/lit/ - Literature

>>5629209
>stopped reading there

Of course you did, it's the end of the book you fucking mongo

>>5629209
>On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.

Closed the book immediately, surprised Melville found time to write in between choking on cocks

EYE C WUT U DEED DERR

That image though.

>This is objectively a [color]
>This is objectively an [animal]
>This is objectively a [subjective remark]

that image would only make sense if the third frame was "this is objectively a painting."

but a value judgement was introduced which wasn't present in the first two frames.

This is not as effective as D&E used to put it. The objective/subjective dichotomy isn't useful. Who has the old D&E image about critical evaluation?

>>5629224
They're all subjective remarks. Who's to say what they really are? One might say the car is the color ao, cheese or pink. The animal may as well be a giraffe because there's no difference. Though, I do agree that painting looks like something I'd shit out in the tub.

>>5629738
Species and hue aren't subjective remarks you stupid cunt.

>>5629738
shut the fuck ^

>>5629877
No but they're both subjective in the sense that they require subjective intentionality in order to be recognized as such (that is, to be discretely seized and posited as such and such a hue or such and such a species).

>>5629217
It's not every day you get to tell the joke that it's the joke.

>>5630356

There are physical facts about the car that mean I term it as 'blue', these facts exist independent of anyone perceiving them. I.e. the car being blue is objective, my experience of its 'blueness' is subjective.

>>5630450
>these facts exist independent of anyone perceiving them

Just stop man. You can't beat Solipsism. It's just not refutable (obviously this doesn't mean it's correct, there is just no way to tell if it actually is or not).

bad is a point of view, blue and animal are not

>>5630450
>the car being blue is objective

>Go to Spain
>Spaniard says the car being 'azul' is objective.
>Call him el pleb
>Tell him 'azul' is just a shitty spanish word, and the car is obviously blue.
>mechanic appears and tells me the "car" is a "van" so the statement "The car is blue" is false
>call him a pleb
>Dulux paint company appears
>Takes sample of paint and analyzes in portable color tester.
>Tell me it's not blue, it's 'oceanic miasma'.
>Call them plebs
>Dulux says they can set up a spectrum between any two colors and oceanic miasma is 80% blue to 20% yellow.
>Tell them that "car being blue is 80% objective"
>Optician appears and looks at my eyes
>Tells me my corneas are damaged, pulls out a chart, and asks me what number is there
>There is no number on it, just green circles
>Call him a pleb
>Physicist appears and says I don't understand the spectrum of visible light and talks about the sub-microscopic level using words and concepts I don't understand
>call him a pleb
>Derrida appears.
>Tells me that the cars 'blue-ness' is applied by me, and nothing exists outside the text I have created to describe the car
>Call him a pleb

>muh thing-in-itself
even if you want to introduce some bullshit like that, colors are the shakiest and most subjective sense category second only to hot/cold.
>implying the car has the essential trait of blueness to all observers
ARE YOU FUCKING DAFT, BRUV

But that isn't a bad painting. Simply because the artist chose to not depict exactly what he saw, that doesn't somehow inform the quality of it. IIRC, that's a Turner painting of a ship at sea.
And Turner is excellent.

>>5631056
The actual value of the painting is part of the bait. It works at many levels.

>>5631073
What do you feel about subjectivity/objectivity?

>>5631078
>What do you feel about subjectivity/objectivity?
It's a non-issue.

>>5631084
Out of interest, why do you think that? Are you saying that aesthetics are limited in meaning or value?

>>5631092
>Are you saying that aesthetics are limited in meaning or value?
Aesthetics house no inherent meaning or value. If you feel there is a limit to how much meaning or value you can personally apply, that's nothing to do with me.

>>5631078
It's a pointless discussion.
There are objective qualities to consider but none of them are related to technical means of production. Things like historical value, interpretation and content (among others, in some cases, not always the same ones) can be understand by a wide audience and affect the interpretation in a universal level. The historical value of the Guernica, or the "painting through time" spirit of cubism in general, are things that can be understood and should be taken in consideration as objective elements the same way you'd accept that the red paint is red. The final impact of the work depends on each person and as such its subjective. Take in consideration the short story Baader-Meinhof by Don Delillo that incorporates the independent work of art of the same name but creates a new piece through the narration of someone experiencing those photographs.

>>5631102
I was okay with your simplified answer but
>Aesthetics house no inherent meaning or value.
That's just dumb. If you don't care about the subject you aren't forced to deal with it, but the study of how and why humans react to art is as valid as any form of philosophy.

>>5631102
>Aesthetics house no inherent meaning or value
Why would you say that?

>>5631104
>none of them are related to technical means of production
So "quality of craftsmanship" is a non-objective metric?
>The final impact of the work depends on each person and as such its subjective
So beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder?

>>5631112
>So "quality of craftsmanship" is a non-objective metric?
Most decent artist that studied fine arts decently can recreate any Goya before finishing college. If you commit to it craftsmanship gets to a point where it looses meaning, and it's fine. Even if it was a move by the CIA american abstract art was the source of many great works made through means that defied the idea of craftsmanship, Pollock is the usual example.

>So beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder?
it depends on your interpretation of beauty and the school of aesthetics you prefer, some people still swear by Frankfurt and enlightenment ideas, thinking that there is a way to understand a universal beauty. I personally prefer more modern approaches that present it not so much as individual experience but a communal one, resulting from your education and past experiences.

>>5631112
>>Aesthetics house no inherent meaning or value
>Why would you say that?

Because the meaning or value is applied by the individual. When we discuss Lolita having literary merit, it doesn't mean that there are three ounces of literary merit inherent the book that we have mystical access to, it means we are inventing the notion of literary merit ourselves and applying it, ourselves, to the book.

>>5631158
>it means we are inventing the notion of literary merit ourselves and applying it, ourselves, to the book.
But does this mean that someone could say that, for instance, Twilight was the best book ever written, and they'd be right?
Or, in other words, does the notion of literary merit that we have invented conform to societal ideals of what is considered worthy?

>>5631015
kek

>>5631157
>>5631158
Thanks.

>>5631171
>But does this mean that someone could say that, for instance, Twilight was the best book ever written, and they'd be right?
It doesn't matter. Someone could say twilight is the best book and that is their subjective opinion. Someone could say twilight is awful, or name another book, and that too is their subjective opinion.

These two could collaborate and set up a framework to describe the "goodness" of books, and say that twilight has none of the attributes they listed. Or they could set up a different framework, say, "a good book has vampires and love triangles" and within their model, twilight is a good book.

>>5631217
That's incredibly relieving. Thankyou.

>>5631158
You seem to be getting a very particular interpretation of what "literary merit" means. Merit, like most virtues, by tacit definition can't be measured.

>>5631217
Again, I'm not agreeing on that one with you. if anyone says "best", "worst", "better", "worse" or any pure value judgement they are inherently wrong. It can have a better technique, or it may be more interesting or valuable to that reader, you can dedicate your life to analyzing the content of a work, but good and bad should be dropped by everyone after they turn 12.

>>5629209
lol

>>5631247
>if anyone says "best", "worst", "better", "worse" or any pure value judgement they are inherently wrong.

For what reason? They are voicing a subjective opinion: [in my opinion] Lolita is 'better' than twilight because...

If you are getting you panties in a twist about the statement hinting at an objective ideal through use of "is" -- Lolita 'is' -- instead of using 'Lolita seems to me..', then you are guilty of exactly the same in your post when you subject us all to your right/wrong dichotomy: "are inherently wrong".

>It can have a better technique, or it may...
What? You just said "better".

>but good and bad should be dropped by everyone after they turn 12.
And adopted again at fifteen after they have grown out of their rejectionism, and decided that they like a society where certain events and actions are intersubjectively described as bad. You really think a parent is going to stand there after his eight year old daughter has been brutally raped, and say "kek, only plebs subjective label things as bad"? Grow up.

>>5631240
>Merit, like most virtues, by tacit definition can't be measured.

So in the model you hold, merit either is or isn't. As it can't be measured, it would be impossible to say that 'A has more merit than B'.

The problem is it can't be 'detected'. it isn't a pat of the material, but a description applied by you. YOU describe the thing as having merit. In your model of bi-meritism, you'll describe something as having merit-ness or being void of merit-ness. Yet, as merit can't be detected within something, what are you using to meas.... err, discern, whether something should be described as having this merit-ness?

>>5631247
not really tho

>>5631332
>getting panties in a twist
Not really, I I was just exaggerating. I wouldn't want to police how people speak and I'm sure there are situations in which you can do a perfect judgement of value. I was only saying that if you want to present a constructive opinion or something that could be answered with something more than "okay" you should express yourself with some depth.

>better technique
Because techniques are just a part of the experience. You can comment on Goya's technique and you can find someone who took the same resource and applied differently and someone else doing it better; you aren't commenting on the work but on a certain element of it.
Still, it was just a general example about how it's better to analyze partially the work instead of jumping into absolutes which is a pretty common problem with beginners and people in 4chan threads.

And that last paragraph is completely outside of the realm of aesthetics, you already had a perfect example before that.

>>5631351
The topic of how to detect artistic value is one of the main columns of aesthetic theory, I feel that any explanation I can give you in 4chan at 3 in the morning will lack a ton of needed stuff. In absurdly general terms I'll just say that the question of how do we judge the value of a work has been loosing strength since Hume kicked that ball and that the modern interpretation focuses more on what happens after the reception: impact of the work among peers, among the public, how it interacts with the language, what is being said through it, among many things.
There's no point in asking yourself if a work has "artistic value" because you just recognize it or you don't, it's a very finite instance. If you don't you move on with your life, but if you do that's when philosophy and critic enters to play.
Discerning the merit-ness is just a pissing contest that should be ignored.

>>5631354
I explained myself better in >359 . Was it something else that you disliked?

>>5631388
As you've presented it in these posts i got no problems, if it's mostly a critique of the way that dumb fucks on 4chan talk about 'good' and 'bad' as thought-terminating cliches and a nuanced attitude towards the question generally.

What I was really objecting to was what I took to be your position that we can conclude that value judgments of works of art are necessarily invalid, which I don't think is nearly a settled question, but my sense is that you're much less doctrinaire than you seemed, so w/e

>>5631407
In >104 I mentioned that there are objective things to analyze (for example, you can't really appreciate Goya's dark series without knowing the shit both he and his country were dealing with) but the final experience is a personal construction. Which some people tend to associate with it being absolute and that's retarded, because it is subjective it has to be open to change when you hear other person's opinion or you learn more about the topic.

>>5631427
I would argue that the fact that something in its actually existence is always imperfect is not the same as it being intrinsically subjective

That is to say, the fact that my knowledge is incomplete and partial, and therefore subject to change when I hear someone else's opinion or learn about the subject, does not in itself show that a correct knowledge or judgment is impossible

Ultimately though this is a reasonable disagreement and I'm cool with you if that's the position you're taking. Even if I don't 100% agree, you're not a retard

>>5631432
But your opinion and knowledge won't become "perfect" no matter how much you do and change, it will always be tied to a context. Many times you understand another subjective opinion without actually agreeing with it. You can just absorb every interpretation and create a maximum form, art isn't a henkidama.

>>5631427
>you can't really appreciate Goya's dark series without knowing the shit both he and his country were dealing with

Ehrm, I'm not so sure of that one. Of course that depends on what one means by "appreciate", but I'd say one can have a very solid appreciation of Goya's dark series in full ignorance of the time... it's quite horrifyingly descriptive.

When looking at any sort of objective assessment, the formal qualities of a piece are as good as it gets and what I'd stick to personally. Subject matter has a tendency to get muddled by personal experience, and any notion of artistic merit is almost indescribable.

Incidentally, on this basis the OP's pic is full retarded.

>>5631503
OP's pic was clearly just a joke like his opening sentence, you shouldn't take 4chan so seriously*.

>the formal qualities of a piece are as good as it gets
Not really. You can apreciate how that particular work or artist, for example, recreates faces; how the musculature is hinted, how the expression relates to the body language, how he gives the subject ethnic characteristics, again, just proposing an example. But that information well dries up pretty quickly and leaves you just with technical considerations. If you combine that with a more in depth analysis, and ask yourself why did he create such a scene, what was he expecting his audience to take from that work, what would they think seeing that particular character with that intention; and even consider through time how that work took from previous ones, from other artist of the time, how it affected the ones that came after. All of that can be considered objective criteria to a certain point as long as you don't get too anal about it (and if you do then there's no point in any historical analysis since history is mainly the most trusted narrative at the time, but I digress). Technical qualities are important, but it's also interesting what they tell us about other things.


*She says while checking a thread before going to bed at 4 in the morning

>>5631527
>She
Could you post a picture of your feet please?

>>5631432
But your opinion and knowledge won't become "perfect" no matter how much you do and change, it will always be tied to your context. You can have all the technical knowledge you want, and it will always be healthier to have as much as possible if you want to analyze a work, but the final point is to create a complex idea that could only be thought by you.
Also, many times you even understand another subjective opinion without actually agreeing with it. That's a possibility too.
You can't just absorb every interpretation and create a maximum form, art isn't a henkidama.

>>5631542
No Zeeburg. I won't sleep with your girlfriend either and night life in argentina is meh at best.

>>5631527
Well the OP was joking of course, the pic on its own is "pretending to be retarded" level though.

Anyhow by "as good as it gets" I meant "as objective as it gets". You can be fairly objective about the subject, but at some point you run across subjective considerations regarding appropriateness.

What is the basis for a good facial representation? Realism? Idealism? Caricature? There's no objective method to answer this, let alone why a particular scene was chosen or what the audience is expected to take from the work.

Formal qualities, on the other hand, are borderline scientific. The lines, colors used, dimensions, composition, contrasts, all these things can be measured and preference can be determined by observational studies (though there's a rich enough history I think that'd be kinda silly).

Not really arguing with you though, just throwing my two cents into the pile. If artistic criticism and analysis were only formal... it'd be incredibly shallow to say the least. But that is as objective as it gets, for whatever that's worth.

>>5631580
>you run across subjective considerations regarding appropriateness.
>There's no objective method to answer [what's right/what was expected]
Part of the joy of the critic work is proposing interpretations to those things, or presenting a particular criteria. But it should never be read as an absolute interpretation, which is another neophyte mistake.

>for whatever that's worth
yeah, completely agree, that's the great problem with absolute interpretations at the end of the day.

>>5631527
>She
Fuck off

>>5629224
The blue car would look teal or cerulean to a daltonic person.
The cat could also be a pussy, we can't really tell.

>>5629209
>mfw Randroid plebs believe this shit

>>5629209
But no one thinks Turner is bad...

>>5633861
>>5633882
You got "baited"

>>5633900
Yes, I did

bump for art discussion!

>>5629209
but op, the first two boxes don't ascribe quality to the thing

>>5629209
>this is what Platonists actually believe

>>5636053
You had to know that people would get caught up in the OP and not in the discussion that happened 30 posts in and 20 posts ago.

>We must, then, take all of our courage and guts to criticize what is most dearest to us. We must produce a critic... of pure reason
Fucking Kant, why?

>>5629209

Wouldn't objective statements have to be measured against some other thing? The blue car is clearly only blue contextually. The paint on the car is, for the most part, a certain shade of blue: A blue car. The car is not, however, depressed, as would be the case if we took blue out of context. An implied question of standard precedes the answer.

In the case of the painting, the quality being measured is not stated. What is the painting a bad example of? Does painting in general have a single quality that can be objectively measured to determine its goodness of badness? What is the thing by which we can measure the correctness of our conclusion?

We could say the painting is subjectively good or bad. It is good for me. It is bad for you. This is a reference to our appreciation of its qualities. Perhaps it is a good painting for me because it reminds me of a romantic encounter. Perhaps it reminds you of vomit and is thus bad for you.

If we want to judge it objectively, however, we must have a measure. Whether that is the skill required to paint it or how vividly it depicts a particular object does not matter, yet some standard must be had before an objective conclusion about its relative goodness or badness can be reached.

I'm glad you're not one of those creeps that reads a book again immediately upon finishing it.

After the morgue closed down I made my way over to the drawers and heaved her onto the wheeled bedding, we couldn't consummate our love in life, but when I said I'd give her everlasting love I damn well meant it... Prying open her cold pussy I realised this was going to be hard without lube, luckily she hasn't been drained of blood and a dead body doesn't feel pain, right?
The things we do for love... I guess some would say it is a fault in our stars.

>>5636196
Who are you talking with? OP posted that shit two days ago.

>>5636256

I posted without checking any dates. Well, shit. Time for bed.