Art Thread

270. daveroll - April 22, 1997

100342 #262

I second the praise of Lopez Garcia, and add Villasenor, Claudio Bravo, and Richard Maury. There is a new book out on Bravo that conveys about as much as possible via reproduction. Maury is an American living in Florence who paints still lifes, genre scenes, and self-portraits.

271. daveroll - April 22, 1997

100342 #248

What kind of theory do you mean when you say Seurat was unencumbered by any? His technique was a radical implementation of the idea that drawing and painting were a function of light. His drawings--which are for me superior to his paintings--are devoid of line, and while his technique is surely derivative of French Academy cast drawings and sculpture-related figure drawing, in the end Seurat developed a new style of drawing based on mass, form, and tonality. If this is not theory, then possibly you mean that he did not start from a verbal theory that is then imposed like a filter or grid on the art production. The words of artists are not always their real theories, however; it is from Cezanne's practice, for example, that we can infer the actual theories he had about painting, and not his lip-serving writings about geometric forms. As far as I know, the only thing he ever said that corresponded to what he actually did was to emphasize the importance of the motif. I've never read a word by Seurat, don't know if there are any.

In general, artists in the past divide--surprisingly neatly--into those who value line and those who value shape and form. Line is always a primary value to artists for whom the workshop tradition is important, I speculate because it was an essential part of the economy of production when studies were translated by assistants into full-size cartoons that were then worked over by the master. Shape, form, value, and eventually color were foremost for artists who were primarily painters, or painters for whom graphic elements were not as interesting as the way a painting is an interconnected whole. Your comment about Lucien Freud reminds me that his whole output can be read as a move from the drawing pole to the painting pole--to illustrate what I'm trying to say.

272. 100342 - April 22, 1997

daveroll: Thanks for the additional information on realists. I am familiar with the work of Bravo, having seen it at the Marlborough Gallery in NYC and in auction catalogues, but it is the first time I hear of Maury and Villasenor. I'll try to seek them out. Isn't it fascinating how each consummate realist strikes you in a different way? Bravo can be a lot of fun but I find he shows off his skills a bit too much and he is also threatical in a campy sort of way, which can be attractive,but it's a little tiresome after seeing a lot of the same. Lopez Garcia I find more weighty and serious and...yes, "spiritual", without being ponderous. I think he represents the continuation of the great Spanish tradition in art. By the way, since we are at it, how to you react to Andre Wyeth?

273. 100342 - April 22, 1997

daveroll: It pleases me to agree with practicaly everything you said, and so well put at that! I also prefer Seurat's drawings to his paintings, with the exception of masterpieces such as Une Baignade posted by Phillipdavid earlier in this thread. I should have said "unencumbered by dogma", meaning the dogma of divisionism or pointillisme. No doubt there is a whole "conception" (if I am allowed to avoid the word "theory" here) behind his drawings. I also suscribe to your grand division between the line camp and the shape-and-form camp (and your applying it to Freud's evolution is very apt) but with some caveats. The color camp is often a third, somewhat distinct camp. It is well represented throughout the ages. Most people start with the appreciation of one aspect or another and then move on to integrate the others. I remember being touched first by color, when I was in my teens, and then expanding my aesthetic sensitivities. Perhaps that is why I was so struck, when visiting the Phillips collection in Washington, to realize that what made Mr. Phillips tick as a collector, was color, but NOTHING BUT color. He never grew beyond that. As a collector he chose great artists who cannot be reduced to mere color (Braque, Klee, Dufy, etc.) but they all were great colorists. He also bought lesser, sugary colorists.

274. daveroll - April 22, 1997

100342 #272

Wyeth strikes me as a gifted watercolorist. His figure drawing is very wePse, and the Helga paintings are undistinguished. His painting gains rather than suffers by reproduction, and I've seen egg tempera work that makes his look ridiculous. Jaimie Wyeth, on the other hand, is an impressive painter, but I've seen too little of his work to have a real idea who he is.

I don't care much for Bravo's figure work, either, although his commissioned portraits are powerful. His still lifes are in the main line, though.

Your comments on line/shape/color are sharp. I'm sure you're right about the Phillips collection. I agree that some artists are chiefly colorists; this is a subject that I find very confusing, since systematic ideas about color are seldom consistent. Charles Hopkinson, a painter of two generations ago, worked from an elaborately layed out color wheel and claimed, with some validity, that "local color" was always complementary to some colors in the surroundingenvironment. Fairfield Porter, the painter in the next generation who most resembles Hopkinson, followed the "arbitrary" color approach of the Nabis, whose paintings are beautiful, all right, but I can't claim to understand their choices. Maybethey were really arbitrary. Gauguin and his followers in Pont Aven used "exaggerated" colors and produced strangely flat paintings. I don't really understand any of this stuff, though. Any ideas?

275. senecio - April 22, 1997

daveroll and 100342: There is a surprising lack of non technical essays about the simplest and most important things, such as love, laughter or color. Other than a couple of Plato's dialogues and a study by Ortega y Gasset, I have not come across any overall, thoughtful reflection on love. On laughter, the only one I have heard about (not read) is an essay by Bergson. On color (and I do not mean technical stuff from physics or the optical sciences, whatever their name) other than the Theory of Color by Goethe I don't know of any attempt to deal with this theme in a comprehensive manner. Does anyone?

276. daveroll - April 22, 1997

senecio 275

The classic artists' work on the subject of color is Joseph Albers' The Interaction of Color, available in an abridged and virtually unintelligible form and in a longer form. The color theories developed at the Bauhaus have been presented in many books by Johannes Itten. But the subject is very confused even so. There are two recent literary essays by...uh, L'Heureux? Theroux? I never remember which is which...Primary Colors and Secondary Colors (the first is NOT the book by Anonymous)(butsoon to be completed as a trilogy by Complementary Colors), and there is ON BEING BLUE by William Gass. Which takes us far afield. Some people know about this subject...for instance they know the difference between "additive" and "subtractive" color. There must be even better books than the ones I've mentioned here.

277. Impenitent - April 22, 1997

If art is created by humans, then are genetically altered life forms ie. different food crops, engineered flora etc., to be considered art? Perhaps a sheep is the greatest work of art... just a thought

278. NBMANDEL - April 22, 1997

I've just arrived & was reviewing the whole thread. Please, you new Turner fans, seek out the real thing. His paintings reproduce worse than just about anyone's. You'll be staggered when you encounter them in the flesh.

279. mgleason - April 22, 1997

Has anyone seen anything by Howard Behrens? He's a California artist who uses a palette knife to paint, and the colors are unbelievable. I saw a canvas of his at my doctor's today (he'd just bought it), and at first glance the painting appeared to be a "happy" touristy thing, but it wasn't at all.

It had a lot of texture and the use of light was really interesting. There was an Escher-type quality to it in the sense that I didn't know exactly how to approach it; it disoriented me a little, but the more I looked the more I liked.

I can see how Behrens' work wouldn't reproduce easily either.

280. resonance - April 22, 1997

Impentinent: What an interesting concept.

Yes, I've thought along these lines. IMHO you can define something as art in two ways, from the intent (in which case if the geneticist/breeder intended his work as art, it is) or else from the viewing (in which case if you see something created by someone as art, then it is.)

If murder can be an art, then creation surely can be seen as one too.

281. senecio - April 22, 1997

re: num 276

Gee, daveroll, we can use your knowledge in this thread!.. I hope you keep posting. Judging Albert by his output, he'd probably have something meaningful to say about color. Judging Itten by his monotone, insipid color checker-boards he would probabl have very little to say about color. But sometimes people are better theorists than practitioners.

I have not read the theories of either. But I have read Paul Klee's writings (or collection of notes): The Thinking Eye, the Nature of Nature and other shorter pieces. I think he is not only one of the greatest artists of this century (and in my view certainly the greatest colorist), but one of the most insightful art theorists as well. For him color is quality, rather than weight or length, and therefore imponderable (I am simplifying, but only just). Of course there are a lot of physical measurements that can be applied to color, but aesthetically spePseing it remains imponderable. Whatever Klee had to say about color he said it with his brushes much better than with his pen. Nevertheless I will keenly seek the Albert text. Thanks again, daveroll.

282. 100342 - March 4, 1997

277, 280; Resonance and Impenitent: I beg to disagree. Restrictive or rigid definitions of anything do strike us as myopic. But then one can go all the way to the other extreme. When you relate everything to everything else you are very close to what is called "the identity of the indiscernible" (at least my philosophy teacher called it that way), meaning that if nothing can be discerned from the rest, everything is identical, just one huge bowl of porridge. Surely some distinctions can be made between discovering penicillin, cloning a sheep, building a house, organizing a trade union and composing a symphony.

Sometimes we KNOW where the difference lies but cannot put it in words. Often the dividing line between such activities may be blurred. All of them may require ingenuity and imagination, but there must be a difference between inventive imagination, constructive imagination, moral imagination, organizational imagination and creative (as in the arts) imagination. That we cannot put it in so many words is evidence only of the limitations of discourse

283. Ernest - March 4, 1997

Mgleason, your num 279 made me curious and I found this Behrens.Yeah, he surely does not reproduce easily, cause looking at this one I can't see your point. There were other Behrens but they all looked more or less the same.

284. CoHostNedFagan - April 22, 1997

check date

285. resonance - April 22, 1997

Anything CAN be art. If you can't appreciate the art, that's meaningless, really. Is EVERYTHING art? Far from it. But I get sick of people with really elitist opinions on what constitutes art (And no, 100342, I'm not saying anything about you.) Their world dies with them and the paintings live on.

100342, I think you either misunderstood me or else I have absolutely no idea what your last post was supposed to mean. On one hand you say that not everything can be art, because then we can't discern what is and what isn't (more on this later, maybe) and then you turn around and say that you can sometimes discern. And why can't the examples you list be creative?

286. mgleason - April 22, 1997

Agreed, Ernest. These look like the touristy daub I first thought the canvas I saw was.

287. 100342 - April 23, 1997

Resonance 285:

I might have misunderstood you and I did not mean every thing I said before as a rebuke to your views. Maybe my reaction has a lot to do with my own story, but that is a long story. Let me try to make it short. A long time ago someone quoted to me a phrase from Peguy. It went something like this: "if you love everybody, you love nobody". Love means nothing if you do not love some people more than other people. It was an eye opener for me. I had felt until then (and still feel) that neat classifications, pigdeon-holing and rigid definitions were certainly shortsighted, not only regarding art but practically everything. I felt (and still feel) that as you go beyond traditional definitional boundaries, you begin to meaningully relate this with that, and begin see more and more connections and correlations between things, factors, currents, etc. Your feel your undertanding is being enlarged. That indeed is so. But the process cannot be taken to an extreme, because then, in the end, nothing can be discerned. It is like drawing black lines on a sheet of while paper trying to connect different imaginary points with all other inaginary points. If you keep going there is a moment when you don`t have any longer an increasingly complex web of lines, but just a plain black surface.

Of course art is not just about the seven arts (or whatever the number may be) There are countless other forms of art, including many which remain nameless. But if we call cloning a sheep "art" it means that we have decided that virtually any human activity is art. That may be fine, but then we would need other terms or concepts to refer to what now we call art.

288. allofuss - April 23, 1997

For a masterly debunking of modern art, read "The Painted Word," by Tom Wolfe.

289. mondaugen - April 23, 1997

allofus: We covered that one already, way back at post #4, I think it was. It's kind of hard for me to put "masterly" and "debunking" into the same phrase (especially when the debunking in question is directed toward contemporary art), but whatever works.

290. 100342 - April 23, 1997

Returning to the topic of the late period of great artists and combining it with the notion of disturbing art presented earlier by Mondaugen, here is a late Goya-- both horrific and terrific.

291. phillipdavid - April 23, 1997

any commentary 100342? What is that all about? Or is it a refection of some inner psychosis of Goya himself? I have no context, or historical perspective, within wich to analyse or think about that painting.

292. 100342 - April 23, 1997

re num. 291.

Phillipdavid: This was painted in 1921-1923. Goya, then 76 years old, deaf, infirm and despondent about human nature, had withdrawn to a suburban house. His life had spanned the old regime, the Napoleonic occupation and bloody war on Spanish soil, and the restauration of King Fernando VII. A liberal, he had seen his dreams crushed, his circle of enlightened friends vanish... Only one of his five children survived. He even had to face the Inquisition. Few people get to live through such diverse and convulsive eras as the end of absolutism and the beginning of what is called modern times. Those who do, by the end of their lives must feel they have lived for centuries, and painful centuries at that.

What is most remarkable is how dramatic can be the evolution of great artists such as Goya or Beethoven, who get to live through such drastic, epochal changes. One would say by looking at an early cardboard sketch by Goya that one or two centuries separate it from this "Saturn devouring one of his children". Same with the early versus late Beethoven compositions. Beethoven's late work is elevating, redeeming. Goya's is somber and bitter. But it has the terribly salutary power of shPseing us out of all complacency. The theme of this painting strike us as illustration of the old, sad truism that human beings are wolves to other human beings...that history, society devour their children. But beyond literal interpretations, there is no doubt that this painting is an on-the-face reminder of the depth of horror that may lie inside our common nature. But this is also a remarkably painterly work. I remember feeling kind of guilty, when I first saw it, for being captivated by the brushwork, the power of the expressionistic drawing (which anticipates artistic developments by nearly a century) while I was being at the same time shPseen the unforgettable image that Goya had conjured through such painterly means.

293. 100342 - April 23, 1997

Phillipdavid: an absurd lapsus: of course I meant the painting was done in 1821-23, not 1921-23

294. HCaulfield - April 24, 1997

There is a news story that asks the question "is this art?" here.

295. CoralReef - April 24, 1997

Maybe Ned and Irv should into getting the 'what is art' part of the subheader removed. It's pointless and distracting off more interesting and relevant topics.

296. Seguine - April 24, 1997

Regarding best living painters, I've seen a couple of reproductions of works by a guy named Odd Nerdrum. Very intriguing. Has anyone here seen anything linkable of his?

297. Seguine - April 24, 1997

Impenitent, Resonance:

A few weeks ago there was an article in the NY Times about an artist who has made mechanical stainless steel frog skeletons *animated by actual frog muscle tissue*. (Leg muscles, I think.) The artist is a former biologist now enrolled in a graduate art program, I forget where, and his work is drawing a storm of controversy from animal rights folks. He is regarded as very gifted; I have to say I think there's something fascinating about his tPseing on the Frankenstein story. Aside from the obvious artist-plays-God angle, he's pointing out some emerging similarities between the role artists used to assume in the world and the role scientists now do.

He wanted to use his own muscle tissue, incidentally, but cloning enough of it would have been difficult and prohibitively expensive.

298. ernest - April 24, 1997 Your num. 296 picked my curiosity. I found 61 entries on Odd Nerdrum (and learned he is Norwegian) but just two reproductions. Here is one of them. It was fun to visit Norwegian sites. Attractively designed pages.

299. mondaugen - April 24, 1997

Seguine: On the biology/machine-interface-as-art tip, you might want to check out the work of a man who calls himself Stelarc. Personally, I find his stuff rather trite, but you knowwhat they say about one man's meat (rimshot)...

300. thomasd - April 24, 1997

I may not know what art is, but I know what isn't art. A urine soPseed box of dirt. That is, unless there is something special about the box, the dirt or the urine.

301. mondaugen - April 24, 1997

thomasd: That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

302. CoralReef - April 24, 1997

re 295

...and the missing word is 'look'.

303. ralphjameson - April 24, 1997

What is art? It's quite simple. It's one of many ways to express a discovery of new thought. New thought can be expressed in many ways such as through painting, design, cooking, dance, music, research, poetry, drama, invention, literature, sculpture and more. It is probably more advantageous to concern oneself with finding some sort of an understanding of the new thought, and then regard or disregard it.

304. resonance - April 24, 1997

Is Piss Christ Art?

305. senecio - April 24, 1997

I second CoralReef suggestion in msg. 295. Let's talk about more interesting and relevant stuff. I feel I can learn a lot from daveroll, 100342, Mondaugen and the rest of you guys, but feel like clicking the hell out this thread when I tune in and findthat all new mesagges are about this whatisart nonsense.

306. bhelpuri - April 25, 1997

Message 297: Seguine

The artist you mention is a student at Columbia U. in NYC. I have seen some of his works (involving animal skeletons animated by electrical impulse) and found them thought-provoking.

To resonance:

Serrano's Piss Christ and Damien Hirst's works (involving embalmed sheep, sharks etc) are most decideldly Art.

Piss Christ in particular (seen in context of AIDS) is a quirky work worthy of attention. The use of Serrano's urine may have gotten headlines ,and stirred the wrath of the NEA, but it still remains a quirky, questioning piece, one that insists on stretching our boundaries of perception and acceptance.

307. PseudoErasmus - April 25, 1997

As I believe I said very early on in this thread, anything is art, which is *recognised* as such by the audience. However, that doesn't make the art necessarily "thought-provoking" or "quirky".

How does it stretch the boundaries of perception to see a crucifix immersed in urine, no matter what the context? Bhelpuri, your thoughts are easily provoked.

308. PseudoErasmus - April 25, 1997

Here are two of what I consider to be poetical equivalents of "Piss Christ", the first by Ivan Argüelles:

buckets of blood in which the moon verbs are washed
giant boiled squid the remembrance of a lost constellation

and the second by Freddie Greenfield:

Oh God forbid
Oh God forbid
Oh God forbid
Your Son
Your Son
Your Son
Is Married
Is Married
Is Married
To A
To A
To A
A Black Fairy
A Black Fairy
A Black Fairy

In both, there is little relevant technique but lots of "statement".

309. davecook - April 25, 1997

I third senecio's request that you talk about actual art and not "What is art?" This is by far the most readable thread in the Fray these days. Keep going. (Special kudos to phillipdavid for venturing outside his field and doing well.)

To myself, the metaphysical paintings of De Chirico are a special favorite. Present is fleeting, past weighs heavily, future is imposing. This feeling that time is infinite, yet I am not. Also, De Chirico is a painter who can be easily reproduced;the actual paintings themselves are not really more impressive than the reproduction.

310. mondaugen - April 25, 1997

davecook

Good call on De Chirico, and your comment on the feeling of time in the paintings. Here's a link. Have you read his novel?

311. 100342 - April 25, 1997

Davecook: I like the de Chirico's of the 1910s very much. But, do you also care for late De Chiricos? Forgive my insistence on the topic of "late periods", but I think that just as some artists' late periods are a true miracle (again: Titian, Goya, Monet, Matisse, etc.) other artists' late period are a sad letdown. Chagall's late period (his middle period is not so great either) and de Chirico's being salient examples. De Chirico's late period enjoyed a brief fashion in the 80s with the ascendance of the pretentiously called Italian transvanguardia (by that most pretentious of art critics, Achille Bonito Oliva). I still think it is poor art. Further, de Chirico's habit at that time to copy or parody his output from the 1910s put him dangerously close to Dali's falsifications

312. 100342 - April 25, 1997

Here is a link to a (relatively) late de Chirico. It is not that clearly reproduced either. Anyway, there is even worse stuff from that period

313. thomasd - April 25, 1997

I promise to be more serious in any future postings here than I was in #300, although I tend to think that the validity of a given production as being considered a piece of art probably does depend on the context under which it was produced and by whom.Any comments?

314. CoHostNedFagan - April 25, 1997

The Washington Rite of Spring has begun. Virile conservative men and women object to trashy art funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Lusty liberal establishment girls and boys cry foul and move to defend the agency.

It's tempting to dismiss it all as theater. But is arts funding holding its own? Jacob Weisberg's "Strange Bedfellow" column says, "not really." (Actually, hestates it better than that.)

But, even if it's true, if federal funding for art is moribund, so what? Is that so bad? Weigh in.

315. Rivendell - April 25, 1997

The NEA, at one time, was developing into an important stimulant for creativity. An NEA endorsement meant that an artist *could* be considered worthy of attention. Even before all the Helms controversies NEA grants might only cover a small fraction of the total cost of producing a particular work, but the presence of NEA funding could open doors and give artists access to sources of support not otherwise available.

As far as I am concerned this all ended with the controversies surrounding Frohnmayer's tenure as chair and with the draconian cuts of 1995. Jane Pseander is doing a fine job given the repressive political climate and lack of funds, but all she is able to support are works that are safe or guaranteed not to create controversy. That's an impossible situation for a creative person to find themselves in.

So I have to say - who cares? Congress has already gutted what the NEA could have been. If the people of the U.S. do not want to be in the business of providing public money for art - fine. Let's make the decision to get out of it. If we think such support is important then let's quit getting hung up on the mistakes (these will always happen) and focus on the successes.

316. daveroll - April 25, 1997

Seguine

Odd you mention Nerdrum. He is a sort of latter-day Bosch. I've seen his paintings. They are very large, and generally depict one or two figures, no more. These figures appear against a brown, desolate landscape. The artist's technique is pure Flemish, pre-baroque, very precise, old-master browns and muttonish flesh tones. The figures in his paintings are almost always maimed or in some way expressing suffering. I first became aware of him when works of his were reproduced in Antaeus Magazine, which I believe has become defunct. I do not know what to think of Nerdrum, but his work is among the most disturbing since the heyday of Francis Bacon.

317. daveroll - April 25, 1997

PseKahn 307

In a philistine country like the United States, art is seldom recognized by the public, and I do not limit this statement to intelligent responses to the avant-garde, since I don't know what such a response might be. I mean the response of the general public, even the highly educated, sophisticated public, to visual art, which seldom gets much farther than, "Gee, it gives me a nice space to wander off and dream in." I don't know why you, of all people, choose to place such emphasis on the authority of the public in determining what is art, not that I care what art is. I do care, however, that the general level of intelligence of nearly everyone about nearly all art is very much lower than needed to have credible opinions, much less authority. I don't mean to get us back into the what is art debate at all, but I don't like giving the audience so much authority and I think you ought to back off.

318. phillipdavid - April 25, 1997

moondaugen and 100342,

thanks for the links to de Chirico -- I now have something brand new to explore.

daveroll re 317,

In my humble opinion art has a public responsibilty to put forth a worthy message and to enrich the spirit of theaudience. Almost anything can be considered art, but not all is good or worthy art.

I don't want to see a crucifix immersed in urine or to read this kind of stuff that Pse posted : " buckets of blood in which the moon verbs are washed giant boiled squid the remembrance of a lost constellation"

319. PseudoErasmus - April 25, 1997

Dave Roll

I can always call a friend anyone who uses terms like "philistine" and "vulgar" with some abandon. I agree that audiences - anywhere, not just in the U.S. - are pretty silly. It doesn't change the fact, however, that if in the final analysis an audience doesn't recognize something as art, then all the rantings of an artist cannot make something art. Period. I just refuse to subscribe to solipsistic or romantic notions of art. That's all. Art relies on publicly understood and recognized conventions. An artist can of course educate the public - which was the gist of your point about Van Gogh.

OK, except perhaps to elaborate on my 5th favorite subject of diatribe (romantic critical agitprop), I will no longer talk about what is art, which is, admittedly, a boring subject when the divergences of view are too great.

320. ralphjameson - April 25, 1997

Once again I find myself in one of these chat rooms filled with people arguing from the hip. This chat room, of course, isn't really a chat room it's a thread. Clever. Not much more, as I am sure most have heard, than fancy CB radio talk between us non-truckers. Fads. We are all so easily fooled. That said, allow me to add some more argument to this confined drabble since there is nothing else to do. Daveroll, as a philistine, might I ask your permission to request Senecio to clearify what she orhe means by "nonsense."

What is art? I find the question to be quite interesting, and since I can see it on the screen I might also note that it has sense. I provided an answer, for whatever it's worth, yesterday (see the early 300'S). I would like to add a little bit more. I feel the answers to the question are passionately debated because they come from three different camps of persons in this society of ours, and the camps will always debate one another on every issue. The first camp is that of the Creators. They are the researchers, poets, writers, painters, musicians, professors, designers, chefs, dancers and more. They like to fix problems with education. They feel the question is a sensible one because of their desire to teach the "philistines," (sorry), and subsequently allow for the flourish of new thought in the world. The second camp is that of the Freewillers. They are the judges, priests, lawyers, peacekeepers, rabbis, politicians, "free" press, preachers and more. They like to fix problems with laws. They feel the question is a sensible one because of their desire to maintain some sort of a balance between totalitarianism and anarchy, and subsequently allow are free wills to make clear choices. Thethird camp is that of the survivalists. They are the businesspersons, nurturers, laborers, nurses, doctors, bankers and more. They like to fix problems with work or money. (please see my next post)

321. ralphjameson - April 25, 1997

(please see previous post) They feel the question is a sensible one because of their desire for, (no not money in particular, but nice try anyway), living in comfort and possibly raising loving families in our present and future generations.

There is a lot of crossover; regardless, each camp in general routinely provides answers to our great questions in this society including the one at hand: What is art?

I would say the "piss christ" is new thought that tips the balance towards anarchy and I wouldn't pay a dime for it.

322. CoralReef - April 25, 1997

ralphjameson, re your first paragraph in 320: no shit. However, I'm glad to see a fellow philistine even if he is one that structures his posts so as to ensure people don't read on.

323. senecio - April 25, 1997

320 and 321, Ralphjameson: you left out "the explicators". They believe that messages, feelings, revelations, communications, etc. that may be produced and circulated through visual, sonic, gestual. etc. means, are not what they seem to be or are not really worthy unless they are annointed and their woth certified by verbosity. They also believe that by means of words they can draw the boundaries of fields that have vast gray areas.

The question "What is art" cannot be called nonsensical per se. What DOES NOT make sense, IMHO, is to believe that such questions, that fall into the same category as fundamental ontological or religious questions, can meaningfully be debated through from-the-hip, sound- bite arguments thrown in no particular order or concert. Arguments that furthemore usurp the time and place we could devote to exchange views about what we enjoy -art - rather than fretting about what are boundaries and demarcation of what we enjoy.

324. phillipdavid - April 25, 1997

Senecio, I am one of those. Language is the house of being.

325. ralphjameson - April 25, 1997

1. messages, feelings, revelations: thought. communication, produce, circulate, means, explicate, words (verbosity), draw: expression of thought.

2. I truly am confused: worth vs. worthy: ontologic vs. theologic ( and why not telo or cosmo ); annointed vs. certified.

3. Fretting and boundry mPseing, no matter how hard everyone through history have tried, does occur, so the question is asked by us philistines and our children too. One can tell them to read Aquinas or Lao Tzu, but they, sorry, we don't like that answer.

4. Ah yes, the old "it's not the time or the place" answer:

The story teller ate the poet, the poet ate the playwrite, the playwrite ate the novelist, the novelist ate the moviemaker, the moviemaker atethe old tv guy, the old tv guy eats the new tv guy, the new tv guy is now eating the chat room guy. "Please," he says, "one should express one's views in a more proper forum." "Sorry," the chat room guy replies, "I must agree history will no longer repeat itself." "But didn't you say..." "Yes, I too am trapped in this chat room with no exit."

5. CoralReef, I did not mention philistine until my third paragraph. Thanks for reading.

326. ralphjameson - April 25, 1997

1. messages, feelings, revelations: thought. communication, produce, circulate, means, explicate, words (verbosity), draw: expression of thought.

2. I truly am confused: worth vs. worthy: ontologic vs. theologic ( and why not telo or cosmo ); annointed vs. certified.

3. Fretting and boundry mPseing, no matter how hard everyone through history have tried, does occur, so the question is asked by us philistines and our children too. One can tell them to read Aquinas or Lao Tzu, but they, sorry, we don't like that answer.

4. Ah yes, the old "it's not the time or the place" answer:

The story teller ate the poet, the poet ate the playwrite, the playwrite ate the novelist, the novelist ate the moviemaker, the moviemaker atethe old tv guy, the old tv guy eats the new tv guy, the new tv guy is now eating the chat room guy. "Please," he says, "one should express one's views in a more proper forum." "Sorry," the chat room guy replies, "I must agree history will no longer repeat itself." "But didn't you say..." "Yes, I too am trapped in this chat room with no exit."

5. CoralReef, I did not mention philistine until my third paragraph. Thanks for reading.

327. phillipdavid - April 25, 1997
(methinks the house above needs a good architect)

328. Seguine - April 26, 1997
Pseudo,

I rather liked your poetic excerpts, which as usual were highly amusing but hardly supported your critique (such as it was). And Daveroll responded so well in #317 that I have nothing to add to his remarks about your lamentably clubfooted notions concerning audiences and art.

As for "Piss Christ", I have seen it in the flesh, so to speak. It was shown here in Philadelphia and, like the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition that preceded it, caused no hysteria. Nor frantic genuflections over its status as great art or political statement. (To this very earthbound city's credit, I think.)

But is it art? I'd say it is--just not very fabulous art. That is, it's clever, it's lovely, it's carefully ambivalent, and formally staid and reassuring (w/regard to things like scale, color, composition). It's a visual image made by a well-trained, well-educated man with an axe to grind against the Christian right. It operates on the level of a stained glass window and a comic strip and it is effective in simultaneously mimicking the methodologies of and striking out at dimestore fundamentalism.

From my standpoint, though, cleverness is not the clearest mark of greatness, and the rest of "Piss Christ"'s attributes can be learned in art school; they're indicative of professionalism, but that's not an especially important commodity for great art to have, in my view, now that we're all professionals. (I mean, certain kinds of proficiency are nice, useful in the service of brilliance, but in themselves mere facility. And as the world becomes more and more facile, who cares.)

Anselm Kiefer is an example of an artist who goes beyond the tools of art (although I think he has now become trapped in his subject matter and has exhausted his options with it), as is Sigmar Polke, whom you, Pseudo, should investigate. To no avail, I'm sure, but you should anyway.

329. ralphjameson - April 26, 1997
phillipdavid,

Like a disgruntled short guy yelling from the stands during a basketball game, you toss your sticks and stones. You should get onto the court and add something to the debate regarding the question: what is art? I am aware your facade probably does not permit you to reveal that you actually have an answer, but go ahead and give it to us anyway. It's fun! There is not one amongst us philistines who are too cool to consider this question.

Ps. your "responsibility" statement, by the way, comes from the Freewiller's camp.

Is everybody in? Let the celebration begin.

330. Seguine - April 26, 1997
Ernest,

Thanks for the Nerdrum pic. I've seen so little of this guy's work, but what I have come across appears to have some depth. There's a U.S. artist by the name of Vince Desiderio who works similarly (though more Italianate than Flemish) but isn't as apparently sophisticated.

Mondaugen,

I checked out the Stelarc link and found it trite as well. Thanks anyway.

331. PseudoErasmus - April 26, 1997
Seguine and Dave Roll

I confess that the visual arts are quite secondary in importance to me, but I think what I have said about the relationship between the artist and the public applies to these as well. As for my club-footedness, go tell Northrope Frye and E. H. Gombrich, since I'm only conflating and digesting their ideas.

Here is something by Frye, which, though about poetry, is quite apt:

"It is important to see as this example shows [the circumstances in which Eliot's "pageant play" The Rock was composed], that audiences are really more consequential in determining genres than writers are...The basis of generic criticism....is rhetorical, in the sense that the genre is determined by the conditions established between the poet and his public....while the activity of literature is clearly a great many other things as well, one crucial thing it is is a market, and we will not get far in understanding writing if, dazzled by the presumed metaphysics of its creation,we lose sight of the supply-and-demand mechanics of its transmission."

The point is, any artistic form must carry with it something of the familiar, something that reminds the audience, however dimly, of an earlier form with which it is familiar and which it habitually regards as a form, as a well-known arena in which apparent artistic purpose and value can show themselves. And the medium by which that purpose and value become apparent is conventions - a set of codes and symbols agreed upon between the artist and the public.

Seguine - my quoting of the poems has nothing to do with this above point.

I think the problem Dave Roll has is that he seems to think I'm arguing for democratic control of what art. That's very far from what I mean. An audience can be a plutocracy of aesthetic elites, for all I know. I argue only against artistic solipsism.

332. alwald - April 26, 1997
"The profane multitude I hate, and only consecrate my strange poems to those searching spirits whom learning hath made noble and nobility sacred." - George Chapman, 16th cent. poet

333. PseudoErasmus - April 26, 1997
Re: Piss Christ

"But is it art? I'd say it is--just not very fabulous art. That is, it's clever, it's lovely, it's carefully ambivalent, and formally staid and reassuring (w/regard to things like scale, color, composition). It's a visual image made by a well-trained, well-educated man with an axe to grind against the Christian right. It operates on the level of a stained glass window and a comic strip and it is effective in simultaneously mimicking the methodologies of and striking out at dimestore fundamentalism."

Well, sure, whatever, though the above is a lot of gibberish drivel twaddle to me. I am, however, a rube of sorts, so I may be a little philistine. No matter - I am used to charges of troglodytism. One of my roommates at university and I used to argue constantly and vituperatively about modern art. For example, when his mother had brought him from the Louvre a poster of a Miró painting of an ostensible owl, I reminded him that it was only a mesh of scratches. Thereupon, using a tone of pity, he likened me to a truck driver, by which epithet he meant to ally me with that long line of pre-Promethean insensate rubes who, as if to show up those beguiling city folk, have scoffed at the progressive arts.

334. senecio - April 26, 1997
Phillipdavid, your 324 and 227: "Language is the house of being". Beautiful. Mozart and Vermeer said it even more beautifully,respectively with regardg to music and seeing. They used their own preferred languages to say it.

But I agreethat THE language has historically been the "official" language for more "certifiable" communication. There are reasons for that have to do with the special quality of THE language (I don't have the space to dwell on that) Oh yes, I agree with you in that in any case you need a good architect. Speaking of which, it is worth noting how great visual artist usually have a knack for shifting into THE language and using it concisely, with simple, noble refrains, like this one by Klee: "art does not reproduce the visible; it makes it visible". Ralphjameson: You react as if I am trying to stifle thought or debate. Nothing of the sort! You are insisting on the Whatisart agenda item. Fine. I am suggesting that it it cannot be discussed meaningfully in this thread, or maybe that it belongs in another thread (where I may be happy to join you). At any rate I believe the issue will crowd out "VISUAL" talk and it is doing so already. (I fear your next entry, taking apart every word of mine and asking what I mean by "visual" talk).

Witness Phillipdavid, whom we gather is a person of the language, but one who, like me, has joined this thread to expand his visual vistas (unintended word play)

335. Ernest - April 26, 1997
Seguine:

You are welcome. I liked the Nerdrum.

Agree with you and Mondaugen about the Stelarc link. Trite might be a mild word.

Curious as I am I looked into the database for Vince Desiderio. Five mentions but no images. Sorry. I first typed in just "Desiderio" and got hundreds of mentions. A few were about an Italian artist Desiderio da Setignano. Anyone knows him? The rest were from an Italian porno king named Desiderio! My children were playing around, so I quietly sneaked out the red light district, like Leporello....

336. resonance - April 26, 1997
Language is the house of being? Sorry, I can't go there.

Durer's The Knight, Death, and the Devil

337. senecio - April 26, 1997
Seguine, I wholly suscribe to your views in your posting 328, including your liking of PseudoErasmus's poetical excerpts (at least the first one). About Kiefer and Polke I suppose you saw the earlier postings in this thread (numbers 254-263). I feared, as you do, that Kiefer might be exhausting his topic, but I saw an exhibition of his recent work in London, last February, and was pleasantly reassured about his capability to renew himself. As to Polke, there is even less to fear, I think, given his wonderful versatility.

338. 100342 - April 26, 1997
Terrific Durer link in 336, Resonance. Here is a delightful detail of a work by Martin Schongauer to celebrate it

339. SharonSchroeder - April 26, 1997
I came across an informative and interesting article regarding art that was taken by the victors during war. Article is complete with a gallery of pictures from various artists. Check it out if you're interested... SPOILS OF WAR

340. vamontis - April 26, 1997
Sharon: you're very busy, slow down a sec... bookmarked above..

got to go to Tech and explain to Bill the trouble I've been having getting into Slate..

341. phillipdavid - April 26, 1997
resonance, re 336

I love that engraving by Durer because I'm fascinated with the man himself, and because I am also fascinated by the apparent subject of that engraving -- Erasmus.

From Durer's diary about that engraving:

"O Erasmus of of Rotterdam, where wilt thou take thy stand? Hark, thou knight of Christ, ride forth at the side of Christ our Lord, protect the truth, obtain the martyr's crown."

Well, Erasmus was not in the world in that way. The grimly determined knight in his Gothic armor, forging ahead oblivbious of the two terrors that flank him, , was as far removed as possible from the real nature of the agile intelligence and nervous side-glances of the great scholar Erasmus.

342. resonance - April 26, 1997
My favorite Durer is his self portrait, but the only one of those that I found was a postage stamo that got no bigger than a three inch by four inch picture.

343. phillipdavid - April 26, 1997
Durer's engravings seem to me to introduce a new element into art of his time. They are so realistic. The perspective he portrays increases the sense of reality. I believe his woodcuts must have diffused a new way of looking at art, not as something magical or symbolic, but as something factual and accurate. People who bought his engraving of *Life of the Virgin* probably accepted it as a correct record.

I'm off now to search for a link to another engraving that I believe makes a powerful statement *Melancholia I*

344. phillipdavid - April 26, 1997
I will look for his self-portrait also. I too love that picture.

345. KenOtwell - April 26, 1997
Er, 'scuse please, just passing through, but I thought the topic was state funding of art? So, if I might interject on that topic...

Patrons of Art: YES. Patrons have objectives in art, they make subjective choices, they encourage and nurture art for its own sake.

Taxation for Art: NO. Government can only tell artists what not to create so as not to offend anyone. No inspiration, no nurturing of creativity, no purpose at all other than feel-good-ism for the masses.

Thanks for reading.

346. 100342 - April 26, 1997
While resonance and phillipdavid look for other Dürers, here is another Schongauer, this time an engraving, the means through which he created his best production. (Move it sidewise and up-and-down for a complete view)

347. 100342 - April 26, 1997
Oops!... it did not work.

348. senecio - April 26, 1997
KenOtwell at 345:

There are cases to prove your point. The Dutch government ran a programme of Royal artists or something for years. The State ensured the yearly purchase of a certain amount of works from artists who made it into the Royal artists (the State made up the list). The works went to hospitals, schools, police precints, Dutch embassies, etc. Guess what happened to the quality of the artists and the work overtime...

Would something analogous to that explain why there has not been any great art coming our of France since Dubuffet? Does anybody know?

By the way, the Fraymistress seems to have change the heading of this thread and now, yes, it reads as id we are only discussing funding of art.

349. phillipdavid - April 26, 1997
Actually, it is not Durer's self-portrait that I find so fascinating, it is a portrait titled *Oswald Krell*. In my mind, I imagine resonance looks like that man. I have not found it yet...I believe it would be worth the effort if anyone else wants to hunt for it.

I did find a link to Melancholia. I've read references to something called the magic square (whatever that is) in reference to this engraving.

But what strikes me is that the figure of humanity is so evolved -- with wings to carry her upwards. She sits in the attitude of Rodin's *Pensuer*, and still holds in her hands a compass, symbols of measeurement by which science will conquer the world. Around her are all the emblems of constructive action : a saw, a plane, pincers, scales, a hammer, a melting pot, and two elements in solid geometry. Yet all these aids just sit there, ignored, and she sits there brooding on the futility of human effort. I'm fascinated by this work which shows tools for the building of civilization at the same time it depicts an interior force which can destroy civilization. the paradox of the human condition.

350. phillipdavid - April 26, 1997
In my browsing around for Durer's pictures, I came across this quote from someone named Ruskin :

"Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last."

351. 100342 - April 26, 1997
PhilipDavid: what they refer to as magic square is really a polyhedron, the one seen on the left side. I also remember having read about it but forgot why is it meant to be magic.

Great quotation by Ruskin. Would you happen to have the fellow's first name to hand, to look him up?

352. PseudoErasmus - April 26, 1997
JOHN RUSKIN, the [rather famous] Victorian art critic and author of the 5-volume *Modern Painters* as well as *The Stones of Venice*, is associated in art history with the championing of Turner and the pre-Raphaelites. He was also a prominent piner for the heroic, feudal, Christian ideals.

353. groovylis - April 26, 1997
Pseudo, my neurons are buzzing from merely reading your post. Can you imagine the Ultimate Euphoria, the Nirvana of Enlightnment, the Opium of the Mind I'd have if I *understood* it? The mind boggles, then salutes a white flag...

354. CoralReef - April 26, 1997
Ruskin is who I quoted earlier in my Turner post.

355. groovylis - April 26, 1997
Ah! That makes (2) resident geniuses of the Fray. I'm printing out your most memorable comments as we speak.

356. ralphjameson - April 26, 1997
Kenotwell and Groovylis,

It's quite difficult to get these fellows such as phillipdavid or PseudoErasmus or senecio (and several others ) to really provide some juicy debate. They prefer to defecate "informative" chatter in a very civil way in hopes that we may all "learn" something. Excuse me while I try to remember what it was like to be a grad student so that I might be able to vomit. We all felt we knew so much. It aint no fun unless your'e in the sun. Fellows, please quit quoting dead guys. Get out of your librarian tombs and actually think of something new all by your lonely (editorial, sorry) selves.

Now, back into the ring. Money, money, money! Our gazillion doller government should be spending a gazillion dollers every year on the art. Period. Congressmen, and all of their moneymen should be made to squirm in their seats as their sphincters pucker in anguish upon hearing of the amounts spent for art. The short sighted pragmatists out there have to realize that WITHOUT NEW THOUGHT, A SOCIETY DIES! There are, of course, several other pleasures ( see Spinoza, oops, he's dead ) in art, but those pragmatists are usually the ones with the cash; they are the survivalists (see my earlier chats from about 300 on). We must start in our "publicly funded" schools. We need more finger painting and less memorizing. Memorizing, afterall, only leads to chronic quotation of dead guys in later life. The walrus I am not.

357. groovylis - April 26, 1997
ralph: you are my new icon.

358. Coralreef - April 26, 1997
Dali 1 Dali 2 Dali 3 Dali 4

Why post these hyperlinks? Why not. At least it's not another ralphjameson silly post.

One of these images was put in purely for its humor value. Can you guess which?

359. bartley - April 27, 1997
yes, i can guess dali 3 == groovylis autosodomized by her new icons

360. resonance - April 27, 1997
I was wandering around some drug site that Godless linked up and I found this interesting artwork: Plate 88

361. resonance - April 27, 1997
And there's this one, which I guess I'm young enough to whish I had a poster of:

Awareness Is

362. groovylis - April 27, 1997
I have become convinced that several residents of the Fray are in possession of a mild personality disorder. However, upon this most recent addition, I'm confident in expanding my diagnosis to considerable sociopathic tendancies. If you'd like, I can consult my psychiatrist father for the latest bio-medial treatments available for this unique problem. Someday all of you may be able to re-enter society, electronic or otherwise, and converse freely with the confidence that you will not repulse other virginal members of the society.

363. cougar - April 27, 1997
amazing! all these words and nothing said.

364. groovylis - April 27, 1997
I guess subtlety is lost on some people.

365. george - April 27, 1997
Given the tendencies which can be observed for the past years since our "great" Pres. Reagan, I am compelled to respond: YES, government funding for the arts will disappear. While, on the one hand, it is deplorable to see (and, even worse, to hear barbarians like Jessie Helms. a "God-fearing" man) expound on what is right or wrong for the ARTS in America, I, personally, have confidence that, in the long run, this will be the best thing for free artistic expression in our country. I believe there are still enough intelligent, sensitive true American who have long ago learned to not only appreciate the ARTS but have also read Milton's "Areopagitica" [unlike our illiterate politicians] who WILL privately support the ARTS. And if we are smart enough to deal with corporations, there are heaps of shekels out there that can be obtained for the generally "uncontroversial" artistic efforts to complement all we need. This is one of the few areas I feel the Government should be long gone from the scene.

366. godlessclif - April 27, 1997
Artists are all nuts.

That why Van Gogh cut his ear off.

These guys scuba dive in the subconcious without a wet suit and paint pictures of rapture of the deep halucinations.

Give 'em prozac and they'll get blocked.

367. ernest - April 27, 1997
Message #261

Poor Jimmy, twice killed! Once by drugs, once by a postermaker

368. groovylis - April 27, 1997
george: good luck in your attempt to initiate relevant discussion.

369. phillipdavid - April 27, 1997
I haven't seen any discussion at all from you groovylis. Everyone else has been talking about pictures, or talking about artists, or about what art is and isn't, and now talking about government funding of the arts....why are you here? I am trying to learn, and I believe constructive discussion with others is a great way to do that.

370. 100342 - April 27, 1997
About funding for the arts: That the net is overwhelmingly populated by U.S. users is a fact. But art funding cannot be discussed outside of country/historical context. In my country private patronage of the arts is in its infancy. We would liketo rely more on such patronage for the development of the arts, but it will take a long time, if we ever get there.

In the meantime, we have State funding of various sorts. The matter for us is not State funding as such, but how to minimize risks of bad or slanted decisions. Private support of the arts down here is outright conservative. They play safe. No individual grants to emerging artists or exhibitions of avant gard art would be possible without public funds. This also goes for music (including classical, jazz and opera) theatre, films and even literature.

There are drops (or liters) of libertarian blood in all of us, but in the way the debate is framed in the U.S. (pay a visit to the libertarian thread in this fray) it does not make sense beyond U.S. boundaries (up to you to judge how much sense it makes within them)

371. ernest - April 27, 1997
Message #269

Phillipdavid, I suspect Groovylis is an alter ego for a more constructive contributor. I kind of find him funny anyway. I think I have guessed who the main ego is.

Yet, it is against netiquette to blow the cover of anyone roamingthe net.

372. VincentVega - April 27, 1997
Now you *have* to tell, ernest. Come on, out with it.

373. ernest - April 27, 1997
Message 372

Le Big Mac: I must decline. Netiquette aside, I could never forgive myself if I end up by irreparably upseting the delicate balance of what seems after all a mild case of multiple personality disorder. Responsibility to our fellow frayers come first!

374. groovylis - April 27, 1997
Message #369

phillipdavid, I think it's wonderful you're trying to learn, and I agree that discussion is a great way to do it. I was not being sarcastic in my remark to george. Really, it's a shame how cynical you are. I would love to contribute further to this art thread, but I will be the first to proclaim my ignorance on the subject. But, if it should please you, I will make my presence invisible and simply lurk amidst the genius of others.

Message #371

ernest... I hate to disappoint you, but it is only I, the one, single entity known as groovylis- no "more constructive alter ego," though I do wish you found this one suitable.

*the lady tries to bow out gracefully*

375. Dvepivoprosim - April 27, 1997
ernest, look at that. No one here could have made that up.

376. jjnowell - April 28, 1997
I'm new to this particular fray, and must confess that I have NOT read all 375 fibers preceeding my addition to this thread. Pardon me if this has been said before. The NEA does, and has always done, very little for the actual promotion of cutting edgeart. Grants have always landed mostly in the laps of established artists or relative newcomers who were already receiving considerable exposure. This is no surprise. Government funding of art is funding with a purpose. That more funding is now going to middlebrow rather than elite, avant-garde projects (as the slate article contends) is a minor point. Art -- high, low, and middle-brow -- is still thriving. In fact, the more scarce government funding of the arts becomes, the higher the quality of art should be, since artists will presumably spend less time writing grant proposals and more time actually practicing their art. Furthermore, great artists WILL create art -- with or without funds. Dangling public money before them only encourages otherwise mediocre talents to produce more mediocre works than would otherwise be the case.

377. 100342 - April 28, 1997
Point well taken regarding NEA and the U.S., jjnowell. But again, as I stated in num. 370 it depends on particular country circumstances. I cannot imagine Australian film-making of the last 20 years (which has immensely enriched world filmography) or Italian film-making of the 60s or the German film production by Fassbinder and other would have been possible without public funding. That making films is too expensive? Yes. But in most countries there is a dearth of private funding for practically most forms of art (except for the upteenth staging of "La Traviata" or the season's safe Mega Show) and the need for some form of public funding is quite real. true, a lot of public money may has been squandered through such programs in different countries, but a lot of art has also been made possible. I surmise that the bang for the back ratio is not lower than that of the average governmental programs anywhere.

378. 100342 - April 28, 1997
No pun intended. Mere typo: it was *buck*, not back

379. Rivendell - April 28, 1997
jjnowell -

I would say that great artists CAN STILL create great art - with or without public funds, but not that they necessarily WILL.

Government funding of art need not be an inducement to mediocre talent for the production of mediocre work. I would say that the Royal Shakespeare and the National Theatre in Great Britian are examples of government monies well spent. These companies do not produce a great deal of new works, but their existance serves as an inspiration for non-funded artists to continue.

When government funding of the arts works best it is as seed money.

380. Dvepivoprosim - April 28, 1997
Goovylis, come back.

381. Seguine - April 28, 1997
Pseudo,

Most of what you fail to comprehend or respond to in art is comprehensible by audiences familiar with art. There is a difference, however, between understanding visual language (I don't mean the punning sort of postmodern signalling I'm surebores us both) and submitting to being sold on the importance or greatness of a work or an artist. The quote from Frye you wish applied to visual art of the late 20th century surely did not take into account the phenomenon of Warhol (celebrity=art) and the rigid coalescence of markets and notions of quality. And in any case I disagree that an audience or a market is required for art to be art, which is precisely what you imply when you make sweeping statements about audiences being the definers of the word and artists having no control over a work's meaning once it is finished and put before the public. Uninformed prancing on your part.

The truth is more nebulous than you like it to be--in general and most particularly in the case of art's definition and interpretation or meaning. Think of a Mandelbrot set, of "art" occupying shifting forms with infinitely long and complex boundaries. The closer you get to the edges of those forms, the less certain you can be that art resides there... until the edge, influenced by a strange attractor, suddenly balloons into something similar to the old form but unique, and its art occupies its center.

You're not a rube, Pseudo, or a Philistine. You just like received knowledge better than perceivedknowledge. As long as the rules are all in place, you have no problem comprehending subject matter of any sort. But when you have to make observations about things that aren't concrete, or put your perceptions together for yourself in the absence of a textbook, you're either inexperienced or lazy.

However, as you have elsewhere manifested an ability to cook, there surely is hope for you yet.

382. ernest - April 28, 1997
Message #381

Seguine: Hello? are the rest of us here in the same room? Your views are fascinating, and I mean it. I side with you in our personal fray with Pseudo. But I cannot help feeling oddly embarrased and kind of guilty by reading the tone of your post... I felt as if I was peeking into the privacy of a home where an odd couple is arguing. I am sure your wonderful friendship with Pseudo pre-dates this thread, but you are beginning to sound like the academic version of Jack Lemmon vs. Walter Matthau.

383. PseudoErasmus - April 28, 1997
SEGUINE - Please elaborate on this,

"The quote from Frye you wish applied to visual art of the late 20th century surely did not take into account the phenomenon of Warhol (celebrity=art) and the rigid coalescence of markets and notions of quality."

I find it rather ironic that although you think I hold conventional and received knowledge, rather than "perceived knowledge", your ideas about the centrality of the artist in the dissemination of artistic meaning are far olderthan any notion I have advanced. Another problem with your reply to me is that you pronounce upon certain things as though they were matters of incontrovertible fact. This is evident in your use of words like "uninformed" or "correct" - precisely things which betray *your* belief in received knowledge as opposed to perceived knowledge. For example, re my early statements on the artist's control of meaning. By what logic can you say that the meaning of a work of art *must* take into account an artist's stated intent about that art? I don't believe I said that that an artist's intentions *need* be irrelevant. The two procedures - an interpretation which ignores the artist's intent and another which takes it into account - are different the one from the other. (The situation is analogous to the dispute over original intent behind the Constition - neither is "right" nor "wrong". So, no, the truth isn't nebulous; it just doesn't exist here.) What you lack is a sense of aesthetic epistemology. Finally, in saying that you "disagree that an audience or a market is required for art to be art..." you clearly acknowledge the absurdity that the artist is all, that the art is a private document and that the audience is dispensable. My position is NOT to dispense with the artist - itself an absurdity - but merely to restore the balance of power upset by roman

384. PseudoErasmus - April 28, 1997
SEGUINE

I'll be posting more on aesthetics, since I'm beginning to find the vocal calls for avoiding the subject a little irritating. I will henceforth largely stick to examples from literature, music and film, since these I know better than painting and sculpture.

One other thing. I find it interesting that the conventional wisdom about artistic intent in the art world is different from that in the music world. In the former, what the artist meant or might have meant to do in a painting or a sculpture is much more highly valued than in the latter. Hence, the 10-year vogue for original instruments and "more faithful interpretations" in classical music. (The movement used to be confined to the resurrection of forgotten works from the 17th and 18th centuries, but now they're catching up with Mozart and Beethoven.) Of course this has probably to do with the fact that music, like theater, is an "incomplete" art - a second artist mediates between the first and the audience. All the same, this is a topic on which I will be posting in the music thread.

385. PseudoErasmus - April 28, 1997
SEGUINE

One other thing. Read posts #20 and 21 in the Waugh thread - they bear on what I'm talking about.

386. PseudoErasmus - April 28, 1997
Re: Message #383 to SEGUINE

the last line was cut off:

My position is NOT to dispense with the artist - itself an absurdity - but merely to restore the balance of power upset by romantic critical agitprop, under whose sway, whether you know or not, you subtly operate.

387. 100342 - April 28, 1997
From Masaccio, the fellow who started it all (if we don't count B.C. art). Here is the expulsion of Adam and Eve. Also a fragment of St. Peter healing with his Shadow, both from his frescoes at the Brancacci Chapel.

The recent restoration of this Chapel is a triumph.

That a 25 year old lad singlehandedly ushered in the renaissance in painting asMasaccio did in the Brancacci Chapel in 1426 still amazes me as much as when I first saw this Chapel, a long time ago. This is the most youthful example of the maturity usually found in great artists' late periods.

388. PseudoErasmus - April 28, 1997
SEGUINE

I quoted from Northrop Frye to illustrate that in this post-romantic age there is an underestimated element in art - the impersonal forces which do much to determine the meaning of any art work and with which an artist must work to express himself. Examples, among others, are genre and convention. They *do* limit an artist's control over meaning, and they cause art to say things *they* rather than the artist would like to say.

Also your objection that the quotation from Frye doesn't take into account the phenomenon of Warhol, is off the mark. For the idea of artist-as-celebrity is really a variation on the romantic cult of the artist, the artist-as-hero, the transcendance of the personal genius. And this is the very thing Frye was reacting against, the formidable and pervasive influence of tired (and now quite standard) romantic aesthetics.

389. PseudoErasmus - April 28, 1997
Seguine,

In asserting that I could fathom "received knowledge" but not "perceived knowledge", I know you strove mightily to find an appropriate diction to identify my limitations (and I'm sure the hokey rhyming parallelism was a big bonus). However, that is not what you really meant. You really should have meant that my appreciation of art wasn't empiricist enough, that my sensibility was hampered by pseudo-theoretical prejudices. But of course so are you. You think yourself empiricist and possessed of perceived knowledge, but all one has to do is look at your posts on Manet & Degas to see that you are as full of received knowledge and (unconscoius) theoretical prejudices as anybody else. Of course you will dismiss my musings as nonsense and presume to assert your self-evidently commonsensical approach to art.

390. ernest - April 28, 1997
There he goes, again... This must be the net equivalent to purgatory. To expiate the sin of seeing (and enjoying it) you must read 2000 full length posts by none other than....

391. nbmandel - April 29, 1997
Re "Jesse Helms Ballet": my own notion is that for reasons of (justified) national pride the government ought to be enthusiastically shoving money at artists -- don't Helms and his buddies understand that glory comes to nations through art? I think they're positively unAmerican in this (as in other) ways -- while for reasons of artistic integrity artists should think at least twice about accepting it. Any thoughts?

392. mepruitt - April 29, 1997
Jesus, enough already of this elitist, whiny claptrap about art! If YOU can define it then YOU support it, and leave me and other countless millions and our tax dollars out of it!

393. Seguine - April 29, 1997
Mepruitt,

According to figures from on high, last time I checked anyway, it costs you 87 tax cents every year to support the arts. Not really enough to get exercised about elitism over, don't you think?

394. BullElephant - April 29, 1997
seguine you bug. That's always the arguments the bugs use when telling us how little a govt program costs. It only costs you $3.00 a year to support Israel. It only costs...yada yada yada. Listen up pud. If a homeless skime tries to remove a dollar from my person I shoot him in the head. Bang he's dead and I got my buck back. it ain't much different when some elitist pud tries to steal it through taxes. Sure I can't shoot em but I can hollar like him, call em a putz and lobby to get the program killed. Arts fundign is a busdriver giving money to a rich opera star. it ain't right pardner it ain't. I'm an art dealer pud I know who and how funding gets done. It ain't pretty the art produced or the way the funding is got. CUT IT OUT.

395. FloydRidenour - April 29, 1997
Yes, BullElephant is an art dealer. Please don't question his expertise. Gov't art funding takes money right out of his pocket, "skime"-like. Every cent the Feds put into art is another taxpayer penny diverted away from one of Bull's "starving artist" hotel-lobby oil-painting sales extravaganzas.

396. labarjare - April 29, 1997
Floyd, floyd - its suburban motel (and not top of the line either) art sale shows. You know, one weekend on LI, the next somewhere in NJ. The artists usually deserve to be starving (JJ, take note), as well.

397. FloydRidenour - April 29, 1997
Labarjare... yes, exactly. You know, "I need a big one that'll match the sofa."

398. BullElephant - April 29, 1997
Floyd & lab: Please now both of you run off to a Mapplethorpe exhibition and hang out in the men's room. And when you guys get butt flu....The joke ill be on you.

But in the meantime. SHINE MY SHOES YOU PUDS.

399. FloydRidenour - April 29, 1997
Actually, I have another mental picture of BullElephant's enterprise. I'm just having trouble deciding whether piling a bunch of oil paintings on top of a rickety folding table on a sidewalk on 14th St. really qualifies someone as an "art dealer."

400. FloydRidenour - April 29, 1997
labarjare... we could use the Lucky's-face-on-fire method to shine BE's shoes -- whaddaya think?