brianleepainter

Artist Scott Burdick, who is also critical of religion, decided to follow the Judgment Day group, filming their supposed last three days before rapture: http://www.youtube.c...u/1/5TnzCmOyTyk "When I heard about the Christian group that was traveling the country to alert people to the coming end of the world on May 21st, 2011, I was so interested that I decided to travel along with them for the last three days of the world -- May 18,19, and 20th. This 30 minute video is made up of experts of those three days. I really liked all the people I met and hope you won't view them as a group of crazies, because they are very kind and well-meaning people. At one time or another, all of us have gotten caught up in beliefs that proved incorrect, be it a religion or just a destructive relationship, so I hope others can use this as a way of turning the critical lens on ourselves, rather than simply scoffing at anther's mistakes. This was certainly the case for myself. I feel I learned a great deal from these people and thank them for inviting me into their lives for those three days." -Scott Burdick I think it was well done, showing the power and consequence of ideas. Edit: Several individuals held to their religious beliefs, ending their jobs and businesses to warn people of the rapture.

Maarten, thank you for your response. I agree that both religion and prevention of a potential are not reasons to perform the circumcision.

So if a doctor, a father, and a priest all gather to agree that the removal of the foreskin is a preventative of a potential, the potential of cancer, then it is okay to perform the operation, without the consent of the victim, and considering that this victim is not yet able to consent, then it is a principled, non-forced act? I thought medical procedures were supposed to be pro-life, remedying actual sickness by targeting an organ that is actually proved to be the cause.

What an unprincipled way to enter into the world, so young and already having the state use force against an individual. Perhaps it is better to get them while they are young, within the first seven years? The origin, function of, potentiality of, is arbitrary. It is simply a matter of upholding individual rights, by not using force. The alternative is consent.

Elton, have you listened to Steve Job's 2005 Stanford Commencement Address?: The third story by Steve Jobs is about the subject of death.

Recent comment(via Facebook) by Yaron Brook, in regards to the passing of Steve Jobs: "Well done, Steve Jobs" Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged lionizes the great wealth creators--the men and women whose thought, creativity, and drive has lifted mankind from the cave to the glistening skyscrapers of New York City. As the president of the Ayn Rand Institute, I regularly speak about Atlas and there is one living person who, more than anyone else, I reference as embodying those traits: Steve Jobs. The news that Jobs is no longer with us leaves me truly heartbroken. What Jobs has always represented to me is someone who devoted his life to creating great values--who pursued his own vision, his own dreams, his own happiness. The results of his life's work are truly astounding: the Apple II, the Macintosh, Pixar, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad, and much, much more. He set out to change the world. He succeeded, and by all accounts took deep joy in his career and his achievements. He deserved it. Ever since I heard the news that Steve Jobs died, a certain passage from Atlas Shrugged keeps running through my head, although only readers of the novel will understand the full impact of the scene. Toward the end of the novel, when heroine Dagny Taggart is reunited with several men she had thought she would never see again, she says that the meeting is like a childhood dream "when you think that some day, in heaven, you will see those great departed men whom you had not seen on earth, and you choose, from all the past centuries, the great men you would like to meet." One of the men replies: "And if you met those great men in heaven…. There's something you'd want to hear from them. [Y]ou'd want them to look at you and to say, 'Well done.' … All right, then. Well done, Dagny!" If there were a heaven, filled with the great men of history, I have no doubt that they would say, "Well done, Steve Jobs." Yaron Brook

His own achievement made the world so much brighter. Thank you Steve Jobs, you will be remembered and greatly missed.

I do not see how arguing against an unprincipled, act of force known as circumcision, is what you call "histrionic" and "irrational". It is a matter of principle. If you're interested, here is an article about Thomas Szasz' s view on circumcision, entitled "Circumcision and the Birth of the Therapeutic State" : http://www.historyof...task=view&id=70 "Accordingly, circumcision is justified not by the subject’s behavior, but by the significance his parents and society attach to his foreskin. For Jews, the ritual sacrifice of the infant’s foreskin symbolizes his entrance into the community of the Chosen. For educated Americans, its prophylactic removal symbolizes his entrance into the community of the “medically enlightened”. Indeed, Webster’s Dictionary defines circumcision as “the cutting off of the prepuce of males being practiced as a religious rite by Jews and Muslims and as a sanitary measure in modern surgery."

I'm curious, can you expand on these forms of 'force', through example perhaps? I'm concerned, because if parents are using force on their children then these adults should be dealt with accordingly. I do think it is horrible to perform circumcision because "the Jones had done it", or maybe because their religious texts suggests it, or because they prefer potentiality over actuality. I will comment that, if a woman would like to have her clitoris removed, then the State should not interfere. However, that presupposes the woman's choice. If a man would like to have his foreskin removed, perhaps after having sex a few times, just to give it a test drive, then sure. Also, too, this is to say that the State should not interfere with his choice. But, to have no choice in the matter, I do think is evil. Perhaps the state should be involved, in protecting individual rights, from this occurring without consent. Maybe doctors can give an "I owe U" slip to the newly born infant, if the doctor so chooses, so if the man ever decides to have his foreskin removed then so be it. There would be a charge of course, for the procedure, but maybe at a discounted price with this document? Just an idea. -I would think it unfortunate for the infant(or child, in the video that Trebor had linked) to be circumcised without the consent of the parent, but to have it done with the parents consent? Which is worse? Not to mention the one who has no say in the matter, the victim.

I think the parents, appealing to what they believe is the "good"(be it for religion, or statistics that show a potential for cleanliness over the actual) are sanctioning, and in some cases even performing this unprincipled act. Do you think circumcision is a form of force, and that this is then evil?

Though I don't know if Immanuel Kant would have enjoyed such abstract creations such as those of the abstract expressionists, his philosophy was left open to Modernists. He writes of beauty in representationalism, yet of the sublime being without form. He leaves his Critique of Judgement, so that future painters are critical of the faculties that give rise to even see beauty. What is more important and influential; Kant's writings about beauty and the represented form and formless sublime, or his ideas to undercut reason? Do you agree that an artist, should consider his chosen art form, painting, and then medium, oil and canvas, to be limitations of a positive, rather than, like representational masters, a negative? Would you advise this individual to be critical of the species painting in the larger genus, art, so that this person should consider what the medium can do and study formalism, as the primary, rather than contemplate the subject matter, and re-create it as the secondary, if at all? With this having been said, if this young artist wants to pursue representational painting, do you think that he should rather consider Greenberg's ideas that figurative painting is no longer putting forth new ideas, and that to save figurative painting from kitsch that he should pursue the avant-garde? "Greenberg believed that the avant-garde arose in order to defend aesthetic standards from the decline of taste involved in consumer society, and seeing kitsch and art as opposites. He outlined this in his essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch". One of his more controversial claims was that kitsch was equivalent to Academic art: "All kitsch is academic, and conversely, all that is academic is kitsch." He argued this based on the fact that Academic art, such as that in the 19th century, was heavily centered in rules and formulations that were taught and tried to make art into something learnable and easily expressible. He later came to withdraw from his position of equating the two, as it became heavily criticized." - Avant Garde and Kitsch Do you think that this "artist" should be influenced by Greenberg, as did the later be influeneced by Kant? Greenberg was an intellectual, who by championing the abstract expressionist movement understood that Kant was one of the first modernists. "“Because he was the first to criticize the means itself of criticism, I conceive of Kant as the first real Modernist.”- Greenberg [Modernist Painters] ‘“The essence of Modernism,” [Clement Greenberg in “Modernist Painting” (1960)] wrote, “lies, as I see it, in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence.” Interestingly, Greenberg took as his model of modernist thought the philosopher Immanuel Kant: “Because he was the first to criticize the means itself of criticism, I conceive of Kant as the first real Modernist.” […] I suppose the corresponding view of painting would have been not to represent the appearances of things so much as answering the question of how painting was possible”’ (After the End of Art, Princeton University Press, 1998, p. 7).

Avila, The mathematician Kepler, having discovered great things through method, held contradictions that did affect his pursuits. Ideas do have consequences, and lead to contradictions: "Tragically, Kepler was torn by conflicting views regarding the nature of knowledge in general and of mathematics in particular. He opened the door to modern science, but he stepped through only halfway. He was held back by his partial allegiance to a Christianized version of Platonism. When in the grip of this view, he searched for causes in the mind of God rather than in the nature of physical entities, sanctioned wild speculations based on "intuition," and tolerated the resulting breaches between theory and observation. Thus Kepler stood with one foot forward in the Age of Reason and one foot back in the middle ages." "A particularly striking result of Kepler's contradictory philosophic premises can be seen in his views on the cause of ocean tides. Qua scientist, he started from observational evidence and searched for a physical cause...However, when he considered the same problem from the perspective of his Platonic/Christian mysticism, he searched for a spiritual cause....The results of the experiment could not have been more decisive." - David Harriman, "The Logical Leap"

When I'm writing about identity of an art form I mean that this, identity, subsumes function and utility. In regards to utility, architecture is in a class of its own as Rand had stated in Romantic Manifesto: "Architecture is in a class by itself, because it combines art with a utilitarian purpose and does not re-create reality, but creates a structure for man’s habitation or use, expressing man’s values." - Rand, Ayn (1971-10-01). The Romantic Manifesto I think in the identity of the art form architecture, its utility can be considered part of the limitation of the medium, when the architect masters the chosen medium to best represent a location in organic architecture, for instance a cliff side, he is concerned with "form and function as one." i.e., What essential characteristics in the cliff side should be recreated in material for aesthetic form and to function as a home? How could Roark, Wright, Sullivan, or Lauder integrate an artwork into the Cliff side without realizing the material and its limitations? To give consideration of the identity of the art form, sculpture, the sculptor is limited by the malleability of marble, what it can support,etc. in carving the human figure. Since architecture and sculpture share familiarities, I was using them as an example when I had written "creates a world to walk around and/or live in" to address the use of three dimensionality as opposed to painting in the use of two dimensionality. "Works of art—like everything else in the universe—are entities of a specific nature: the concept requires a definition by their essential characteristics, which distinguish them from all other existing entities. The genus of art works is: man-made objects which present a selective recreation of reality according to the artist’s metaphysical value-judgments, by means of a specific material medium. The species are the works of the various branches of art, defined by the particular media which they employ and which indicate their relation to the various elements of man’s cognitive faculty." -Ayn Rand Considering abstract paintings to be art does not follow from having accepted architecture and music as art forms. Painting, in its representational re-creation of reality and its psycho-epistemological function is already understood. To gain more knowledge on music is not too change painting. "The so-called visual arts (painting, sculpture, architecture) produce concrete, perceptually available entities and make them convey an abstract, conceptual meaning." "Music does not deal with entities, which is the reason why its psycho-epistemological function is different from that of the other arts" -Ayn, Rand : The Romantic Manifesto "Man’s need of precise definitions rests on the Law of Identity: A is A, a thing is itself. A work of art is a specific entity which possesses a specific nature. If it does not, it is not a work of art. If it is merely a material object, it belongs to some category of material objects—and if it does not belong to any particular category, it belongs to the one reserved for such phenomena: junk. “Something made by an artist” is not a definition of art. A beard and a vacant stare are not the defining characteristics of an artist. “Something in a frame hung on a wall” is not a definition of painting. “Something with a number of pages in a binding” is not a definition of literature. “Something piled together” is not a definition of sculpture. “Something made of sounds produced by anything” is not a definition of music. “Something glued on a flat surface” is not a definition of any art." -Ayn, Rand : The Romantic Manifesto Certainly individuals see things differently. To see is to take into account ones values,knowledge, and perception. You are using the terms "relational/compositional" and "imitative/narrative" aspects. These are all interrelated in the artwork as an indivisible whole. These "aspects" make up the representational painting, and can be focused on by the viewer. I see this as aesthetic form being as one with content, inextricable. This is partly why I brought up, through example, visual concepts. There certainly can be visual concepts underlying the representational. Here is an example of a representational painter, who does explicitly state that he relates to music, using rhythm among other things: "All the while, there is the composer, with brush and palette knife, conducting, refining, coaxing, interpreting his own score. As he explains, “I use music all the time in my paintings.” The discerning viewer sees and feels the brushstrokes corresponding to musical notes and movements -- legatos broad and delicate, an adagio of cured prairie grasses, a swirling vivace of light and clouds over the marcato of mountain granite. Clyde's music touches the eyes with distinct rhythmic textures, letting the canvas reflect how earth and sky are interwoven. The result is the artist’s ethereal yet tactile manifestation of natural forces: “Paintings become symbols of all that we are.”"- Clyde Aspevig After looking at the abstract paintings of the past, I think that they are examples of the Theory-Practice dichotomy championed by such articulate voices as Clement Greenberg and Hilton Kramer. Many abstract painters were more concerned with theory, and thought they could create something of substance without painting the prerequisites of content; intelligible form. "form and content are inextricably linked in works of art. Perceptually graspable forms are the means by which content (meaning) is conveyed in visual art. Form without intelligible meaning or content does not constitute a work of art; nor can there be content in the absence of identifiable forms. And by "identifiable forms" I do not mean abstract shapes such as circles, squares, or stripes; I mean visual representations of persons, places, things, and events (whether real or imagined), representations that are meaningful in relation to human experience." "Contrary to Kramer's view, the entire history of twentieth-century avant-garde movements, beginning with abstraction, can be understood as a series of misguided attempts to do away with either or both of these essential attributes. While the abstract pioneers earnestly sought to create meaningful work, they made the mistake of dispensing with the familiar forms of perceptual experience through which meaning is conveyed in painting and sculpture. And the sorts of occult metaphysical concepts they were attempting to convey may in any case simply not have lent themselves to visual embodiment at all. Later influential advocates of abstract art--most notably, Alfred Barr (the founding director of MoMA) and the critic Clement Greenberg--completely ignored the pioneers' intent, treating their work as if it were not meant to convey ideas, and evaluating it instead in purely formalist terms. Kramer largely subscribes to their formalist notions of esthetic value with respect to abstract work." - Hilton Kramer's Misreading of Abstract Art If definitions were upheld, there would not be works of Joseph Albers hanging alongside works of Thomas Dewing among other artists in the North Carolina Museum of Art. To see what happens when bad ideas are not dismissed as arbitrary, view the abstract works in : Banishement of Beauty "I do not know which is worse: to practice modern art as a colossal fraud or to do it sincerely. Those who do not wish to be the passive, silent victims of frauds of this kind, can learn from modern art the practical importance of philosophy, and the consequences of philosophical default. Specifically, it is the destruction of logic that disarmed the victims, and, more specifically, the destruction of definitions. Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration." -Ayn Rand

The point that I was trying to get across was that each of the art forms has an identity, included in this is a certain function to the viewer. For example, each art form does have limitations that the artist may understand, and once understood only help the artist to better his work. These limitations are because of the identity of both the medium of use, and of the function of the art form. A representational oil painter is not a sculptor or architect that recreates or creates a world to walk around and/or live in. He creates a world that he would want to walk around and/or live in, and as a corollary the viewer may want to do that too. In order to have this function of, the oil painter is concerned with how to create representation by understanding the nature of paint and having an understanding of the purpose of the chosen art form. I do not think Beethoven had to contemplate the limitations of a painter's medium and art form when he was engaged in his next composition. Nor do I think that Sargent,Zorn, or Vermeer, had to be concerned with sculpting marble when they were working with oils. In my above analogy I did reference architecture, and I do consider it an art form. If one is to specialize in, say, representational painting, one is not obligated to first be a sculptor,musician,novelist, and architect before they can then create representational work according to the species of painting, in the genus art. Essence? No. Identity. Yes! Different art forms have different identities. I think the representational has primacy over the abstract, so that the abstract compositional appeal is geared towards the representational.

Thank you for the updates on the condition of the jailed U.S. hikers. The hikers and their family and friends must be so extremely stressed(well, I'm certainly upset with the event) . This incident is just so horrible.

I think a visual concept is not yet an artwork, but a blueprint, a means to an end. It is the scaffolding embracing an architecture, or a skeleton that supports it, waiting to realize the purpose of its function. If the architect were to simply walk away from his work what would be abandoned would not be an architecture. It has yet to function. as one. A visual concept is not yet an artwork, but a blueprint, a means to create an artwork that is then an end in itself. From what I understand an artwork has an art form; painting,sculpture,music,literature, and in order for that art form to perform its function it needs to be representational, unlike the decorative arts. I think there are universals that apply to all art forms, namely that concepts are concertized so that the viewer can then perceive the idea in the form of a representational work. That is the general, now to be more specific, to bring light to the function of painting is not to evade integration of the other art forms. The universal functioning of artwork is applied to all, to integrate the sum of all art forms in their psycho-epistemological function to the viewer, but the species, i.e. music,painting,sculpture,etc. do have different forms based on their functioning to the viewer. In the species of painting, under the genus artwork, I’m concerned with its function. When I look at something, and I’m unable to figure what it is, then I don’t understand its function. I think visual concepts can represent an idea, but as I understand it, if the idea is not concertized into a representational painting, then it does not function as an artwork. I think what it does function as is a visual concept. There is concept behind every painting, an abstract appeal sure, and understanding how to manipulate contrast,balance,implied lines,etc, will only help the representational. I think the masterworks are created by artists who understand the abstract, and put it into representation. Jonathan13, I thought my examples show that I do enhance colors and shapes. In order to create a representational painting the artist does "strengthen the abstract appeal" by creating an artwork that functions to show the metaphysical so that someone, having a conceptual faculty, can perceive it to complete the psycho-epistemological function of an artwork. p.s.- Thank you for the nice comment.

*As an opening statement to this post, I may have not been specifc throughout this thread, but I would like to limit the discussion to the representational painting(which under the philosophy of Objectivism is art) and abstract painting(which is not art in the same respect) (I understand, Jonathan13, that you had brought up music and architecture, but in respect to the thread I had created, I'd like to discuss specifically painting.)* Now, To emphasize my point of the thread, I want to show why I understand representational painting to be art, and why I dismiss abstract work as the arbitrary. I'm concerned with epistemology and the area of concept-formation as much as I'm concerned with representational paintings and abstract works. I'll explain why further in this post. When I see a finished product, or read about a theory shown to work by induction, I think that a method was applied to arrive at the final product or current theory. In order for a creation,product, invention,theory,etc. to work, it had to be proved and cannot handle a contradiction. To see a representational painting is to presuppose that a method was used to create it. It had to be that way. I think that an abstract work may be arrived at when there is a departure from method. As I understand it, scientists use a method to arrive at theories and to learn how the world works. There is no alternative to gain knowledge and create concepts. Philosophers of the past, such as Plato and Kant had spread ideas, which affected scientists and artists greatly. A philospher can say that the world can't be known to a scientist, and yet here I am, typing on a computer to post this. Here I'm painting with a method to create a representational work. As I had written earlier, I think that an abstract work can occur when a method is not applied. Maybe something broke in the past. Due to the teachings of Plato and Kant, among many others, science and art were treated differntly, such that scientists studied the world through a rigourous application, always updating and creating new concepts, able to see farther by standing on the shoulders of the past scientists. Such is the nature of induction, how self-correcting it can be. Somehwere in the past artists exempted themselves from this, and here we are with "modern art", with abstract works being upheld to consumers as a legitimate art. If I were to paint a winding creek, using the example that Jonathan13 had written, I have to enage in the use of concepts, to recreate reality in a representational painting is to use abstracting in the application of visual concepts, i.e.; shape,value(light/dark),color,edge There is no other way. On color: If one is to take action and pick up the brush to paint a winding creek, attributes and characteristics are isolated, in order to then paint the attributes. Here is where my hierarchy of visual concepts come into play: Color is an attribute of an entity. To perceive color is to also perceive an entity. Notice how artist applying color has no choice but to have created a shape on the canvas when the color is applied. To paint color is to paint a shape. But what is the shape? Blank out. If someone, wanting to just paint "color" places it on the canvas without concern for what they are trying to represent, then it is abstract, it is not representing anything at the moment until the shape is worked out. To place color on the canvas is to place a shape, and a value(light/dark) (value being inseparable from a color) If I go outside to paint a creek, and I want to paint the color of the creek, there is a method involved. Concerning seeing and knowledge, when I see a flowing creek, the creek bed nearby is visible due to in part my viewing angle in relation to the plane of water, because I'm viewing it at this angle I can see the color of the warm creek bed, and as I divert my gaze upstream my viewing angle changes in relation to the plane of water, and I see the reflected sky which when I'm isolating the attribute color in the use of a visual concept I can isolate " cool blue". In order to complete the use of visual concepts, I create a concrete, a representation of the color in the form of a shape, and finally I actually paint the creek. Make sense? The beauty of knowing the "how" and "why" comes into play when creating a representational painting, especially so when painting from "memory". There is no other way to gain knowledge and apply it without using concepts, and abstracting in order to recreate reality in a painting. Understanding and applying the concepts of reflection and refraction is used when painting the representational, but this knowledge is not necessary(of course it is gained from the staring point of perception and then noting casual relations) In this painting of a little waterfall, when painting color, I isolated the orange color of the creekbed(my vantage point of being high on a cliff, in relation to the plane of the water I can see the "warm orange" of the creek bed) and then when isolating color, I also extracted the color of the distant water(my vantage point being in the same location, but this time seeing the water plane at a different angle in relation to me I can see"cool" blue") The process of using the visual concept "color" is complete when I paint the shape of the river, and apply the attribute color: or here, when I use color as an attribute of an entity, which has a shape the process is complete. The use of concepts is seen in the representational, and the representational painting can be reduced to the perceptual: Consider, a farmer who gains a sense of life from seeing his creek represented in a painting. He may not understand the method which is applied to create the painting, but he certainly does not need to in order to enjoy it. It is one thing, seeing a finished product, but it is a different matter of understanding the process of it. To recreate reality in a representational painting is to use the abstract, and ground it to reality. edit:grammar and clarity

Jonathan13 and Eiuol, I had read your responses, after my work today, but I'm sorry that I don't have enough time to respond to them now. I at least wanted to say thank you for your replies, and I plan on giving meaningful responses after work.

Jonathan13, I had read about Kandinsky and viewed his paintings. I think Plato and Kandinsky would have made good friends in the similar values they share. Kandinsky takes the attributes away from entities and tries to appeal to some abstract. Substitute Plato's appeal to geometric shapes and symmetry with Kandinsky's appeal to color and shape divorced from the entities they are attributed to. Perhaps Kandinsky's creations reflect the ideology of Platonism? "The content of true reality, according to Plato, is a set of universals or Forms—in effect, a set of disembodied abstractions representing that which is in common among various groups of particulars in this world. Thus for Plato abstractions are supernatural existents. They are non-material entities in another dimension, independent of man’s mind and of any of their material embodiments. The Forms, Plato tells us repeatedly, are what is really real. The particulars they subsume—the concretes that make up this world—are not; they have only a shadowy, dreamlike half-reality." -Peikoff, "Ominous Parallels" "Suppose a rhomboidal composition, made up of a number of human figures. The artist asks himself: Are these human figures an absolute necessity to the composition, or should they be replaced by other forms, and that without affecting the fundamental harmony of the whole? If the answer is "Yes," we have a case in which the material appeal directly weakens the abstract appeal. The human form must either be replaced by another object which, whether by similarity or contrast, will strengthen the abstract appeal, or must remain a purely non-material symbol." -Kandinsky on painting

Jonathan13, I’d like to discuss representational art and abstract works specifically, as the topic suggests. (The concept beauty, while I had mentioned it is not the subject I would like to discuss in this thread.) In the arguments you've presented are you saying that there is an alternative way to obtain knowledge, to then be applied in a painting? I cannot accept that knowledge can be gained in any other way besides deriving and/or reducing back to the perceptual level. As I have reason to think, a representational painting is created by a method that is grounded in reality. All concepts which I have stated in the shape,value,color presuppose that one has learned these concepts by the proper conceptual faculty of man.

While definitions will be updated when new knowledge is gained, the underlying concepts and principles subsumed in Objectivism, which make it the system that it is (integrated) remain unchanged.

Thank you for the comment, SapereAude. I’m taking into consideration that when a generalization is made, the context of concepts known at the time should be considered. Whistler, in representing night scenes, where the lack of light creates an overall tone close in value, created these nocturnes which were seen as a tonalism style. I do think that these nocturnes are representative of a night scene. I understand that the generalization is perhaps very broad to integrate, and while I don't favor pure realism, approaching naturalism, I do want to generalize so that abstract work is not considered art, as is present in "modern art".

I have a quarrel with abstract paintings passing as art. This is my attempt to show for my own understanding, why I think abstract painting can be discounted and not considered as art, thrown out as arbitrary. As I understand it,when one sees beauty, this presupposes that a harmonious whole is seen, which is to say that an integrated whole is present before the viewer. (In particular, I'm writing of beauty seen in a painting.) I think a finished representational painting is the result of an applied method by the artist. To view a painting, is to see: ( A )-The artist’s recreation of reality, where entities represented in paint can be reduced back to referents. Where casual relations perceived by the artist were developed into visual concepts for the artist to use in making an idea concrete in paint. To be a representational painting, to be an artwork, beautiful or ugly, is to have the method grounded to reality. ( B ) -An artist having painted an integrated whole, which is a prerequisite to harmony, and finally beauty. If a painting holds a contradiction, which occurs in an abstract work, then it is non-harmonious, not integrated, and can be considered ugly. ( C )-the use of a hierarchy of concepts such as "shape", "value (light/dark)", "edges", "color" What does it mean for a painting to be able to be reduced back to casual relations, which were observed by referents to the perceptual level? A painting is to represent something, to paint its identity. To observe a mountain scene that recedes into the distance is to see the causal relation of each mountain becoming lighter, lowered in contrast, bluer, which was later understood as atmospheric perspective. To recreate in paint requires the concepts "value", "color", "shape" in making an intelligible recreation of the scene. To see is to have knowledge of concepts, which were attained through a proper method of concept formation. Contrast this to an abstract work, where there are no represented entities to reduce back to the observed in reality. What is this smear of color placed on the canvas? Color is an attribute, which if not reduced back to an observed entity it to not be grounded in reality. What is this shape that has no essential characteristics of a referent to reality? What does it mean to have an integrated whole without contradiction? If the metaphysical is the standard, is harmonious, then deviating from the essentials perceived and seen in reality can only result in a contradiction, which will be ugly. To not paint the essential characteristics of an entity, or to purposely. do away with perspective will result in contradictions. To paint light in the shadows and reverse form will result in contradictions, etc. To see a representational painting is to see the final result of a method. It is to see the artists knowledge, of "value" "shape" "edges" "color" applied to recreating what the artist values. To note, there is a hierarchy in the use of concepts. To use color presupposes the use of value(light/dark) and to use the concept “value(light and dark) presupposes that there is a shape to have this attribute. It isn't possible for a product to be created without having gone through a method to attain the knowledge to apply the skill of creating the product. Rationalists may try to say that a gift has been seeded to an artist, in this way they show just how much knowledge is lacking in the creation of an abstract work. To try and “preserve the appearances of things” through abstract work is to throw away the method used to make representational paintings, artwork. I think the sanction of an abstract painting is to say that knowledge cannot be known and applied. To gain knowledge requires a proper method of perception, observing casual relations, forming generalizations, and upwards to theories. Likewise, I think that to give consideration that an abstract painting is “art” is to say that knowledge can’t be known. As I understand it, the current state of trash being passed as art is a result of the failure of the philosophers of the past, namely Kant who took the worst of rationalism and empiricism, to create a marriage of anti-concepts and skeptical content. Again, I’m simply writing this for my own learning and understanding of showing the importance of distinguishing art from the arbitrary, abstract works. It is in my selfish interest to know what can be done to reverse the “anti-mind”, “anti-method” mentality that is reflected in modern art. Any thoughts or constructive criticism is encouraged. Thank you.

With each new post you write, you show just how unwilling you are to read her philosophy. You say that you plan on putting effort into your posts and comments? Why not apply that effort into reading a book instead?

HollowApollo, As others have said, it will take time to integrate these new ideas. Given your interest in her philosophy, why don't you start by reading her works? Some people are first introduced to Objectivism through her art, and then move onto her non-fiction work to better understand her philosophy, but since you are questioning her philosophy through her non-fiction, why don't you start reading OPAR(Objectivism the Philosophy of Ayn Rand) written by Dr. Leonard Peikoff. OPAR Forums can be surely helpful and a tool for critical thinking, but I think they are secondary to having first read her works.