The most poetically beautiful English prose?( Fiction)

[ftil]

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 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? 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?

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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


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

[osho]

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

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

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.

[Raven Falcon.]

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.

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

[stlukesguild]

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:



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 recognized that all the best poetry (and art, I might add) was sincere.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

So . . . you agree with me? 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?

[MarkBastable]

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

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.

[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.

[ftil]

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.

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.
I am thinking where we can meet without misbehaving.

[Nissim]

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.

[WICKES]

Evelyn Waugh's prose

[Nissim]

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

[Budai]

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

[Lykren]

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

[Vota]

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.