first to appreciate the work. That moment when he steps bach and says, yes, this is it.

The work preparing for that moment is secondary, a support that prepares for beingthe first of many to say "What the hell is this thing".

96. Mikesch - April 9, 1997

RE: mssg #85. mgleason - April 9, 1997

So, anybody interested in starting any poetry discussions?

Indeed, I am. How about Rainer Maria Rilke, Emily Dickinson, ShPseespeare?

97. mgleason - April 9, 1997

Mikesch: Wonderful. A few of us were talking about it last night, and we're trying to see if we can get some sort of framework around the discussion. I'm hoping that it's quick and painless. (The organization, not the discussion.)

Thanks for responding, I look forward to your choices.

98. Mikesch - April 9, 1997

RE: #93. daveroll - April 9, 1997
"On my video screen it looks like a piece of linoleum. Poor Jackson".

But very nice looking linoleum. You're pretty original, ever think of writung poetry?

I don't feel confident enough in Pollock's work to say it is art. But I, too, feel something looking at it. There is a certain validity in that and I'm sure that's what made him famous in the first place: He pleases certain tastes. It doesn't have to follow that he is therefor an artist. I think it is acceptable that some people slip through and get to call themselves something they're not. All that becomes present does so by virtue of being juxtaposes to its absence. (My writing may sound a little odd, that would be because I'm German.)

99. HenryAdamRKlyce - April 9, 1997

Message #91

daveroll,

"As soon as art is required to have utility it is captured for some ideological purpose..."

I think I can agree with that. I'd have to think about it some more but for now, I agree.

I wasn't trying to imply that I believe that once art has an "ideological purpose" it ceases to be art. Just that there is art that has no utilitarian purpose, whatsoever, and therefore does not beg the questions "does it truly have any utility?any meaning?" asked by phillipdavid.

Art is something that many different people approach differently and I also didn't mean to imply that I believed PhillipDavid was approaching art the "wrong" way. Just that for me, asking these questions is irrelevant if the peice isn't utilitarian.

Thinking a little more about what you said earlier: "As soon as art is required to have utility it is captured for some ideological purpose..." I am not sure I agree anymore, or , I don't really see how something has to be utilitarian to "posses" ideological qualities.

"Artifacts are congealed ideology."

Don't remember who said it but I tend to agree with its implication. A piece of anything has an ideology associated with it, if it is man made.

I understand the point you're mPseing about institutional art serving a utilitarian function, however, and I realize why you are mPseing that point.

100. mgleason - April 9, 1997

PhillipDavid:

I thought about this a lot before I answered your question about Pollack's Lavender Mist. Representational art is what I know the most about, and also what appeals to me the most. Yet there are non-representational pieces that callout to me, as this one does.

Lavender Mist makes me feel like I'm about 5 seconds away from cracking the code that would explain the whole thing to me. I capture just enough here and there to make me think that if I only knew the language, I'd fall under its spell.

101. phillipdavid - April 9, 1997

Hmmmm...I feel like that all the time ;-) hahaha

102. mondaugen - April 9, 1997

I saw Pollack's "Full Fathom Five" at the age of seven. Haven't looked back since. By that point I had seen countless paintings in my relatively short lifetime, but that one was the first one that hit me...physically. For the first time I realized that art was indeed something much bigger than myself, and it would be something I would strive to pinpoint and explain that feeling to myself for the rest of my life. Paradoxically, it was the first time I really "understood".

103. phillipdavid - April 9, 1997

HenryPSE re 99,

I too agree that a piece of anything has an ideology associated with it if it is manmade. And artists are trying to convey some sort of message with their work. It also does become a commodity of sorts as soon as it is introducedto the public. It is a vehicle of, or for, communication. Thus, IMO, art has an imperative, a responsibility to the society within which it occupies because it is going to affect those who view/listen to it. That effect should be an enriching one.

I am glad Pollock's work has had an effect on those fraysters who have commented above.

next, I will post a link to an example of the kind of work I enjoy, the kind of work that enriches the energy of my spirit because I can interact with it in rich, various ways. I will also post a few thoughts to illustrate the type of interaction I enjoy from art.

GOYA Third of May

104. phillipdavid - April 9, 1997

The above painting illustrates a slice of history, but it is much more than a glorified press photo. It is not just a record of a single episode, but a grim reflection on the whole nature of power, and a statement that reflects one reality of The Age ofEnlightenment It shows the author's statement of one aspect of the _irrational_ i.e., the predetermined brutality of men in uniform.

Now, for comparison, and in order to illustrate my statements that the painter was an _author_, that it reflects a certain ideology, that remarks on history and politics, bespePses of emotions (indignation)....well, compare this Manet's version

105. phillipdavid - April 9, 1997

Goya _contrasted_ the fierce repition of the soldier's attitudes and the sharp, steely line of their rifles with the crumbling irregularity of their target. This kind of repitition is a symbol for the merciless conformity that art has been depicting for ages. Manet doesn't capture this, nor I believe was he trying to make a dramatic statement like Goya was. Manet's picture is flat, expressionless, and the soldier turning away shifts the focus from the victim to the study of indifference the turned-away soldier depicts. Maybe Manet was mPseing a statement about using history as subject matter for art.

Goya's work is all drama. The lantern on the ground --a hard, sharp shape in contrast to the tattered white shape of the shirt-- gives the feeling of a work on stage, as the light is coming up from below. The buildings against the dark sky look like a backdrop you would encounter on a stage. The white-shirted fellow in center has his arms upraised as if in crusifixion, and the other victims of power are not abstract as are the purveyors of power.

Goya's work spePses of revolutionary spirit; Manet's spePses of bourgeoise complacency and indifference.

Anyway, before I ramble on anymore, this is the type of intellection (crude as it may be) that allows me to have a meaningful connection to a piece of art. I can not relate to Pollock in any such way.

106. hughbone - April 9, 1997

An artist friend just returned from a trip to Spain agreed with me that Goya's picture of an execution, which hangs in the Prado, is one of the greats.

Also at the Prado, on panels from his living quarters, are some of his last and most powerful, even disturbing paintings.

107. hughbone - April 9, 1997

MIKESCH

If it does something to your emotions, if you want to see it again, if you'd like to possses it; if you tell your friends: "Go see it", its art for you. Very wealthy people and dealers and museums are the stock market of art, and thus determine prices. Man Ray sold nothing at his first show in Paris; insisted he was NOT ahead of his time, the others just hadn't caught up. Now his work sells for $millions.

108. phillipdavid - April 9, 1997

hughbone re 106,

It sure would be great if you would post a link. I would love to see the work you referenced -- I do not know which one it is (I am woefully ignorant of much of the great works of art) and would be gratified at the chance to see something new.

109. Mikesch - April 9, 1997

Hughbone (funny, funny name!)

No, no, I'm mPseing the opposite point: Just because it "does somthing" for the viewer doesn't make it art. For example, a tearjerker of a movie may make me tear up, but I'll still feel empty in the end because my emotions were plundered instead of being honestly evoked, which is what a movie would have to do (among other things) to be art.

110. Fraymistress - April 9, 1997

I opened a poetry thread, FYI.

I think posting URLs to paintings and then discussing them is an outstanding way to use this medium. You Fraygrants are so damn clever.

111. PseudoErasmus - April 10, 1997

PHILLIP DAVID (104-5)

I think the most salient contrast between the Goya and the Manet is the center of composition. In the Manet, the shooting is concentrated in the center of the painting. There is a *cluster* of action. And Manet achieved this partly by mPseing the outlines of the soldiers sharp and crisp all the while keeping the rest of the picture blurry. The victims are not clearly discernible (the gun smoke is a good excuse for this...), nor are the witnesses on the wall. In other words, quite apart from the fact that the soldiers are in the middle of the foreground, they are the only ones about whom any details are visible. This is very much a statement of power.

In Goya's painting, on the other hand, the action is much more diffuse. There is really no center. The victims are about as multifarious and detailed as the shooters. Notice also that Goya is not as interested in sharp outlines as Manet. In fact, his broad outlines recall the Russian primitives and naifs, especially the man with the arms in the air.

Also, unlike the clean, controlled and even antiseptic composition of Manet, Goya's has got a feeling of hurly-burly, compositional flotsam and jetsam. (I won't bore everybody with the obvious differences in the use of colour.)

Hence the largest contrast in the impression each picture conveys. Manet's scene is a cool, rational, even tranquil place, where chaos and power are incompatible. Goya's 3 May takes place in a vivid, even primal world, a place of passion and chaotic activity.

The Manet is the subtler, if less emotional, picture. Goya's tugs at your emotions. I have always thought the difference between the two is like that between Flaubert and Hugo.

112. CMudgeon - April 10, 1997

I'm very concerned about a common problem that seems to haunt American society throughout its institutions (social, political, educational, artistic, etc.). That is the flight from reason, or escape to privacy. I think I see it in our dicussions of art. It may be that it has spread from the art world to the society at large. Postmodernism is its crowning glory.

In short, we have become more and more enamored with the infallibility afforded by subjectivity and the privacy of the inner sanctum---personal consciousness. We have taken to hiding from the probing public eye. We seek to treat our feelings, judgments, beliefs, standards as we treat our pleasures and pains. Just as we are the absolute authorities concerning our pain (no one can better tell if we are or are not in pain), so we seek to be the ultimate authorities over all of our views. Any interpretation that opens the door to possible error is abruptly closed. Subjectivity and relativism reign supreme because their truth makes error impossible. How comforting. We have forgotten how to ask ourselves: "how might I be mistaken here". Nothing counts as a mistake. What was the artist trying to accomplish? Did he succeed or fail? IRRELEVANT!

"It's in the eye of the beholder." "I know what I like." "He's captured the ineffable." "It can't be put into words." Anyone get the strong odor of COP OUT? Of course it's not representational or utilitarian; if it were there would bea way to evaluate it that had some objectivity to it.

we do the same with our ideas of happiness, love, desire, and pretty much all of the stands we take on anything. They are all personal, private, and they are as we think they are. In fact thedistinction between thinking something is the case and its being the case disappears. Isn't that convenient!

113. BevCrusher - April 10, 1997

Ok, just to prove different people see different things in art..

Did anyone notice that in the Manet version the soldiers are all virtually identical? Close to the same height and build, same coloring, same haircut, same beard.They are robots, machines, not men..The victims are not faceless but one would have to struggle to see them. I think there is something there about how soldiers involved in an atrocity or any horrific action remove themselves from the reality, remove their own humanity...

114. PseudoErasmus - April 10, 1997

BEV CRUSHER (113)

What you said is complementary to what I said in Message #111, although I wouldn't have said what you said.

115. BevCrusher - April 10, 1997

PseudoErasmus...why not? *wicked grin*

116. phillipdavid - April 10, 1997

BevCrusher,

I disagree. Of the two paintings, the soldiers in Goya's fit your description better. They are abstract, you don't see their faces, they have the same regimental attitude, the steely rigidity of their rifles, all evoke the abstract representations of state power we have seen in art since the Egyptian bowman.. All we see is their backs. They are the ones that do not seem human.

Manet's soldiers are so much more human!. We even see the one, who is in fact the center of attention,as a human, expressing human emotions, posing as a reflection of indifference.

IMO, Manet's soldier is a purposeful symbol for 1) Manet's attitude about Goya's painting (the use of the white shirt can remove any doubt for me that Manet had seen Goya's work). As a matter of fact, Manet had a certain attitude about the subject :"The reconstruction of a historic scene. How absurd! Quelle bonne plaisanterie." And 2) his bourgousie (sp?) attitude about the historical scene. Notice that your eye is drawn to the soldier in indifferent repose on the _right_ of the scene; Your eye is drawn to the victim being "crusified" on the _left_ of Goya's painting.

117. BevCrusher - April 10, 1997

For Goya, the soldiers WEREN'T human, just vicious creatures without feeling. Manet was drawing his own people...Why would he draw us to that expression of indifference, coldness? I think a more subtle message was at work. I'm sure it didn't have a lot to do with the victims, who are painted as abstractions...

118. PseudoErasmus - April 10, 1997

PD - are you denying that Manet's picture represents a more clinical attitude? Goya's scene is decidedly NOT abstract. It is full of blood, toil, tears and sweat.

I think you're looking at the Manet with a lot of preconceptions. Your #116 ringsvery false. How is the painting so obviously "bourgeois" and "smug"? Because it is basically realist?

119. phillipdavid - April 10, 1997

Manet's painting bespePses of the values of upper-middleclass Parisan society,; it seems to lack the consciousness tragic humanity, the social indignation that dominates the Goya painting.

Goya is the revolutionary here, he probably hated authority of any kind --priests, soldiers, officials,-- and probably felt that power would exploit the helpless and keep them down by force. manet's painting reflects a calm indifference, an acceptance of the way of the world.

120. PseudoErasmus - April 10, 1997

PHILLIP DAVID

It's time to start puncturing your easy assumptions.

How _exactly_ does Manet's painting express upper-middle-class Parisian values? Really, how?

Agreed that Goya's painting is the incendiary, the revolutionary, the romantic. But that is not what Manet's painting aspires to. M's is a more slyly subversive piece. It doesn't scream or shout. It is a colder depiction.

121. ElliottRW - April 10, 1997

I couldn't get to the Goya painting, but I studied the Manet carefully. Manet's picture leaves me subdued, but not emotionless.

My impression: order prevails. The disorderly either garnish the wall or hang from the rifles of the orderly. To what end, passion? Death and despair. Even when a soldier is out of place, he is diligently engaged in fiddling with his weapon.

While the painting reminds me that loyalty and discipline are virtues only when they serve virtuous ends, it clearly points out that virtuous ends are insufficient for success.

I don't see how Manet's work is subversive, and I am completely ignorant of upper-middle-class-Parisian values.

122. BevCrusher - April 10, 1997

PseudoErasmus and Phillipdavid,

I see Goya's painting as much the more emotional rendering, but that was his persona.

If Manet was painting for the bourgeious crowd I think the painting would have been a more bourgeois piece. More in the lineof dulce et decorum est, and glorious soldiers. There is nothing glorious or flattering in this painting. Manet would have had to be more subtle in light of public opinion, and let's face it, his career. But I still say the painting is subversive. If I were the mother of a soldier involved in this massacre, I would find nothing viewing this painting to absolve my son....

123. BevCrusher - April 10, 1997

another thought. This isn't exactly a pot of flowers to hang in the old homestead....Why so hung up on calling it bourgeois?

124. phillipdavid - April 10, 1997

PseudoErasmus,

Manet's Execution of the Emperor Maximillian, IMO, is self-sufficient, but it is also a commentary on Goya's painting. An historic event painted in this flat, inexpressive way is as pointless as Manet maintained it to be. Goya's values are expressed, and Manet is mPseing a statement _in contrast_ to those values. It is interesting to note that the subject which interested him was the execution of an empeorer. Manet lived in Parisian society ( I believe) and this work, especiially viewed together, in conjunction and in contrast with Goya's # of May reveals an artist whose mind was probably filled with upper-class Parisian values.

manet had to realize that by turning the soldier away from the central focus of the scene he wouldlose the dramatic concentration which animates goya. Why did he do it?

Anyway, PseudoErasmus, there is my easy assumption. i would like to read why you characterize manet's piece as "slyly subversive"

125. PseudoErasmus - April 10, 1997

This is getting totally out of hand.

1) ElliottRW is right about one thing. As I mentioned in Message #111, the violence in Manet is orderly and clinical. And the style - sharp foreground, blurry background - reinforces this.

2) The piece is subtly subversive because it shows a blotch in a placid world.

3) How can there be an unjust execution scene done in the manner of dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori?

4) The whole argument that the style of such and such a painting is bourgeois can rest only on the judgment that realism is bourgeois. Which is nonsense. The Manet painting is not crudely literalist.

126. BevCrusher - April 10, 1997

PseudoErasmus,

Message 125, #3 depends on if you see it as unjust. Why paint it at all if you are aiming for something other than seeing it as injustice unless you are willing to lie, which this painting does not.

Why are you so hostile? I was agreeing with you, at least to some extent.

127. PseudoErasmus - April 10, 1997

"manet had to realize that by turning the soldier away from the central focus of the scene he wouldlose the dramatic concentration whicg animates goya. "

But there is LESS dramatic concentration in Goya. There is in Manet. The soldier who is turned away is meant to convey insouciance. Again, clinical.

128. PseudoErasmus - April 10, 1997

PD: Another thing: every painting comments on another painting by virtue of comparability. So let us not have any further suppositions about Manet's commentary -unless you are going start talking about the "anxiety of influence".

129. phillipdavid - April 10, 1997

PseudoErasmus,

The Parisian bourgesois values came out of my head, and I've tried to explain why I had that thought.

130. PseudoErasmus - April 10, 1997

Who knows, maybe Manet approved of the shooting of Maximillian. After all, the Mexican rising again Napoleon III's puppet Austrian archduke was warmly received in Europe, even in France. On the other hand, maybe the picture is anti-democratic, and maybe Manet thought that the two executions were comparable.

But I don't accept either. To say that Manet's painting is an ironic, politically conservative commentary on Goya's revolutionary painting is to simplify the former.

131. PseudoErasmus - April 10, 1997

I think the idea that Manet is highly conscious of Goya is correct. How could he not be?

A few things to note:

1) Manet is quite adept at depicting dandified figures, and in the execution of Maxmilian, he is true to form. The dandy soldiers create an amoral atmosphere. Again, the casual posture of the officer who is reloading conveys indifference, insouciance.

2) Goya's painting is one of moral outrage, at a world turned topsy-turvy. A very different "statement".

3) Note in the Manet, the deterioration in the perspective. The victims look simultaneously too close to and too far from the line of fire. There are other details, such as the steeply tilted ground plane, which detract from the realism of the piece.

4) Manet's painting was banned from public view by Napoleon III.

5) I would qualify my previous statement to say that European reaction to the death of Max was mixed. There was howling of pleasure in many quarters, but deep shock at the manner of his execution (he had to be shot again as he lay squirming on the ground) was also pervasive.

132. hughbone - April 10, 1997

MIKESCH, PHILIPDAVID

Don't think I ever got sucked into a crummy movie in the way you (Mikesch) describe. I sat through this year's winner with much aggravation. Yes, in painting there are criteria and authorities, and you have to pick your own. No one can believe for you.

But the painting or sculpture picks you. And if, like Philipdavid, you have little experience of art but some interest, you pursue that interest and enjoy, and recommend and revisit paintings or sculpture you like. Regardless of the artists intentions, the critics appraisal, or the millions of written and spoken words of those who are neither.

133. phillipdavid - April 10, 1997

PseudoErasmus, reviewing our earlier posts ( mine done in haste while at work)I came across this reference in Message #125that I want to clear up:

"The whole argument that the style of such and such a painting is bourgeois can rest only on the judgment that realism is bourgeois. Which is nonsense. The Manet painting is not crudely literalist."

I did not mean to state that Manet's painting was bourgeois. I am actually sorry I used that word so many times -- I think I got caught up in Goya's emotive message and unconsciously used that Marxist terminology. _All_ I meant to convey was my belief (derived from my understanding of the two paintings I posted and of the society in which Manet lived) that Manet's mind was dominated by the values of upper middle-class Parisian society. The internal message I recieved studying that painting was in sharp contrast to the internal message I recieved studying Goya's. In my mind,the attitude of "indignant revolutionary spirit" is contrasted nicely by the attitude of "bourgeouis upper middle class"

134. phillipdavid - April 10, 1997

Here is another painting that caught my fancy as I've been looking at paintings this week: Searut

135. phillipdavid - April 10, 1997

I don't know anything about Seurat. i am struck by:

* the illusion of reality. Time has stopped and I want to be there. Very harmonius; proper shapes; every shape in its proper place.

* The odd mixture of what I understand to be Impressanist texture and the monumental character of some of the common objects. Dark and light shapes have been set off against each other. The pile of clothes that lay beside the central character, the bowler hats, the panamas and trousers which lead my eye up theleft side of the painting and into the background distance. I like the shimmering light and here I remember other Impressanist paintings I've seen -- but, my eye is abruptly arrested by the dark head of the central figure. It seems strange, this monoliythic character of that boy's head and hat in front of an Impressanist lanscape.

*The man lying on the ground in the front. I am amazed that my eye hardly notices him although he is so wierd. His shape is so different, he appears out of place in thatwhite shirt, but he doesn't create a main focal point for my eye.

* The boy on the right with hands to mouth, looks as though he is calling to someone -- poetic.

I would very much like to see this painting for real. I would be interested inthe colors and in seeing the brushstrokes. I can't wait for summer when I too will be swimming, basking next to water during a hot afternoon.

136. mgleason - April 11, 1997

PD: While I don't always agree with your views, I love the way you immerse yourself in a painting.

Thanks for posting the Seurat link, this is one of my favorite paintings. The way that the shades of rust focus the eye amid the shimmer of water gets to me every time.

137. BevCrusher - April 11, 1997

Pd, Thanks for the link to the Seurat. What a beautiful painting. One gets the feeling the day must be sultry. One of those days when a person really doesn't wish to move..