Brains Cannot Cope!

[Josquin des Prez]

Well, there's an interesting opinion.

The so called "renaissance" is when the west first turned away from the supreme principle and tried to supplant it with a petty. We might even call it a renaissance of decadence, which significantly used a decadent classical civilization as a starting point.

From there onward we see a breaking down of all meaning and principles, from the rationalism of Descartes to the "critique" of Kant. Those "philosophers", which actually dealt with philosophy in the lowest sense, pretty much reflected a perspective which pervaded western civilization as a whole.

This descent from principle to a "critique" of all principles, so to speak, reached its highest peak during the 19th century. Actually, there's two principal currents at work during this century. One is anglo-saxon materialism and rationalism, the other the anti-rationalism and "pure" relativism being developed in continental Europe, where things like materialism and rationalism were actually old fashioned already. With the ascending influence of anglo-saxon culture, first due to the rise of the British empire, then to the overwhelming influence of America, anglo-saxon materialism became the dominant cultural element of the 20th century, but only superficially. The true essence of modernity is pure relativism. If we compare the Renaissance as an attempt of western culture to cut off its own head, modernity can be defined as a human body running around like an headless chicken, which collapsed altogether during the mid 20th century. Right now we are just existing over the rotting corpse of a dead civilization, who's body sorts of act as a cultural visage in lieu of which we can still act like we live in a real civilization, but its just an image we are trying to maintain alive, nothing more. And the charade is already showing cracks at the seams.

[Josquin des Prez]

You've just made a remark equivelent to confusing a theme with the form.

Actually, i'm just arguing on behalf of the modernistic perspective, which pretends a theme is form. From my perspective, even the naturalistic art of the Renaissance is abstract, since it attempts to represent a subject (nature) which in itself is purely illusory without a sense of the divine, that is, without an actual sense of the true reality. This is why in the past i was so obsessed with genius, since only genius is capable of transcending the abstraction of an art which generates from an "art for art's sake" perspective, which is perfectly meaningless when taken upon itself. 

Alas, even human genius is just a mockery of a superior divine reality, so it too is subject to corruption and decadence. Thus, modern art.

[chasmaniac]

This thread's just been derped.

[Karl Henning]

This thread's just been derped.

Yup.

[Josquin des Prez]

This thread's just been derped.

By all means, continue your discussion about electrodes and brain scans. That's the "logical" way. Trying to speak of art as something concerning the human soul must be considered an heresy here.

Its the brain that cannot cope, not the heart! That's just a silly way of looking at things.

[Josquin des Prez]

You thought it would be A, but actually it's B, and now try C for size. And alright, here's A after all, just to keep you with me, so I can now deliver D, and E, and surprise you again.

That's the most apt description of the music of Sibelius i ever saw, with the only caveat that he never gives you A. That's for chumps.

[Josquin des Prez]

Agreed.  All music is written with some kind of audience in mind.

Yeah, starting with the composer himself. I think the problem with modern music is that it has only one audience: ideology. When the composer himself wouldn't care to listen to his own music you know there is a problem.

[Polednice]

What a remarkable diversion into conspiracy theory and extreme historical and scientific illiteracy.

[chasmaniac]

Coincidence? I don't think so...

[Karl Henning]

Ah, the mixed aroma of Arabica bean and strawman! ; )

[Josquin des Prez]

What a remarkable diversion into conspiracy theory and extreme historical and scientific illiteracy.

God is a conspiracy theory. Now i heard it all. This is literally the dumbest age in human history. Man has never been as unintelligent as he is today, and still, he actually thinks his hopeless stupidity is a sign of cleverness.

Case in point, the problem of modern music and how it should relate to the "masses". The solution to this "problem" is patently obvious, but the intellectual will find difficulties even when there are none. To wit, the problem of modern art is that it reflects nothing that is human.

[Mirror Image]

the problem of modern art is that it reflects nothing that is human.

Nor do any of your posts.

[Elgarian]

If it has an underlying architecture then it is not an "abstract" painting.

I'm reading this and wondering what on earth you can mean by such a statement. Have you ever talked to any abstract painters, or read what they say? They refer all the time to the architecture - the structural underpinning - of their work. A fine abstract painting is not a puddle of paint, you know. It's a coherent structure.

When we go into (let's say) a cathedral, one of the things we admire is the way the interlocking structures continually call for supportive responses from each other. There's a satisfaction in seeing a need ... and then seeing it fulfilled, as it were (often in excitingly or beautifully inventive ways). That (i.e. setting up an expectation and then fulfilling it in surprising ways) is very similar to what we've been saying earlier about pattern-response in music, and it's certainly how a great abstract painting works: an arrangement of forms, tones, textures, and colours is established in which all the components are connected with each other in such a way as to make a coherent, interlocking whole. This is what's meant when people speak of the 'architecture' of the picture.

Sandra Blow (one of the great British abstract painters) used to say that when she started painting abstract works, initially she worried about how to get the 'feeling' into them. Then she realised (and these are her actual words) that 'if I got the architecture right, the feeling would look after itself'.

Though it may seem so, this discussion of abstract painting is not actually a diversion from the topic, but an illustration or exemplar of it. There are all sorts of interesting connections between the structure we perceive in music and the structure we perceive in an abstract painting; and one can very reasonably speak of the 'architecture' of a piece of music  in more or less the same way.

[Elgarian]

the problem of modern art is that it reflects nothing that is human.

This is as mistaken as your statement about abstract painting and architecture. I have seen abstract (what I presume you would call 'modern') paintings that sing with joy, others that evoke deep sadness, others that inspire reverence and awe. Pretty much the whole spectrum of the human condition can be reflected, in fact, through abstract work - just as it can in music. (But as with all art, that doesn't of course mean that everyone will see it - which brings us back to what this thread is really about.)

[Elgarian]

No, sorry.  You're utterly out of your depth talking about the matter (or, you're being deliberately dense).  You've just made a remark equivalent to confusing a theme with the form.

What you tried to do earlier, as to "re-define" terms to align with your derision.  I know you entirely don't twig this, but, nope, you don't get to do that.

Reading through these responses again, I see that you've been there before me, Karl, and more pertinently. I thought this was a matter of genuine misunderstanding (hence my posts above) - but yes, I see actually he's redefining the terms to fit the case he's trying to make. There's no sensible way of responding to that, I think.

[starrynight]

I think that modern art in whatever form can still be reflecting of the human condition, even if that condition is one that might not be nice to look at sometimes.  There can be a variety of approaches though, one of which can be to aim for beauty in a more traditional sense, but there is also room for others to pursue a different path.  And the mass culture which the twentieth century gave rise to and which has led to the internet and the sharing of culture is potentially a great opportunity.  Of course governments and those who want to keep art more elite will try and curtail such freedom, but if they fail I see the future as looking good and varied with the opening up of and intermingling of styles. 

Of course some art can be weaker and be purely intellectual, or have relatively little communicable feeling that the audience (including the artist themselves) can ultimately connect to.  But the mass culture in which we now live naturally desires art which has feeling and which people can relate to beyond just clever noodling.  There has always been some art which has had clever craft but without much of the feeling needed to really live (whether a performance art or not).

[Karl Henning]

And of course there is nothing inherently wrong with purely intellectual art: some of JS Bach, e.g.

Of course, Bach was after the Renaissance, and presumably part of the steep decline, therefore . . . .

I suppose we can argue whether art can be purely intellectual, then, since it is obvious even to the detractors of "purely intellectual" art that nothing of Bach's is objectionable.

Quite likely, 250 years hence, no music written to-day will be considered at all objectionable, either.  None of the good stuff, anyway.

[Polednice]

God is a conspiracy theory. Now i heard it all. This is literally the dumbest age in human history. Man has never been as unintelligent as he is today, and still, he actually thinks his hopeless stupidity is a sign of cleverness.

Case in point, the problem of modern music and how it should relate to the "masses". The solution to this "problem" is patently obvious, but the intellectual will find difficulties even when there are none. To wit, the problem of modern art is that it reflects nothing that is human.

You'd do well to be doubtful of your certainty once in a while, especially when you make such extremely bold and quite pretentious claims. I'm tempted to offer a rebuttal, but I learned my lesson on another forum recently. It is quite clear that you are a disciple of casuistry and will twist and bend absolutely anything anyone says in order to have it serve a quite saddeningly silly agenda. The worst part is that you don't even pull it off very well - some clever folks with bad arguments nevertheless almost pull the wool over my eyes at times, but the wool couldn't be further away right now.

[Polednice]

This point about abstract or other "difficult" forms of art reflecting the human condition is an interesting one. I think the idea of the human condition in art can be over-simplified at times, especially when it is equated with exploring human emotion, as though humanity is really just a melting pot of varying degrees of happiness, sadness, and other colours. Instead, it seems to me that any art must explore the human condition, even if not directly in content, as it is always a human product. Even when we are confronted with a piece that we cannot like or perhaps intensely dislike, we can still always question what it is about human society and culture that drove a person to create such a thing, and therein we produce our own questions about the human condition despite them being more anthropological than artistic.

[chasmaniac]

Though it may seem so, this discussion of abstract painting is not actually a diversion from the topic, but an illustration or exemplar of it. There are all sorts of interesting connections between the structure we perceive in music and the structure we perceive in an abstract painting; and one can very reasonably speak of the 'architecture' of a piece of music  in more or less the same way.

This calls to mind a reading from my salad days:

A nonrepresentational picture such as a Mondrian says nothing, denotes nothing, pictures nothing, and is neither true nor false, but shows much. Nevertheless, showing or exemplifying, like denoting, is a referential function; and much the same considerations count for pictures as for concepts or predicates of a theory: their relevance and their revelations, their force and their fit -- in sum their rightness.
Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking, I,5