The most poetically beautiful English prose?( Fiction)

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

For all the individuality... and all the undeniable mastery of craft... there is something unsettling... unnerving... and embarrassingly comic... for better or worse... to all these works.

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This is exactly why I love these pieces (sans "embarrassing" adjective, though). I love sculpture/visual art that evokes unsettling feelings, or exhibits a sense of morbidity. I'd be quite surprised if these artists (the modern/contemporary ones) aren't going for that feel.

One of my favorite artists, Bruce Holwerda, is excellent at doing this:

http://www.adamholwerda.com/brucehol...r/IMAG0000.JPG

http://www.gasparilla-arts.com/image...s/poster02.jpg

http://dbprng00ikc2j.cloudfront.net/...e_Holwerda.jpg

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kz...r678o1_500.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J_cJNRlBZt...+Holwerda4.jpg

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Well, of course we can always debate what counts as a true "novel". Prose narrative is not the sole definition. Stories and historical/fictive narratives and romances long predate the novel, and you undoubtedly know that the very term, "novel" is but a shortening of novella romance.

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I have to second Darkshadow's contention that the Ancient Romans and Greeks had novels. I know what a novel looks like and those are novels. They aren't primitive proto-genre type things. They had centuries of tradition, fully formed masterpieces. If Satyricon or The Golden *** were published for the first time in our day they could be massively successful.

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Originally Posted by Hira

D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.

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I think that there's an objective element to this kind of discussion. In other words, we would probably all agree, roughly, who the contenders might be - based on common and shared criteria concerning what constitutes the good stuff.

When it comes down to the final choice, though, things get much more subjective. Each of us is still judging against criteria, but at that level of appreciation the criteria are specific to each of us - they have more to do with our individual expectations of art than with any distributed consensus.

So, if, at that second level, one were to select Davy L as the creator of the most poetically beautiful English prose, it would be difficult to construct an argument to the contrary.

Except, for me, he wouldn't even make the first cut.

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Mutatis-Mutandi wrote:
This is exactly why I love these pieces (sans "embarrassing" adjective, though). I love sculpture/visual art that evokes unsettling feelings, or exhibits a sense of morbidity. I'd be quite surprised if these artists (the modern/contemporary ones) aren't going for that feel.

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I hope not! There are many painters who prefer the opposite feelings. :banana:

William Whitaker

http://www.williamwhitaker.com/A_PIC...ARGE/teddy.jpg






Taras Loboda

http://s60.radikal.ru/i167/0910/7e/949621c2fdea.jpg





Michael and Inessa Garmash

http://www.piersidegallery.com/artis...selle36x24.jpg






Fabian Perez

http://www.paragonfineart.com/images...as-brujas1.jpg





Anna Razumovskaya

http://i061.radikal.ru/1008/33/00ab46725cad.jpg






Richard Young
http://www.ryoung-art.com/Image%20fi...of%20Dance.JPG




Juan Medina

http://www.artisticanatomyblog.com/w...ghts-dream.jpg




Willem Haenraets

http://img0.liveinternet.ru/images/a...aenraets15.jpg






Aldo Luongo
http://www.oceangalleries.com/galler...sOfTheHawk.jpg

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

... Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Lucretius, Shakespeare, and many other Western writers offer a philosophy that is no less profound.

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Lucretius doesn't desrerve to be in the same sentence as the other three *true* giants. I read a prose translation, so I can't comment much on its poetic merits, but 'content' has to count for something - certainly Plato Montaigne and Shakespeare could live on content alone.

The main content of De rerum natura is (truly awful!) Roman physics. The interesting ethical ideas only occupy a few pages and are stolen from Epicurus - who does deserve to live with the greats...

I forced myself to read all of De Rerum natura last year, because of my interest in Epicuruis, and my professional background in physics - it was certainly my most disappointing literary experience last year...

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Lucretius doesn't desrerve to be in the same sentence as the other three *true* giants. I read a prose translation, so I can't comment much on its poetic merits, but 'content' has to count for something - certainly Plato Montaigne and Shakespeare could live on content alone.

The main content of De rerum natura is (truly awful!) Roman physics. The interesting ethical ideas only occupy a few pages and are stolen from Epicurus - who does deserve to live with the greats...

I forced myself to read all of De Rerum natura last year, because of my interest in Epicuruis, and my professional background in physics - it was certainly my most disappointing literary experience last year...

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Meh, Plato's prose style is crap, but he had some interesting thoughts, we still read him :p

I hope not! There are many painters who prefer the opposite feelings.

Of course not a single one of the artist you cite is considered a major contemporary figure by any stretch of the imagination. Juan Medina perhaps comes closest and I will acknowledge that William Whitaker's drawing is quite lovely but I seriously question whether you have the least grasp of the art of the last century or understand the idea that mere craftsmanship does not make an artist relevant nor does pastiche.

I agree with the notion that not all Modern/Contemporary artists were/are aiming for morbidity and nihilism... but surely you can find some better examples.

I have a feeling the decision to ignore that pictures I posted is due to the fact that probably everyone else doesn't like it. :lol:

I am no big fan of a lot of 20th century art - for the very reason that the celebration and pursuit of the grotesque is so prevalent. But there are still many paintings focused on simple beauty ala impressionism or social realism which I love.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...%281901%29.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...tissetoits.gif


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...d_in_Maine.jpg

http://fascinatingpeople.files.wordp...philosophy.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5bVN3kXOxF...U/s1600/01.jpg

I think that the grotesque (if, indeed, we could come up with any definition of that, in this context) has always been a prevalent part of art. The Raft of the Medusa? Recurrent images of Salome? Most of Bosch?

I'm tempted to ask StLuke to summon some pre-20c examples. I suspect it would take him about ten minutes to cover as many centuries.

But the point is that an aversion to the grotesque isn't really a support for not liking 20th Century art specifically.

Herta Müller
She doesn't write in English, but the translations are fantastic. The Passport and The Appointment are absolute poetry on the page. Raw, acerbic, beautiful. She won a well-deserved Pulitzer within the last few years. If you haven't read her and you enjoy amazing prose, give her a read.

Plato's prose style is crap? that's just being provocative, isn't it? (I'll say nothing about the art because I know nothing about art. I wish I knew more.)

But the point is that an aversion to the grotesque isn't really a support for not liking 20th Century art specifically.

Exactly. There are plenty of examples of 20th century art by artists of relevance and/or artists that have moved beyond pastiche that are undeniably beautiful. First we need to remember that many of the great 19th century masters were still active well into the 20th century. We can't exclude John Singer Sargent or the Impressionists (arguably the first great Modernists) from 20th century art any more than we can exclude Rilke and Proust from 20th century literature:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6169/...6f27d564_z.jpg

Indeed, Monet and Degas produced many of their most influential works well into the 20th century:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6005/...38fd56ca_b.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6177/...f0aecfd5_z.jpg

The two central figures of Modernism were unquestionably Picasso and Matisse. While Picasso is charged by many with shattering the great tradition of European painting, no artist actually loved that tradition more. He could produce the most elegant paintings in a near classical manner when he so desired:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6002/...3237c2dc_z.jpg

Matisse, in spite of his Modernist credentials, was often accused of being a hedonist as a result of his unabashed love of visual splendour and colour:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6171/...7ac7310e_z.jpg

Bonnard took Matisse's love of color and visual spectacle even further. He was misunderstood by many artists who were seemingly more radical (Surrealists, Futurists) but in many ways he was the visual equivalent of Proust... the artist of memory... the artist who remembered the banal details of every day life as glorious magical scenes drenched in light and color:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6179/...6e338f76_b.jpg

Edouard Vuillard, Bonnard's partner in the Nabi movement, was another poet of the intimate:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6121/...9b23fdd7_b.jpg

Aristide Maillol had almost disappeared from view, when he was introduced to a beautiful young and intelligent model late in life who became the muse for his greatest work, one of the strongest bodies of nude drawings and sculpture in the history of art:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6177/...7f5b949d_b.jpg

Paris was the unquestioned center of art for the first half of the 20th century and artists came to the French capitol from around the world forming the so-called School of Paris. Beauty and color were in no way unknown:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6161/...85763ecc8f.jpg
-Raoul Dufy

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6017/...afb9188d_b.jpg
-Amadeo Modigliani

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6009/...810e9ba6_b.jpg
-Marc Chagall

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6023/...8b0d220c_b.jpg
-Balthus

Of course Paris wasn't the sole art center. In Vienna artists were responding to the music of Mahler, Richard Strauss, Bruckner, and the Second Viennese School, the plays of Hugo von Hoffmansthall, and the writings of Sigmund Freud. The central figure of the Viennese School was undoubtedly Gustav Klimt, whose beautifully patterned and gilded paintings were eagerly sought by wealthy collectors. His most famous painting, The Kiss, remains the single most reproduced painting to this day, suggesting that 20th century art is not without it's admirers... especially when it openly embraces visual splendor:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6171/...d14da500_b.jpg

Germany was another major artistic center... indeed, it may have passed Paris had it not been destroyed by the rise of Hitler. The Russian painter, Kandinsky, working at the famous Bauhaus, merged elements of Russian folk art: patterns and brilliant colors in producing the first true abstract paintings. Avidly collected by the Guggenheim family, these would have a profound impact upon American Abstract Expressionism:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6159/...7b099100_b.jpg

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At the other end of the spectrum in Germany, the painter Max Beckmann combined a French love of color and sensual handling of paint with an almost medieval crowding of space and a social commentary worthy of Bosch:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6166/...1290e2a0_b.jpg

In comparison, the American art scene remained quite conservative... provincial even. Realism remained the dominant style... and would never disappear... even at the height of Abstract Expressionism. Even so, American artists brought a social awareness to the language of realism rooted in the experience of living in the great cities. This city life was not without its own form of "beauty":

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6161/...d5f84d17_b.jpg
-John Sloan

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6125/...2725e2e269.jpg
-Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper's paintings, which often suggest stills from film noir, became a major influence upon the settings in the films of Alfred Hitchcock

The paintings of Maxfield Parrish, on the other hand, would inspire the stage sets of endless Hollywood films, and his use of color and photographic references would have a major impact upon Pop Art and even the commercial art of the 1960s:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6177/...87270b28_b.jpg

Following World War II, New York became the center of the art world with the Abstract Expressionists building upon Surrealism and chance, and the abstract paintings of Kandinsky. It was an Armenian refugee from the Turkish imposed genocide, Arshile Gorky, that led the way. His painting, The Liver is the ****'s Comb (titled by the French Surrealist poet, Andre Breton) is a spectacular abstract landscape:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6170/...4dc2bac1_z.jpg

A great many had difficulty in appreciating the beauty of abstract art... even the most exquisite examples...

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6171/...932dc7857d.jpg
-Paul Feiler

...but American art did not abandon the beauty of figurative painting. Painters such as Fairfield Porter and Alex Katz and Daniel Ludwig and many others continued to build off the tradition of Impressionism:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6154/...f5369b43b7.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6152/...7f798a5b3f.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6128/...6b32e518_b.jpg

Realism remained strong... throughout the century and any number of beautiful "realist" paintings can be found that in no way ever slip into the banality of kitsch and pastiche:

George Tooker and Robert Vickry both continued in the tradition of Social Realism:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6156/...bd5c15c3_b.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6165/...7560f989_b.jpg

While the major art critics and art periodicals focused upon the seemingly endless array of experimental avant garde art, the public and collectors never abandoned their love for well-painted realism:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6164/...250315b41a.jpg
-Jean Duval

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6176/...b9d38806_b.jpg
-Martha Erlebacher

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6166/...dd7eebd6c2.jpg
-Henk Helmantel

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http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6153/...0336d0332e.jpg
-Frederick Linden

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6133/...9e46ca40d0.jpg
-Niel Welliver

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6167/...290eb982_b.jpg
-David M. Lenz

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6123/...56667abb_b.jpg
-Boris Koller

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6013/...e6900133_z.jpg
-Lu Cong

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6139/...722d4aa0_z.jpg
-Will Cotton

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6165/...a6b61b3bc5.jpg
_Iain Faulkner

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6155/...0fbce1ee_z.jpg
-Harry Holland

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6158/...3ea8cf7f_z.jpg
-Jeremy Lipking

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6137/...cfa77514_z.jpg
-David Remfry

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6154/...52bd0705_z.jpg

William Whitaker's drawings really are something special.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6178/...29e9eedc_b.jpg
-Gerhard Richter

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6003/...f629cb3e_b.jpg
-Aron Wiesenfeld

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6146/...3aafd1c9_z.jpg
-Bo Bartlett

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6168/...fdc3d2d2b5.jpg
-Sean Beavers

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http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6171/...6e44ca013e.jpg
-Rob Evans

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6124/...574a1029_z.jpg
-Claudio Bravo

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6004/...c828e51172.jpg
-David Ligare

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6173/...5e8cecfa5d.jpg
-Scott Fraser

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6177/...fbf2dbeb_z.jpg
-William Bailey

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6128/...07c70985_z.jpg
-Daniel Sprick

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6172/...fdc7c31d_b.jpg
-Leonard Kocianski

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6173/...c7acacca_z.jpg
-Scott Prior

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6156/...5cbc6ef4_z.jpg
-Scott Prior

Robert Hughes noted that in the second half of the 20th century it was two "Andys" who were the most known artists with the majority of the public... Andy Warhol... and Andrew Wyeth... the great realist who will quite likely outlast the Pop Art icon. Like Bonnard and Vuillard... and Fairfield Porter... Wyeth uncovered a beauty in the banal world around him... albeit his world was that of a stark New England:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6026/...ff296144_b.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6174/...e904bbcd_z.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6155/...2c93fd93_b.jpg

It's hard to believe some of those latter realism paintings are actually paintings and not photographs, especially the train and the one by David M. Lenz.

I like paintings that straddle the line between abstract and realism (I guess that would be expressionism?), sort of like what I posted. I like bizzarre art, but at the same time I don't like something that I think I could do, like throwing paint at a canvas. I get all the arguments in support of these abstract methods, but I just can't get past it.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

I hope not! There are many painters who prefer the opposite feelings.

Of course not a single one of the artist you cite is considered a major contemporary figure by any stretch of the imagination. Juan Medina perhaps comes closest and I will acknowledge that William Whitaker's drawing is quite lovely but I seriously question whether you have the least grasp of the art of the last century or understand the idea that mere craftsmanship does not make an artist relevant nor does pastiche.

I agree with the notion that not all Modern/Contemporary artists were/are aiming for morbidity and nihilism... but surely you can find some better examples.

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LOL! Thanks for a good laughter. But let’s get serious. I don’t know what you mean by saying, "‘ I seriously question whether you have the least grasp of the art of the last century or understand the idea that mere craftsmanship does not make an artist relevant nor does pastiche." Do you mean that I have to blindly follow scholars who tell what art is good or not. :lol: I have never said that I am art scholar. You know that as I have clearly stated in my response to you that I was lucky to be free from any influences. I love art and I don’t need “authority” confirmation that the art I like is good or not. It doesn’t matter. I have already posted a couple of “famous” paintings that I would want to have..….to sell as soon as possible. :ihih:

Secondly, I work with art in very different way than you do. I have already told you that. I choose art that evokes my feelings as well as the art that touches my soul. Images access our unconsciousness and it is a very powerful tool of self- awareness. In other words, I feel art and I use art for both therapy and to feed my soul.

Finally, we both love art but we love different paintings even though I love many painters as you do. But I try to avoid judging artists' work. Art is one of the way to express oneself so that judging somebody’s art is judging another human being. I love freedom of expression of who we really are. :banana:

LOL! Thanks for a good laughter. But let’s get serious. I don’t know what you mean by saying, "‘ I seriously question whether you have the least grasp of the art of the last century or understand the idea that mere craftsmanship does not make an artist relevant nor does pastiche." Do you mean that I have to blindly follow scholars who tell what art is good or not.

"Blindly" approaching any art is the issue. Art is far less impacted by "scholars" than literature. The formal study of art history doesn't begin until the 19th century. Prior to that what we mostly have is the writings of artists: Vasari, Cellini, Leonardo, etc... but these are not what defines good or bad art. Art is primarily defined by artists and the art loving public.

I have never said that I am art scholar. You know that as I have clearly stated in my response to you that I was lucky to be free from any influences.

No one is free from influences. In spite of admitting such, I will state that art criticism and art theory are of little influence upon my judgment and opinion of art. My opinions are based upon my eye after having looked at a broad array of art across the scope of history and culture.

I love art and I don’t need “authority” confirmation that the art I like is good or not. It doesn’t matter. I have already posted a couple of “famous” paintings that I would want to have..….to sell as soon as possible.

No... but just as it helps to have enough of an ear for literature to recognize the qualitative differences between Dan Brown or the Twilight books and Keats, Yeats and Proust, it is of real importance to have developed enough of an eye to discern kitsch from a masterpiece... or even just good art.

Secondly, I work with art in very different way than you do. I have already told you that. I choose art that evokes my feelings as well as the art that touches my soul. Images access our unconsciousness and it is a very powerful tool of self- awareness. In other words, I feel art and I use art for both therapy and to feed my soul.

Admittedly, I am not interested in "using" art for therapy... or anything else. I am interested in creating art and as such I am interested in the mechanics of art... how as image communicates well without resorting to cliche.

I try to avoid judging artists' work. Art is one of the way to express oneself so that judging somebody’s art is judging another human being. I love freedom of expression of who we really are

The notion that art is little more than self-expression is an idea born of the Romantics... and almost enough to make me really despise Wordsworth. One of the greatest hurdles faced by the 20-something art student is getting over the notion that as an artist their art is an expression of who they are... and as such any criticism of their art is a criticism of them as individuals. Both the creative process and the individual are far more complex than that. No work of art that I have created gives but the least idea of who I am as an individual. My entire oeuvre reveals part of me... but comes nowhere near to "expressing" myself... the whole me. There is a real danger in combining Romantic ideas of "self expression" with post-Freud notions of art as a means of analyzing or diagnosing the individual.

Whether we care to admit to it or not, every time we look at a work of art, part of our judgment is based upon comparison. This work of art stands out (or fails) in comparison to others in teems of handling of paint, color, line, contrast... etc... We compare the handling of all the elements to those as employed in other works we know. "Good" and "bad" and other value judgments are relative terms. We base these opinions upon our knowledge of the whole of art as we perceive it... and as T.S. Eliot noted, this concept changes every time we are confronted with a truly new or original artistic voice that enters into our notion of some imaginary canon of art.

I read it before dinner as we sat on the terrace, Pablo smoking ceaseless cigarettes and topping up his glass of claret after every sip.

“What do you think?” he asked, when I put the sheaf on the table and stood the bottle on top to stop it blowing away in the light breeze.

“I like the tone and the detail. The problem is structure. It hasn’t got one.”

“It has. It’s the structure of me. My thoughts go that way and that’s how I write. It’s valid.”

I have often been confronted by authors making this argument. It’s a variation on the idea that self-expression is, by definition, interesting and consequential – a philosophy that was the bane of every twentieth-century art form, as if ‘honest’ self-expression obviated the need for the presumably mendacious application of technique, style, structure or even talent.

“Pablo, if you made tea-pots and you came up with one that had the handle on the bottom, and a spout eight feet long, and the whole thing made of chicken-wire, would you still say that that was how you made teapots, and that therefore it was a ‘valid’ teapot?”

“Probably, yes,” he said, flipping a cigarette into his mouth.

“And you have the right to, I suppose. But you would have made a teapot that never fulfilled the function of containing and pouring tea. One, in fact, that couldn’t fulfil that function. So it would not be, in any observable sense, a teapot, would it?”

“I thought the whole idea was that we’re after my story, as told by me.”

“But comprehensible to other people.”

Pablo sighed and picked up the empty claret bottle. “All right. I’ll try.” He stood and walked into the house, then paused, sniffing the air. “Something’s burning,” he said.

“Oh, bother,” I said, getting to my feet. “The goulash.”

As I brushed past Pablo on my way to the kitchen, he said, “If it’s burnt, congealed and inedible, it doesn’t in any observable sense fulfil the function of a goulash, does it?”

:lol:

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No one is free from influences. In spite of admitting such, I will state that art criticism and art theory are of little influence upon my judgment and opinion of art. My opinions are based upon my eye after having looked at a broad array of art across the scope of history and culture

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I meant that I am free from “academic understanding” of art. I don’t need to understand art but to feel it. It is a big difference. When we look at Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Titian, or Rembrandt we don’t need a scholar to tell us about the paintings but we feel the beauty of it. Please don’t forget that the art we like and choose reflect our emotional and mental states. I like deferent paintings of Caravaggio than you like, for example. Do you think that something is wrong about that? :biggrinjester: Or, are you telling that I don’t have a right to post the paintings I like…..because as you said that I don’t have “the least grasp of the art of the last century or understand the idea “

De gustibus non est disputandum……we are not at school, aren’t we? :reddevil:

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No... but just as it helps to have enough of an ear for literature to recognize the qualitative differences between Dan Brown or the Twilight books and Keats, Yeats and Proust, it is of real importance to have developed enough of an eye to discern kitsch from a masterpiece... or even just good art.

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We are talking about art not literature. It is subjective what we like and there is nothing wrong about that. The true master piece speaks for itself but some people may not like certain art or paintings even though it is a master piece. Everybody is unique. Do you think that they are inferior because of that? I highly value people who are independent thinkers and non conformists. Maslov spent his entire career to study creative people who could reach primary creativity. Unfortunately, there is a small procentage of people who fit into this category.

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Admittedly, I am not interested in "using" art for therapy... or anything else. I am interested in creating art and as such I am interested in the mechanics of art... how as image communicates well without resorting to cliche.

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I hear you. But why can not you accept that I use art in a very different way. I don’t push upon you my approach to working with art. I just posted the paintings I like and I got a storm over my head. :lol:

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The notion that art is little more than self-expression is an idea born of the Romantics... and almost enough to make me really despise Wordsworth. One of the greatest hurdles faced by the 20-something art student is getting over the notion that as an artist their art is an expression of who they are... and as such any criticism of their art is a criticism of them as individuals. Both the creative process and the individual are far more complex than that. No work of art that I have created gives but the least idea of who I am as an individual. My entire oeuvre reveals part of me... but comes nowhere near to "expressing" myself... the whole me. There is a real danger in combining Romantic ideas of "self expression" with post-Freud notions of art as a means of analyzing or diagnosing the individual.

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Well, I have already told you that analyzing and diagnosing the individual is dangerous. BTW, it was not I who made assumptions about the intentions of the artists.
Secondly, you are making assumption and you are wrong. Freud is the last one I would consider and treat seriously. :D

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Whether we care to admit to it or not, every time we look at a work of art, part of our judgment is based upon comparison. This work of art stands out (or fails) in comparison to others in teems of handling of paint, color, line, contrast... etc... We compare the handling of all the elements to those as employed in other works we know. "Good" and "bad" and other value judgments are relative terms. We base these opinions upon our knowledge of the whole of art as we perceive it... and as T.S. Eliot noted, this concept changes every time we are confronted with a truly new or original artistic voice that enters into our notion of some imaginary canon of art.

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Well, you can’t say we. LOL! I don’t look at art that way.Therefore, I said that I am free from unnecessary influence. My approach to art is influenced by my passion for psychology and healing with which goes freedom fo expression who we really are.

Anyway, we are not on the same page. I hope that I will not need to repeat myself again.
We have to accept differences without imposing our thinking or beliefs upon others. :smile5:

I hope that we can laugh together. I couldn't resist.:lol:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydaCSuujoBE

One book I found deeply poetic is the To the Lighthouse by Virginia Wolf. I read this book several times and its stream of consciousness has totally impressed me I in fact could not understand this book the way I can any other book. Yet it has something, despite my inability to understand it, to move me, the way she use the English language; she beautifully wove her ideas into monologues, sometimes irritatingly drifting as if I am inside the head of one of the characters of the novel. The novelist could pour out some deep desires or some human urges that overwhelm humans and yet get censored since our social conditions cannot find them palatable at all

I think art is, for the most part, self-expression, and I think claiming it isn't is false, but it has become a necessity to combat the hyperbolic Romantic ideas of self-expression. The trick is to realize that what the artist is expressing is not a representation of the person as a whole, but only a part of the person. If I were an artist, what I create would most likely be dark and depressing. Does that mean I'm a dark and depressing person? No. There's just a part of me that would express that. I'm sure you would agree, StLukes, that when you create your art, you're expressing yourself in some way. After all, the inspiration and ideas come from your mind.

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi

I think art is, for the most part, self-expression, and I think claiming it isn't is false, but it has become a necessity to combat the hyperbolic Romantic ideas of self-expression. The trick is to realize that what the artist is expressing is not a representation of the person as a whole, but only a part of the person. If I were an artist, what I create would most likely be dark and depressing. Does that mean I'm a dark and depressing person? No. There's just a part of me that would express that. I'm sure you would agree, StLukes, that when you create your art, you're expressing yourself in some way. After all, the inspiration and ideas come from your mind.

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How about if we discuss the 'art' of word play?

I think art is, for the most part, self-expression, and I think claiming it isn't is false, but it has become a necessity to combat the hyperbolic Romantic ideas of self-expression. The trick is to realize that what the artist is expressing is not a representation of the person as a whole, but only a part of the person. If I were an artist, what I create would most likely be dark and depressing. Does that mean I'm a dark and depressing person? No. There's just a part of me that would express that. I'm sure you would agree, StLukes, that when you create your art, you're expressing yourself in some way. After all, the inspiration and ideas come from your mind.

My aversion to the term "self-expression" is multi-fold. First of all we have the notions of the Romantics... and more so their less talented heirs such as the Beats. Romanticism pushed forth the notion that the artist had a single true poetic "voice". Shakespeare has no voice. There is no single character in his plays whom we can say with any certainty is closest to the author himself. We cannot say which of the heteronyms is truly Pessoa. Picasso and Stravinsky change like chameleons. Many Romantics would argue that such an approach to art is false.

Freudian theory took the idea of self-expression further. It was assumed that art commonly involves the subconscious and subliminal which properly analyzed might reveal much about the individual. The problem here is that it is often impossible to discern what aspects of a work of art were intentional ... where the artist was fully aware of the possible interpretations... and what aspects of the work of art were indeed the product of the subconscious... or even accident.

Let us look at a contemporary painting that many found particularly disturbing, Eric Fischl's Daddy's Girl:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6165/...2aae07b2_b.jpg

Fischl was a realist in the tradition of Manet (in terms of loose handling of paint) and Edward Hopper. As a true "realist" he rejected the notion that "reality" should be painted to look like it did in a painting by Caravaggio or a 19th century French academician. He recognized that "realism" was what he saw all around him. He was an upper-middle class American living in California. In spite of all the surface glitz and polish he recognized the underlying dramas of alcoholism, drug abuse, child abuse, isolation, infidelity, sexual frustration, etc... that were just as commonplace in American suburbia as they were in Parisian bourgeois lifestyles explored in the novels by Zola, Flaubert, etc... or in London in the novels of Dickens, etc...

In daddy's Girl, Fischl sets the scene in an ideal upper-class California setting. The hard-edged geometric forms of a Modern home and the concrete patio gleam starkly beneath the clear blue sky and intense sunlight of California. A middle-aged man lies naked upon his lounge chair... and then we suddenly recognize her... squirming in his arms is a young girl... surely no more than 4 or 5... also naked. Immediately all sorts of scenarios run through our mind. Is this but an innocent scene of a father and his child? The inclusion of a mother might have led to such an interpretation far more rapidly... and yet she is no where to be seen. Was the artist's decision to exclude her deliberate? Is this then some disturbing sexual scene? Is the daughter struggling to break free from his unwanted touch?

Look then to his extended foot. Here we have a near tangent... a point at which two lines or forms nearly touch creating a focal point that draws the eye. Think of the hand of Michelagelo's God almost touching Adam's outstretched hand. Why does the artist lead us here? What is there at that point of such import? A sipper about to fall from his foot... and a glass of iced tea precariously balanced on the edging of potted tree. Both suggesting a dangerous balancing act... bot unlike the image as a whole which also seems to be a dangerous balancing act between harmless parental love... and pedophilia.

Approaching the work as "self-expression" or through a Freudian lens we are led to wonder about the artist's own repressed sexual desires as opposed to recognizing that he may indeed be pushing our buttons''' playing with our own discomfort with issues of nudity let alone the sexuality of children. Nabokov, if we remember, faced many accusations as to his own imagined perversity as a result of Lolita by those who forget that art is as much (if not more so) illusion and fantasy as it is 'self-expression".

A good deal of that which is worst in art is the result of the cult of "self-expression"... the notion that "self-expression" is all that is needed... as if the baby crying or little Suzy writing in her diary were "art"... as if all one need to do is throw pigment around with "feeling"... and any art produced with careful thought, an awareness of composition and form and art history etc... were actually inferior to little Suzy's honestly and truly felt efforts. Of course Oscar Wilde, who was never wrong about anything:D recognized that all the best poetry (and art, I might add) was sincere.

So . . . you agree with me? :lol: I'm not trying to be flippant (well, a little), and while I mostly agree with your sentiments, it still seems to me that art is mostly self-expression, just different kinds--be it painting what you truly "feel" in your soul, or expressing your desire to push people's buttons, as Fischl is doing (I assume, maybe he is a pedophile).

But, let me play devil's advocate. If self-expression plays little-to-no role in the creation of art, what does?

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi

But, let me play devil's advocate. If self-expression plays little-to-no role in the creation of art, what does?

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Depends what we mean by 'self-expression'. Do we mean 'the desire to communicate who you are' or do we mean 'the impulse to communicate some idea'? (They can be the simultaneous, but they are not necessarily the same thing.)

If we mean the first, then not all art is self-expression, because not all artists want to communicate anything specifically about themselves.

If we mean the second, then all art originates with self-expression - that's where the impulse comes from - but the process involves all sorts of other things - technique, allusion, illusion, talent - all of which comprise a layer of artifice.

The clever bit, of course, is to make it look like there was no artifice at all - it just came straight out of the person of the artist, raw and unprocessed. But it never, ever does.

Depends what we mean by 'self-expression'. Do we mean 'the desire to communicate who you are' or do we mean 'the impulse to communicate some idea'? (They can be the simultaneous, but they are not necessarily the same thing.)

If we mean the first, then not all art is self-expression, because not all artists want to communicate anything specifically about themselves.


:iagree:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Depends what we mean by 'self-expression'. Do we mean 'the desire to communicate who you are' or do we mean 'the impulse to communicate some idea'? (They can be the simultaneous, but they are not necessarily the same thing.)

If we mean the first, then not all art is self-expression, because not all artists want to communicate anything specifically about themselves.


:iagree:

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Hey, OP politely ask us not to hijack his tread. I want to respect it. I am bad hijacking tread with art.......but I am not alone. That is comforting.:smile5:
I am thinking where we can meet without misbehaving.:ihih:

How about this passage from Shards Of Divinities?

...This epiphany was an unexpected visitor and when it came knocking on my door I greeted it as a lover I had only ever known in the recesses of my soul and who now appeared before my very eyes as flesh and blood. This epiphany was a rose bush whose seed I planted long ago and which now burst the earth after a long and arduous winter in the unknowing, white-eyed womb of creation. And when I reached for its tempting yet thorny flower I felt a piercing pain shooting through my soul and I came face to face with the awful one, the great El-Shaddai, the principle of creation, the great veiled One, the Truth overflowing my cup. Deep in my soul an unspeaking voice woke from an eternal slumber and I at once came to know that land to which I had always felt a kinship, that realm of which I am a citizen, always will be and always have been.

or this one?

To be perfectly honest and as one is to expect, my relationship with the idols in my father’s shop had evolved over the years. As a small child they fascinated me not strictly due to their theological connotations but also due to a small child’s propensity to experience awe for such things as a rainbow, the clap of distant thunder or the dew embracing the ground during a crisp early spring morning. A young child often cannot distinguish between the genuine truth and beauty of creation and the lie of that which is made by man’s hand. The ability to marvel at the beauty of creation is an affectation of childhood that is often lost with the onset of intellectual maturity. As I matured I understood more deeply the purpose of these idols and my innocent awe was replaced with a deep and misguided religiosity. A poor man is easy prey to those who are crafty as a fox and are inclined to entice him with fool’s gold. A man denied a woman’s sexual love will succumb to those who do not honour humanity’s soul and instead are merchants of its flesh. Likewise, a man hungry for god is susceptible to the charms of idolatry as is a snake to the enticing melody that seeps freely from the charmer’s flute.

Evelyn Waugh's prose

Check out my novella Shards Of Divinities on amazon.com. It has gorgeous prose.

'Bellefleur' and 'A Bloodsmoor Romance' by Joyce Carol Oates.

Let's not forget the Nausicaa and Sirens sections of Ulysses!

I'm just beginning to wet my toes in quality literature, but out of what I've read, I feel that the first 60 pages of Paradise Lost are quite impressive, both in beauty of the language used and the scope of imagination employed.

I felt that the short story, "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" by F. Scott Fitzgerald was lavishly written and thoroughly enjoyed it.