Interesting, it made me think of how up until the end of the medieval period art was a hammer with which to control the masses. Then there was a period of a few hundred years when it gradually became freer until recently it had total freedom, and now it is being used as a hammer again to control the masses. But it seems that it is still free, while hammering away and that is ok because that freedom doesn't get in the way of the hammering. Because the people who might use that freedom have been brainwashed by the incessant hammering.Is art a mirror for reality, or a hammer with which to change it? Bertolt Brecht asked.
I think the question is how, if at all, will art survive it's commodification — Noble Dust
the idea that the truly artistic expression is an expression of something higher; quite literally something supra-physical. — Noble Dust
I will try to keep mysticism out of my remarks because I find on this forum it turns people away. But this does not mean that I don't recognise that there is a mystical dimension in art and particularly the mysticism of the self, irrespective of whether there is, or isn't a God, or spiritual realm. I will presume there isn't for this discussion.So the real question we're dealing with here is "what happens to art when the spiritual is removed?". Or, the more important question would be "what happens to humanity when art is removed
I will try to keep mysticism out of my remarks because I find on this forum it turns people away. — Punshhh
I’m interested in views people out there might have on this, that our morals and human situation are explored and reaffirmed in the arts. Of course this is assuming that morality exists and is not constructed. — Brett
I agree that for art there is an aesthetic hierarchy like the spiritual hierarchy in religion and that for art over the historical period of civilisations art has been largely controlled and has mirrored this hierarchy. Meaning that we have inherited an aesthetic of high art, which has a pinnacle, a godhead at the top, inhabited by great artists who have the greatest, most noble moral and philosophical considerations at the front and centre of their great work. Leonardo Da Vinci being the archetype. — Punshhh
(5) Aesthetic creation probably always takes place within a differentiated milieu. I mean this : You remember a very meaningful aesthetic experience. You see trends in the art world that don't reach that. You set yourself against those trends. That probably goes on forever. — csalisbury
And if you then react to trends you don't like by, for instance, trying to create an aesthetic you do like, then you're one individual contributing to that process of art reflecting the human situation. If you're a hobbyist, you may not influence it much, but if you become successful, you might. — Noble Dust
I think this is related to what I'm trying to say about art being a reflection of the human situation; that meaningful aesthetic experience is certainly individual and personal, but as a human participating in the human situation, your response is a reflection of where you are in that situation. And if you then react to trends you don't like by, for instance, trying to create an aesthetic you do like, then you're one individual contributing to that process of art reflecting the human situation. If you're a hobbyist, you may not influence it much, but if you become successful, you might. — Noble Dust
The question to be asked first is, where are we going, because that’s where art goes. — Brett
Only a particular kind of work can find itself acting as a mirror. — Brett
To mean anything it has be seen, it has to make itself known. It’s something about the artist’s obsession that drives the work, that creates the noise that gets it the attention. It’s no place for shrinking violets. — Brett
I understand you to be saying something like this : art is created in a shared environment. It's a broad, bigger world, in which artists are embedded. If that broader world is dim and bombed-out, or otherwise dark, but that's a massive part of your lived individual experience, it's part of your reality, it's part of what you're trying to express. If you're in a 'bombed-out world' of Jeff Koontz bubble statues, then that's part of it. And a reaction against it, is still linked back to the world. If there's a full aesthetic experience to be had, it has to take into account the landscape it emerges from? — csalisbury
Edit: unless it’s severely controlled like Communust Russia. But then it simply reveals the Russian zeitgeist. — Brett
It's really hard to separate what you want to express from the muck you've accumulated, while still finding the proper place for that muck. That's what I struggle with. Like there's so much I want to say, but I can't figure out how to disentangle it from the obscuring theory dialogue I've accumulated - and to add to that, I have to recognize that accumulation is part of it, and also needs its place (but its proper place, not as the directing impulse, but as one element among others) — csalisbury
I noticed you switched your avatar to a still from Stalker - I think Tarkovsky handled this well with that long shot with all the debris in the water. But easier seen than done. — csalisbury
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