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Thread: old versus new art

  1. #31
    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    Obviously, stluke, some portraits of famous people are not as moving as other (better one's) of strangers. My point was that just as a snapshot of one's own great grandfather might be more interesting than a snapshot of someone else's great grandfather, the same might be true of paintings. Mediocre paintings, like mediocre snapshots, might still interest us for non-artistic reasons.

    Among my favorite Rembrandt portraits are his self-portraits, because in addition to the artistic merits they share with his other portraits, I'm interested in Rembrandt and in how a great painter sees himself. I certainly do not insist that others share this preference.

    Think of Karsh's famous portrait of Einstein, which you posted above. It's clearly a great photograph in terms of composition and technical quality, but it further intrigues me (and probably others) because we know Einstein was a great genius. We look at his eyes and wonder what and how they see. If you think of other famous Karsh portraits, I think the same could be said: he captures Churchill's pride and bellicosity; he captures G.B. Shaw's puckish wit; his famous portrait of Hemingway captures not only the glorious black and white texture of his beard, but the author's considered masculinity.

    All of these photos would be excellent even if their subjects weren't famous. But would they be quite AS interesting? I think Karsh plays with both the personality of the person being portrayed, and the public perception of that personality. His "Churchill" is a depiction of both -- and that's one reason it's beloved.

  2. #32
    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JCamilo View Post

    You are missing that I didnt went on what I like about Dante. First I mentioned about what "People", other people, not me liked about him. I have to mention that at no moment I suggest that your experience shouldnt be shared. My problem is how you use your experience to justify a broader experience with art, as you did to justify Tolstoys claims (Tolstoy failure on accepting Shakespeare is due to this same mistake, thinking his personal experience is universal), while my experience was posted just to show you there is more perspectives than yours. A complete different use of you, you, you.

    .
    Neither Tolstoy nor I made any such mistake. Of course there are other perspectives, but it's a little ironic that in this case you are agreeing with Tolstoy, and I am disagreeing with him. I like art (portraits, for example) about "interesting" subjects; I like the sections in "Inferno" about "interesting" people. You (agreeing with Tolstoy) think this perspective somehow lacks a more objective vision of what art is or what art should be. Fair enough. You're in good company, agreeing with ol' Leo.

    Shakespeare, perhaps, was on my side, since he wrote dozens of plays pandering to the "interests" of his audience, plays about Julius, Anthony, Cleopatra, Henry V, etc. (Of course Tolstoy wrote "War and Peace", too.)

  3. #33
    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    One more point about "Inferno". When Dante wrote about the eternal fate of those 13th century Florentine potentates whose fame has been lost in the mists of time, they WERE famous. Probably Dante's original readers were just as "interested" in them as I am of those whose fame has lasted these 8 centuries. So, from Dante's perspective, the 'interest' of his readers was a given.

  4. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ecurb View Post
    Think of Karsh's famous portrait of Einstein, which you posted above. It's clearly a great photograph in terms of composition and technical quality, but it further intrigues me (and probably others) because we know Einstein was a great genius. We look at his eyes and wonder what and how they see.
    This is just a side note on the discussion, which I don't completely understand.

    I just want to ask: How do we know that Einstein was a great genius? I'm not saying he was stupid or anything like that, but based on Jimena Canales' The Physicist and the Philosopher much of our attention to Einstein and our remembrance of him, rather than, say, Bohr or Bergson, may have been his own successful self-promotion.

    It is not just the quality of the art, but the subject's intention to project an image that artists materialized that stays with us.
    Last edited by YesNo; 04-30-2016 at 10:45 AM.

  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ecurb View Post
    Neither Tolstoy nor I made any such mistake. Of course there are other perspectives, but it's a little ironic that in this case you are agreeing with Tolstoy, and I am disagreeing with him. I like art (portraits, for example) about "interesting" subjects; I like the sections in "Inferno" about "interesting" people. You (agreeing with Tolstoy) think this perspective somehow lacks a more objective vision of what art is or what art should be. Fair enough. You're in good company, agreeing with ol' Leo.
    This argument is sily. Tolstoy distate on Shakespeare is based on what he thinks art should be, it is down to his failure to enjoy King Lear or to understand it. He is pretty much saying "I will never write like this", so yes, Tolstoy did the mistake to define what is art based on his own experience. And you, when you bring Tolstoy argument about the inclusion of history part to interest the writer, gave your own example as a proof. So, if this is not using your experience as example to proof something is universal, then I have no idea what would it be.

    And the only irony is that you fail to understand that Tolstoy attempt to define objectivelly art was filled with his bias. Neither I, you or Stlukes are proposing anything different, an objective view of art. The difference is that Stlukes, despite his classical taste, (or not classical, that is Mortal, but I guess it can be understood) is dismissing modern art because it has different vallues than other time periods. His focus is the aesthetic merit. And you objectively reduce it to your experience.

    One more point about "Inferno". When Dante wrote about the eternal fate of those 13th century Florentine potentates whose fame has been lost in the mists of time, they WERE famous. Probably Dante's original readers were just as "interested" in them as I am of those whose fame has lasted these 8 centuries. So, from Dante's perspective, the 'interest' of his readers was a given.

    Shakespeare, perhaps, was on my side, since he wrote dozens of plays pandering to the "interests" of his audience, plays about Julius, Anthony, Cleopatra, Henry V, etc. (Of course Tolstoy wrote "War and Peace", too.)
    Yes, I pretty much said that several minor, obscure character in the Comedy were well know at the time. Now, there is a considerable misunderstanding. Tolstoy is not just claimming you add certain characters (or historical character, events) to use the familiarity of the reader to fetch his interest. He is saying this is done as a separated part of the artistic work. Of course, Tolstoy is pretty much talking about himself and how he did War and Peace. The point, which is pretty much a motive why we still moved by characters Dante used and we only know about them because Dante wrote about them, because the "fanservice" is not a part split from the general "work". Dante does not fail or is fake as Tolstoy claim when he uses Ugolino. There is no better evidence than the fact that the third more relevant character of the Comedy is Beatrice, a virtual uknown which is easily the character dante dedicated more of his artistic talent.

    And you still dont understand. Shakespeare did it. Tolstoy did it. Dumas did it. Marvel Comic movies do it all the time (the whole easter eggs thing). It is something possible, but it is not something universal. Several artists prefer to cause repulse, strangeness, to baffle his audience and not make him confortable.And several, as Dante which work has an integrity that makes Tolstoy claim not true. Just like your experience does not prove it about Dante or every artwork, Shakespeare does not.

  6. #36
    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    I also don´t quite understand the discussion, I suppose it is still about the best criterion to evaluate art.
    Just some ideas on this subject:
    Jorge Luís Borges established the ironical criterion that a good work of art had to survive at least 50 years. It seems quite a good criterion to me.
    The idea of someone been famous or at least known seems to be typical of our post post modern times where celebrities are often mediatic creations and Dick, Tom and Harry and their products get their 15 minutes of fame.
    I also believe that some artists and authors start by being popular and then become canonical.
    Why do some artists/authors hated by the critics sell like hot cakes?
    And why do some works of art despised during the lifetime of their artist/authors get famous postumously?
    And I like to think that together with more famous people Dante bundled all his political enemies into the "Inferno" as an act of poetical vengeance.
    Last edited by Danik 2016; 04-30-2016 at 12:19 PM.
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

  7. #37
    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    JCamilo is correct that I don't understand most of what he writes. Whether this is because of my incapacity for understanding, or his incapacity for writing clear English is debatable. Tolstoy, on the other hand, is easy to understand. His famous essay on King Lear is a great critique, whether one agrees or disagrees with it's conclusions. It is made more poignant by Tolstoy's own struggles with his family as he grew old. Perhaps Lear hit too close to home for Leo. For anyone interested, here's a link: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27726...-h/27726-h.htm

    As far as Jcamilo claim that stluke focuses on "aesthetic merit" while I "objectively reduce (art) to (my) own experience", that's a distinction without a difference. What is "aesthetic merit" except someone's experience? In Tolstoy's famous book "What is Art" he spend the first half of the book shredding the "aesthetic merit" approach to the philosophy of art. Beauty and "aesthetic merit" are by their nature subjective. They are not intrinsic to any object or work, but describe our responses to that object.

    Here's a link to "What is Art", for anyone who cares: https://archive.org/stream/whatisart...suoft_djvu.txt

    Here's Tolstoy on the "false art" of "interesting-ness" (read chapter 11 in the above text, p. 109... to find the other "false art methods".)

    The fourth method is that of interesting (that is, absorbing
    the mind) in connection with works of art. The interest
    may lie in an intricate plot a method till quite recently
    much employed in English novels and French plays, but
    now going out of fashion and being replaced by authenticity,
    i.e. by detailed description of some historical period or some
    branch of contemporary life. For example, in a novel,
    interesting-ness may consist in a description of Egyptian or
    Eoman life, the life of miners, or that of the clerks in a
    large shop. The reader becomes interested and mistakes
    this interest for an artistic impression. The interest may
    also depend on the very method of expression; a kind of
    interest that has now come much into use. Both verse and
    prose, as well as pictures, plays, and music, are constructed
    . so that they must be guessed like riddles, and this process
    of guessing again affords pleasure and gives a semblance of
    the feeling received from art.
    Tolstoy is not descrying the "interesting". Instead, he is differentiating it from the "artistic" or what Jcamilo and stluke might call the "aesthetic". I disagree with Tolstoy. I think the artistic or aesthetic merit of Yousuf Karsh's portrait of Einstein (or Churchill, or Shaw) is insuperable from the viewer's background knowledge of these public figures. Without our knowledge of Churchill's pugnacious nature, and his role in Britain's "finest hour", the famous portrait of Churchill would be less "aesthetically pleasing". Our prejudices inform our aesthetics. When stluke wrote, the opinions of others "will open us up to a broader perspective than our immediate uninformed taste" he is saying the same thing. Informed tastes are by their nature prejudiced tastes (not in a bad way, but nonetheless "informed" by "prior knowledge and judgement").

    If we see some grimy factory belching red fire and black smoke from its chimneys, we might think, "How ugly". But the child, who has not learned our prejudices, might say, "How beautiful! Just like a flower, bursting into bloom." Aesthetics cannot escape prejudices. We learn to like certain things, and dislike other things. Children dislike the taste of Bleu Cheese, or wine, delicious as they are to us. Only when we "inform" our tastes do we like fine wine, and dislike factory chimneys.

    Tolstoy thought the simplest, least prejudiced art was the best art. It is certainly the most universal art. But all art is dependent on "prior knowledge". Literature is worthless to those who cannot read.

  8. #38
    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    To Yesno: Einstein's genius was that he saw that we need not take for granted what seems to be obviously true (that time is a constant). He was able to see beyond what seemed an obvious truism.

    However, the public perception of Einstein as a genius need not be accurate for Karsh's photo to resonate. Since stluke and I were discussing Phillip Roth, have you ever read his brilliant short story "On the Air"? It's a series of letters written by a Jewish talent agent to Albert Einstein. The agent wants to sign Einstein up for a weekly radio show to compete with "The Answer Man" and "show the goyim what smart really means".

  9. #39
    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    To me Aesthetics is by no means a fixed concept. It changes according to the dominant world view(what the German called Weltanschauung). For example in his at its time revolutionary preface to the play Cromwell, Vitor Hugo discusses the relation beautiful x grotesque in romantic art:
    "Let us resume, therefore, and try to prove that it is of the fruitful union of the grotesque and the sublime types that modern genius is born—so complex, so diverse in its forms, so inexhaustible in its creations; and therein directly opposed to the uniform simplicity of the genius of the ancients; let us show that that is the point from which we must set out to establish the real and radical difference between the two forms of literature."
    http://www.bartleby.com/39/41.html
    Last edited by Danik 2016; 04-30-2016 at 02:36 PM.
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
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  10. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danik 2016 View Post
    I also don´t quite understand the discussion, I suppose it is still about the best criterion to evaluate art.
    Just some ideas on this subject:
    Jorge Luís Borges established the ironical criterion that a good work of art had to survive at least 50 years. It seems quite a good criterion to me.
    The idea of someone been famous or at least known seems to be typical of our post post modern times where celebrities are often mediatic creations and Dick, Tom and Harry and their products get their 15 minutes of fame.
    I also believe that some artists and authors start by being popular and then become canonical.
    Why do some artists/authors hated by the critics sell like hot cakes?
    And why do some works of art despised during the lifetime of their artist/authors get famous postumously?
    And I like to think that together with more famous people Dante bundled all his political enemies into the "Inferno" as an act of poetical vengeance.
    Well, you have to consider that Borges lived in a time that was harder to preserve some artworks, but, well, the man is famous for smiling with the corner of his lips while talking. I suppose the critery of 50 years pleased him because it was enough to dismiss himself from the equation. In more serious note, Borges doubted even the survival of Shakespeare once or while.

    As for the critery of evaluation of art, depends what you exactly you are aiming. Is this art is a different question from Is this good art, some approaches are not going to work for one or another and I am for one not open to dismiss any approach, even those who go after the social function of art. They are all acceptable and maybe the great artworks last more time because the longer their persist, more they are exposed to all sort of criteries and approaches.

  11. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ecurb View Post
    JCamilo is correct that I don't understand most of what he writes. Whether this is because of my incapacity for understanding, or his incapacity for writing clear English is debatable. Tolstoy, on the other hand, is easy to understand. His famous essay on King Lear is a great critique, whether one agrees or disagrees with it's conclusions. It is made more poignant by Tolstoy's own struggles with his family as he grew old. Perhaps Lear hit too close to home for Leo. For anyone interested, here's a link: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27726...-h/27726-h.htm
    You really sound bitter, Ecurb. Let's just not pretend that we are here in this board for years and for some reason you are often very defensive about me and even some of the members who are in the "snobs"group.

    As far as Jcamilo claim that stluke focuses on "aesthetic merit" while I "objectively reduce (art) to (my) own experience", that's a distinction without a difference. What is "aesthetic merit" except someone's experience?
    Aesthetic merit is not the same as using your experience to avail an artwork. The experience (and even the part you quoted about Tolstoy is explaining this, so there is no excuse to not understand well the difference. Tolstoy is easy) is more or less: When I first dated a woman, which was the most intense relationship I had, we went to a bar and when we first kissed, when we were drunk enough, the radio was playing Britney Spears's Toxic. So, everytime we were in a place where the music was played, we recalled the first kiss and joked about. After we broke out, listening to it, also came with memories. Sad, bittersweet and now they are even good.

    That is using experience to approach art. The artwork touches me, moves me, but there is nothing to do with the aesthetic merit. I hope, for most people, that the first kiss experience happened while listening Beethooven so you can have both at sametime, but that is not true for most people. My personal experience is not enough for me to say Toxic is a superior artwork to Bob Dylan The Watchtower, my aesthetic experience will.

    In Tolstoy's famous book "What is Art" he spend the first half of the book shredding the "aesthetic merit" approach to the philosophy of art. Beauty and "aesthetic merit" are by their nature subjective. They are not intrinsic to any object or work, but describe our responses to that object.

    Here's a link to "What is Art", for anyone who cares: https://archive.org/stream/whatisart...suoft_djvu.txt
    When someone mentions art is subjective, it is about the perception. Of course, someone like Stlukes perception to Picasso is different from lets say, Jack, the newspaper dude who never studied art or object proportion, color use, etc. It is subjective, or at least not scientifically objective, yes, but when Stlukes does he s guided by aesthetic merit, not just the fact he liked the paiting or Picasso was the painter that made him realise his artistic ideal when he was 13 years old. (Stlukes is a random example, I actually have no idea if at 13 years old he got mesmerized by Guernica and decided to became an artist, just like the Britney Spears story, it is just a story). Tolstoy text is extremely biased, he seems to have a lot of problem to reckon any art that is not similar to his one, that is why his text is not usually a big reference on academic studies of Aesthetics and rather great to understand Tolstoy.

    Tolstoy is not descrying the "interesting". Instead, he is differentiating it from the "artistic" or what Jcamilo and stluke might call the "aesthetic". I disagree with Tolstoy. I think the artistic or aesthetic merit of Yousuf Karsh's portrait of Einstein (or Churchill, or Shaw) is insuperable from the viewer's background knowledge of these public figures. Without our knowledge of Churchill's pugnacious nature, and his role in Britain's "finest hour", the famous portrait of Churchill would be less "aesthetically pleasing". Our prejudices inform our aesthetics. When stluke wrote, the opinions of others "will open us up to a broader perspective than our immediate uninformed taste" he is saying the same thing. Informed tastes are by their nature prejudiced tastes (not in a bad way, but nonetheless "informed" by "prior knowledge and judgement").
    Do you mean decrying or descrying? I suppose it is decrying, which he is doing (he is saying this is false art and the oppposite is great art), because descrying does not make much sense here. Anyways, lets compare to your previous post: "Tolstoy thought "interestingness" was a form of "false art". In other words, historical novels may "fake it" by "interesting" their readers with the history parts, while failing with the actual artistic parts. That may be a reasonable critique, but (since you mention Dante) I always found the hellish torments of the famous sinners more interesting than those of the Florentine potentates about whom I had never heard before reading "Inferno". I would skim the parts about people I'd never heard of. "

    You pretty much agree with Tolstoy (or what you say tolstoy describe as the interesting). You pretty says you prefer the parts of Inferno which you had a previous information. You jump the part with people which you have no reference. If you changed your opinion (and now, pictures of random people can be interesting, be them the paiting of a random XVI century noble or wedding pictures) and you agree with me or Stlukes, then it is fine.

    If we see some grimy factory belching red fire and black smoke from its chimneys, we might think, "How ugly". But the child, who has not learned our prejudices, might say, "How beautiful! Just like a flower, bursting into bloom." Aesthetics cannot escape prejudices. We learn to like certain things, and dislike other things. Children dislike the taste of Bleu Cheese, or wine, delicious as they are to us. Only when we "inform" our tastes do we like fine wine, and dislike factory chimneys.
    Yeah, but which prejudices are you talking about? Tolstoy for example, cannot and his definition of art is wonderfully applied to him, badly to Shakespeare or Fausts Goethe.

    And we have music. Aesthetic pleasure coming from music does not demand any previous information or developed taste. There is experiements where people played Beethoveen to african tribes and they, without any knowlede of european music, reacted favorably to him. It is not the only one.

    Tolstoy thought the simplest, least prejudiced art was the best art. It is certainly the most universal art. But all art is dependent on "prior knowledge". Literature is worthless to those who cannot read.
    tsc. That is like saying music is worthless to deaf people. That is not prior knowledge" is capacity to access art. A closed museum will not impress anyone.

    And Tolstoy is simple, then you should have understood Tolstoy is anything but simple and not biased.

    here is his description of what literature as art should be:

    "In order to write poems a man of literary talent needs only these qualifications : to acquire the knack, conformably with the requirements of rhyme and rhythm, of using, instead of the one really suitable word, ten others meaning approximately the same; to learn how to take any phrase which, to be clear, has but one natural order of words, and despite all possible dislocations still to retain some sense in it; and lastly, to be able, guided by the words required for the rhymes, to devise some semblance of thoughts, feelings, or descriptions to suit these words. Having acquired these qualifications, he may unceasingly produce poems short or long, religious, amatory or patriotic, accord ing to the demand.

    If a man of literary talent wishes to write a story or novel, he need only form his style i.e. learn how to describe all that he sees and accustom himself to remember or note down details. When he has accustomed himself to this, he can, according to his inclination or the demand, unceasingly produce novels or stories historical, naturalistic, social, erotic, psychological, or even religious, for which latter kind a demand and fashion begins to show itself. He can take subjects from books or from the events
    of life, and can copy the characters of the people in his book from his acquaintances.

    And such novels and stories, if only they are decked out with well observed and carefully rioted details, preferably erotic ones, will be considered works of art, even though
    they may not contain a spark of feeling experienced.

    To produce art in dramatic form, a talented man, in addition to all that is required for novels and stories, must also learn to furnish his characters with as many smart
    and witty sentences as possible, must know how to utilise theatrical effects, and how to entwine the action of his characters so that there should not be any long conversa
    tions, but as much bustle and movement on the stage as possible. If the writer is able to do this, he may produce dramatic works one after another without stopping, selecting his subjects from the reports of the law courts, or from the latest society topic, such as hypnotism, heredity, etc., or from deep antiquity, or even from the realms of fancy."

    That is anything but simple - he is not describing for example, Red Hiding Hood, in drama people who talk too much (a bit like Shakespeare) are out. We are talking about the man who wasnt exactly a great admirer of Dostoievisky (or was, certainly dislike the text) to go calling him simple or unbiased. He may have aimed at that, longed for that, but lets read Tolstoy as he was doing: approving Tolstoy.

  12. #42
    Artist and Bibliophile stlukesguild's Avatar
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    One more point about "Inferno". When Dante wrote about the eternal fate of those 13th century Florentine potentates whose fame has been lost in the mists of time, they WERE famous. Probably Dante's original readers were just as "interested" in them as I am of those whose fame has lasted these 8 centuries. So, from Dante's perspective, the 'interest' of his readers was a given.

    I was thinking along these lines with regard to your post on Karsh's Einstein and Hemingway. A good many of the characters that populate Dante's Comedia were well-known at the time... enough so that Dante could often allude to them without naming them outright. But the same was true of many of the sitters painted by the old masters. The historical figures of Lisa Gherardini and Baldasar Castiglione are certainly far less well-known today than the paintings of them by Leonardo and Raphael:



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    Artist and Bibliophile stlukesguild's Avatar
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    Why do some artists/authors hated by the critics sell like hot cakes?
    And why do some works of art despised during the lifetime of their artist/authors get famous postumously?


    Some works of are are deemed to have breached the expectations as to what art is and as such they are initially rejected... even despised. Some of these works of art are recognized, over the passage of time... as the culture as a whole absorbs to innovations and visual language... to have been important, key works of the period. They are even admired... liked... loved. A painting like this was thought of as quite hideous... garish... shocking at the time:



    Today it is generally recognized by art lovers as being stunningly beautiful.

    At the same time... not all art that shocks is great. But many collectors and critics fear missing out on the discovery of the next great genius. As such, they often presume that if a work strikes them as vulgar or shocking... or just blatantly bad... then it MUST be great.
    Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
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    Well, collections are a matter of market. If the piece of paper where the first sonnet was written was found, would be worth a fortune, perhaps more than the piece of paper where Elizabeth Barrett wrote How do I love thee and yet, that wouldn't reflect the aesthetic vallue of both works (most likely).

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    I have no idea what it means "to avail an artwork", jcamilo. Nor do I know what you mean when you say stluke is "guided by aesthetic merit." Aesthetic merit is not an intrinsic quality of a painting or any work of art. It involves, by the nature of the words "aesthetic" or "beauty" a RESPONSE on the part of someone. My dictionary defines "beauty" as "that quality of objects, sounds, ideas, attitudes,etc. that pleases and gratifies as by their harmony, pattern, excellence or truth."

    Criticizing art without reference to the "pattern, harmony or truth" of its performance is overly personal. However, if the harmony, pattern, etc. doesn't "please or gratify" someone, it is not beautiful, and therefore has no aesthetic merit. The circle is endless.

    As far as Tolstoy is concerned, he thinks "interestingness" may be meritorious -- but it's not artistic. He just wants to define "artistry" as something separate from "interestingness". I (on the other hand) think the artistic merit of Karsh's photos is inseparable (in part, at least) from our knowledge of Churchill or Einstein. I don't understand why you think I agree with Tolstoy (when I don't) or why you think you disagree with him (when, in this instance, you don't).

    Nor do I understand why you quote Tolstoy's bit about what it takes to be a novelist or a poet. In that section, Tolstoy is decrying (not, I'll grant, "descrying") the modern idea of what it takes to be a novelist or poet. He is mocking these modern ideals of how to produce art. He would prefer Little Red Riding Hood. Why are you quoting that section?

    As usual, jcamilo, I have a hard time discussing things with you because I can't understand your position. As far as why I seem hostile toward you, it is because you seem to misunderstand and misrepresent my position -- constantly -- which I find annoying.
    Last edited by Ecurb; 04-30-2016 at 06:49 PM.

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