Good, clear pellucid prose, Sam.

A person cannot experience ego death if they cease to exist as a separate entity. — hopeful

I think these sorts of terms are poetic understandings and not to be taken literally.

Anyway, a lot written. Simply wanting to exchange views as best I can. I think most of us sense that the standards for good art are nowadays more often than not missing in some way: thereby evidencing that there are such a thing as standards for good art to begin with. — javra

For me a key question isn't merely whether the art is any good but what the consumers of that art are getting out it. Maybe mediocre art provides transcendence for mediocre people? :razz:

My point is that R doesn't know how to tell a story about reality. He just freezes a visible aspect of it, and implicitly tells us it was all about ego and money. — Raymond

Even if this is correct, I can't think of a better approach or theme for an artist.

Or perhaps to put in another way, just why did your philosophy tutor had that kind of dismissing attitude in the subject and say "Aesthetics is a non-subject, it doesn't matter - it's just personal taste. Next."? — ssu

He liked to make flip and dismissive comments, so we didn't really take him seriously. But I know it's a view many people hold - perhaps the dominant view in our time - especially when it is so much easier to say this than to think deeply about the matter.

he people he froze alive belonged to an elite group of people only interested in propagating their own image in time, just like R himself. R sold his skills to the elite who used him as a camera only. R was rich and asked for. History made him famous because history needs famous figures. People need them. Put them in a museum or at Madame Tussauds. Big deal. — Raymond

I don't think an interpretation of an artist's or subject's motivations tell us anything about whether the work is any good or not. :gasp: Some of my favourite artists were probably arseholes.

What I think the problem isn't that Aesthetics is a non-subject, it's just that we don't have the similar methods to study it as let's say question in logic. And when we don't have an easy objective answer, then the whole thing is deemed unimportant. — ssu

That's a significant point. I agree. :up:

But millions of people can and love to. — Noble Dust

Argumentum ad populum. It is not enough to be loved, one must be loved by the right people (and no, that is not one of Wilde's).

Realizing that art forms are transitory is important, in my mind. — Noble Dust

Yes, but this doesn't change how good they are (or not). Or which ones survive the ravages of fashion and time.

Yet there's the actual philosophical problem: we try in philosophy to give an objective answer... even when the matter is obviously subjective. — ssu

Not sure about that. We can and do establish communities of value which hold intersubjective agreements about matters assessed as important and key indicators can be established. We then have objective criteria we can understand and rate. But no one except religions and idealists are talking about transcendent truths.

The novel is dying. — Noble Dust

People have been saying this since the 1940's. I doubt it is true. In fact it's sometimes argued that there really ought to be an important literary prize for the person who doesn't write a novel.

Shows (TV shows) are in their prime — Noble Dust

Could be. I have yet to discover any I can sit though even when they are well done.

sn't Dan Brown loved now? — Noble Dust

Maybe he got close a few years ago but was never loved by people who like fiction. :razz:

art forms are born, they live, and they die. — Noble Dust

As does everything else. But can't we still make a case for who is the greatest ancient Greek writer and why, even though their civilisation and tradition is extinct?

Can we defend their greatness outside the context of an educational system? — Noble Dust

I personally would. And when they were written, they were loved by readers before they reached academe. It could be argued that the ended up being taught because in the first instance, they were the best of their kind. But I would never say something so old fashioned and hoary.

The thing is - is Rembrandt's Night Watch a better painting than a Warhol screen-printed Marilyn? If yes or no, why?

When we write about great works of Western fiction (Dickens, Tolstoy, Eliot, Conrad) can we defend their greatness outside the context of a value system? Is Conrad no better than Dan Brown? I'm sure there are people who prefer Brown but we also know there are people who have limitations...

When we were cataloguing art for Sotheby's, we had to explain why a work was important. It is part of a tradition, a heritage and context and this can be understood to some extent and the work 'valued' accordingly. No one says this is ultimate truth but it may be part of an important system for human beings.

What's wrong with subjectivity, personal opinions and taste? Isn't it what makes us individuals?

As is everything important in life would have an objective answer. :shade: — ssu

Nothing wrong with subjectivity - that is the common man's approach to most things. Some of my best friends are subjectivists...

But, if you are trying to assess art, catalogue and contextualize it, then we need more than just 'It's cool'.

I never said everything in life requires an objective answer - that would be a real leap. :wink:

here are standards that can be organically drawn from the songwriting tradition of the past ~100 years or so, give or take, which someone with an understanding of them can use as a rubric when evaluating a work. For instance, as someone with a pretty good grasp of this, I can lay out — Noble Dust

I think this has merit. And I think this is what a responsible, old school critic would do. Contextualise and assess work based on a tradition. But of course, we end up with canons and received wisdom that often rests on recursive value systems of infinite regress. If that makes sense.

When I briefly studied aesthetics at university, the school/approach was objectivism (Beardsley) and a critic's job was to determine what the artist was trying to convey (even if they were not sure what this was; the artist often being inarticulate, mistaken, silent, a drunk or dead). The goal was to assess to what extent the artist achieved their goals. Seems so old fashioned. In the post-modern world where the author's intention is moot, this approach is either long gone or awaiting a come back.

This so that their efforts and accomplishments are nowadays considered on par in worth to realizations such as that of “Pile of Bricks” – which conveys what to you, personally, if I might ask? — javra

Thanks for your thoughtful response. In answer to your question - it conveys little and I don't care for it. But I am not all that keen on art as art, or stunt/statement based art in general. I like antiquities (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Etruscan, Pre-Columbian) and I appreciate craft most of all. Personal taste. I dislike most contemporary art I have seen. Mainly because I find it dull. But it is art.

I can greatly admire artists whose works I personally find unaesthetic. Virginia Woolf quickly comes to mind. Or Kandinsky. Examples however don’t matter, for these too are in the eye of the beholder. — javra

Agree with much you say. I have similar reactions. I think there are works of genius by many artists but I still don't like them. John Barth's fiction is genius but I find it too technical and contrived and as such uninvolving.

It fascinates me how often people feel the need to criticize a given work of art as being so bad it is not art, or a case of the emperor's new clothes, or a con job, or something my 6 year-old could do better. I have heard these sorts of comments made by people when describing everything from the works of van Gogh and Gauguin to Tracey Emin. This I believe is the nub of my interest in aesthetics. What is it we are prepared to countenance as art and therefore assess as an aesthetic work or statement and how do we make an assessment of its relative merits?

My philosophy tutor back in 1988 had a simple answer - "Aesthetics is a non-subject, it doesn't matter - it's just personal taste. Next." :groan:

could self reflection pose as a mode of psychological analysis? — john27

Depends on what you count as self-reflection and what you count a psychological analysis. But really what is psychological analysis? There is counselling; there is therapy; there is psychoanalysis. But these terms are pretty loose and contested. I would think that any serious and honest self-assessment is a kind of psychological technique. Some forms of reflection lead to self-awareness and insight - these are considered psychologically healthy states. Remember also phenomenology has become integrated in some areas of psychology.

Agree for the most part. Let's take:

[1] Art is anything offered by someone for evaluation on the basis of aesthetic standards. — T Clark

If you were to find the work 'Equivalent V111' by Carl Andre (basically 120 house bricks arranged in a pattern) dumped on a building site it would just be a pile of bricks. If you found a Rodin sculpture dumped in the same location it would still be art despite being context free. Does this add anything to our understanding of definitions?

Does your number 2 cover off on this?

There is something more than personal opinion and public acclaim that makes good art. There's artistic vision, truth, technical mastery, surprise, emotional insight, playfulness, complexity, narrative, simplicity, clarity, idiosyncrasy, depth, history, humor, community.... and on and on. I don't know how to put all that together. — T Clark

Yes, I think we are now heading somewhere. However these terms can also be recast as pejoratives. 'Simplicity' can be 'simplistic', depending upon your point of view. Think Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. 'Idiosyncrasy' can be 'self-indulgent' depending on your point of view. Think movies directed by David Lynch. 'Mastery' can be 'empty technique' think the novels of John Barth.

The questions remains, how do we tell if 'depth' or 'history' or 'complexity' have been achieved in a aesthetically satisfying manner?

For myself, I generally look for two attributes in any given work and many additional qualities can fan out from these. These are vitality and surprise. But the fact remains that what people find surprising or vital is still a matter of subjective experience.

Why should we do that? Is that really our job, or is that just one option among several others? — Bitter Crank

I'll put some precision on it. I think it behoves us to start by examining our uncultured views and the mores of our time. As per Socrates - 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' It's hard to imagine any life when so examined not changing or transcending some of its limitations.

Sure. It was just a throw away line - partly meant, but not deeply. I care when others have good arguments.

more of a joke than a major plank — Bitter Crank

:up:

There is nothing mysterious about how this process works: we are social animals and we do look for clues among our people, our milieu, about what is considered good and not good. — Bitter Crank

Sure, you're not wrong, but in the context of a philosophy forum and arguments about a subject, we can do better, no? Our job here is to transcend the gravitational pull of enculturation and group mores.

Art is not about being able to reproduce a scene optically (thereby rendering it abstract and ARTificial). The most abstract paintings are in fact the optically (hyper-)realistic ones. Art is not about imitating or expressing personal feelings. It's about expressing ideas. It's not about creating pleasurable esthetic experiences. — Raymond

So you are laying down some rules for what constitutes art. How did you arrive at those rules?

Fortunately we do not have to come up with criteria for good art, bad art, art at all. Culture, I hear, is a collective process, a cooperative product. — Bitter Crank

Hmmm... and there I was thinking we were discussing how we might arrive at criteria for good or bad. If it's just personal opinion then I have no real interest in discussions because I don't really care what others think. Or are you suggesting with your term 'collective process' that there is an intersubjective agreement about what art can be considered good? If so, then we might still need to work out how we arrive at good or bad if we are going to communicate about art.

The quality of porn is not easy to measure. Not by a long shot.
— john27

That hasn't been my experience. — Bitter Crank

Goodness we do keep going around in circles - even when it comes to porn. I'm not sure personal experience matters. The fact that you can measure it (that sounds wrong in this context :gasp: ) doesn't mean anyone else shares your view of good or bad. Orson Welles once quipped that it is possible for there to be a masterpiece of pornography but it will only be a masterpiece in that genre. A masterpiece of porn. Sounds like a good tile for a bad novel.

Art is something created by people that has no meaning beyond the experience elicited in the viewer/listener/reader. The only thing of value we can really say about a work of art is a description of our experience of it. — T Clark

I think this can work. Possibly it's heading towards a phenomenological approach.

have often wondered about how skillful technique counts toward making good art. When I think of folk art, I think of people who's technique is not sophisticated, but who have artistic vision. — T Clark

I agree. Many technically astonishing artists have no depth or emotion in their work. It's all technique. But this starts to get alarmingly speculative. What does it mean to have 'depth' or 'feeling' in your art? I certainly know that in the classical tradition there are pianists and violinists who can hit all the notes with wonderous ability and yet is seems 'empty'. Fuck... are we heading towards qualia again?

So, what are you going to do about this deficiency? — Bitter Crank

I'm asking you. You're the one making claims about merit that seem to hint at some kind objectivity. :wink:

The quality of porn is easy to measure. — Bitter Crank

Do tell.

I do not know why some people think it is an upgrade to put a beautiful seashell in a case and hail it as art. — Bitter Crank

Well if you use words like 'upgrade' no wonder. You seem to have a hierarchical frame for this discussion. The point is there is an invitation to consider the object aesthetically in a more formal sense. An invitation - that's all. You can then say, 'well I think that shell on display (let's call it 'Not a Fountain') is third rate art.' Now we have the start of something.

I don't think I buy this, but that brings us back to what is good and what isn't. There is a tendency for sophisticated people to see sentiment as overly sentimental. That's one of the raps against country music that I don't buy. Most rock and roll is unwilling or afraid to talk about mothers, fathers, children, friendships, families, communities. If I remember correctly, you're not a country fan. I am. Then again, there's good and there's bad. — T Clark

I wasn't saying the art expert was right, merely that there may be distinction between excellent draftsmanship and artistic merit. Quite often people think virtuosic displays of skill imply excellence, just as the converse may also be held as true. I don't buy that.

I generally don't listen to pop, country, folk, rock or rap. I find the music ugly and unpleasant. Personal taste. I'm sure there is good and bad everything subject to some criteria, including porn. The point is apart from subjective taste, what do we have?

"it is not surprising that there is a lot of bad art. "What is surprising is that there is so much good art -- everywhere" — Bitter Crank

And we are yet to arrive at any foundation for what 'good art' might be. Just calling it good only does part of the job.

I think it's important to keep the question of whether something is art separate from whether or not it is good, — T Clark

Yes, I keep saying this. :up:

Let's say, "personal judgement". How else would anyone decide? — Bitter Crank

Then who cares what you or I think? And we can stop making judgements about what is art, except to ourselves.

It isn't art for the same reason that a seashell isn't art, even if it is mounted in a nice display case. — Bitter Crank

I agree with @T Clark - an invitation to regard an object aesthetically makes it art. Duchamp made that point a century ago and modern artists are still doing it. It may be boring as fuck for the most part but it is still art in my view.

Rockwell is as much an illustrator as a painter. Even his paintings are really illustrations. Illustration is a different art than fine art painting, but it is worthy of respect — T Clark

Before my present career I worked briefly (in a lowly position) in antiquities and fine art - we liaised with places like Sotheby's and Christie's. One of the painting experts used to talk about people like Rockwell as 'a very fine draftsman' and then pause. The pause mean.. 'but sentimental pap'.

It's not that he can't paint purty, he chooses not to. I believe there's something there, but I often can't see it. — T Clark

Nail on the head. The choosing demonstrates a fidelity to the form, since we know Picasso has range.

There is no single horizon which beckons. Instead there is endless self-transformation, endlessly transforming horizons. The goal is to slip into the movement of sense, to avoid falling prey to stagnant themes or values. The ethic is in the fluidity of change, because this is where intimacy and meaning lies, not in any particular contentful notions of the good or the true. — Joshs

Tantalizing. So this last line would seem to rule out idealism or is my idea of idealism handicapped by the Greeks?

They are not right or wrong about what they like, and what they like is probably what they judge to be better, more artistic. — Bitter Crank

Yes, but throughout this thread we have been discussing more than personal taste - potential objective criteria (you suggested effort and quality) by which to assess a work. It's even been suggested that bad art isn't worth calling 'art'.

I agree with you about Grant Wood. It's unfortunate when a work becomes over exposed and exploited. It is almost impossible to see properly.

I would say that the music academic probably doesn't like pop music and is a musical snob besides. — Bitter Crank

The question is how do we decide this is the case or if he is correct about pop's artistic merits?

Hey, very interesting! Not-art, though. — Bitter Crank

On what basis are you saying it is not art - personal opinion?

Quality and effort shows whether it's Mozart's Requiem or the latest chart topper, and so do a lack of quality. — Bitter Crank

I disagree. And firstly you'll have a devil of a job explaining what 'quality' and 'effort' mean and how you can tell when they are embodied in a work. Effort? Mozart wrote most of his pieces with almost no effort - he was a genius (let's not count his unfinished requiem, he was sick). My dad put a huge amount of effort into his painting and he still sucked. So effort means zilch.

Quality? What do you say to the music academic who says that all pop music is junk, a debased musical form? How is quality revealed in painting? There are many people who think Norman Rockwell is a better artist than Picasso - how do we establish if they are right or wrong?

How do you, or Dreyfus, explain why Nazism is so evil?

If you want to set yourselves up as judges over Heidegger's enlightenment status, then surely you should have the words to explain Heidegger's involvement with Nazism. — baker

Since I don't really accept the idea of an enlightened person in the first place, I have nothing to explain. People are flawed and support ideas and do things that cause suffering. I can't speak for Dreyfus.

'm not sure we're on the same page here. — baker

Maybe we aren't. So your enhanced proposed question is:

quote="baker;638847"]do I just want someone who will provide me with another fancy layer of denial and delusion?"[/quote]

Often people end up following paths by accident or without planning to. The questions you pose (which are highly self-aware in a particular way) would make no sense since they are not locating themselves as searchers of truth. In other words, if you are not shopping, you won't have a list.

There's a second group who are consumers of truth. From what I have seen they do ask those questions already and these are generally buried inside the question 'Is the teacher a charlatan'. When you drill down, which I have sometimes done, they generally will say things like - "I don't want to be deluded by false ideas or by a teacher who is misguided or a hypocrite who just tells me what I want to hear.'

There's always been the inherent problem that if you are not enlightened yourself, how do you, a flawed creature, have the capacity to wisely asses what path to follow in the first place? Surely it is bound to go wrong (sometimes horribly so) for most.

None taken.

Ah yes, my favorite past time. Making claims with no justification. — Noble Dust

Is it? Do you not see my point? So far what you seem to have done is provide an example from personal taste using an appeal to self-evidence.

I guess we don't have anything further to say then. You're making claims with no justification.

I could have put Taylor Swift or the Rolling Stones up there too, What's the difference? That's the key issue at stake here? Or are you suggesting there are Platonic forms we access intuitively and as a consequence we just know what is bad and good?