It is dead depending on where you look for it.

Probably. But art can’t achieve anything in the shadows. It needs the light.

But l think there are artists who don't want their art to be public knowledge and they keep it to themselves. Art will never die in a way but become less accessible.

i was watching a YouTube video of the outsider art fair last night, Its something Ive been following a number of years now, and I couldn't help thinking how much their work has improved.

A few years back it was quite clunky and awkward, but so many people have learnt and brushed up - and it occurred to me of course they would, like art students they would learn what is required to improve their work . A lot of the work was very impressive, and I was mentally comparing it to contemporary art and thinking how better it was. How it had character and a sense of the culture it came from.

I imagine much of this work originated without meaning to be art, or to be displayed as such, much less sold.

I have a feeling outsider art has the potential to challenge the art market in a similar way that aboriginal art has in Australia.

But l think there are artists who don't want their art to be public knowledge and they keep it to themselves. — Wittgenstein

I don’t know if I can believe that, even if they say so. I understand the pleasure in the process, but art needs an audience.

Of course I’ve just realised, according to my theory of art reflecting culture, that art can never be dead, but it can be pretty unappealing, dull, pointless, shallow and pretentious.

I would agree with you Brett.

There is also a consequence to what art you make and buy . It either maintains the status quo, or challenges it.

The same applies to what you hold as your definition of art if any:)

But l think there are artists who don't want their art to be public knowledge and they keep it to themselves. — Wittgenstein

And doing so, make it difficult to ascertain if they exist. But, assuming they do exist, one cannot determine whether their virtual art is really art: did they have the intention to produce art, which may or may not exist? :chin:

We have the concept of art - a concept given to us by our reason. — Bartricks

We cannot know something by instinct, for unless or until that belief which was formed by instinct is ratified by reason is does not count as 'justified' and knowledge involves having justified true beliefs, whatever else it may involve. — Bartricks

If what @Bartricks says is true does that mean we cannot understand art through any other means than our reason. Or is the inability to define art because it eludes our reason.

It seems just possible that all art can be addressed through our reason, that even the artist producing the most perplexing art still produces art and addresses it with reason.

That's analogous to the classic philosophy question.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound ?

Yes, I agree with that. Lolita is a great example of how beauty and morality don't go hand in hand all the time. Some people have unfairly criticized the novel for valorizing immorality, but because they don't understand the difference for art. Nabokov even said that the whole point was to capture aesthetic engagement and moral revulsion at the same time. — Artemis

I recall a particular discussion on the consequences/impact of art and how artists are quick to take credit for the good that results from their work but also are reluctant to own up to the bad that follow from their art. If that's the case then there's an underlying hypocrisy that artists are guilty of - claiming that art is somehow free of moral constraints and yet they seem to judge their own work in moral terms. I wonder what Nabokov would've thought of his work - Lolita - if it had a hand in a surge of pedophilia in its audience?

I wonder what Nabokov would've thought of his work - Lolita - if it had a hand in a surge of pedophilia in its — TheMadFool

The problem is how do you write about immorality without describing it?

I don’t see how a book could create a surge in pedophilia, as if it might convert someone.

You’re still taking about beauty rather than aesthetics. I believe Artemis tried to point out that aesthetics can transcend beauty, or rather, our conventional sense of it. — praxis

What would aesthetics transcending beauty look like? Are you saying there can be disgustingly ugly art too? In my opinion, the most repugnant of acts are immoral ones and if aesthetics can transcend beauty it must be able to make an art of immorality. It's probably true that there are some artworks out there which attempt to do just that but has the audience, us, accepted such works with complete approval? I doubt people will be willing to grant such liberty to artists to make a display of abject immorality; in other words, art must maintain some moral dimension and that would mean, by my account of how the highest beauty is morality, that art has to be about beauty.

Why did Van Gogh paint as he did? Because he did not agree with the aesthetics of the time.

His paintings were popularly perceived as ugly

Form follows function is a popular concept in art

Why did Van Gogh paint as he did?

Because he couldn’t paint and had no idea what he was doing.

How could they be popularly perceived as ugly when no one knew about them? — Pop

I doubt people will be willing to grant such liberty to artists to make a display of abject immorality; in other words, art must maintain some moral dimension and that would mean, by my account of how the highest beauty is morality, that art has to be about beauty.
17 minutes ago — TheMadFool

Do you actually reject all art that is not about beauty? And do you also reject the idea that beauty is cultural?

Pop,
Why did Van Gogh paint as he did?

Brett,
Because he couldn’t paint and had no idea what he was doing.


pop,
How could they be popularly perceived as ugly when no one knew about them?

Van Gogh, could paint, but he was trying to develop his own unique style and he was so successful that his works hold some of the highest values in the art market.

is a bacteria conscious?
— Punshhh

You have already asked me that - no, I don't see any good evidence that bacteria are conscious.

You didn't answer it, you said bacteria don't have minds. But now it seems that a mind is something associated with a brain and bacteria don't appear to have a brain( although you don't think a mind requires neurons), therefore a bacteria can't be conscious by definition.

As scientists admit that they don't know what consciousness is, or how, or where it is produced, we can't therefore assume that organisms like bacteria aren't conscious.

So what is required for a thing to have a mind?

You keep bringing up the conflation thing and you also did in another context with Brett, I don't see the relevance and am not confused about it, I am well aware of the difference between states and objects, or things.

He was a post impressionist. His work is far from equal to other post impressionists like Cezanne and Gauguin. He wasn’t successful at all. The value of his paintings today is irrelevant. Cezanne and Gauguin sold their work at the time, Van Gogh sold none. Why?

Brett you should love van Gogh

Think of punk music
apply it to the times
change the class to merchant middle

and you have van Gogh

Brett you should love van Gogh — Pop

He serves the suffering, alienated, passionate artist myth. Have a good look at his work and read a biography about him.

That is something attributed to him. He did not want to live that life, but was forced to by his convictions. He knew he was right in a world that thought he was wrong.

He is one of the true Geniuses of painting

Few people can raise a finger to the empathy van Gogh's paintings generate

Art doesn't have to be beautiful but beautiful art can be made.

Beauty is that which is kind a person's or group's sense.

Different people can consider an artwork beautiful, however, that's because it's kind to their senses, not because it is universally beautiful.

Good art is art that art which generates high quality of interest.

In this scenario, you only attracted the interest of the king with your art.

Who's interest matters?

Does the king's interest outweigh the prospect of millions?

What if I find your art is beautiful? Does that mean it IS beautiful? No. If we all find it beautiful, does that mean it IS? No.

There is some collection of interested parties saying the artwork is kind to their senses.

The artist had generated interest - of X quality. The man with the best eyes is interested, therefore his artwork is Y quality of good.

To conclude, it is about interest but not quantity. Quality of interest that is generated by artwork confirms what is good art. Art stands as X good.

The Genius of van Gogh is best appreciated by the way he raised the paint in his brush strokes.
try putting one piece of paper over another, and focus on the edge. you cant focus on both pieces at the same time. The result is a blur.

van Gogh was dialing knobs in peoples heads in 1860

Blah 1880

Van Gogh is in a totally different league to Cezanne and Gauguin - blows them out of the water. Best artist in the world ever. Ever!

There are all manner of reasons why he didn't sell in his own lifetime (he did exchange paintings with others, and he did sell one - albeit to the sister of a friend). But one reason is that neither he nor his brother made any great effort to sell them. He loved his own paintings. He also valued them highly and priced them far above their market value. For instance, he thought his sunflowers paintings should be sold for 500 francs each (somewhere in the 7,000 pound region in today's money) - the same price as a vase of flowers by the (at the time) very well known and collectible Monticelli. And the first and only painting that he sold in his own lifetime - The Red Vineyard - went for 400 francs. That's a huge sum for a work by a complete unknown (much more than Gauguin was selling his works for). He also didn't paint for very long - his entire artistic career was only 10 years, and of those he only really hit his stride in the last 2 - almost all of his best works come from those final two years. And he spent one of those years in a mental asylum. So the main focus during the last two years of his life - the years when he was producing his best work - was not on selling, but on staying sane.

The early reviews of his work also leave one in no doubt that some, at least, did recognise that his work was in a league of its own (Octave Mirabeau's 1891 review holds nothing back). Monet thought he was great too, and I seem to remember reading somewhere that in the first exhibition of his work after his suicide Monet walked into the room full of Van Goghs and said "My God! He's beaten us all!"

Anyway, Van Gogh can do no wrong in my book and the idea that Cezanne and Gauguin are better is just, well, absurd! The man's a god.

Have a good look at his work and read a biography about him. — Brett

Have you? Have you read his letters? Read his letters. They're like nothing else. Read Jo Bonger Gogh's touching biography (the wife of Theo Van Gogh and one of the great unsung heroes of art - she dedicated her life to promoting his work). Then look at his works. If you still can't see that they're masterpieces there's no hope for you! Gauguin indeed - pah.

Is there a way that art can be judged truthfully?

If art is thought about for it's meaning, it's not thought about for the artist's skill, which is a different category of judgement. There is such thing as stroke.

We can talk about the competitive nature of artists, not about quality of interest but skill of artist.

However skill of artist can generate good interest, surely this is the highest reward for an artist.

The best artist likely has the most advanced stroke.

Imagine the dreamers art.

Someone had created us with the stroke, perhaps it is lesser than being created without the stroke.

I’m not saying that it’s not about beauty, I’m saying it’s about experiencing beauty beyond our conventional sense of it. An artist is skilled in inducing an aesthetic experience, simply put, if only their own. The subject matter may not be what we typically regard as beautiful.