/lit/ - Literature

just looks like a pseud telling trumpkins what they want to hear in exchange for sheks

>>10695980
>Why on earth is this book never talked about?
because the people that love complaining about modern art generally don't read and sure as hell never read books about art

>>10695990
It's not though. "trumpkins" are as much to blame about the politicization of art as the modernists are. You have people now investing in certain art projects simply because they think it serves their agenda, it's the same abuse of art. In fact I've seen the "All art is political" shit said by them more than anyone else.

>outlines dozens of examples of the shapes of consciousness, showcasing the modern academic epidemic of "critiquing" knowledge up close (i.e. destroys the modern "the Absolute is unknowable" faggotry)

Why on earth is this book never talked about? It's more relevant now than ever before. His writing style makes it so even complete buffoons can see the problem at hand.

>>10696000
>You have people now investing in certain art projects simply because they think it serves their agenda

is this a troll or do u rly not realize that through human history like 90% of art was commissioned as part of some agenda

>>10696000
>the "All art is political" shit
What would be an example of wholly apolitical art?

>>10696024
>through human history like 90% of art was commissioned as part of some agenda
This is the conclusion one could only form if they studied the period of time surrounding artists more than the art itself.

>>10696040
>it's 20 foot tall statue of some despotic god king

yes, i can only tell this has a political agenda if i know "the context", neck yaself my pseud

>>10696037
Most art fits that bill. For example, in the OP book, he draws up the example (among many others) of the painter Gustave Courbet, who had this to say about art:

>I also believe that painting is an essentially CONCRETE art and can only consist of the representation of REAL AND EXISTING objects. It is a completely physical language that has as words all visible objects, and an ABSTRACT object, invisible and non-existent, is not part of painting's domain. Imagination in art consists in knowing how to find the most complete expression of an existing object, but never in imagining or in creating the object itself.

Meanwhile, in the book he points out several criticisms from Professor Michael Fried, all of which are so off the mark they turn several of Courbet's paintings into manifestations of Freudian psychopathology, rather than just being mere expressions of an artistic passionate sort. Here is a bit more on it, with other examples:

https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2003/12/the-rape-of-the-masters

Or in short, people who go on about "symbolism" or "the politics of art" are focused more on unconscious elements that are not even represented in a piece rather than the piece itself, the visible artistry of the work, like the use of color and the direct sensations we get from looking at the work.

>>10696079
>like the use of color and the direct sensations we get from looking at the work.
if it's not metaphysical what's the point then? just getting a tingling sense in your taint?

>>10696092
>what's the point then?
Right, what is the point of art then? Which is precisely why this sort of thing happens. People who don't care about the enterprise of art are the people who come in and introduce politics and symbolism to the mix.

>>10696099
calling art "art" is part of the problem, art was never "art", art was the skill a certain person possessed that was used to create an object that served a purpose.

everything else is just modernist wankery

>>10696040
>some of the most famous and influential versions of greek myth only exist sandwiched between the poet verbally fellating a rich tyrant for "winning" chariot races he didn't even personally participate in
>uhh you're looking at it wrong. you're supposed to look at it without seeing politics!

and now i wish i was actually saving those retard wojak pictures

>>10696115
The rising of art is inevitable in ages of comparison. Art is simply whatever comes out on top, what is realized to be the top. Though I agree with the notion that this is definitely what attracts modernists to it, like moths to a flame.

>>10696016
>His writing style makes it so even complete buffoons can see the problem at hand.
Well, I might be an idiot then because it took me the better part of a year to get a firm grip on that book.
I agree, it's immensely important but requires much from the reader in terms of knowledge.

>>10696000
Nigger, the literal FOUNDATION OF WESTERN ART comes from rich italian faggots wanting status symbols that also fell in line with the humanist agenda.
Please refrain from pretending you know a thing about art .
>>10696079
>Courbet
>not political
He was literally exiled for his involvement in the Paris Commune, retard

>>10696099
If you cared about the enterprise of art you'd know it has absolutely no point other than itself. You would also know that a huge part of what you posit as politization of art is precisely in response to that.
Honestly lad, don't even try.

>>10696181
>He was literally exiled for his involvement in the Paris Commune
And I should care about this why?

>>10696187
>If you cared about the enterprise of art you'd know it has absolutely no point other than itself.
only if you are a filthy degenerate

>>10696190
Courbet's realism was extremely political. If you were truly acquainted with the tradition of european art, you'd know realism was an attempt to remove art from the stasis of nobility paintings and idylic pastures and move it to the working class, the new urban landscape and so on.
Anyone remotely acquainted with Courbet's art should know this, but you don't care about what artists do, you only care about a vague, grandiose notion of art you never really reflected upon.
>>10696196
Not only this changes nothing, considering most artists are indeed degenerate, it's common sense and the basis for most of the art between the counter-reforms and realism.

>>10696205
>Courbet's realism was extremely political. If you were truly acquainted with the tradition of european art, you'd know realism was an attempt to remove art from the stasis of nobility paintings and idylic pastures and move it to the working class, the new urban landscape and so on.
>Anyone remotely acquainted with Courbet's art should know this, but you don't care about what artists do, you only care about a vague, grandiose notion of art you never really reflected upon.
All this, and you didn't answer my question at all. Why should I care about his involvement in the Paris Commune? More precisely, what bearing does it have on any of his art? Tell me what bearing it has on the experience of the Bonjour Monsieur Courbet painting that you posted.

>>10696215
That painting literally depicts Courbet disrespecting a rich guy while the rich guy's servant's head hangs low in shame.
Do you seriously not see the political undertone in it? I mean, this isn't my reading, ok, be aware, this is the standard reading of this painting, this is how it's studied.
In trying to depoliticize Courbet's work, you participate in the crime you accuse better scholars than you to be guilty.

>>10696227
>literally depicts Courbet disrespecting a rich guy while the rich guy's servant's head hangs low in shame
Does it? What's the dog represent then? Or the horse and carriage in the background? And how does this relate to any grand proposal that Courbet's work is overall "extremely political"? What does that make of his paintings which do not feature people and only depict scenes in nature? What else is being expressed in this painting other than Courbet meeting two men with a dog on a dirt road, with walking stick in hand? If you actually looked at the painting, you would see an expression of this alone, just a scene, with a certain mood perhaps but none of which can be said to embrace an entire ideological narrative, in which the title "Bonjour Monsieur Courbet" suffices to explain the entirety of it.

You're thinking too much. The experience of art is not about thinking, but about seeing and feeling.

>>10696258
>You're thinking too much. The experience of art is not about thinking, but about seeing and feeling.
you managed to make it somehow even worse than the ideologues, congratulations

All art is political. I can’t appreciate the beauty of landscape painting without first reading several essays on how the political climate shaped the tree design in the background.

>>10696263
How do you figure that? Overthinking is precisely what brings people to far fetched analyses of art that end up having almost nothing to do with the work. Painters, also, work with color, not with abstractions.

>>10696258
Mate, the thing you're ignoring is that in Courbet's case, we have documentation of his intentions, and his realist work is politcally minded.
I'm sure if you want you can look up readings of that painting and I doubt most will vary from what I remember studying. It's not that I'm thinking too much, you're thinking too little. Art is a mental thing, art made solely for the senses becomes neoclassicist pap, completely devoid of any strenght, the visual equivalent of corn syrup.
You are actually disrespecting artists in saying "art is not about thinking, but about seeing and feeling". As I've said, you have no interest at all in art, it's gifts and consequences, you only care about a distant idea of art because you feel that's the cultured thing to do. Ridiculous, worse than a child.
>>10696275
Painters work with paint.

>>10696266
All trees are phallic objects, anon. You would know this if you had properly studied art history.

>>10696275
As soon as you put the "art" in a place that's somehow important for your society you are making it political. The only way a painting is not political is if artists just drop them around and people just randomly encounter them and decide there on the spot to like them.

As soon as there's anything approaching an "art scene" there's politics involved and your insistence on pretty colors won't change anything about that.

How is art NOT political? I'm sorry if it hurts you to realise that art is not a special sphere of human activity unrelated to social reality, but that's just common sense.

>>10696277
>we have documentation of his intentions
Plenty of artists have said rather silly things about their work. Rothko said his work expressed "the human drama" despite the fact that it is basically just a bunch of rectangles of color that could possibly create a mood but not one which contains "the human drama" in it. What is more important in art is what you see and experience from the work.

Regardless, I would like to see where Courbet does say anything about a grand political narrative in his work, and that painting in particular. Because it's simply not being depicted in the painting. A mere scene of some men meeting on a dirt road does not allude to a deep political agenda unless you think more than you see, which means you are disrespecting the artistry.

>>10696297
>As soon as you put the "art" in a place that's somehow important for your society you are making it political.
What people external of the work do is irrelevant to the work itself. "People are politically driven" does not equate to "all art is political" — people are not art. Moreover, the only thing that can be truly said about a work is what is directly depicted in it, not what you interpret about it in your rambling musings.

>>10696319
>What people external of the work do is irrelevant to the work itself.
then why does it matter if people enjoy the colors externally to the work itself and what differentiates art from not art?

>>10696311
What were the politics of John Wayne Gacy’s art?

>>10696331
>why does it matter if people enjoy the colors externally to the work itself
The colors are there in the work, the political musings are not. Are you seriously asking why this is important to realize?

>>10696348
the colors are just material pigment stuck to some other material and it means nothing without a person that interpret those pigments representing something he knows or doesn't know.

A painting of a tree means nothing if you subtract the context of a person that has seen nature before and can compare the painting with the real thing. You are just drawing an artificial threshold after which context doesn't matter anymore because it's convenient for your argument but it's completely arbitrary.

>>10696363
>the colors are just material pigment stuck to some other material and it means nothing without a person that interpret those pigments representing something he knows or doesn't know.
True to an extent. Even a man with zero context will pick up on sensations of the color and its arrangement. But yes, the scene itself will be lost and it will appear as a blob of hues and shades.

>A painting of a tree means nothing if you subtract the context of a person that has seen nature before and can compare the painting with the real thing.
See above. It will mean something like a Rothko painting will mean to most people — a sensation derived from seeing the arrangement of hues and shades, though nothing more.

>You are just drawing an artificial threshold after which context doesn't matter anymore because it's convenient for your argument but it's completely arbitrary.
Nope. It is not an "artificial threshold" — it is one based on the basic understanding that a painting is something that you look at. The tree, while perhaps "meaningless" to the eye who has never seen trees before, nonetheless appears to the eye in the form of a blob of hues and shades. For the person who knows what a tree is, they can see the tree, the scene. However, you can know as much about the political inclinations of the artist as you want, there does come a point where it is not visible in the work whatsoever — we can see the tree there in the scene, but we can't see "the decimation of Western civilization" in the scene, or some other type of nonsense. It's just not there. The man with zero context confirms it, because what he sees in the end is the hues and shades of things which are actually in the scene, even if he does not grasp the scene. He does not see the blob of hues and shades of "the decimation of Western civilization."

It's certainly not for the "convenience of my argument" either. My interest here is more scientific than anything. I'm interested in getting as close to an accurate depiction of art as possible. In painting, the chief faculty of the experience is in seeing. Any conclusion of painting which starts on any other premise is simply less accurate.

>>10696311
the political reading is for bug souls. it's as pedestrian as a molecular analysis of the paint. we get it, omg courbet totally hated rich people and stuff. omg rotho totally worked with subtle effects and it's important because the historical context favored x and y

>>10695980
The foundation of modern art is rich assholes competing to see who can pay for prettier pictures. Once artists have a target market, they make art to appeal to certain people. Art becomes political as a result.

Rape of the Masters is sour grapes from a psued who unironically thought art was just pretty pictures until something challenged him and he couldn't handle that.

>>10697016
money laundering scheme

>>10697016
>he couldn't handle that
He handled it pretty well, actually.

>>10697068

>>10695980

>The Rape of the Masters

great title Kimball, very politically incorrect, you have successfully triggered me

>>10697079
Nice projection. The only reason why I care about reading art history and the subject is because I know first-hand the tremendous world of beauty that exists in audiovisual experiences in art, all of which becomes suppressed and disrespected by politically-minded ideologues who don't care about art.

>>10697047
Funnily enough, my undergrad is in econ and I wrote my thesis on the economics of high art. Valuations for art in the modern day are best understood as real estate. There's a concrete, limited amount of Van Gogh's, similar to the finite amount of land in Manhattan. Because there's an explosion in global wealth, but not every country will protect an individual's wealth, money flows to stable assets. It's a fair bet that Manhattan Financial District real estate won't become less valuable, so there's a huge premium on the land because it's secure. Continuing global growth in wealth pushes this valuation upwards.

Same thing for Van Gogh paintings. It's likely he will remain incredibly well regarded, people with money need assets to store their money in that the Chinese government can't seize, so the price gets bid up.

In other words, high art valuations are best understood as a safety premium.

Skyrocketing art valuations have nothing to do with politics, but that doesn't prevent art from being political. Famous paintings are merely safe assets that you typically earn a good return on. Their value as pure "art" is completely divorced from valuation at this point, in the same way Manhattan real estate values don't reflect what most Manhattanites can afford.

>>10696079
I don't see why you couldn't take in the historical/political implications found in a work of art while at the same time appreciating it's aesthetic/spiritual qualities. Would it make sense to ignore the rise of the middle class in 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings? Maybe I'm taking a different understanding out of the term political than you are. Although I'm not a Marxist, I find Marx's imperative to understand a historical moment through it's material/political conditions a useful lens in viewing an art object. This isn't to say a better approach, only a different perspective.

ITT: /pol/ and /leftypol/ need to be gassed for ruining art discourse

>>10697224
>>>reddit

>>10697144
You know shit about art history if you can't see how the birth of the bourgeoisie and the shift from god to man is what actually caused the birth of our notion of art.
Art, like everything in human society, is intrinsically linked to politics, and the fact that you can see a Goya or a Courbet without considering their political weight only tells me you're a bad spectator, while the work will remain political.
>>10696319
So, basically, if the artist can't decide that art is political neither can academics, you should be the final judge about what western art entails and what it should be dealing with?
Why are you people so fucking anti-intellectual in a literature board, jesus christ.

>>10697266
>the birth of the bourgeoisie and the shift from god to man is what actually caused the birth of our notion of art
It is a little more complex than that. I can see its development clearly. Why does that mean I should agree with their sentiment, though? Not every development is progress.

The people who understand art best should be the final judges of art.

>>10697292
You claimed art was at some point apolitical and then got corrupted by politics. This has never happened, because it's impossible to separate politics and aesthetics, at least in the way we understand both in Western Society. Now, you might not agree with the sentiment any amount you want, it won't change shit. I have no idea what your point even is anymore, but the development of renascentist society is without a doubt what caused our notion of art (and art history) to be what it is. Your point is that you don't like any western art then?

>>10696016
Why is the absolute knowable? What is absolute? It seems like either the aim of that word is misplaced or there must be one, because to say "there is none" is one such example

I'm going to read Schiller make a decent discussion thread about him. See you in a few weeks pseudo brainlets

>>10697149
I have a risk analyst friend who's been exploring the idea of comparing cryptocurrency valuations to high art. He thinks it's a natural fit since both are effectively imagined value.

>>10697316
>You claimed art was at some point apolitical and then got corrupted by politics.
Art was and still is apolitical. What became corrupted was art criticism and thus art history.

>it's impossible to separate politics and aesthetics
But I have already done so in the thread with the other paintings posted. Explain the "politics" of this painting then.

You don't seem to understand what the experience of art is, which is why you're having trouble seeing where it ends. The experience of this painting, for example, is entirely in seeing it; your intellect only comes into the picture for the purpose of discerning what your eye sees. The visual experience, however, is the critical element of the experience, it IS the experience of this painting. If you see a vaguely depicted dick inscribed in the rocks somewhere, that is just you being a horny bastard. It's important to note the difference. The piece is titled "Rocks at Mouthier," not "Rocks at Mouthier with Invisible Dicks."

>I have no idea what your point even is anymore
My point is the "art" that has come from following this erroneous criticism of art is bad art, because it's bad criticism. This shit does not help anyone become a good artist. It does not help us refine our artistic aesthetic. It contributes to the decline of aesthetic sensibilities in the West which have become diluted by political shenanigans.

>>10695980
>tfw art has always been work critiqued within a political lease, from the backlash against Impressionism (and then surrealism and then modern/ post-modern)
>tfw people only seem to become aware of a criticism’s political nature when it offends their personal political sensibilities

>>10696079
>Or in short, people who go on about "symbolism" or "the politics of art" are focused more on unconscious elements that are not even represented in a piece rather than the piece itself, the visible artistry of the work, like the use of color and the direct sensations we get from looking at the work.
This isn't true for most of the great masters though. They operated on an understanding of their patron's world, and their patron's ability to pay.4

Still lives showing exotic fruits and flowers are signs your patrons can afford to ship these things to a country where they don't grow, furs are a sign of your patron's divine allowance to hunt for them, maps are to show his dominion over other lands, and their estate in the background always looks like they can afford the staff to keep it. Same with how artists at the time charged: does the painting show their hands? That means they were rich enough to afford both their hands. Are their children moving or holding something? That means they could afford to get their children into the studio. Are they wearing clothes painted in rare pigments? Money.

How big the canvas and what it shows meant a lot to the art market up until the fall of academic art, and it's mostly political. That's why you have bishops who pissed off the wrong cardinal having his arse poked by demons on cathedrals, and why people's hands get bigger in portraits as their annual income increases. Nobody asked David to paint them with their hand inside their waistcoat because they wanted to keep their hand warm in the studio. It's because it calls on Polykleitos and Napoleon, the entire history of Western Canon and its politics, to be drawn that way. Kings don't wear ermine because it gets chilly in the castle: it's because it's precious through its rarity and befitting of their political status.

This is babbytier shit, read any other book and then about ten more.

>>10697336
Your risk analyst friend is a psued. Crypto currencies usually don't have capped production (bitcoin is the notable exception to this). Most cryptos are banking on society just kind of agreeing they're valuable (imo this unlikely in the long run, but nobody knows for sure) or excelling as a medium of exchange. The latter makes Etherium worth watching - it's stable, secure, and a known entity making it a great candidate for trading money without governments finding out. There's concrete value there.

Famous art is valuable because society has already agreed it's worth something - Van Gogh has name recommendation, the flavor of the week ICO does not. Because there is a hard limit on the number of Van Gogh paintings, they are valuable. Because they are valuable assets that are incredibly unlikely to become less valuable, the price goes up.

Newer artists fetching high valuations might be a fair comparison, but even then I'm not sure. There's a growing market for safe assets, and once an artist sells a piece for a high price their value usually sticks. They're different markets, although new artists and cryptos are similar in that they're speculative.

Bitcoins longevity is questionable since they pay for security with mining incentives. Once we run out of bitcoin to mine, exchanges will increase rates to make up for this. The increase in exchange rates will compete away any advantage the coin has to other coins, like Etherium.

Tell your friend to read a book, and his employer to find a smarter employee.

>>10697394
I don't know why you'd say he's wrong to make the comparison when you yourself agree that both cryptos and art rely on society agreeing that they're valuable. There are undoubtedly other factors at play, and I haven't talked to him about it since the crash, so he may have reevaluated, but I do think it's an interesting comparison, especially since the massive volatility suggests that no one really knows how to value bitcoin.

>>10697292
You are insufferablely self-absorbed jesus.

>>10697389
>Still lives showing exotic fruits and flowers are signs your patrons can afford to ship these things to a country where they don't grow, furs are a sign of your patron's divine allowance to hunt for them, maps are to show his dominion over other lands, and their estate in the background always looks like they can afford the staff to keep it. Same with how artists at the time charged: does the painting show their hands? That means they were rich enough to afford both their hands. Are their children moving or holding something? That means they could afford to get their children into the studio. Are they wearing clothes painted in rare pigments? Money.

This line of reasoning is hilarious and also sad. What you are describing is a world in which "patrons" hired artists to draw things merely for... what purpose, exactly? To deliberately make ostentatious shit? To have something to laugh over in their private quarters? "Go spend a decade of your life mastering color and shading and learning carefully how to paint human beings and nature so that I can instill my political belief into them; yes, yes, I know I could just write a political treatise in under a month, but this would be so much more fun!" No. They don't need to pay an artist to work on an elaborately colored, masterfully shaded, beautifully depicted piece in order to feel superior that way or try and influence the world. The world you are describing is an extremely silly world. Maybe there were a few perverse individuals who did this, but there are always exceptions.

Your understanding of the interests of the royal class ("patrons") is low class. Ultimately, the royal class seeks, in all ages, artists to create excellent work because beauty is pleasurable. It's the same in the body and psychology: the healthier the person, the more they are interested towards things external to themselves. They want beauty, because they want pleasure, because they are full of energy for other things. Elaborate scenes, even if they depict politically-based scenarios, are paid for because they are BEAUTIFUL. It's a very different thing from paying someone to create these scenes for the embedded message that is not even visible in the final work.

>read the garbage books I read and fuck off.
Not happening. I can't abide by such disrespectful bullshit as that.

>>10697224
which one is the political one and which one is the one that only cares about pretty colors?

>>10697459
They're both the political and both the problem.

>only cares about pretty colors
Case in point.

>>10697467
i don't know, i find the pretty colors thesis as retarded as the political one, and i don't think anon has made a good case for it in this thread

maybe the book does but i doubt it

>>10697480
If you see no value in beauty, you have no business being anywhere's near art. You don't understand it.

>>10697422
The reason why iPhones are worth $600 Is because enough people in society bought them at that price for it to be worth it for Apple. Society agreeing something is valuable is more of a baseline requirement to be valuable than a similarity between two markets.

Bitcoin and art are different because their utility is different. Bitcoin is potentially a store of value, a medium of exchange, a scam, or a financial vehicle. You are right that we don't know yet. High art is a stable, safe, long-term investment. New art is speculating on which artists will be considered high art a generation from now (or people just buying things that look cool).

These are all meaningfully different reasons to give something value. Your friend doesn't understand these things at a fundamental level and is probably the sort of pseud that gets mad that Warhol was famous.

>>10697458
>What you are describing is a world in which "patrons" hired artists to draw things merely for... what purpose, exactly?
TO SHOW OFF. Seriously, if you visit Rembrandt's house, you enter through his show room which is exactly what it says: it's packed with pictures showing the range of patronage, denoted by those signs. This is also the reason why Dutch burgher's wives in the period of the great Dutch Masters had doll house replicas of the private parts of the house in the entry room: because the rest of the house was private you showed off your precious things through art and miniatures in the public rooms of the house. The same thing happens in public mural and private mural quality in Ancient Roman houses: public rooms have better quality and rarer pigments because art is ostentation.

Read Hall's Dictionary of Subject and Symbols in Art. You're basically a retard when it comes to reading any picture up until the 1900, after which everything becomes more openly political. You're more visually illiterate in the medieval, Renaissance, Rococo, Neo-Classical periods and all Academic Art, which makes quoting from Courbert and Delacroix all the more hilarious, because they would explicate these things to you if you just read their still in print and very detailed journals.

Take a basic art course since you seem to be incapable of reading about this. Or try Gombrich; he has lots of pictures.

>>10697486
of course i see value in metaphysical beauty, which has nothing to do with pretty colors

>>10697422
To add on to my post that I already replied with: reread my original explanation about why high art is valuable. It's valuable because the artists are dead (fixed supply), society grants great value to them (culturally and economically), and they are highly unlikely to decrease in value. People need a place to park their cash where Maduro, Putin, Xi, et. all can't get it (ie: not in a bank). High valuations for high art are a combination of a safety premium and the expectation that growing global wealth will continue to push prices up earning the owner a high return.

Your friend doesn't know what he's talking about. A second year econ undergrad in a decent program could put it together if they wrote a paper about this.

>>10697493
>TO SHOW OFF.
t. low class idiot who projects his own sentiment towards art onto everyone else.

It seems like we're at an impasse. You have zero capacity to understand how beauty could be the end goal here because of your own ignoble stature.

>>10696037
None and all. It depends on what you project onto it.

>>10697488
>>10697510
You could be right, I'm not economist, and I don't know his argument well enough to present it. I still doubt that he's a pseud, given his credentials.

>>10697520
lol, okay brother, all the art historians, the Dutch, Rembrandt himself, Delacroix, Courbert, and all the archaelogists got it wrong, and what they actually meant to say when talking about "money" was "aesthetics" and vice versa. You sure proved the world wrong, groundbreaking shit. Read a book and you won't be stuck, baka.

>>10697540
Read the OP book. Not "ALL the art historians" got it wrong.

>>10697545
Did you write the book? kekekekekekekekekekekeke holy shit, I'm embarrassed for you famtbh

>>10697495
Go fuck around with metaphysical art then. Stay away from the visual arts.

>>10697554
don't mind me if i do

>>10697552
Herd instinct in a nutshell. If the masses aren't piling over something, it's a shallow enterprise with no aim other than its own self-fulfillment.

>>10697530
>I still doubt that he's a pseud, given his credentials
a lot of pseuds have impressive credentials, anon

>>10697581
Is your author's sample the largest part of the run on shelves rn?

ITT: people who have literally never had an aesthetic experience in their lives try to argue about art. Like a fucking deaf person trying to argue about the politics of Fugue in B minor.

>>10697266
>Art, like everything in human society, is intrinsically linked to politics
pls explain the politics behind these stairs

>>10697971
As a failsafe of the social contract the centre file may be used to process up the stairs while the flanks will allow the smaller traffic flowing down safe passage. The classical design suggests the stairs are for the men of letters to utlize in their execution of important work.

>>10697185
>I don't see why you couldn't take in the historical/political implications found in a work of art while at the same time appreciating it's aesthetic/spiritual qualities. Would it make sense to ignore the rise of the middle class in 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings?

Because the historical/political implications are not actually present in the experience of art / the aesthetic. It is in the moment, thoughtless, entirely of feeling/sensation. Schiller wrote, in his Letters Upon The Aesthetic Education of Man:

>[The aesthetic] is a whole in itself [...] Here alone we feel ourselves swept out of time, and our humanity expresses itself with purity and integrity as if it had not yet received any impression or interruption from the operation of external powers.

When you look at that painting you posted, in that moment of looking, in the aesthetic, you are experiencing the colors, shades, perspective, and discerning actions, objects, and expressions, all of a visual nature (since it is a painting) and none of which is abstract, which you embrace through the senses. That act of seeing is the experience of that painting, not your reflections about what the elements in the piece signify in a sociopolitical context. The stage of symbol analysis is brain work, not the work of the senses, and thus when you start on that, you have left the experience of art behind and have begun a very different process.

>>10696037
yesterday i saw the movie Cape Fear and you´ve guessed it, it didn´t have any political message

>>10698012

>>10697971
they're ableist

>>10696181
>tfw I can understand the politics but thinks it as subtle and weak as toilet paper knuckles
>realism
>only what I could see
Great job ruining photo-realism.

>>10696258
The tree men in the foreground is as subtle as a contemporary political cartoon, only less big heads, sqwiggly lines and explanation signs.

>>10695980
>RAPE MASTERS
nice

This thread was legit good until OP put fingers in his ears in >>10697520 and just started ignoring art history altogether.
The matter of considering context in analysis, interpretation and evaluation is a difficult one. OP makes a mistake by pretending history didn't happen at all, but at the same time, he is correct when he says that a modern viewer doesn't really care about ermine's fur on a king symbolizing his wealth. That king is dead, we don't give a shit about him and his wealth, except on a purely intellectual level. Shklovsky in "Art as Technique" gave a similar example with Turgenev's writing. OP's position is nothing new, really, he just ruffled feathers with the vaguely anti-left, anti-modern rhetoric.

>>10700947
>OP makes a mistake by pretending history didn't happen at all
Where was this mistake made?

>>10700966
>>10697520

>>10700992
That's not pretending that it didn't happen, but simply acknowledgement that not all of history is progress. What more proof do you need that the people arguing for the politicization of art do not have a healthy access to the aesthetic in art and lack near-total interest in it to boot? It's not even correct to say that their aesthetic is simply different than mine — it's clear as day that their "aesthetic" is focused on elements which are not present in the experience of the art that they pretend to discuss.

>>10696016
>His writing style makes it so even complete buffoons can see the problem at hand.
nice meme

>>10701037
You're OP? Please stop writing so much nonsense.

>acknowledgement that not all of history is progress
Nobody said a single thing about historical progress. That anon simply calls attention to the objective material context that produced and shaped the art.

>It's not even correct to say that their aesthetic is simply different than mine — it's clear as day that their "aesthetic" is focused on elements which are not present in the experience of the art that they pretend to discuss.
Analyzing art based on the context that produced it was the default approach to art in the whole nineteenth century and hasn't been uncommon at all afterwards, despite the strong formalist critique of the approach. You cannot deny these simple facts, you're not fighting against some recent leftist conspiracy.
I'm probably not disagreeing with you in principle, but you carelessly simplify many theoretical problems.

>>10701373
>You're OP?

Yes. And you aren't completely following what I am saying. Here are other posts by me, which never got a response (maybe everyone missed them?):

>>10696425
>>10697366
>>10698064

>That anon simply calls attention to the objective material context that produced and shaped the art.
>you're not fighting against some recent leftist conspiracy.

If you read those posts thoroughly, you can see that I am aware of this.

>>10695980
The Last Jedi fits the bill.

>this is political
I agree with OP, that the ultimate end of art is beauty or expressing some fundamental human experience. I think another good example of this would be Ilya Repin's painting "Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son". I don't see any political end in the painting, nor do I need to know the historical backstory to enjoy it; the name is enough to make the viewer understand the scene and cause an emotional response.

>>10701864
the dude that attacked it with an axe or whatever is as correct in his viewing experience as you.

>>10701871
>correct viewing experience
>correct

>>10701893
yes, they're both equally correct in a world that has no values. they're both wrong in a world that has no values and in a world with values though. do you need a diagram to appreciate the aesthetics of that?

>>10701901
Are you confused?

>>10696079
Gustave Courbet's description doesn't preclude political art, just the idea of art being beyond recreation. Painting a scene of the drafting of the American constitution still holds much political message despite it being strictly a recreation of an image. Can a painting not portray something/someone as heroic because heroism is an abstract idea? Though, yes, Freudian readings are mostly cancer.

>>10701926
Allow me to try and convey how our views differ, because they seem wildly different to me.

When you say "political art," you mean "art that depicts, contains, or involves political drama." But when I see "political art," I think "exemplary works of political accomplishments."

My point is, a painting which contains political drama is not "political art." It is a painting — art in the form of painting is "exemplary works of painterly accomplishments," or something along those lines. Take away the form of art, and focus on the whole enterprise of art, and it would be "exemplary works of artistic accomplishments," "artistic" here being "that which relates to the art form." So an artistic act in painting is any act which seeks to visually express something, because that is what paintings are, a visual expression.

And before you say, "but what is the difference between a political accomplishment and an artistic accomplishment? Can't a painter paint as a political act, the painting being a product of said act, making it a political accomplishment in the end?" Yes, a painter can do this — but there are two things to note here:

1. The political act seeks to communicate a political statement and persuade others to join a political movement or intention. Meanwhile, the artistic act seeks to communicate an expression of beauty and persuade others to join in the relishing of this beauty.

2. The political act and the artistic act are not to be judged and criticized the same way because their goals are different.

You could say that beauty can be found in politics, and someone could be so entangled with the political that they end up wanting to express beauty that they behold in the political realm. This is where it gets muddy, and it ultimately depends on the individual work and the artist in question. Nonetheless, the finished product could and should be analyzed from different angles. If a painting was made this way, you could analyze it from the perspective of the political (e.g. "Was this a powerful political act? Did it sway people politically? How does it compare to other political acts?") and separately from the perspective of the artistic (e.g. in painting, "Was this a beautiful, well crafted painting? Did it move people emotionally? How does it compare to other paintings?"). What this means is, those who are interested in the artistic, the art form, DO NOT need to know ANYTHING about the artist. The only time we need to know this, is if we wish to become artists ourselves, and we want to try and emulate the lifestyle and psychology of the artists we admire, in hopes of receiving a similar influence that will drive us to similar artistic aspirations. Other than that, the political stance of an artist, what the artist even really thought when s/he was creating something, is irrelevant; the work of art must speak for itself entirely here.

art bump

>>10695980
>>10701403
OP, as far as I can tell you are correct and you've successfully exposed this board as containing overly intellectualized pseuds who have little genuine experience of art as Art.

The aesthetic experience of various art forms is something that philosophers have written about for millennia, and there has been a largely consistent evaluation of the primary value of art works and the artistic experience of them, even if interpretations and explanations of this differ radically.

http://www.denisdutton.com/bell.htm


This article is the most to-the-point direct examination of aesthetic experience as phenomena I've read, as it specifically attempts to demonstrate that a large portion of people likely do not experience Art primarily as an aesthetic play of color forms, unlike genuine Art appreciators, and that it is because of this that so many people seek other explanations for the value of esteemed artworks.

>>10703951
>art as Art

I have a hunch OP might also be that faggot who shills icycalm on every occasion. If that's the case, small protip: even the first 30 pages of Eco's History of Beauty would show how reductionist and retarded your take on the purpose of art is.

>itt filthy plebs don't realize politics is the master science, that man is the political animal, and that everything is political

>>10704443
>Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it also has a lot to do with the beholder's cultural standards.
It's like you didn't read the thread.

>>10704463
Are you trying to act like you read Eco's book?

>>10704479
Are you trying to act like you read the thread? The very first sentence of that book's description is the same exact nonsense already addressed in the thread.

>>10704450
>Legislators are the smartest because they name things

>>10704502
>that book's description
lol

>>10703951
Clive "significant form but i don't know what makes form significant or why it's should be that way" Bell

>>10704502
your intellectual engagement with the text is of a very low standard

>>10704522
I can go read it and make a mockery of it in the next thread if you'd like, since according to you, it shows how "reductionist" the ideas in this thread are, even though this only makes sense from the point of view of the idiots being lambasted in the thread who apparently continue to confuse the non-artistic with the artistic. "B-but it's reductionist," you say, because you are an idiot.

>>10704541
That's the post you need to answer to desu >>10704541

>>10704541
That's the post you need to answer to desu >>10704531

>>10704541
>I can go read it and make a mockery of it in the next thread if you'd like
You will not deliver, will you?

>>10704558
no, I will not, it's not worth my time.

>>10704573
lots of time to shitpost on /lit/ though lol

>>10704573
Not sure why you replied for me.

>>10704558
But the other guy is half-right. I will if I deem it worth my time. At the moment, it seems unlikely.

>>10704596
Then don't ask me to tell you to read it and report back, poseur.

>>10704603
My point is that you should give me a better reason to read it. Your comment associated with the recommendation was off the mark so now I have no other expectation than to be going into something I will be tearing apart.

>>10703951
>http://www.denisdutton.com/bell.htm
Thanks, I'll give it a read.

>>10704596
>Not sure why you replied for me.
Anon was tol that in another thread, he is still mad that his self-published art essay isn't good.

>>10704644
it's you that's not good

>>10704525
If you consider that a serious criticism of his writing you've completely missed the point of it, either from not paying attention or because you're relying on weak secondary criticism of it. Of course he cannot 'explain' "what makes form significant", if that was even possible, in a general sense. To do so would make him an artistic genius, assuming that he could identify some common pattern that makes works 'significant', which might be like a mathematician identifying some specific formula for the 'significance' of a proof.

Clive Bell goes out of his way to ground his explanations in specific examples, and because of this there is nothing merely tautological about what he is saying. He clearly distinguishes artistic works in which "significant form" is their chief value, from those in which he deems it is not, and invites the reader to evaluate their own aesthetic sensibility using them as a metric. You could do this right now, using the paintings described in the article, if you aren't afraid of what this might reveal.

>>10704746
>if you aren't afraid of what this might reveal.

what's that then?

bump because artguments are fun

>>10706178
no they're not

>>10706178
Ok, bumper, do you yourself perceive visual art aesthetically?

>>10706576
I think so, yes. Maybe not as much I could, and this has certainly given me food for thought, next time I am in a gallery I will try to view the art (even) more in terms of aesthetics and see what difference it makes. I tend not to be able to switch off very well, which perhaps means I tend to over-interpret things that I should be simply looking at. But the art that has stuck with me and that I want to see again has certainly produced reactions on my part that aren't solely intellectual responses, and that I wouldn't have got in any way other than standing in front of the painting itself.

I read the Clive Bell essay and I think it's a useful distinction to make, but I also think reducing art entirely to aesthetics is too reductive.

Most of my favourite art is non-representational, though, which I guess means that significant form is more important to me than content. And I don't tend to like conceptual art either.

I agree with the "art is ostentation" angle on all those portraits of rich people, I don't think that precludes such paintings being beautiful in themselves but it seems pretty obvious that their value for the patron was primarily a show of wealth (their value to the painter and to current viewers is another matter of course).

To be honest I don't know much about art so I won't pretend to have a side to pick in the discussion, at least not yet. But it's all very interesting. Lots to think about.

>>10706734
>next time I am in a gallery I will try to view the art (even) more in terms of aesthetics and see what difference it makes.
Keep in mind that the aesthetic experience is universal but the objects that induce it aren't. Those depend on you. Paintings in a gallery just might not be your thing, or none of the paintings at the particular gallery that you are visiting at least. It'd be like trying to get hard to a woman you just aren't into.

>I also think reducing art entirely to aesthetics is too reductive.
I feel the opposite. Attempting to make art about anything other than the aesthetic experience is reductive. It's because the aesthetic experience is bottomless; aesthetic emotion is so powerful that it feels indefinitely deep (a quality which I suspect may be part of why some people are hesitant to embrace the aesthetic in art). Just look at Stendhal, he had quite the aesthetic experience in Florence.

>>10707474
>universal
And by that I mean in the human universe.

>>10704525
>“Why are we so profoundly moved by forms related in a particular way?” The question is extremely interesting, but irrelevant to aesthetics. In pure aesthetics we have only to consider our emotion and its object: for the purposes of aesthetics we have no right, neither is there any necessity, to pry behind the object into the state of mind of him who made it. [...] For a discussion of aesthetics, it need be agreed only that forms arranged and combined according to certain unknown and mysterious laws do move us in a particular way, and that it is the business of an artist so to combine and arrange them that they shall move us. These moving combinations and arrangements I have called, for the sake of convenience and for a reason that will appear later, “Significant Form.”

>>10707474
>Attempting to make art about anything other than the aesthetic experience is reductive.

While I agree that it is extremely important and is probably the primary aim of most art, I don't think that aesthetic experience, at least the way Bell talks about it, is the sole purpose of all art.

Magritte, for example, is not really terribly concerned with aesthetics, at least visual aesthetics. What strikes you about a Magritte painting is never sublime visual beauty. He isn't even really an especially good painter, technically speaking, and not formally innovative whatsoever. But I think it would be quite strange to claim that Magritte isn't art at all, firstly because his chosen medium is entirely visual and secondly because he does elicit (for me at least) a strong response, which isn't on an intellectual level, it's instinctive. I find some of his paintings unsettling, others calming. I suppose by another definition that response could still be a kind of aesthetic response - Magritte himself talked about trying to paint poetry - but by Bell's purely colour/shape definition it isn't. So maybe I'm only disagreeing with him and not with you - what do you think of Magritte, aesthetically speaking?

>>10708913
PS

this is the specific painting that inspired Magritte's entire artistic trajectory. He was (so the story goes) brought to tears by a black and white reproduction of it in a catalogue. In any case he clearly felt, rather than thought, very strongly about the odd association of objects in a representational painting, without even knowing the full aesthetic impact of the work itself at the time.

I don't particularly like it myself, but it's important context.

>/lit/ can't even into art
LOL I almost forgot how many retards populate this board.

>>10696037
We can stablish differences between immediate political goals and contextual political meaning. Not all art has immediate political goals, unless you include personal politics (like the politics between the people inside the same house), which is not the case when people say "all art is political".

>political art
absolutely disgusting