Before I explain my thoughts, I want to say that I don’t think Rand explained music well enough to fit it into her aesthetic theory. A lot of what is “abstract” art is equally as sensible as music.
I have the reverse view. It’s not that Rand didn’t explain music well enough to fit her theory, but that she didn’t openly, objectively and scientifically investigate the nature of all of the art forms before attempting to make them fit the theory that she had developed for literature. She appears to have begun with the desired outcome that all of the various art forms should be as objective as literature, rather than being open to recognizing the reality that certain art forms are much more abstract, contain a higher degree of subjectivity, do not “re-create reality” by her standards for literature, and, by their very nature, they are much more open to different (or multiple) possible meanings and interpretations. What is true of literature and drama’s clear intelligibility and communicative nature has never been true of any of the other art forms. It’s just not an objective approach to the field of aesthetics to require literature-like intelligibility and communication in all of the art forms as Rand did.
So, music doesn’t need more of an explanation. Rather, Rand’s theory needs to be revised to more objectively identify the nature of art based on all of the art forms rather than just literature.
Okay, but you still need to explain “meaningless” better. You already said a Mandelbrodt set reminds you of Bach’s work. Doesn’t that imply that there is meaning exactly to the degree a pattern is being concretized? That is an argument *for* music as meaningful. Paintings are like “nothing else”, not any more than a guitar sounds like a person crying. Meaning and intelligibility aren’t purely about specifically what you experience daily. There is even re-creation of reality in the sense reality is *re*presented. So if you want to say Objectivism implicitly denies music as art, get more specific about “meaningless”. That somewhat goes to you too, Jonathan. Why doesn’t music present intelligible subjects? That is, why is it that you think music has no intelligible subject?
The following statements about finding meaning in various art forms all take exactly the same approach of associating abstract attributes with human qualities, actions, personalities, virtues, etc., yet apparently, for some unidentified reason, we’re supposed to believe that some of these are vicious attacks on man’s proper method of cognition, where others are heroically romantic? Can you tell which is which?
“The first gives me the feeling of energy, determination and action. It’s meaning is that mankind should be strong and bold, and pursue his passions. The specific angularity and proportions of the shapes is what conveys motion and rising to me, the dramatic contrasts and bold colors suggest passion, heat, pressure and struggle, and the bulk of the forms and the roughness of the textures give me the feeling of strength and rugged durability. I see it as a very physically masculine painting. It’s extroverted, dominant, serious and aggressive. It’s like Atlas pushing upward. The second image gives me the feeling of serenity. It’s meaning is that peace and gentleness are important human qualities. The colors are subdued and calming. There is practically no drama or contrast – the forms are delicate and faint, and they convey a soothing gentleness, playfulness and weightlessness. The image is like a visual whisper. I see it as a very physically feminine painting. It’s withdrawn and introverted, and anything but aggressive. It’s like a mother caressing a child.”
"The building stood on the shore of the East River, a structure rapt as raised arms. The rock crystal forms mounted in such eloquent steps that the building did not seem stationary, but moving upward in a continuous flow – until one realized that it was only the movement of one’s glance and that one’s glance was forced to move in that particular rhythm. The walls of pale gray limestone looked silver against the sky, with the clean, dulled luster of metal, but a metal that had become a warm, living substance, carved by the most cutting of all instruments – a purposeful human will. It made the house alive in a strange, personal way of its own, so that in the minds of spectators five words ran dimly, without object or clear connection: ‘…in His image and likeness…’ "
“Its lines were horizontal, not the lines reaching to heaven, but the lines of the earth. It seemed to spread over the ground like arms outstretched at shoulder height. Palms down, in great silent acceptance. It did not cling to the soil and it did not crouch under the sky. It seemed to lift the earth, and its few vertical shafts pulled the sky down.”
“Generally speaking, warmth and cold in a color means an approach respectively to yellow or to blue. This distinction is, so to speak, on one basis, the color having a constant fundamental appeal, but assuming a more material or non-material quality. The movement is a horizontal one, the warm colors approaching the spectator, the cold ones retreating from him…Yellow and blue have another movement which affects the first antithesis – an ex- and concentric movement. If two circles are drawn and painted respectively yellow and blue, brief concentration will reveal in the yellow a spreading movement out from the center, and a noticeable approach to the spectator. The blue, on the other hand, moves in upon itself, like a snail retreating into its shell, and draws away from the spectator…The first movement of yellow, that of approach to the spectator (which can be increased by the intensification of the yellow), and also the second movement, that of over-spreading the boundaries, have a material parallel in the human energy which assails every obstacle blindly, and bursts forth aimlessly in every direction…Yellow, if steadily gazed at in any geometric form, has a disturbing influence, and reveals in the color an insistent, aggressive character (it is worth noting that the sour-tasting lemon and the shrill-singing canary are both yellow)…Blue is the typical heavenly color. The ultimate feeling it creates is one of rest. When it sinks almost to black, it echoes a grief that is hardly human. When it rises toward white, a movement little suited to it, its appeal to men grows weaker and more distant.”
“For me, the secondary re-creation level (‘representation’) does not need to be visual/tactile, just something that behaves generally (very generally) like physical entities…[a melody] is something ~like~ an entity, in certain respects…Consider instead the popular song ‘My Heart Stood Still.’ It has wonderful upward sweeping phrases in major, and they convey a lush, yearning, surging feeling that completely fits the lyrics.”
J