What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Discussion of articles that appear in the magazine.

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Walker
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Walker »

Belinda wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2017 11:07 pm Nick_A posted:
It may be that vice, depravity and crime are nearly always ... in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at." ~ Simone Weil
The above is true and perhaps can said in another way: love doesn't want to own or control beauty but wants rather to serve beauty and live in the company of beauty.
That description of love is the innocence that depravity moves to devour.
Walker
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Walker »

marjoram_blues wrote: Sun May 28, 2017 11:23 am Found this thread when searching for 'culture' - seems I've been here before...but everything changes; outlooks and patience to read what others have to say. I scrolled down through the winning letters...finally coming to rest on David Howard...he wrote:
'...If we are wise, we will look and listen with an open spirit; sometimes with a wry smile; always celebrating the diversity of human imaginings and achievement'.
I’d say that the wisdom of Solomon can be found in decisiveness.
- He would have followed through with his judgment.
- The real mother saw this in him, and in the situation.
- The times were savage.
- Solomon knew the causality surrounding unbending intent. He knew that the real mother would see this in him. The real mother would naturally act without choice, because life was now the choiceless cause of motion, unobscured by doubt.
- Therefore, his wisdom was in the natural decisiveness within the situation.
- That’s the definition of intellectual confidence.

The point is not the biblical story that shorthands for a common reference.
That’s just an example of the principle.

The principle is: Surrender to responsibility causes wisdom.
Nick_A
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2017 11:07 pm Nick_A posted:
It may be that vice, depravity and crime are nearly always ... in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at." ~ Simone Weil
The above is true and perhaps can said in another way: love doesn't want to own or control beauty but wants rather to serve beauty and live in the company of beauty.
Why serve something that doesn't have an objective existence? Why not receive the wholeness of beauty and what it offers as opposed to tearing it apart in the process of trying to understand what makes something beautiful.

Suppose three scientists decide to determine by experimentation why everyone agrees this naked woman is very beautiful. So they hire her to model and get very close to her with magnifying glasses taking careful notes on the dimensions and unique characteristics of her body. Then they put it together but these notes though scientifically accurate just don't explain beauty. She is considered beautiful and the best the scientists come up with are facts. Maybe they need better magnifying glasses and a more complete investigation of distinctive curves but something's not working as it should. It seems the closer they get to her body the more beauty vanishes. How can this be? Maybe Simone is right and beauty is a mask of something far greater which we lose as we move further from the source and into the captivation offered by details.
Belinda
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Belinda »

Nick_A wrote:
Why serve something that doesn't have an objective existence? Why not receive the wholeness of beauty and what it offers as opposed to tearing it apart in the process of trying to understand what makes something beautiful.
I can understand your point of view. However it's odd that you seem not to understand that universals may not exist as entities.
Nick_A
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda wrote: Wed Jun 07, 2017 7:41 am Nick_A wrote:
Why serve something that doesn't have an objective existence? Why not receive the wholeness of beauty and what it offers as opposed to tearing it apart in the process of trying to understand what makes something beautiful.
I can understand your point of view. However it's odd that you seem not to understand that universals may not exist as entities.
But universals exist within entities. They are their source The question is if beauty exists as a form manifesting as qualities of things. Is there perfect beauty that exists as an idea or does bezuty indicate objective relationships that beauty masks?

http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/platform.htm
II. The Forms:*

A form is an abstract property or quality. Take any property of an object; separate it from that object and consider it by itself, and you are contemplating a form. For example, if you separate the roundness of a basketball from its color, its weight, etc. and consider just roundness by itself, you are thinking of the from of roundness. Plato held that this property existed apart from the basketball, in a different mode of existence than the basketball. The form is not just the idea of roundness you have in your mind. It exists independently of the basketball and independently of whether someone thinks of it. All round objects, not just this basketball, participate or copy this same form of roundness.

In order to see exactly what a form is and how it differs from a material object, we need to look at the first two of the properties that characterize the forms. The forms are transcendent. This means that they do not exist in space and time. A material object, a basketball, exists at a particular place at a particular time. A form, roundness, does not exist at any place or time. The forms exist, or subsist, in a different way. This is especially important because it explains why the forms are unchanging. A form such as roundness will never change; it does not even exist in time. It is the same at all times or places in which it might be instantiated. A form does not exist in space in that it can be instantiated in many places at once and need not be instantiated anywhere in order for the form to exist. The form of roundness can be found in many particular spatial locations, and even if all round objects were destroyed, the property of roundness would still exist.

The forms are also pure. This means that they are pure properties separated from all other properties. A material object, such as a basketball, has many properties: roundness, ballness, orangeness, elasticity, etc. These are all put together to make up this individual basketball. A form is just one of these properties, existing by itself apart from space and time. Roundness is just pure roundness, without any other properties mixed in. The forms differ from material objects, then, in that they are transcendent and pure, while material objects are complex conglomerations of properties located in space and time..........................
Beauty seems to me to be the impression received by an interconnectedness of forms but is not itself a form.
Belinda
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Belinda »

Nick_A wrote:
But universals exist within entities.
"Within" entities is not a metaphor I'd choose. Your metaphor implies that the entity circumscribes the universals like the circumference of a circle circumscribes the circle's area.

I'd rather say that universals define a concept, usually in a family of meanings sort of way. I'd say that the only occasions when there is a definition are t occasions when people arbitrarily choose a defining attribute. E.g. when medics are talking about , say, syphilis, they agree that syphilis is defined by its causal organism rather than by attributes which may or may not attach to syphilis. However for everyday purposes and for art meanings change with social usage.

Nick:
Beauty seems to me to be the impression received by an interconnectedness of forms but is not itself a form.
Solzhenitzin said so too, if I remember right.
So perhaps the old trinity of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty is not simply the decorous and antiquated formula it seemed to us at the time of our selfconfident materialistic youth. If the tops of these three trees do converge, as thinkers used to claim, and if the all too obvious and the overly straight sprouts of Truth and Goodness have been crushed, cut down, or not permitted to grow, then perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, and ever surprising shoots of Beauty will force their way through and soar up to that very spot, thereby fulfilling the task of all three.
duszek
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by duszek »

Beauty promotes life.

Hunched shoulders are less beautiful than straight and vigorous ones.

But:

Some kinds of life express themselves in unusual ways and are also beautiful in a special way.

Someone in a wheel-chair can also be beautiful.
Nick_A
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda

Nick_A wrote:
But universals exist within entities.
"Within" entities is not a metaphor I'd choose. Your metaphor implies that the entity circumscribes the universals like the circumference of a circle circumscribes the circle's area.

I'd rather say that universals define a concept, usually in a family of meanings sort of way. I'd say that the only occasions when there is a definition are t occasions when people arbitrarily choose a defining attribute. E.g. when medics are talking about , say, syphilis, they agree that syphilis is defined by its causal organism rather than by attributes which may or may not attach to syphilis. However for everyday purposes and for art meanings change with social usage.
I think that we would agree that a log floating in a pond saturated with pond water is in the water. At the same time pond water is within the log.

A fraction exists within the whole and at the same time the concept of whole (one) is within the fraction.

A universal is an idea. It devolves into imperfect expressions which become visible for us. So from this perspective, the whole is within the fraction as an idea while the fraction is within the whole. They simultaneously exist at different levels of reality

Certain qualities of art allow a person to sense one level of reality existing within a higher. Even though secularism with its fixation on one level of reality is doing its best to destroy the
human conscious awareness of levels of reality, there is enough of art worthy of the name to serve its psychological awakening purpose
Belinda
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Belinda »

Nick_A wrote:
I think that we would agree that a log floating in a pond saturated with pond water is in the water. At the same time pond water is within the log.
Indeed. However that log will disintegrate and become mixed and even compounded with the water and the beasties in the water. The log was once part of a tree. We classify the log in the pond as the log in the pond for social reasons.
A fraction exists within the whole and at the same time the concept of whole (one) is within the fraction.
Propositions in maths are mostly tautologies.
A universal is an idea. It devolves into imperfect expressions which become visible for us. So from this perspective, the whole is within the fraction as an idea while the fraction is within the whole. They simultaneously exist at different levels of reality
Yes, a universal is an idea. But a universal doesn't manifest apart from a particular expression of it. A universals is real as idea . But a universal has no material correlate until and unless it is included in a particular thing which is a mode of nature.
Certain qualities of art allow a person to sense one level of reality existing within a higher.
Yes.
Even though secularism with its fixation on one level of reality is doing its best to destroy the
human conscious awareness of levels of reality, there is enough of art worthy of the name to serve its psychological awakening purpose
"secularism" does not do this. Atheists are just as much inspired by art and ideas as anybody else.It is true however that spirituality has not yet caught up with the demise of the Form of God.

The Form of God is being replaced in the popular consciousness by no metaphysical idea so compelling. The Humanists do carry on the ethics from the age of faith, but lack a defining myth, apart from science. Maybe this lack is the price we pay for refusing idolatry.
Nick_A
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda
"secularism" does not do this. Atheists are just as much inspired by art and ideas as anybody else.It is true however that spirituality has not yet caught up with the demise of the Form of God.
I agree that idolatry does more to inhibit the natural conscious connection between Man and higher consciousness than virtually anything else. What kind of art do you believe would make a person aware of this connection and what would be the quality of emotion associated with it?
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Greta
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

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Are there any examples of art - art that just individuals create rather than of large enterprises (Notre Dame etc) - that leads us closer to The Source? Words are too vague to properly describe art.

Beauty is simply subjective. The sight of a beautiful blue sky would simply (and accurately) look like doom to creatures that live underground.

On a relaxed day I can be inspired by the sight of the sky. When my mind is full of human complications the sky leaves me cold. Then it's just a pointless mess of colour and form that doesn't hold my attention. So, in that sense, art is as much in the receiving as the creating. If the audience are not receptive then nothing can move them - not matter how great or deep the art. Imagine a schedule change where a Nascar crowd are told that, instead of their races, the Brandenburg Orchestra is to perform Bach for them. Good luck with that gig :)
Belinda
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Belinda »

Nick_A wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2017 12:48 am Belinda
"secularism" does not do this. Atheists are just as much inspired by art and ideas as anybody else.It is true however that spirituality has not yet caught up with the demise of the Form of God.
I agree that idolatry does more to inhibit the natural conscious connection between Man and higher consciousness than virtually anything else. What kind of art do you believe would make a person aware of this connection and what would be the quality of emotion associated with it?
Any idiom can portray truth and goodness. However when the art form is commercialised we need to view it at arms length before trusting it. By ""commercialised" I mean not simply that the artist earns their living from it, but that there is a populist and cynical culture. I understand that popular music is especially rife with commercial rubbish. Is music, and other art forms, sufficiently taught to school children so that they can tell the difference between commercial rubbish and the true quality?

I think we need to distinguish between form and meaning in any of the arts. I know, Nick, that you are interested in religion, so let's assume that religion is an art form. Some religion is better than other religion.

The forms of religion e.g. the austerity of the Quakers v the opulence of the RCs: the religiously prescribed costumes of the Muslims v. the anything-goes of the evangelicals: the seasonal rituals which are more important to some religious persons than others, are all examples of form. Those examples from religion can I think be applied to music, painting, dance etc.

The meanings of religion and other arts aren't congruent with the forms. We have serious music and commercial music and some serious music is in the same traditional forms as sentimental or otherwise commercialised pop. Same with religion. Serious meanings can arise in the austerity of somebody's back yard or in a cathedral.

Two things. To identify idolatry in religion or any of the arts look for who if anyone is making money or power from it. To identify "higher consciousness" in religion or the arts look for impartiality.
Nick_A
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2017 9:05 am
Nick_A wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2017 12:48 am Belinda
"secularism" does not do this. Atheists are just as much inspired by art and ideas as anybody else.It is true however that spirituality has not yet caught up with the demise of the Form of God.
I agree that idolatry does more to inhibit the natural conscious connection between Man and higher consciousness than virtually anything else. What kind of art do you believe would make a person aware of this connection and what would be the quality of emotion associated with it?
Any idiom can portray truth and goodness. However when the art form is commercialised we need to view it at arms length before trusting it. By ""commercialised" I mean not simply that the artist earns their living from it, but that there is a populist and cynical culture. I understand that popular music is especially rife with commercial rubbish. Is music, and other art forms, sufficiently taught to school children so that they can tell the difference between commercial rubbish and the true quality?

I think we need to distinguish between form and meaning in any of the arts. I know, Nick, that you are interested in religion, so let's assume that religion is an art form. Some religion is better than other religion.

The forms of religion e.g. the austerity of the Quakers v the opulence of the RCs: the religiously prescribed costumes of the Muslims v. the anything-goes of the evangelicals: the seasonal rituals which are more important to some religious persons than others, are all examples of form. Those examples from religion can I think be applied to music, painting, dance etc.

The meanings of religion and other arts aren't congruent with the forms. We have serious music and commercial music and some serious music is in the same traditional forms as sentimental or otherwise commercialised pop. Same with religion. Serious meanings can arise in the austerity of somebody's back yard or in a cathedral.

Two things. To identify idolatry in religion or any of the arts look for who if anyone is making money or power from it. To identify "higher consciousness" in religion or the arts look for impartiality.
You didn't answer the question. I asked:
I agree that idolatry does more to inhibit the natural conscious connection between Man and higher consciousness than virtually anything else. What kind of art do you believe would make a person aware of this connection and what would be the quality of emotion associated with it?
Impartiality isn't an emotion though it may be a step leading to the experience of this quality of emotion.
Belinda
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Belinda »

I acknowledge your short reply Nick
Nick_A
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Re: What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2017 5:18 pm I acknowledge your short reply Nick
Thanks, but you didn't answer the question. I'm not being critical but I have learned both in life and from the Net that as a whole people respect intellectual quality. They believe that intellectual understanding varies in its quality. However people do not appreciate relative qualitative emotional understanding and that it varies in quality. Greater qualities of art will arouse greater qualities of emotion. Of course the secularist will claim that that religious emotion is all subjective without any qualitative distinction. I believe this is a psychologically harmful misconception.
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