Objectivist Art?

[Strangelove]

Sometimes it seems as if the "Romanticist" art that Objectivists love, seems to be regarded as the "correct" way of presenting art. Is it just regarded as appropriate for the novels, or do Objectivists have broader claims of Romanticist superiority over "other" art?

[AMERICONORMAN]

Sometimes it seems as if the "Romanticist" art that Objectivists love, seems to be regarded as the "correct" way of presenting art. Is it just regarded as appropriate for the novels, or do Objectivists have broader claims of Romanticist superiority over "other" art?

Romantic Raalism claims superiority in every art. But such art in any other art except for novels and plays, is hardly seen. In painting there is some good stuff. The thing is that in art, it is usually good to be a genius.

If you look at novels, for example, and if you look at a modern romantic realist drama, compared to romanticists drama, to classicism, and to Shakespeare, you will see the Romantic Realism correcting and improving certain areas of the drama. To dramatize a benevolent philosophy has hardly ever been done except with Ayn Rand.

Americo.

[Crow]

Art is the concrete expression of abstract metaphysical and epistemological values. The painting of a bright red delicious looking apple on a shined hickory table is one such expression that subsumes an incalculable number of concrete values. Art is an end in itself. Arts purpose is to be contemplated by man. The issue of which art is superior to another depends on judgments, philosophical value judgments. Epistemologically Objectivists value reason, certainty, pride, ambition, self-esteem, capitalism, strength, and greatness. They metaphysically believe reality is objective, knowable, concrete, and benevolent. To a man who holds reality as knowable; splotches of red, yellow, and brown paint on a canvass is not a depiction of a fall evening, the art flies in the face of his epistemological base. To a man who believes humans are not sacrificial animals a painting of Jesus Christ on a crucifix is grotesque, the art's depiction opposes his formerly said ethical belief. To a man who hates mankind a painting of hell is a moral sanction. In regards to your question, yes we do have broader claims to Romantic Realism's superiority over other schools of art, as we have broad claims to Objectivism's metaphysical and epistemological superiority as opposed to other philosophies.

[Strangelove]

Would that mean that Objectivists regard works such as Picasso's Guernica as "inferior" because it does not realistically portray human suffering adequately by being abstract as oppsed to realistic, or would it still be considered a "good" piece of art that is just not 100% in line with Objectivist logic?

[Crow]

Why would anyone like that painting? I ask because the only reasons I can think of are malevolent.

Picasso's Guernica in it's school of art is a wonderful painting, the work of a master, but it's school is to say the least inferior to Romantic Realism.

Why would anyone want to depict suffering for suffering's sake as is depicted in that painting?

[Inspector]

Would that mean that Objectivists regard works such as Picasso's Guernica as "inferior" because it does not realistically portray human suffering adequately by being abstract as oppsed to realistic, or would it still be considered a "good" piece of art that is just not 100% in line with Objectivist logic?

Art is judged on two levels: 1) does this fulfill its function as art? 2) Does this support my values?

Obviously, the Guernica does not support Objectivist values. But that does not say anything about it as art qua art.

As art, a child could have drawn it. I know everything he meant to do and to express by distorting his figures in that way, but it's still technically unimpressive. Compare it to Salvador Dali, for example. You see the same kind of twisted universe, but at least that man could paint.

The point being that while Objectvism holds that art is not entirely to be judged by the validity of the metaphysical message it portrays, representational art IS considered by Objectivism to be entirely superior to non-representational art.

[Inspector]

Crow, I believe I have just dealt Picasso a larger insult than you!

[Tom Robinson]

Art is judged on two levels: 1) does this fulfill its function as art? 2) Does this support my values?

Obviously, the Guernica does not support Objectivist values. But that does not say anything about it as art qua art.

As art, a child could have drawn it. I know everything he meant to do and to express by distorting his figures in that way, but it's still technically unimpressive. Compare it to Salvador Dali, for example. You see the same kind of twisted universe, but at least that man could paint.

The point being that while Objectvism holds that art is not entirely to be judged by the validity of the metaphysical message it portrays, representational art IS considered by Objectivism to be entirely superior to non-representational art.

But is all representational art "entirely superior" to all non-representational art?

I once spent half an hour gazing at Guernica at the Museum of Modern Art. On the other hand, I'd cross the street to avoid having to pass the window of a Thomas Kinkaide gallery.

[Crow]

Tom, why?

[Inspector]

Tom, I almost posed that question myself, but instead decided to see what people would say! Kudos to you!

As art qua art, yes: representational is entirely superior. Whether you will actually derive more enjoyment from a well-drawn picture of a maggot vomiting on Michaelangelo's David, or from a bunch of squiggles and shapes.... well...

The point is that your experience does not contradict what I have said.

Edited March 29, 2005 by Inspector

[Tom Robinson]

Tom, why?

For the same reason I'd rather read Faulkner than a Harlequin romance novel. One nourishes the intellect; the other is empty calories.

[Crow]

You didn't explain it well enough for me to understand.

[Crow]

I can understand that Kindaide's painting is metaphorically a gingerbread house but Picasso's painting is metaphorically raw bovine kidney; I like the taste of the gingerbread house.

[Kitty Hawk]

Would that mean that Objectivists regard works such as Picasso's Guernica as "inferior" because it does not realistically portray human suffering adequately by being abstract as oppsed to realistic, or would it still be considered a "good" piece of art that is just not 100% in line with Objectivist logic?

Have you read Ayn Rand's The Romantic Manifesto? It will answer all your questions about what Objectivism has to say about art.

A Romantic artist does not portray human suffering as the main theme in any work of art. A Romantic artist portrays life, man's life, as it could be, and ought to be. Something to admire, something that inspires man to achieve the best within himself. Think of Michelangelo's David---that is Romantic art. Human suffering may be portrayed in a Romantic work of art, but only incidentally. The main theme is always "things as they might be and ought to be."

The fundamental requirement of Romantic art is the principle of volition. Art that portrays man as a pawn of fate, or of his environment, is denying volition, and is therefore non-Romantic art. In Romantic art, man is in control of his own destiny, and works to achieve his own goals, in spite of obstacles.

I'll just quote Ayn Rand here, extensively and to the point:

Two distinct, but interrelated, elements of a work of art are the crucial means of projecting its sense of life: the subject and the style---what an artist chooses to present and how he presents it.

The subject of an art work expresses a view of man's existence, while the style expresses a view of man's consciousness.  The subject reveals an artist's metaphysics, the style reveals his psycho-epistemology.

The choice of subject declares what aspects of existence the artist regards as important--as worthy of being re-created and contemplated.  He may choose to present heroic figures, as exponents of man's nature--or he may choose statistical composites of the average, the undistinguished, the mediocre--or he may choose crawling specimens of depravity.  He may present the triumph of heroes, in fact or in spirit (Victor Hugo), or their struggle (Michelangelo), or their defeat (Shakespeare).  He may present the folks next door: next door to palaces (Tolstoy), or to drugstores (Sinclair Lewis), or to kitchens (Vermeer), or to sewers (Zola).  He may present monsters as objects of moral denunciation (Dostoyevsky), or as objects of terror (Goya)--or he may demand sympathy for his monsters, and thus crawl outside the limits of the realm of values, including esthetic ones.

Whatever the case may be, it is the subject (qualified by the theme) that projects an art work's view of man's place in the universe.

The theme of an art work is the link uniting its subject and its style.  "Style" is a particular, distinctive or characteristic mode of execution.  An artist's style is the product of his own psycho-epistemology--and, by implication, a projection of his view of man's consciousness, of its efficacy or impotence, of its proper method and level of functioning.

Predominantly (though not exclusively), a man whose normal mental state is a state of full focus, will create and respond to a style of radiant clairty and ruthless precision--a style that projects sharp outlines, cleanliness, purpose, an intransigent commitment to full awareness and clear-cut identity--a level of awareness appropriate to a universe where A is A, where everything is open to man's consciousness and demands its constant functioning.

A man who is moved by the fog of his feelings and spends most of his time out of focus will create and respond to a style of blurred, "mysterious" murk, where outlines dissolve and entities flow into one another, where words connote anything and denote nothing, where colors float without objects, and objects float without weight--a level of awareness appropriate to a universe where A can be any non-A one chooses, where nothing can be known with certainty and nothing much is demanded of one's consciousness.

Style is the most complex element of art, the most revealing and, often the most baffling psychologically.  The terrible inner conflicts from which artists suffer as much as (or, perhaps, more than) other men are magnified in their work.  As an example: Salvador Dali, whose style projects the luminous clarity of a rational psycho-epistemology, while most (though not all) of his subjects project an irrational and revoltingly evil metaphysics.  A similar, but less offensive, conflict may be seen in the paintings of Vermeer, who combines a brilliant clarity of style with the bleak metaphysics of Naturalism.  At the other extreme of the stylistic continuum, observe the deliberate blurring and visual distortions of the so-called "painterly" school, from Rembrandt on down--down to the rebellion against consciousness, expressed by a phenomenon such as Cubism which seeks specifically to disintegrate man's consciousness by painting objects as man does not perceive them (from several perspectives at once.) . . . . .

Style conveys what may be called a "psycho-epistemological sense of life," i.e., an expression of that level of mental functioning on which the artist feels most at home.  This is the reason why style is crucially important in art--both to the artist and to the reader or viewer--and why its importance is experienced as a profoundly personal matter.  To the artist, it is an expression, to the reader or viewer a confirmation, of his own consciousness--which means: of his efficacy--which means: of his self-esteem (or pseudo-self-esteem).

Now a word of warning about the criteria of esthetic judgment.  A sense of life is the source of art, but it is not the sole qualification of an artist or of an esthetician, and it is not a criterion of esthetic judgment.  Emotions are not tools of cognition.  Esthetics is a branch of philosophy--and just as a philosopher does not approach any other branch of his science with his feelings or emotions as his criterion of judgment, so he cannot do it in the field of esthetics.  A sense of life is not sufficient professional equipment.  An esthetician--as well as any man who attempts to evaluate art works--must be guided by more than an emotion.

The fact that one agrees with an artist's philosophy is irrelevant to an esthetic appraisal of his work qua art.  One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work.  In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist's theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it--i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his view of life . . . . .

Since art is a philosophical composite, it is not a contradiction to say: "This is a great work of art, but I don't like it,"--provided one defines the exact meaning of that statement: the first part refers to a purely esthetic appraisal, the second to a deeper philosophical level which includes more than esthetic values.

Even in the realm of personal choices, there are many different aspects from which one may enjoy a work of art--other than sense-of-life affinity.  One's sense of life is fully involved only when one feels a profoundly personal emotion about a work of art.  But there are many other levels or degrees of liking; the differences are similar to the difference between romantic love and affection or friendship.

For instance: I love the work of Victor Hugo, in a deeper sense than admiration for his superlative literary genius, and I find many similarities between his sense of life and mine, although I disagree with virtually all of his explicit philosophy--I like Dostoevsky, for his superb mastery of plot-structure and for his merciless dissection of the psychology of evil, even though his philosophy and his sense of life are almost diametrically opposed to mine--I like the early novels of Mickey Spillane, for his plot ingenuity and moralistic style, even though his sense of life clashes with mine, and no explicit philosophical element is involved in his work--I cannot stand Tolstoy, and reading him was the most boring literary duty I ever had to perform, his philosophy and his sense of life are not merely mistaken, but evil, and yet, from a purely literary viewpoint, on his own terms, I have to evaluate him as a good writer.

Now, to demonstrate the difference between an intellectual approach and a sense of life, I will restate the preceding paragraph in sense-of-life terms: Hugo gives me the feeling of entering a cathedral--Dostoevsky gives me the feeling of entering a chamber of horrors, but with a powerful guide--Spillane gives me the feeling of hearing a military band in a public park--Tolstoy gives me the feeling of an unsanitary backyard which I do not care to enter.

When one learns to translate the meaning of an art work into objective terms, one discovers that nothing is as potent as art in exposing the essence of a man's character.  An artist reveals his naked soul in his work--and so, gentle reader, do you when you respond to it.

[Ayn Rand, "Art and Sense of Life," The Romantic Manifesto, pp. 50-55.]

Now that is a lesson in art appreciation. Who could read that and not want to read the whole book, not to mention everything else Ayn Rand has written?

Edited March 29, 2005 by Kitty Hawk

[Tom Robinson]

You didn't explain it well enough for me to understand.

There is not enough in a Kinkaide painting (or a Barbara Cartland novel) to engage the mind. You see it and you're done with it. It is all perfectly unastonishing, predictable and commonplace.

[Tom Robinson]

I can understand that Kindaide's painting is metaphorically a gingerbread house but Picasso's painting is metaphorically raw bovine kidney; I like the taste of the gingerbread house.

Except that it is not raw. Nothing in nature looks like what the artist recorded on his canvas. The images have been selected and processed in accordance with the sentiment Picasso wished to express.

[Crow]

What were the sentiments Pablo valued and carefully chose to express? Suffering, terror, fear, he wished others to contemplate these sentiments and from what I can tell his only reason that he wanted them to do so was he was feelings these sentiments at the time.

Would you rather art not be predictable? Shock for the sake of shock, astonishment of the sake of astonishment, both as values? Would you rather Howard Roark live a life of integrity all the way to the end of "The Fountainhead" and then compromise on the last page? I think not. Predictability is consistency being consistent is showing integrity. I would ascribe to both paintings the attribute of predictable but this does not detract from their value as art. If Kinkaide's works are commonplace then Picasso's are non-existents. How often does it snow? How often do neighbors wave to each other? How often is a house light up implying many warm occupants all happily frolicking with each other? I am not saying Kinkaide is a great artist, I am saying his art when judged pound for pound is better then Picassos because Picassos art is at least in this instance meant to bring about the contemplation of suffering as an end in itself and Kinkaide's is meant to make the viewer contemplate joy. The philosophical question raised here is should life be an escape from suffering or a quest for joy, you have your answers in these paintings.

[Inspector]

Crow, you missed his point. Kinkaide's works are about joy, but it's the commonplace kind of joy that is not particularly heroic or inspiring. To the extent that it is naturalistic in this way, it is banal.

[Inspector]

Except that it is not raw.  Nothing in nature looks like what the artist recorded on his canvas.  The images have been selected and processed in accordance with the sentiment Picasso wished to express.

Which is, of course, terror at his metaphyiscal world-view. He is saying that life IS suffering. Malevolent universe premise at work.

[Tom Robinson]

Which is, of course, terror at his metaphyiscal world-view. He is saying that life IS suffering. Malevolent universe premise at work.

I appreciate your understanding (expressed in the response to Crow) that all representational art is not necessarily good art. As for Picasso, I don't know that Guernica expresses his view about the world in general so much as his horror at a particular event in Spanish history. In that sense, the mural may be regarded as an editorial cartoon writ large. I won't defend the entire Picasso oeuvre, but there are many of his paintings and sketches that I find joyous, playful and a delight to behold.

Furthermore, whatever one thinks of Picasso, I believe that there is room for the depiction of suffering (tragedy) in art and literature. Consider another politically focused artist from Spain, Francisco Goya, and his Los Fusilamentos del 3 de mayo en Madrid:

.

This is one of the most gripping depictions of naked oppression ever painted. But I should hardly conclude from it that the artist believes that "that life IS suffering."

[Inspector]

I appreciate your understanding (expressed in the response to Crow) that all representational art is not necessarily good art.  As for Picasso, I don't know that Guernica expresses his view about the world in general so much as his horror at a particular event in Spanish history.  In that sense, the mural may be regarded as an editorial cartoon writ large. I won't defend the entire Picasso oeuvre, but there are many of his paintings and sketches that I find joyous, playful and a delight to behold.

Funny, that Goya is right after the Guernica in my art book.

As for the chickens, they're still done with the skill of a 5 year old (look at his earlier work: he is capable of better). They still express a non-rational epistemology and therefore a hostile universe metaphysics.

[Strangelove]

First off, thanks for all the replies, I have only read FH and am still going through AS, so I have not had time to get to The Romantic Manifesto.

I notice that people say that Picasso draws with the skill "of a five year old" and that "Anyone can draw that". But isnt the point that no one before Picasso drew that way, or that Picasso was the first to depict life in that way? Or even if I five year old could "draw that way" that Picasso drew better? (I am not familier with all of Picasso's works, just his earlier ones).

Also, if art was only to depict human success and life as it ought to be, I imagine there would be far less variety in art galleries. I do believe firmly in the peer review being present in art, I would not want any old so called "modern" artist to simply mess with some dung to make a sculpture if it means nothing, but surely it is acceptable to express oneself in other artistic means, not just Romantic.

For example, the book covers of Fountainhead and Atlas shrugged both used very Romantic images untill the very recent Centenial editions, to celebrate the 100th anniversay of Ayn Rand, and those new book covers are certainely not "inferior" covers.

Also, when Art has to serve politics (or in this case, philosophy) by only showing what man should be like, wouldn't it deny other artists from being able to express someselves in a unique and possibly groundbreaking way?

In a way, it seems ironic, because when people say "Romantic art is the only art worth depicting", it sounds like the Dean from FH saying "All great architecture has already been created".

(I have not yet read the exert from the Romantic Manifesto that was posted, but I will get around to it soon, thank you for posting)

[Strangelove]

Sorry for the double post, but another thought occured to me.

What about Ayn Rand's very own "We the living"? Its ending certainely does not depict life as it "ought to be" but I doubt many people on the board here consider the novel not worth reading because it does not champaion Objectivist values to the same extent as FH or AS. (I have not read WTL, I just know the basic plot outline)

[Kitty Hawk]

Furthermore, whatever one thinks of Picasso, I believe that there is room for the depiction of suffering (tragedy) in art and literature.  Consider another politically focused artist from Spain, Francisco Goya, and his Los Fusilamentos del 3 de mayo en Madrid:

.

This is one of the most gripping depictions of naked oppression ever painted.  But I should hardly conclude from it that the artist believes that "that life IS suffering."

As I said earlier, suffering can be depicted incidentally in Romantic art. This painting of Goya's shows suffering, but the main theme, as I see it, is the heroic, intransigent struggle to resist tyranny, a perfectly Romantic theme.

Goya's style of painting I do not like, but the subject is at least potentially Romantic. I think a more Romantic artist would have portrayed rebels attacking the soldiers, rather than suffering the consequences of resistance. Both are aspects of resistance, but Goya chose to show the more depressing aspect of it.

I also think the depiction of "goriness" is not Romantic. Blood and gore is a naturalistic trait, and isn't necessary to depict suffering or resistance to tyranny. That kind of thing can be left to journalistic photographers. That's one of the elements of Goya's style that I do not like.

Edited March 30, 2005 by Kitty Hawk

[Kitty Hawk]

What about Ayn Rand's very own "We the living"? Its ending certainely does not depict life as it "ought to be" but I doubt many people on the board here consider the novel not worth reading because it does not champaion Objectivist values to the same extent as FH or AS. (I have not read WTL, I just know the basic plot outline)

Again, suffering can be portrayed incidentally in Romantic art. Kira's death is certainly a depiction of suffering, but the context was that she was struggling towards freedom, a Romantic theme. She definitely lived life as it ought to be lived, given the context of her existence. She did everything in her power to live a life proper to man---but the State smothered her.