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Ifat Glassman

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Everything posted by Ifat Glassman

  1. I don't see a need to argue about this. I believe the truth will be clear here to every person whose opinion I care about. Jake Ellison gave you a correct reply, and I appreciate you doing so, Jake, because you are interested in justice enough to be willing to write down what you have. I did not dismiss your criticism. I used the parts that pointed out correct technical problems. The rest of it - the judgement of artistic content, along with the exaggeration in every single point did go to the trash. The fact that you would want to call MissLemon's creations "art" shows me how little I need to value your artistic (not technical) judgement. Thales: Almost everything on my website was created without a model, it's a different thing having to know proportions and anatomy (let alone without prior training in anatomy) from memory and to paint using a model. My goal is to paint realistically (and of course creatively) from imagination, and so I'm actually doing exactly what you suggested: Making many real-life sketches, also reading anatomy for artist's books, doing a lot of observation (like noticing the amount and arrangement of bones and muscles). First of all, thanks. But constructive criticism also presents the positive points about something (of course, when they exist). Criticism that ignores everything good and only points out the bad is not objective nor constructive.
  2. What is art, and how do you judge what is art? That's an important question. First of all, I would emphasize again Ayn Rand's observation that art, like anything else is an entity of a particular nature. How do you arrive at a proper concept of what art is? The same way you arrive at any other concept: By watching many concretes, omitting their differences and abstracting the essence of it. Starting with the definition of art provided by Ayn Rand and then work your way down deductively to judge concretes will not work - no one can arrive at correct conclusions doing it this way. One has to arrive at concepts inductively - by observing numerous concretes in reality and abstracting what they have in common. Without this process, a sentence like "Recreation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgement" is completely empty, it could mean everything and anything. One has to start by observing cases in reality. One essential thing about art is that it brings to a perceptual level concepts and ideas which are normally abstract and are not visible. Things like "A Benevolent world", "pride", "freedom", "safety", "hope" are not things you can normally see or hear. But art concertizes them for you, gives them a physical form giving rise to an emotional reaction in line with how those ideas are in relation to the observer's values. This is the inductive way to form the concept of "art" - to learn the specific nature of art. One needs to notice that different art forms (literature, dancing, painting, music) have this same essence - they concretize some abstract idea or concept which relates to man's values. (Of course, "Table" is a concept too, but it is not art if someone paints a table, even though it does concretize the concept). Art gives physical form to ideas and emotions central to man's life - not just to any random idea. This is why art triggers an emotional reaction - because things like "safety", "benevolent world", "pride", "luxury" and even "loss" are important to man's life. Man has a psychological need to have concretization of these "deep" ideas - even from the days men lived in caves they drew pictures concretizing ideas central to their existence - like men bravely hunting an animal. They wouldn't draw sticks, or a dead man surrounded by bears - but only those ideas which corresponded to the emotional state required for survival (bravery). Art is Re-creation of reality according to an artist metaphysical value judgement - it means that an artist creates something that he considers important and which is inspiring to him - something that combines elements of that which exists (reality) but according to his implicit metaphysics - his view of the essential nature of the world and of man and how they relate to one another. For example, if a composer writes a victory marsh he is implicitly describing his view of man's relation to the world: Man is a creature fit to succeed in a world that has obstacles which can be overcome. If the victory marsh is full of music describing suffering - his view of the world is that it is a harsh place. If a dancer moves with open, fully extended body movements he (or she) are transmitting their view of man as having freedom of action in this world. If a dancer moves randomly, like a jungle ape-dance they are describing their metaphysical view of the world as an unknowable flux in which man is a helpless animal. It can get to much more complex ideas, but the above explains the essence. So now keep that in mind, and consider the following examples: 1. A painting realistically imitating a random street scene 2. A painting of a garden of blossoming flowers. (for example: http://www.dinotopia.com/images/art/garden_of_hope.jpg ) 3. A painting showing a fearsome warrior facing a dragon in a defiant position 4. A painting of bread 1 and 4 are not art. 2 concretizes beauty (and in the case of the link I gave - also grace and safety). 3 concretizes bravery. Is #1 a selective recreation of reality according to an artist metaphysical value judgement? No. It expresses none of the artist's view of the world, it deals with no abstract subject. More so, the painting copies the street rather than creating something new. Art is a creative process. A bread by itself conveys no idea central to man's life or to the nature of the world. So now what kind of abstract idea does a painting like the tubes of paint or the spots of flowers concretize for you? No idea. It is a random object presented in a semi-random way. When an artist has an idea to communicate all the details in the painting are chosen by the execution of this idea as the standard. If an artist wants to express grace, he will not choose red for the color of the sky in the painting I linked. If an artist wants to describe courage he will not choose a background of blue sky with peaceful birds flying around. He must choose a dramatic background that brings the character to the center of the painting's focus. An artist cannot randomly select err... This one! and then select a background to bring out the object's colors. That's not art. That's a random recreation of reality, not selective recreation of reality, and certainly does not communicate any idea relating to metaphysics. With that in mind, I'll answer Jackethan's post. I answered this just above. A drawing of an object does not make it art. Art concretizes an idea. Your use of the definition can only be rationalistic if you do not go through the inductive process of abstracting what art is from many instances of it. What I meant by that was that the blurring of the background, the emphasis of the shine of the keys achieved a high degree of focus on the object and its beauty. Compare that to a a painting of a rusty pair of keys that can barely be distinguished from the background - That would not create a focus on the keys. It is more difficult to determine the abstract idea here, in her panting (unlike a warrior and a bear), but what she describes metaphysically is the beauty of the world as seen by a peaceful consciousness. Peaceful - because one would have to be very relaxed to observe a pair of keys in such high focus - similarly to how a child would do it. Furthermore there is significance to the object - keys. Suppose instead of keys she would paint a sidewalk or a dead cat in the same focus - it would no longer communicate a peaceful state of mind nor beauty. The nature of keys (shiny and in well kept condition) is significant here - keys unlock something - something valuable to the unlock-er. Suppose she would paint the most ordinary pair of keys, without any shine or blurring of background - that would simply be like a picture and would have no artistic meaning. That's because you are using the definition in a rationalistic way. Don't get me started now. What is ridiculous is the agnosticism in this thread. "The agnostic viewpoint poses as fair, impartial, and balanced. ... The agnostic miscalculates. He thinks he is avoiding any position that will antagonize anybody. In fact, he is taking a position which is much more irrational than that of a man who takes a definite but mistaken stand on a given issue, because the agnostic treats arbitrary claims as meriting cognitive consideration and epistemological respect." (Leonard Peikoff on Agnosticism: link) In this case the replace 'arbitrary claims" with "arbitrary art" (or attempt at art). Here agnosticism takes the form of "Who are YOU to judge what is art and what is not? Let's say everybody's stuff are art, and then we will be fair, non-insulting and everybody will get along". Well, I guess this is one thought that might occur to someone looking at them. As for me - I don't take realistic copying of objects as a standard of art (as I explained). The paintings simply did not communicate any central idea, trigger no emotion (other than resentment that I am expected to treat it as art, but this is beside the point). The drawing of the woman - I can call it art. It vaguely, in a small amount reflects some state of mind or view about the world. (However, it is still more random than having a clear central idea. The expression does not express any particular state of mind, character trait or emotion clearly. I would still call it art if the technique was the same level but a clear idea was communicated). Realism was never my criteria for judging if her paintings are art or not, though obviously some level of realism is necessary to communicate any artistic idea. Edit: fixed a sentence that had an unclear meaning.
  3. You are lying, and that is evident from the reason you state for originally not stating a single good thing about it: you obviously have read the thread before posting your criticism. Too bad, I actually found your criticism (exaggerated as it was) useful. some of the things you mentioned bothered me as well, but you gave me the words to specify what it was. I don't usually like people offering technical advice, but yours was actually (again, even though highly exaggerated) useful. Now, I suggest you take care of your angry emotions someplace else, and if in the future you have a realistic, objective criticism to offer, I'd love to get it because you have a good eye.
  4. I find the following important to reply to. Judging by your first two paintings, you would have no way to measure 'improvement" or "perfection" since they lack a central idea. You did present them as art though, not as a drill in... something. You posted them as art, not as exercises. Your description of choice of background, "boldness", "realism" etc' implies they are to be treated as art, not as an exercise. That is why I replied as I have. I would never, ever, say the same thing to a beginning artist who strives at making actual art with a good standard. No matter how bad a technique is, so long as the artist has a right direction in mind, and they put in the effort to achieve their goal they deserve nothing but encouragement. This must not be confused with an artist who expresses no central idea (see tubes of paint). Something like that can have no "improvement", the only thing to say about it is that it's not art (and possibly some other additions). You cannot offer constructive criticism of something without a central idea.
  5. I never said I have a perfect technique. I have loads more to learn and improve. By the way, to improve I'd have to have a standard and a goal in mind. A modern artist cannot "improve" because they lack a goal or a standard. You cannot improve on something like her second painting. It implies no standard by which to measure improvement.
  6. So you try to insult me and hurt my feelings to teach me a lesson not to be harsh on other people (because I told a modern artist that her paintings are not art). At the same time you do not care to distort your artistic judgement and dump on someone else's actual achievement. It's a pathetic motive and requires dishonesty to execute. I violated the virtue of niceness, and now I will get my retribution from you, right? it won't work with me. Still it is evident you worked hard to notice every detail that could possibly be wrong, which actually does provide me a value, which is why I'll answer your points. No you're wrong here. This looks exactly the same as the model I was using. Maybe you have a point here, which is room for improvement, but it's very exaggerated. It's pretty clear where you're coming from too, with not a single good thing to say about a painting which is obviously great. But I'll ignore that (because I don't respect it) and address your points which you noticeably have thought through. I don't agree. In some places it is too white and yet not enough turbulent (which would make white make sense). Again though this is an exaggeration, there are many areas where the water look great, especially at the bottom. The picture is not the best, it doesn't show variations in the colors of the sky. In real life it looks luminous because the part of he sky closer to the woman is brighter. But it's a slight variation and the picture doesn't show it. The cliffs in the background look just fine, for something which is not the center idea of the painting. This is just obviously an attempt to (I'm sorry to use this word here) dump some more. Such things should be done privately, not in public.
  7. If your drawing is better than this: http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...st&p=220724 (post 65, or any for all that matters) Then I'm a cow.
  8. I've recently finished a painting: You can see the first sketch of it here. Enjoy! Small note: the colors are not exactly true to the source; I'll have to post a better picture here tomorrow.
  9. All of a sudden you have high standards in judging art. I wonder why you did not analyze MissLemon's paintings similarly (not really, I know why). And I also find it funny that you use the word "melt" (which is obviously not coincidental - it was chosen because MissLemon used it). You don't even know what she meant by "melting" (because it was not clarified or asked) yet you come up with some explanation to justify such an opinion. "This is why it looks melted, or soft, or... hold on a minute, what word did she use?"
  10. This questions is "be nice to me I'll be nice to you". The answer is no. I seek nothing but justice from other people. If I created something mediocre I would acknowledge that it is, not present it as some form of ideal art, and not expect others to do it too. I see a value in presenting negative criticism in a nice yet truthful way so long as no one is trying to pretend that they do something better than what they do. I've had people in the past calling my art "art" as you have. It's easy to distinguish between an honest judgment, good or bad, and an emotionalist who lets his feelings dictate his artistic "judgment". My tone will be exactly as it is when I see someone trying to pretend. You can expect zero tolerance, zero niceness from me. I am only nice in an environment of justice and honesty. As for the stickman: I was referring to a choice of presenting a subject, not the technical ability. It's very simple, when someone shows me a bunch of paint tubes drowning in a sea of red and calls it art, I'm going to reply very clearly that it is not. This is not vicious, this is just and selfish. Vicious would be saying that this is great art in order not to offend the artist. It would be vicious because it would corrupt the meaning of what art is for bad reasons. By themselves her paintings have isolated elements of something good. If she presented it as such, with an emphasis that the red tubes are nothing more than an exercise in realism, devoid of artistic content, I'd be talking differently, even encouraging her. But the boldness of presenting the red tubes as art, and to further treat it as pushing the boundaries of art, oh ho, Don't expect me to sit quietly.
  11. They do look like these things, so does a stick man looking like a man in some way. It is one thing when a child draws a stick man, it's a different thing when an adult artist does so - then it sends an entirely different message.
  12. I'm not going to answer this mocking, sarcastic, degrading tone. But it doesn't have a theme. What is the idea about randomly selecting an object and then selecting a background to match the colors? Even if the object is executed perfectly, and looks as real as it is; if there is no central idea to the painting it's not art. To demonstrate what I mean by a central idea: If an artist selects a still object because it presents something abstract, like enjoyment (a glass of wine standing at the window in 4th of July), safety (a bowl of fruit in a kitchen), freedom (an open field on a summer day seen through a window). If all you do is paint a table or whatever drowning in a sea of red color, it communicates nothing but chaos. Do you even know what fantasy art is? It has nothing to do with this painting, absolutely nothing. To suggest that this is not just good, but revolutionary as to push the boundaries of a field of art - is ridiculous. Can you provide a quote for all of this? What would it even mean to eliminate factual distortion in art? What does "linearity of rational thought" mean? The only correct part here is that romantic realistic art shows the achievement of the human mind. Ayn Rand certainly did not say that art is mainly architecture. If an artist is pleading so is every other businessmen selling his product. And invoking emotions in observers should never be the proper approach for an artist. That would lead to creation of second hand art (in the sense of Peter Keating being a second hander). This is the only part sort of I agree with, except, an artist shouldn't care about stereotypes nor about avoiding them, if he is to be a first hand artist - that is an artist who creates his art by his own standards, not anyone else's. I wonder why I am the only one who gives negative criticism here, when every person with a pair of eyes can clearly see it is due.
  13. To tell the truth, I hate to criticize people like this, more so in public. But in the name of decency, I must. I would have talked completely different if she started by "what do you think of my first, not very successful attempts at painting?", or even about the second one - saying that it's nothing more than a drill in painting realistically. But it's a whole different thing when someone tries to present this as serious art. To give this leniency is to corrupt the standards of art. It's to say to every serious artist striving to improve that they are the same as if they never tried to rise to something great. And that is when I have to speak out.
  14. I can't prescribe to anybody what it will or won't achieve. I can objectively identify though that her painting is chunks of paint without a meaning. If this does something to you - bless your spirit. It still doesn't change the objective, observable nature of those painting.
  15. Your process of thought is fallible (which is why you need a certain method to think - i.e. reason). Sense data is the automatic, error-proof starting point. If you did not have an error-free starting base you would have no way to validate your knowledge. It's by reducing complex, abstract knowledge to the perceptual level (seeing objects) that you prove an idea. All of human knowledge is build upon sense-perception. If that is not valid, nothing further in your knowledge is valid, and the whole field of epistemology collapses. So that's why the subject has philosophical significance.
  16. I'm not a subjectivist. When something does not appeal to my personal taste I say exactly that. When I describe what I see it has nothing to do with my personal taste or desires.
  17. I don't think it will change my opinion. I've seen some paintings of objects that actually suck you in into its own universe - a very difficult thing to achieve with still life. It's pretty rare to see someone do this successfully. Here is one example. The artist is Maria Schaeffers. She creates art as a hobby (I think). I couldn't find her anywhere but on Facebook, so I'll just paste one of her paintings here: (Digital. Name: "Unlocked") So what she achieved here is to suck you into the moment of noticing the beauty about a simple chain of keys. She achieves this by emphasizing the shine on the keys and blurring out the unimportant background and details. To me it reminds how it is like to be a child and first notice details about the world - which we rarely do as adults since it is all familiar to us. Now, I'm sorry if I am hurting MissLemon's feelings, but her first two paintings do not achieve the above. It's closer to modern art (a bunch of stains) than anything else.
  18. I think the last one has potential, with room for improvement, and the rest are ugly because they are just shapes without any meaning or central idea.
  19. I've read your essays on Introspection. They're very good and thorough.
  20. Yeah, you're right. I had in mind a certain emphasis to show, but the way I phrased those examples, it's not actually an objective value - it's only objectively good for someone as judged by an observer. I'll change them to a first body including a choice. Thanks
  21. Jach, how about you start a new thread about Existence, knowledge and probability and discuss your ideas there, and present your view or dilema from the beginning? This will serve to separate topics, so that people interested in the discussion about your topic will know that they can find it from the title of your thread and likewise for this thread.
  22. The distance in our unedrstanding of Objectivism is too big for me to be able to talk with you about this particular subject of values as objective. You are still struggling with the idea that men can have certainty - can have knowledge, you want to dive right away into values as objective? that's a suicide jump. You first need to begin with things more basic, like whether or not we can have knowledge at all. Well, when you don't understand the philosophical base you're standing on, and yet right away you launch into whole theories about knowledge, you should expect the response you got from me. I appreciate independent thinking, but it is ridiculous to debate values as objective when you're not even sure yet that knowledge is possible. The right thing to do is to start with the basics and try to understand it first. So no, I'm not going to read things to entertain disconnected, long chain of thoughts. If you would have started a topic discussing the validity of knowledge I might have participated, because that might actually lead to a discussion of actual things. Instead you jumped into a subject on which you know nothing about from the Objectivist point of view to tell me I am wrong and give us a lecture about your knowledge of probability. No thanks, I studied probability in college, I have no desire to get lessons again. It's not easy to explain high level ideas when the very basics are not understood by one side. In some cases, it can be nearly impossible without going first into tons of discussions explaining various other things. How can you agree with it if you have no idea what it means?
  23. Are you aware that this is a forum for Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand? It is a fundamental of her philosophy that knowledge is possible. your idea that all knowledge is probability goes against the fundamentals of her philosophy. Do you know her philosophy at all? (FYI: I'm not going to read your long post since if you are not familiar with her philosophy the distance in our knowledge would be too big. The things you write look to me like complete, complicated nonsense, and I doubt you will understand what I am talking about).
  24. You won't always have means to make an objective decision about a value, just like you don't always have the means of reaching an objective conclusion about any subject on earth (like, say, what kind of weather you should expect tomorrow). Knowledge is still objective, and so are values. When you only have probability that something will happen you do not have knowledge that it will happen - all you have is probability. A friend of mine called it "pre-knowledge". There are subjects which do not yet have principles to guide proper analysis - like psychology - you have some generalizations, good approximations, and a few actual principles: You do your best to learn about those things which do not have principles but it cannot be called Objective, because there is no way for every man using the method correctly to validate it - to reach the same conclusion. [it doesn't mean that "pre-knowledge" is garbage - the contrary: it can have degrees of how much it is according to reality, or if some conclusion is a complete loony-bin it won't have the same status as any other non-objective conclusion.] So in summary, not every conclusion is objective, but knowledge is objective. Values are objective because values are a requirement of living things, and because of that not "everything goes" - some things work and some things don't. This means that one answer is right while all the others are wrong as to what is good for a certain man at a certain time (or to human beings in general). Certain method of choosing values is therefore required to make the right choices. This is the same in regard to knowledge - one answer is according to reality, other answers (or conclusions) are not. Therefore, a certain method is required to reach the right conclusion. Conclusions reached with this method (reason) are objective, while conclusions reached by other means are not. They could still be right, but you will not have the means to prove it. I can prove that many of my values are objective (clothes, the kind of breakfast I had today my choice of career as an artist), some I cannot do so, I can only act by the best of what I have. To take the simplest example I can think of - the decision what to wear is done based on your best speculation of what the weather will be today, but you cannot prove that your choice will turn out to be good for you - maybe it will rain and your short sleeve shirt will make you cold and sick. This is my own thinking (and that of the friend I was talking to about this), I'm not sure how much it jives with Objectivism - I think it does. Just thought I'd add this comment because the explanation above looks like a serious inquiry and I wouldn't want to give the wrong impression to anyone that I got all of this directly from some lecture by Peikoff.
  25. Just because someone is lacking or chooses not to have concepts which most adults have, says nothing about evasion. Missing knowledge =/= Evasion. What "concepts of the real world" are you talking about?
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