Art for --- sake??

[Gorki]

Dear all...
What does literature try to convey?? Or in more simple terms ,why do we read literature???
On one hand we have literary pieces like Macbeth, which cautions us from being overambitious; while on other front we have Sons & Lovers, a novel which defines immorality & debauchery, which is more of corporeal nature...
Art for art's sake.............Art for no sake...........

Which factor motivates you to read???
Kindly post your valuable comments on what you think about this...
Thanks for ur time in advance...

[Paulclem]

I must have missed the immorality and debauchery in Sons and Lovers..

One thingh literature tries to convey is a good story.

[Alexander III]

It conveys beauty
And we read to enjoy the beauty

Simple as that, no ifs, no buts,

That is what art for art's sake means, I personally agree, though many don't, thats the way these things go. But why must literature have a purpose ? If literature has no purpose does that mean we should stop reading/studying/creating it ? Should everyone who believes life has no purpose, commit suicide ?

[Gladys]

I read literature for each meteoric flaring of insight into the human. Hence my love of Dostoevsky, Ibsen and Henry James.

[Gorki]

@ Paulclem..What according to you is a good story?? Is there a bad story as well??? What makes a story bad?? Its content or the rote way of narrating it.?? & how can the content be bad because every author tries to bring up a novel idea..??
Do you disagree at my description of Sons & Lovers??

@ Alexander III...Does every literary work convey beauty??? & what perception do you have of beauty.?? What about those novels that show the grim & heinous aspect of society???How about Robinson Crusoe...?? I am from India..& we find light reads by novelists like chetan bhagat who write about their college life,love ,relationships et al....
Should these be termed literary beauty???

[Alexander III]

If it doesn't not posses beauty, then on artistic terms its worthless.

By beauty I mean beauty in form and style, not content. A rape scene in a novel can posses beauty, or it may be just a list and bland, or worse it may attempt to posses beauty but utterly fail, creating the grotesque.

[Gorki]

@ Alexander, you must have heard the saying--"It's the life and not spectator that art really mirrors"...SO if you say that a novel has no artistic value, the story it portrays and refers to would be worthless & in a sense that aspect of life too would be worthless..now how to comprehend it???

[JCamilo]

Do you mean that if I paint the face of Adriana Lima and it is a hideous painting, Adriana Lima is hideous????

There is something as bad art, as failures in art. Even the great names had days that they should have left their penciel, pen, piano, etc at home.

Art does not have objective or motives at all. It is all they need, can deal with any theme. It is more a process than a single object, how it is produced, how it adquire vallue due the espectador (or reader, or watever) vallue it, how it resist to time and how it generate more art. It is stylized form for us to show something (as art does not explain anything and if does, the explanation is more a stylized surface, like the morals on fables) and we like it, we need it, we keep doing it.
What we do with it, is another story. Then art can be about a single objective because we use art to that objective, but we are just one in this long process.

[The Atheist]

Which factor motivates you to read???

Entertainment.

[litera9]

I read for insight into the world around me. I read to understand, and to teach. I read to entertain, I read to inform. I read Good Literature because it does all of that, and then some.
Great literature exists to reflect the beauties and horrors of humanity. IT also changes us, and who we are.

[Alexander III]

@ Alexander, you must have heard the saying--"It's the life and not spectator that art really mirrors"...SO if you say that a novel has no artistic value, the story it portrays and refers to would be worthless & in a sense that aspect of life too would be worthless..now how to comprehend it???

Im sorry but im just not understanding your question, is there anyway you could re-phrase that ?

[Gorki]

Im sorry but im just not understanding your question, is there anyway you could re-phrase that ?

@ Alexander,I meant to say that art is the reflection of life in the society..
You believe that a work lacking beauty is worthless on artistic terms...
Considering a book on friendship{ friendship being a fundamental aspect of life} utterly fails to convey the theme and idea behind the story; does it make friendship a useless virtue??? This is what I inferred from your reply..Kindly clarify what you wished to convey??

P.S--This question is open for all...

[Gorki]

@ JCamillo..I consider failure or success of any art work as judged by the spectators...But at times the audience fails to discover the inner recesses of the artist's mind...??Now how does the artist feel about it??? He's trying to reach to the masses and convey what he thinks is appropriate..But as the general view is directed in the contrary direction, he is tagged a failure..That happened with great philosophers ,artists and it perpetuates till date..{ Arundhati Roy,the booker winner from India,for instance..she supports maoists and kashmiri dissidents, and in a sense is ostracized}

I found contradiction in your 1st statement and rest of the post..Kindly clarify that as well..

P.S--This question is open to all..

[Gorki]

@ the athiest, you being an intellectual person can't just read things for entertainment..Kindly be free and cogent while expressing yourself and tell us more..

P.S--I am an agnostic, how does it differ from atheist coz both are stereotyped blasphemous,I guess..
@ all...Kindly comment..

[Gorki]

@ litera9 & Gladys..A convincing reply...Kindly join other conversations on this post...

[blazeofglory]

I read it for a variety of purposes. It is not always the same purpose. At times I read literature thinking that it can tell me about life. At times I read literature how people live at a particular phase in history and what their social and cultural conditions and history reveals a lot to me since it directly related to life. At times literature to entertain myself since it transports me to a world of fantasy and dreams. I read poetry when I feel humiliated and it sublimates my mind. I read serious literature like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy that flares my philosophical imaginations. I read James Joyce when I love and form literature. It is really difficult to say why I read exactly literature. At times out of inquisitiveness I read literature then I plow through some of the momentous domains of it like reading the great epics like the Mahabharata and the Iliad. I cannot pinpoint and limit the purpose of reading literary pieces to one or two realms

[JCamilo]

@ JCamillo..I consider failure or success of any art work as judged by the spectators...

There is no such thing as judgment of art by spectadors or anything else. The only form to notice the failure of sucess is time: any manifestation that managed to survive beyond its time has some success, no matters what the spectadors said.


But at times the audience fails to discover the inner recesses of the artist's mind...??Now how does the artist feel about it???

Why are you using those vague terms like inner recesses of artist mind??? What is the point?
Anyways, audience does not have or need to understand anything about an artwork. They will produce their own interpretation of this, otherwise they would be just repeating that creation. And the artist feelings? Art is something universal, feelings personal... so it does not matter here.


He's trying to reach to the masses and convey whae thinks is appropriate..But as the general view is directed in the contrary direction, he is tagged a failure..

Who cares... tags do not stick.


That happened with great philosophers ,artists and it perpetuates till date..{ Arundhati Roy,the booker winner from India,for instance..she supports maoists and kashmiri dissidents, and in a sense is ostracized}

It is a bit of naive to think those who command the capacity of communication so well as artistss can be really shunned. Their work eventually find ways, but what art is not related to acceptance of any generation.


I found contradiction in your 1st statement and rest of the post..Kindly clarify that as well..

P.S--This question is open to all..

So, you do not think Adriana Lima is pretty?

[Alexander III]

@ Alexander,I meant to say that art is the reflection of life in the society..
You believe that a work lacking beauty is worthless on artistic terms...
Considering a book on friendship{ friendship being a fundamental aspect of life} utterly fails to convey the theme and idea behind the story; does it make friendship a useless virtue??? This is what I inferred from your reply..Kindly clarify what you wished to convey??

P.S--This question is open for all...

First of I DONT believe art is the reflection of life in society. Art is the reflection of nothing, many times it is Life which is the reflection of Art.

As for your statement, you fail to separate form and style from substance and content. For example, the theme of love is found both in The Davinci Code, and in Pride and Prejudice. Now, Austen creates beauty, Dan brown fails - but their attempts have no relevance what so ever on the concept of Love its self.

To extend JCamillo's point, il use a hypothetical situation. Let us say both me and JCamillo were to pain your portrait. JCamillo creates a work of genius, I create a work of a one armed 4 year old. Both paintings have no physical impact on your appearance, just because he painted you beautifully and I painted you dreadfully does not mean that your actual appearance changes.

Let us assume I write a terrible poem on Loyalty, does that mean Loyalty is worthless and terrible ? No.

Let us assumer I write the greatest novel of the 21st century, concerning Rape, does that make Rape virtuous and moral ? No.

Do you get it now ?
Any more question ?

[OrphanPip]

First of I DONT believe art is the reflection of life in society. Art is the reflection of nothing, many times it is Life which is the reflection of Art.


Well I think it's silly to say art doesn't reflect life, art often calls on the experiences of real life to make itself understandable.

I've disagreed in threads before about the value of art merely for arts sake. Not because I think art must have moral meaning and be somehow objectively virtuous, but because I think the aesthetics of a work are often inseparable from the morality and messages in it. Can we truly read Dickens' Hard Times and understand it without seeing that Dickens is commenting on Utilitarianism and the living conditions of the working poor.

Moreover, I'm not so quick to dismiss the value of art for social message and communication. Art has often functioned as a means of protest for oppressed group, it is a great medium for getting messages out to broader audiences.

Likewise, I'm fascinated by the aesthetics of autobiographical narratives, the interplay between the constructed narrative and an individual's subjective experiences can create a profound aesthetical appeal.

Art for arts sake should not mean we should put blinders on and just ignore any social implications, or messages, of art. I also think it is naive to think we can truly appreciate art without bringing in our own biases.

[JCamilo]

Art does not have moral vallue at all. Specific artworks may have, but that is irrelevant. The Moral vallue of Dante, Michelangelo, Virgil are nothing to us. If art had more vallue, the product of each generation would erase of the products of anyone before it. The example you gave is perfect: Dickens art is not his moral, but his style.

Art as always a means of protests of oppressed? Art was often controled by power, not by opressed people. Virgil wrote the Aeneid for Augustus, not for anyone oppressed. Michelangelo painted for the Pope. Both works are very akim (not talent wise) to hollywood movies about america; a message about power. Art would be very meaningless if did not considered and expressed power too.

Art being used for moral, cure, pedagocical, political, propaganda does not define art, no more than what we use our hand defines our hands. Science was used for all those purposes, but Science is for Science sake just as well.

[Alexander III]

"Well I think it's silly to say art doesn't reflect life, art often calls on the experiences of real life to make itself understandable."

The atomic bomb and nuclear power-plants, both are composed of the fusion/fissure of atoms; does that mean that nuclear power-plants are a reflection of the atomic bomb ? Cannot two things have the same source yet be independent of each other ?


"Art for arts sake should not mean we should put blinders on and just ignore any social implications, or messages, of art. I also think it is naive to think we can truly appreciate art without bringing in our own biases."

No one said that art dos not contain social,political and moral commentary, but that is but a piece of it, a mere cog in the machine so to say. Richardson and Fielding were utter opposites in social,political and moral believes ingrained in their works. Thereby if that was the thing of main consequence, either Fielding or Richardson would have been discarded. yet they both remain as greats, though such opposites - why ? Because they created beauty, a beauty utterly independent of such frivolous things as society and morals.

[Scheherazade]

Art for --- sake?? I kinda like art but if some sake is also involved, I am sure I'm bound to enjoy it more!

http://minnesotagal.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/sake.jpg

[OrphanPip]

Art does not have moral vallue at all. Specific artworks may have, but that is irrelevant. The Moral vallue of Dante, Michelangelo, Virgil are nothing to us. If art had more vallue, the product of each generation would erase of the products of anyone before it. The example you gave is perfect: Dickens art is not his moral, but his style.

I did not say the value of art is in morality, nor that art must have moral value. I was saying that our own sense of morality can not be divorced from our responses to art, nor can the moralizing intentions of an author be ignored. It is silly to say one can not appreciate Aesop for the messages, or Dickens for his Victorian idealism. These morals are certainly a part of their styles, but it does not mean that they do not effect our interpretation of art at all.



Art as always a means of protests of oppressed? Art was often controled by power, not by opressed people. Virgil wrote the Aeneid for Augustus, not for anyone oppressed. Michelangelo painted for the Pope. Both works are very akim (not talent wise) to hollywood movies about america; a message about power. Art would be very meaningless if did not considered and expressed power too.

I said often, not always, there is a big difference. Art has often been a useful way to express an opinion in a way that gets around conventional censorship. And I think it is impossible to deny that work created in conditions of oppression has a certain air to it. The politics of a work can affect it's aesthetics positively. This notion that artistic judgments exist in a vacuum unaffected by our human prejudices is naive. Is Lolita not just a tad bit more powerful a work of art because of the unconventional morality of Humbert.



Art being used for moral, cure, pedagocical, political, propaganda does not define art, no more than what we use our hand defines our hands. Science was used for all those purposes, but Science is for Science sake just as well.

I didn't say it was defined by any of those things. I said those things effect how we view art, and thus a notion of art being merely for arts sake is entirely divorced from the reality of how people experience and interact with art.

[JCamilo]

I did not say the value of art is in morality, nor that art must have moral value. I was saying that our own sense of morality can not be divorced from our responses to art, nor can the moralizing intentions of an author be ignored. It is silly to say one can not appreciate Aesop for the messages, or Dickens for his Victorian idealism. These morals are certainly a part of their styles, but it does not mean that they do not effect our interpretation of art at all.

About what? Your example shows that Dickens morality is just a minor historical fact. Not part of his art, not something we should even bother. And Ignore so much the moral intentions of the author, that I can read religious texts without feeling need to have faith. Or I need Virgil without thinking how great is the romans.
And the author motive is so irrlevant, that several narratives have lost the author register, and still powerful. Yet, the morals of Red Hidding hood is never the same. For the sake of art definition, morality is not relevant.




I said often, not always, there is a big difference. Art has often been a useful way to express an opinion in a way that gets around conventional censorship. And I think it is impossible to deny that work created in conditions of oppression has a certain air to it. The politics of a work can affect it's aesthetics positively. This notion that artistic judgments exist in a vacuum unaffected by our human prejudices is naive. Is Lolita not just a tad bit more powerful a work of art because of the unconventional morality of Humbert.

Lolita is not a expression of less powerful class or anything. Nakobov is quite an elitist actually. But you see this power because it is what you like more, not what is true. Also, something that only happens once or while is not really valuable to define universal traits.




I didn't say it was defined by any of those things. I said those things effect how we view art, and thus a notion of art being merely for arts sake is entirely divorced from the reality of how people experience and interact with art.

Sure, that is why some artists were mere aesthetic seekers and they created real works.

[OrphanPip]

About what? Your example shows that Dickens morality is just a minor historical fact. Not part of his art, not something we should even bother. And Ignore so much the moral intentions of the author, that I can read religious texts without feeling need to have faith. Or I need Virgil without thinking how great is the romans.
And the author motive is so irrlevant, that several narratives have lost the author register, and still powerful. Yet, the morals of Red Hidding hood is never the same. For the sake of art definition, morality is not relevant.

You are missing the point yet again. Dickens morality is more than merely a minor historical fact, it is integral to understanding and interpreting how his work functions. The appeal to morality is intimately related to the aesthetics of the work, that is almost entirely what Victorian sentimentalism was about. Merely because you can appreciate a work for reasons other than any inherent moral message in the work does not mean that an intended moral message is not part of the art. Our moral judgments are always there and they effect how we respond to a work, anyone who says otherwise I would venture is merely a liar.



Lolita is not a expression of less powerful class or anything. Nakobov is quite an elitist actually. But you see this power because it is what you like more, not what is true. Also, something that only happens once or while is not really valuable to define universal traits.

I didn't say it was, I merely moved onto it as an example of how morality interplays with our responses to the aesthetics of a work. Nor did I say anything about universal traits of art. I swear people are having reading comprehension difficulties. Some art's aesthetic value is clearly related to issues of political purpose and moral message. To say that morality or politics can not effect how we value art is to say that human beings are perfect objective observers who hold no inherent biases.




Sure, that is why some artists were mere aesthetic seekers and they created real works.

Yet again you're misunderstanding me, I didn't say that art needs to have a moral messages, I am saying that often morality has an effect on the aesthetics of a work. Note that I have not made any claims of absolutes anywhere.

[JCamilo]

You are missing the point yet again. Dickens morality is more than merely a minor historical fact, it is integral to understanding and interpreting how his work functions. The appeal to morality is intimately related to the aesthetics of the work, that is almost entirely what Victorian sentimentalism was about. Merely because you can appreciate a work for reasons other than any inherent moral message in the work does not mean that an intended moral message is not part of the art. Our moral judgments are always there and they effect how we respond to a work, anyone who says otherwise I would venture is merely a liar.

Understading Dickens morality is not integral to his art. Nobody needs - and the vast majority does not had any idea about it - to know a single line about Utilitarism or any given moral code to read and enjoy Dickens. And that is art already. Everytime some is emotional, touched by how Dickens conduct to paralel narratives, present the characters, control the timing of the novels without even explaning it already had an aesthetical experience, so art already happened, without any need of this moral understanding.



I didn't say it was, I merely moved onto it as an example of how morality interplays with our responses to the aesthetics of a work. Nor did I say anything about universal traits of art. I swear people are having reading comprehension difficulties. Some art's aesthetic value is clearly related to issues of political purpose and moral message. To say that morality or politics can not effect how we value art is to say that human beings are perfect objective observers who hold no inherent biases.

You said you disagreed with the thread, which cleary make reference to universal traits of art. If you were not specific it is not people who have understanding problems is you that expressed it vaguelly.
Aesthetic vallues? You are talking about personal irrelevant judgmeent. I do not know a single aesthetical vallue which is political or any kind. You may express a political opinion using aesthetical expression, but that is not aesthetical vallues being political.
And as moral judgmenent, I am of course under influence of it, but this is not art. It should be quite obvious something that changes according time or place, can not explain the art of Homer, who ignore it all. And Tecnology also changes how we perceive a given artwok and tecnology is not art.







Yet again you're misunderstanding me, I didn't say that art needs to have a moral messages, I am saying that often morality has an effect on the aesthetics of a work. Note that I have not made any claims of absolutes anywhere.

It is a claim on absolute saying art for art sake is not bound to reality.

[OrphanPip]

Understading Dickens morality is not integral to his art. Nobody needs - and the vast majority does not had any idea about it - to know a single line about Utilitarism or any given moral code to read and enjoy Dickens. And that is art already. Everytime some is emotional, touched by how Dickens conduct to paralel narratives, present the characters, control the timing of the novels without even explaning it already had an aesthetical experience, so art already happened, without any need of this moral understanding.

A work having aesthetic merit apart from the morals does not contradict my position that morality has an effect on the aesthetics of the work. Dickens Victorian idealism is an integral part of the aesthetic effect of the work, why do we respond to the just so sentimentalism of his work, I would argue it is because we have internalized expectations of moral justice that Dickens appeals to. I have not once said that art needs to be moral, nor that good morals make good art, I have said that moral or political messages in works are integral parts of the aesthetics of the work, and to act as if these things are not there and are minor footnotes is absurd.



You said you disagreed with the thread, which cleary make reference to universal traits of art. If you were not specific it is not people who have understanding problems is you that expressed it vaguelly.
Aesthetic vallues? You are talking about personal irrelevant judgmeent. I do not know a single aesthetical vallue which is political or any kind. You may express a political opinion using aesthetical expression, but that is not aesthetical vallues being political.
And as moral judgmenent, I am of course under influence of it, but this is not art. It should be quite obvious something that changes according time or place, can not explain the art of Homer, who ignore it all. And Tecnology also changes how we perceive a given artwok and tecnology is not art.

I don't see how I can disagree with the thread.

I have not said aesthetic values are political, I have said that a political message has an aesthetic effect, and is thus part of the aesthetics of the work.

As to your second point, aesthetic judgments of all kinds are transient. It's not as if philosophies of art have been the least bit permanent.



It is a claim on absolute saying art for art sake is not bound to reality.

Yet, I did not say that. I said taking the position that art can only be for arts sake is not bound to reality. You were accusing me of making absolute claims about what art is that I have not made. I have not said a given piece of art can not be just for arts sake. I have responded to the absurd claim that morality and politics has no effect on the aesthetics of the work.

[JCamilo]

A work having aesthetic merit apart from the morals does not contradict my position that morality has an effect on the aesthetics of the work. Dickens Victorian idealism is an integral part of the aesthetic effect of the work, why do we respond to the just so sentimentalism of his work, I would argue it is because we have internalized expectations of moral justice that Dickens appeals to. I have not once said that art needs to be moral, nor that good morals make good art, I have said that moral or political messages in works are integral parts of the aesthetics of the work, and to act as if these things are not there and are minor footnotes is absurd.


you said "I think the aesthetics of a work are often inseparable from the morality and messages in it. Can we truly read Dickens' Hard Times and understand it without seeing that Dickens is commenting on Utilitarianism and the living conditions of the working poor."

And I pointed to you this is not true. Art - which is more than ever, the artistic appreciation - is unrelated to the morals of the creator. We know Dickens morals, but we have no idea of the morals of the first creator of Sleeping Beauty. Or the majority of mythological stories. We have no idea about the morals of the artists who did the Venus of Milos.
Moral and political message are NOT integral part of the aesthetical message. Very few people who reads Aeneid and appreciate it because the political message. It happens apart. First time i saw the painting of the Sistine I had no idea about the political and moral implications of that work. And the aesthetical effect happened sameways. Anyone trying to imply that something is integral to something (which means they are must happen together, just like having my head is integral for my life) is assuming that artworks will impress only after a specialist explain it exactly as if the was the author. And we know, specialist do something different and most time, art just happens (Browning idea that beauty is lurking to surprise us) without us knowing even who Charles Dickens is.



I don't see how I can disagree with the thread.

I have not said aesthetic values are political, I have said that a political message has an aesthetic effect, and is thus part of the aesthetics of the work.

Saying a political message has an aesthetic effect is quite different from saying aesthetical messages has an political effect. And both propositions are wrong.
Politic is not art, it does not have an aesthetic effect and even the best retorical leaders, who would try to convey it, are not making art.
Meanwhile, an artwork may have a political message, if we use them as such. But the political message is not timeless, white the aesthetic message is, thus they can not be linked.


As to your second point, aesthetic judgments of all kinds are transient. It's not as if philosophies of art have been the least bit permanent.

Philosophers of art are not forgotten at all. People still start the considerations of Aesthetics from them. Philosophy is not written on stone, but based on dialogue. Many concepts from older philosophers still apply. And Philosophy of Art is not the critical judgment and anyone claiming that the acceptance of Homer is transient is missing the train.




Yet, I did not say that. I said taking the position that art can only be for arts sake is not bound to reality. You were accusing me of making absolute claims about what art is that I have not made. I have not said a given piece of art can not be just for arts sake. I have responded to the absurd claim that morality and politics has no effect on the aesthetics of the work.

There is no such absurd claims. And I am pointing to you those vallues are irrelevant to define art or for the aesthetic effect. At beast they will be individual (or a coletive individual) and will be forgotten as soon that individuality is gone. Since one of the first problems of art is the permanence of the aesthetic effect even when we face societies where the idea of physical beauty are different, it is rather obvious the aesthetic effect is not related to something as banal as morality or politics (I give you examples of such works).
Art for art sake is pretty much real, as long there is a John Keats in the world. He is quite idealist (but politics and moral are quite idealists too) but his idealism have produced a considerable amount of real poetry. John Keats wasnt certainly out of reality. If you are talking about the political concept of "art for art", which was not presented in this thread, it is as transient (but as real) as anything else. But defining art from the imoportance of the aesthetic effect, the process that leads to it, eliminating all models who can not be applied to all artworks is something different. An Artist have moral intentions (he is human after all, as Wittengeinstein said "Aesthetics are ethics"), but he is not art. He ends, wanes, he is lost from the momment he gives his artwork to the public. An that is Art, this process, happening. So, his morality it is interesting if you want to understand the work, but lets be frank, a vastly minority of artworks are seem, read, listened by people who have enough information, study or perfecption to make use of it. And that vast majority who does not have any idea is part of the art process as much of the specialist.

[The Comedian]

I read literature for my spirit's sake. It sounds flaky, but good art uplifts the soul -- well, at least it uplifts my soul. . . and many of the other things mentioned here are -- entertainment, insight into society . . . -- are aspects of that overriding and personal aspect of the artistic experience.

[qimissung]

I kinda like art but if some sake is also involved, I am sure I'm bound to enjoy it more!

http://minnesotagal.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/sake.jpg


I agree completely, Scher! Because Sake IS art, after all...

[stlukesguild]

It conveys beauty
And we read to enjoy the beauty

Simple as that, no ifs, no buts,

That is what art for art's sake means, I personally agree, though many don't, thats the way these things go. But why must literature have a purpose ? If literature has no purpose does that mean we should stop reading/studying/creating it ? Should everyone who believes life has no purpose, commit suicide?

I largely concur with Alex... on a personal level. I turn to art seeking pleasure... seeking aesthetic "beauty". I don't turn to art seeking enlightenment, or to be shown the ugliness and horrors (all too well known) of life, or to be preached to or lectured, etc...

At the same time, I agree with JCamillo's suggestion that ART (as a whole) does not have a single objective... for the simple reason that not all artists approach their art with the same intentions. J.S. Bach with his cantatas and the monks who illuminated the medieval manuscripts sought to employ art in the praise of God. Pablo Picasso painted Guernica as an angry response... a finger raised in defiance... against the destruction unleashed upon the innocent people of his native Spain. J.S. Bach with his Well Tempered Clavier sought to explore the formal possibilities of musical structures and to educate students. Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Theresa sought to employ spectacle to attract and captivate worshipers. Rossini wrote operas to entertain. All of these artists had different intentions... and ultimately their work resulted in something more than their intentions.

Alexander,I meant to say that art is the reflection of life in the society...

Is art a mirror of life and society? How does Mozart's Clarinet Quintet mirror life and society? How is this a mirror of life and society?

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4125/5217137664_51d1faace1_b.jpg

or this? Indeed, how does this even mirror the product which the poster was intended to sell?

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5164/5216549267_97995c889d_b.jpg

One might just as well (with greater justification) say that these works of art both mirror the artist's own ideals and fantasies if anything. They are no more or less idealized than a Madonna by Raphael, a nude by Ingres, or a sonnet by Dante, Ronsard, or Petrarch.

Art often gives an idealized and thus false view of reality for the very reason that it presents the ideals and aspirations and interests of the artists... and not reality... let alone an expression of larger society. As an artist myself, I continually cringe at the romantic notion that an artist is somehow the voice of society... as he or she were some being gifted with a superior vision and grasp of humanity and society... when in reality the artist is merely blessed (as a result of hard work) with a superior ability to give artistic form to his or her own ideas.

How much of Renaissance society can we really discern from the art of Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Fra Angelico, Giotto, etc...? From the music of Monteverdi, Gesualdo, and Orlando Lassus? How much does the elegance and beauty and idealized grace and spiritual longing of these tell us about the very harsh and even brutal lives that the majority lived? How much do the poems of Petrarch and Dante and Ronsard tell of the mundane and unromantic sexual lives of the majority? And if art were a mirror of nature... a mirror of the society of a given place and time... what value would it hold for us today beyond mere historical documentation?

Being an incurable Borgesian, I cannot help but quote a brief tale by the Latin-American master:

A Yellow Rose

Neither that afternoon nor the next did the illustrious Giambattista Marino die, he whom the unanimous mouths of Fame — to use an image dear to him — proclaimed as the new Homer and the new Dante. But still, the noiseless fact that took place then was in reality the last event of his life. Laden with years and with glory, he lay dying in a huge Spanish bed with carved bedposts. It is not hard to imagine a serene balcony a few steps away, facing the west, and, below, marble and laurels and a garden whose various levels are duplicated in a rectangle of water. A woman has placed in a goblet a yellow rose. The man murmurs the inevitable lines that now, to tell the truth, bore even him a little:

Purple of the garden, pomp of the meadow,
Gem of the spring, April’s eye . . .

Then the revelation occurred: Marino saw the rose as Adam might have seen it in Paradise, and he thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it; and that the tall, proud volumes casting a golden shadow in a corner were not — as his vanity had dreamed — a mirror of the world, but rather one thing more added to the world.

Marino achieved this illumination on the eve of his death, and Homer and Dante may have achieved it as well.

http://thefloatinglibrary.com/2008/09/13/a-yellow-rose/

you being an intellectual person can't just read things for entertainment...

And why not? Are you presuming that the intellectual shuns "mere" entertainment... or rather "pleasure"? I might argue that the "intellectual" may find as much pleasure in the complexities of Shakespeare and Bach and James Joyce as another might find in a word search, a Harry Potter novel, or a adventure film laden with car chases and shoot-outs.

I've disagreed in threads before about the value of art merely for arts sake. Not because I think art must have moral meaning and be somehow objectively virtuous, but because I think the aesthetics of a work are often inseparable from the morality and messages in it. Can we truly read Dickens' Hard Times and understand it without seeing that Dickens is commenting on Utilitarianism and the living conditions of the working poor.

I don't think that art pour l'art, properly understood, was ever intended to suggest that art may not have a purpose external to art itself. I think that art pour l'art suggested that the work of art be valued solely upon aesthetic/artistic grounds, and not upon the external values such as morality, ethics, theology, science, etc... Goya and J.L. David created masterpieces of art that take opposing views of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. Are we to reject one as inferior art because we disagree with what is being conveyed? Am I to reject Michelangelo's Last Judgment because I am Lutheran or Agnostic or Atheist or Buddhist?

Of course Oscar Wilde, who was never wrong about anything, said it best:

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Wilde's final sentence (quoted earlier in this discussion) clearly suggests that "meaning" in art is in the audience... that there is no single literal "meaning"... that perhaps like life itself, it is the journey... the experience... (as Walter Pater suggests) and not the destination or "meaning" that matters.

[JCamilo]

I think it is not false the notion that the artist is a voice of the society (even more those who actually have a voice such as musicians or writers), but the reason is less because of the romantic ideal and more simple: artists are a voice of society because they do belong to the society and all artistic event happens inside a medium, therefore there is communication of something, a code that is passed (that only a few sometimes can even actually understand the code to have some chance to understand the message, it is another tale) and we must hear it. That is all, much less charming than the idea of the artist perception having an access to prophetic world and see all happening before it even happened...
The only thing is of course, when those guys said it, they also demanded poets to be philosophers, then you have something else.
Seriously enough, when art had social impact, the artist was often linked with some other field of human culture, and just like everything, was just a accident on time. Homer is a voice of our society? Because art does not need chronology, it does not matter when Homer wrote, but when he was read...

[stlukesguild]

Don't get me wrong... I love those poets/visionaries/philosophers. I'm probably just an enamored of William Blake as I am of Borges... I just recognize that the poet/prophets are few and far between and there is a degree of pretension in assuming that because one is a poet/artist/writer/composer one is also a visionary and prophet.

[Alexander III]

Can Morality be aesthetic ?

For example in Les Miserables, a epic novel which has a huge focus on social equality and justice, these sufferings are not merely presented as a reformer writing an essay or critiquing the judiciary and social system, they are presented in a complex artistic and aesthetic style.

Dickens, Tolstoy, Percy Shelley and Hugo focused on society and injustice and the need of change, however what the difference between them and hundreds of other schmucks who said the same thing ? They presented their arguments and discourses aesthetically, with intrinsic beauty; that is why they are remembered as great writers.

I think this is a major problem, that lost of new writers believe they should point out the flaws of society, but they don't realize that pointing out the flaws in an aesthetic manner is what makes a great writer, not just pointing out the flaws.

personally this is why I don't think orwell is a very good writer. Did he have talent ? Yes. Was he a great writer of the likes of Calvino, Sartre, Hemingway ect. No. He merely pointed out flaws of society, with little aesthicness, and thus I do not find him to be a great artist.

Also have to disagree with you St.Lukes, on your pint about the artist not being a visionary. First of you are quite right that your average Joe of a writer is not a visionary. But amongst great writers they were all prophets and visionaries to a certain extent, they all developed and extended techniques and styles which were ahead of their time, they all invented and created what was there before, they progressed literature, is is great writers which prevent stagnation of literature, as with art and music as well.

[JCamilo]

Works of art often are created with the morality of the creator. They also can be used to convey a moral message (fables exist after all). But this morality is often forgotten as part of that the history that is overlaped by the story. Virginia Woolf Feminism is quite minor compared to the vallues of Orlando, this is possible the major merity of Harold Bloom crusade.

[MystyrMystyry]

I think it's the case of humans needing to tell and hear new tales.

When it starts by sitting around a tribal campfire relating the collective epic of the day's hunt, to a warrior/adventurer relating yarns of great bravery and new things discovered

In literary terms, Greeks and Romans had writing but the speed they read tended to the speed of reading aloud, and because community was so important also the manner in which they read. Private silent reading just wasn't the way it was done, and all information was to be shared

We are the species that tells stories, and better writers who really want to be read for what they have to say write better

They tend to put the extra effort in to ensure this