[Zsych]

Was just in another thread where someone mentioned art as one of the great forms of legacy you can leave behind *Now to voice an opinion likely to make me unpopular
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*

Lets imagine the Mona Lisa... despite the awesomeness people like to attribute to it, what do you really see in it? Any value or insight? Anything you can use? If someone hadn't been told it was awesome what would they normally think of it?

Art is usually an extrapolation of some idea or concept of beauty we have. But its typically not something that has any real meaning. Making something twisted that your pattern recognition abilities relate to something you find interesting, does not mean much beyond that your mind incorrectly related something to a concept in your mind that it likely had no significant relation to... or even if it does really make you think of something else... so?

For all that we like music... our likings change across generations, and there is no great reason for any combination of sounds to have any significant meaning to us. That our minds correlate the sounds to our emotions is more a side-effect of the nature of our minds, and probably more representative of its flaws in interpreting reality and its relationship to us than anything else.

[Booko]

Art has no real meaning? Symbols speak very loudly to us.

Ever seen Picasso's Guernica? How does that not convey the horrors of war?

I've read plenty of military history and memoirs of generals throughout history. And none of those come even close to the visceral effect of Guernica.

[Cicatrix]

I'm not really a culture vulture or art expert but I do enjoy looking at a painting or drawing that I find aesthetically pleasing. It’s hard to translate that into the kind of meaning you are talking about, but part of the enjoyment for me is that the meaning is so obtuse and intangible. Exactly like the feeling of being tiny in the universe or being in awe of nature. I don’t know why I find so much enjoyment in those things, it just is.

[psykhe]

Even a single picture speaks a thousand words..Historically, art was made for popular entertainment. And this does not narrow to visual art alone much more to 'Mona Lisa'.

[Zsych]

@Cicatrix: Like I said, your mind tries to interpret it and links it to stuff, or evokes a feeling. Its debateable how much value you should be attributing to some random feeling.

@Booko: I looked at Picasso's Guernica. The highest reaction it brings from my mind is 'that's kinda cool', and no, I feel none of the horror of war from it. Perhaps from having never been in one, or perhaps from being too desensitized to visual violence.

Actual pictures of large battlefields full of rotting bodies might have more effect on me.


Anyway, I'm not saying that art is utterly meaningless - just that it doesn't have a lot of value and what value it has, it has only because we give it value. And we often give it vastly more value than it deserves.

[Aronnax]

	Originally Posted by Zsych To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Anyway, I'm not saying that art is utterly meaningless - just that it doesn't have a lot of value and what value it has, it has only because we give it value. And we often give it vastly more value than it deserves.

No, we give it more value than you think it deserves. Given that we are accountable for the sum whole of society our opinion on what constitutes values matters more than your opinion does.

[BuShinJu]

	Originally Posted by Zsych To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Art is usually an extrapolation of some idea or concept of beauty we have. But its typically not something that has any real meaning.

These 2 sentances contradict I think, I would say that all art is the artist trying to convey what has meaning for them to other people.

It's though experiment time!

Let's get rid of all the artists in the world, all of them! First, delete you avatar picture, because there would be no one to illustrate that. By the way, your picture seems to be portraying Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone, which is a powerful story/motif in itself, and has a lot of meaning about growing up and living life.

Look at the font you are typing with, get rid of them, artists made them.

Those movies you watch would have to go too, each one of those has a massive art department. You would have to get rid of nearly everything.

Art is highly valued in society, look at any advertising billboard, art commands big money.

[Zsych]

@Arronax: The opinions of the masses have more value than more logical criteria? Yup, that's why we have inconsistent religious beliefs and all other manner of stupidity. Because humans seek to find meaning where there isn't any and then tell themselves that its important.

@BuShinJu: This thread is to rant about the fact that we often attribute value to things incorrectly, and for all that it may have some value, by and large the creation of art is not a great achievement or amazing legacy to be leaving behind, as opposed to more concrete work.

[PUPA555]

Aside from food, clothes, and shelter, I haven't found anything that's truly necessary for human happiness. If you're arguing that we spend too much time and energy on art, where should our attention be instead?

Curing diseases? Making life more comfortable for a few generations of our population? Advancing the species in some other way? We're small, and we're just mammals. In the grand scheme of things, none of these matter at all.

There is nothing which we could possibly 'buy' with the cost of art that would drastically improve our collective quality of life.

[Zombicide]

The Mona Lisa is disturbingly overrated but not truly great works, if it weren't for art, there'd be nothing to live for ... (Well, there still isn't but close enough) and no point in all the supposedly useful stuff. The love of my life is a masterpiece billions of years in the making.

[Aronnax]

	Originally Posted by Zsych To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	@Arronax: The opinions of the masses have more value than more logical criteria? Yup, that's why we have inconsistent religious beliefs and all other manner of stupidity. Because humans seek to find meaning where there isn't any and then tell themselves that its important.

The masses manged to come up with skyscrapers, open heart surgery and airplanes. Have you accomplished anything of significance that somehow lends your opinion more weight than the aggregate of humanity?

My point is the burden of proof is on you; you can't appeal to your own authority as if it's somehow more valuable. You have to demonstrate that nearly everyone else's personal criteria for happiness is flawed and they don't truly understand their own value system.

[Imagineering]

Art is pointless and I find that satisfying because so is everything else but people typically glorify whatever their passions are.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by Zsych To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Art is usually an extrapolation of some idea or concept of beauty we have. But its typically not something that has any real meaning. Making something twisted that your pattern recognition abilities relate to something you find interesting, does not mean much beyond that your mind incorrectly related something to a concept in your mind that it likely had no significant relation to... or even if it does really make you think of something else... so?

You're appealing to sophistry?

I could insert anything into your argument and argue that its not important in that manner. "Consider a hundred dollar bill. What meaning does it have beyond the concept of the mind?"

[Kanizsa]

You are trying to encode art into some kind of human value system. Art is just one of those things that tells us so much about politics, power, and history. Just study how Athens raised money to build the Parthenon, look at art from the Dark Ages and compare it to art from the Renaissance then go look at some Matisse paintings... you can really learn a lot from art. Dare I say you can learn more than reading a 3000 page book on human history (of course this is Euro/American centric).

Whats so cool about the Mona Lisa? It's cool because you know its the same painting that Da Vinci saw... 500 years later we are all seeing the painting. Its cool because it has survived. Its cool because everyone else knows about it. Do you remember the first time you saw the Mona Lisa? I don't...

I think the reason why Art seems so valueless to you, Zsych, is that in our society it has become mass produced and therefore worthless. However if you see a painting in real life, knowing that it is the ONLY one there is something special about that... and if you happen to have an emotive response to that there is an invisible mental connection built between the artist and you... I think there is something inherently calming about that.

Watch one episode of John Berger's Ways of Seeing:
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Also read some Walter Benjamin:
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Also Barthes' Camera Lucida.

Of course... read those if you really figure out why art seems to be meaningless to you...

[Booko]

	Originally Posted by Zsych To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	@Booko: I looked at Picasso's Guernica. The highest reaction it brings from my mind is 'that's kinda cool', and no, I feel none of the horror of war from it. Perhaps from having never been in one, or perhaps from being too desensitized to visual violence. Actual pictures of large battlefields full of rotting bodies might have more effect on me.

No, I've seen actual stiffs...and people on their way to becoming them. It's not the same.

	Anyway, I'm not saying that art is utterly meaningless - just that it doesn't have a lot of value and what value it has, it has only because we give it value. And we often give it vastly more value than it deserves.

Certainly it has no objective value. Neither does music or literature. Then again, what objective value does science have? It's anywhere from useless to dangerous sometimes, depending on what use is made of that knowledge.

What has intrinsic value?

---------- Post added 10-12-2010 at 12:29 AM ----------

	Originally Posted by Zsych To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	@BuShinJu: This thread is to rant about the fact that we often attribute value to things incorrectly, and for all that it may have some value, by and large the creation of art is not a great achievement or amazing legacy to be leaving behind, as opposed to more concrete work.

Compared to the value we attribute to some sports figures, the value we give to art seems far more reasonable.

And that concrete work? It isn't as concrete as you probably imagine it is.

btw, the Mona Lisa does have value...if only because of
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reaction it creates in many people.

[BuShinJu]

	Originally Posted by Zsych To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	@BuShinJu: This thread is to rant about the fact that we often attribute value to things incorrectly, and for all that it may have some value, by and large the creation of art is not a great achievement or amazing legacy to be leaving behind, as opposed to more concrete work.

Oh I see,

Yes, you may make any value judgement you like about a thing, that is your right.

Most likely, the artist made his piece of art about himself to explain something to himself . He may of only been thinking of you, the audience, in some abstract way, or maybe not at all. So, yeah, to the artist you may have no value at all to him. Then someone in the audience says "yes I will pay $1million dollars for that piece of art because I get what the artrist is saying, I place a value upon it and I'll put my money where my mouth is", and this dude won't care that you don't place any value on it, because he himself gets what the artist is getting at.

But apart from that, I think consciousness of ideas may be the most important and powerful thing in the Universe. And if it takes an artist to make some scratchings on a canvas or someone to photograph something that conveys this idea then artists may be the most powerful people in the world. Look at Inception, this movie posits that an idea planted in someones head is the most powerful thing, one method of doing this is throught art, just like your avatar picture.

[Allie]

Art is in the eye of the beholder...or eye of the needle.

If the value of art is hard to imagine, here is a concrete example of how valuable art can be, by any standards, that may be appreciated by just about anyone. Meet Willard Wigan, the amazing artist with microscopic sculptures. This is the perfect example of what I would imagine "nano" art to truly be.

...A grain of sand, eyelash, pin head, eye-of-the-needle. Really mind-blowing. Imagine working with something so small, you "inhale" it by accident.


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[BellaBianca]

Frankly. You could just as well say that you are blind and don't see the value in eyesight.

Da Vinci was an inventor. I have often thought it would have surprised him that the one thing he would be the most remembered for, would be this little portrait. Still, it is not exactly weird - and it is a very good thing about humanity - that a well done and lifelike portrait of a human personality is more memorable than his warfare inventions.

It was made for a concrete reason, simply to portray the now forgotten lady on the picture. They didn't make art without reason back then.
It is very good craftwork - to me, that is enough anyway when I value something. There is much more to Mona Lisa, but I won't care to discuss it further with somebody who is ranting.

[Rohsiph]

Sometimes art is the primary catalyst for great academic, scientific, and/or social work.

[Wapiti]

Art, what is art? If you are not an artist, are you just another person doing a job that anyone can do? If what you are doing is not art in your own eye, are you really enjoying it? Do you need all of us to value it more so that whatever it is that you are doing can be more highly respected by us all? As you think it should be? Do you feel as if you are under-appreciated and art more valued in comparison to what you do, what you feel you should be compensated for?

	Art is usually an extrapolation of some idea or concept of beauty we have. But its typically not something that has any real meaning.

That sums up all of humanity and what it does, does it not? Not solely what you deem as art but everything?

[Zsych]

Well there's productive, and then there's not. There is creativity that builds new things and advances humanity's reach, and then there's all the creativity that doesn't really bring any kind of progress because its not anchored in the world.

Art has value in sorta the same way as the dream I had last night. No real relation to reality. It was rather fun though.

---

As for having to prove myself to make a judgment - actually truth does not change because of who speaks it (even though plenty of stuff I've done actually does contribute to the world). Art has little objective value (I won't say it has 'no' value - only little - although it might depend... if you really do inspire great real works with art, then I'd say it was quite valuable)

... As for respect for sportsmen over art - can't say I respect that much either. They're entertainers made more prominent and able to make more money by the existence of the media. As people, they rarely seem to have amazing qualities.

[BellaBianca]

Man has little objectiveness.
He does also not have objective value.
Actually, value is not a part of the realm of the objective.
The objective is only a tool to achieve value, and does not have value in itself.

[Wapiti]

Productive? Productive is relative! What is the everlasting effect of being productive? Where is the long term value? And to whom?

	Art has value in sorta the same way as the dream I had last night. No real relation to reality. It was rather fun though.

Umm, everything? Reality?
When dreams manifest into the Mona Lisa or the Emancipation Proclamation or the Light bulb..... Art in the flesh, for history to revel in. Sure, the original artist didn't see the "value" placed on their art as we see it now but it exists, and it is real. But it will not likely last forever. Just as all art. The value is temporary as is life, your life.

And sportsmen are artists! If not they are only people performing a job, a duty. Tell Michael Jordan he is not an artist, he might agree. But I saw him play, that was art. And Muggsy Bogues, that was some art, 5 foot nothing in the NBA - that was art. Sure, there were many sportsmen who weren't artists but that applies to every career, every sport, every thing.

Are you equating money to value? Value for what you do in life, to validate your existence? There is no doubt that what you have to offer humanity is significant or insignificant but it will not likely manifest in your bank account. Unless that is all you are after. And that's where art dies in my opinion.

[larrysb]

The arts, and music in particular, offer for me a peculiar kind of emotional connection that nothing else seems to. At a performance of Aida a few weeks ago, my heart was literally racing in the midst of one of the movements. I wish I had enough formal education in artistic and musical endeavors to say something intelligent about it. My education was spent purely in that which was absolutely necessary to pursue an engineering career.

[BuShinJu]

	Originally Posted by Zsych To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	--- As for having to prove myself to make a judgment - actually truth does not change because of who speaks it (even though plenty of stuff I've done actually does contribute to the world). Art has little objective value (I won't say it has 'no' value - only little - although it might depend... if you really do inspire great real works with art, then I'd say it was quite valuable)

I would say the truth of art having value is subjective.

Art has little objective value to you.