Beauty

For me, art and beauty are the same thing: the will to perfection.


In art, mankind strives to create perfection, and the closer he gets to perfection, the more beautiful he finds his creation.


The sense that perfection has always yet to be attained, is what brings in the different perspectives; the Classical or Apollonian on the one hand, and the Romantic or Dionysian on the other.


Of course, man also willfully expresses the imperfect - the ugly or Modern.

I use the word "perfection", in the sense of a striving towards that state of 'Perfection'.


It is a goal which all great artists aim at.


They try to express themselves perfectly.


They try and construct the perfect work of art.


They never stop trying to do this.


Why?


Because Perfection is probably ultimately unattainable.


Beauty is that which is reckoned to come closest to this endlessly aspired for Perfection.


The art which survives is that which comes closest to this ideal of Perfection.


Ugly art tends to die with its own epoch.


Beauty tends to live on - like the Immortals.


Immortality is the Mythic form of Perfection.






Nietzsche consistently talked about the 'Rangordnung' [Order of Rank] with admiration, while disliking Modernism and Romanticism.


His ideal art was that of the Classical form with all its concision, order and symmetry.
In writing he loved Sallust and Horace, and aphorists in general.


His 'Dionysianism' was about an attitude towards living, a life-philosophy.
He was actually a Classicist his whole life, in terms of art.




Indeed, Nietzsche quickly realised that the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy was immature.
He then saw that the Apollonian aspect was subsumed by the Dionysian.


The whole point is that in a world of Dionysian Becoming, the man of Will imposes the 'hammer' of Being.


In other words, art - for example - is the imposing of Order upon the world.


This 'hammer' is an example of the Strong Will so important to Nietzsche [hence his admiration for Caesar and Napoleon in politics].


It is the opposite, say, from Schopenhauer, who 'Buddhistically' sought the denial of the Will [of course, this may be unfair to both Schopenhauer and Buddha, but then Nietzsche was rarely fair - like life].




Beethoven and Mozart are both 'Dionysian' in the Nietzschean sense, because their art imposes Order on the fleeting world of chaos.


The Dionysian is not total abandon, but rather the grasping and ordering of the forces of wild abandon.


This is not to say that all order is art!
Although all Classical Art is concerned with Order.
Order itself isn't art per se, of course.

Human beings are just as disordered as they are ordered.
In fact mankind is more destructive than anything else.
Of course nature too is destructive, but she has created just as much as she has destroyed, on balance.


Of course, there are other things which are creative and ordered, and we don't call them art.
There are things that we call 'beautiful' [such as a sunset, or a butterfly], but they are not art either.




As Nietzsche drew his concept from Greek Tragedy, what kind of music would have the Greeks used at their Dramatic festivals?


I would conjecture that it would've sounded rather restrained and 'un-Dionysian' to our ears.


So I say that Beauty is essentially the artistic imposition of Order upon experience; and this is Dionysian.




If unpredictability is the sole characteristic of 'Dionysian music', then extreme avant-garde free-jazz would be the most Dionysian music - and it clearly isn't.
The music of the Dionysian rite would've been simple and pure, being played on primitive flutes, simple lyres and portable percussion instruments




_____________________


Beauty as 'symmetry'; this adverts to the simple grandeur found in classicism.


Love of Nature? - yes, in all her sublimity; the classical motifs are all based on nature.


The classical nude is a rendering of that sublime nature; that's where beauty is.




Classical Nude not porn


Some questions:






Q.Why is Titian's Venus of Urbino art, and yet this month's Playboy centerfold not?




A.Because the Titian contains the physical expression of a great artist, rendered on a plane surface. By looking at it we perceive in each brush-stroke the struggle of what it means to be a creative human, intent on the pursuance of the sublime.
The Playboy is a mere commodity, it expresses the shallow greed of a materialist culture.


The Classical ideal was summed up by Horace, when he wrote that it was;
"more everlasting than bronze".

Through Art, man tries to attain the immortality he imputed to the gods and goddesses. Therefore he wants to create works which have deep foundations [tradition], huge presence [multivalent levels of meaning], aspiration [innovation] and individuality [direct contact with the artist's hand]. This art cares nothing for the masses or for its contemporaries; it cares only for longevity; it loves eternity.
And with those intentions writ large, in the heart of the culture, the artist and the patron, it will surely have a hope of achieving that status.
However, if the only desideratum are ephemeral, fickle, fashionable and disposable ... well, what more can one expect?




Those artists of the 20th century who wanted to shock used ugliness, cacophony and chaos; this is because those elements are generally rejected by the western art canon [unless used as a kind of spice, so as to emphasise beauty].
Soon, one will use beauty to shock !




Q.Isn't the experience of beauty entirely subjective?




A.No, it is mainly a collective/cultural one. Of course, one of the features of beauty is that it makes us feel as if we are the only ones in the world - it flatters us into subjectivity.
However, the canons of beauty are very much culturally determined [and beyond that, no doubt physiologically determined].




Q.Women have been excluded from the canon of Western art - is that because their work is bad and ugly?




No, it is rather weak and mediocre; but then woman is the artist's muse in western art, rather than the artist; 'the Eternal female draws us upwards', as Goethe said.




Q.Isn't the experience of Beauty left only to the individual to feel?


And that feeling is the result of the inherited collective experience. I believe that CG Jung talked of the 'Collective Unconscious', and so forth; this suggests that our collectivism goes very deep.


The canon actually goes very deep - almost to the point of inherited and instinctive responses - culturally atavistic.




The fact that different cultures have very different conceptions of beauty demonstrates that the canon is formed by the collective experience of the particular culture. And that cultural experience itself evolves, rising to peaks, and suffering troughs. The Renaissance was a cultural peak for the west; this is why we still judge art against it.


If we are to divorce the work from the artist's intent, from the artist's cultural milieu and from all context in general, then we have a philosophical problem, for, how can we divorce ourselves from our own intentions, prejudices, cultural milieu and context?


In the attempt to criticise an historical work of art sans context, all you do is force your own context onto the work!




I am sceptical as to the possibility of viewing any art-work without a context, as we are always our own context.
In philosophical terms, we might look at Nietzsche's ideas about Perspective.


So, in effective art criticism, we should try and adopt the Perspective contemporaneous to the art work - put ourselves in their shoes [for example, did they have the same views about the Body and sexuality as we do?].


We should be clear about that, and balance it with our own inherited Perspective, which is bound to be different.


Ah! - differ-ance!


Then, and only then, can we even start to make an objective appraisal of the art-work in question.




Q.Why is Warhol's Campbell soup-can painting 'art', but the soup-can (or its label) itself not?




A.My view is that the Warhol is no more art than is the soup can. Warhol was not so much an artist as a business man; he said that he did "business art".
His work expresses nothing other than consumerism and the fake fame of celebrity.




Q.Why is the painting beautiful, but the object painted not? Why is it that, seeing some women, I feel contented and elevated above lust and, when I look at another, I cannot see past that lust?




A.If you perceive a woman [either in love or lust] you are beginning to see her as an artist might. However, unless you transform your perception into an artistic expression [a painting, a poem, a peice of music etc.,], you have not created art.
The woman herself isn't a work of art as such, but rather a product of Nature.
However, a great sculptor could produce such a figure of a woman, and it would be art.
So art is that which is produced by man - that is not to say that all things produced by man are art!




Q.How can people and plants and animals can be beautiful, and yet there is no obvious artistic imposition of any kind in their creation?




A.Hence the importance of "imposition"; the artist 'imposes'. As I said, Nature too can be beautiful, but art is a process of human creation. In art, man tries to be as creative as nature is and tries to match her in beauty.




Q.Can incongruity can be beautiful?


A.Incongruity can be startling - paradoxical - 'strange' - bizarre etc., - but not 'beautiful'. Of course, perverse men can find their 'Beauty in Sodom' [was it Dostevsky who wrote that?]; however, the fact that it is 'incongruous' suggests that it is something other than beautiful.


Q.Is Beethoven's music not beautiful? It was, after all, characterised by incongruity when compared to the "classical" music that was popular in the day.




A.The late work, such as the Great Fugue is not often 'beautiful'; it is certainly challenging, and 'incongruous' if you like; it is at times very ugly.




Q.Much art since the twentieth century has been characterised by unbalanced compositions--is none of that beautiful?




A.Mostly not - it didn't intend to be. Much 20th Century art made a concerted attempt to be Ugly, Dada being an extreme example, of course.








Q.Why is Titian only considered a "great artist" by the art historical canon, that same human creation which deems the Playboy photographer to be beneath it?




A."Only"! The Western canon is the criterion.
The Good and the Beautiful have been inextricably linked since Plato.
And Philosophy in the West has largely been "footnotes to Plato" as Whitehead put it.
So we have to recognise that according to the Western canon, what is good is also beautiful. It is also True.
Ugliness, therefore, is 'false' and 'bad'.
Aesthetics links here with morality.




I don't object to the Playboy as 'pornography' as such.
I emphasise rather the deep-creative and visceral approach of the artist himself. This is of a far higher order than the Playboy which is a shallow conveyor-belt production. Indeed, the Playboy is less erotic than the Titian - that's part of the problem.


Art patrons of the Renaissance were men of great taste and learning. That's why they patronised the best artists and allowed them to express themselves; they knew what they were looking for. How else did they choose the greatest, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo, Ruebens, Titian etc.,.?
For Renaissance patrons, having great artists under their patronage meant and demonstrated that they themselves were of the highest culture.


Todays' culture [such as Hollywood] is a mass culture.
However, the Renaissance was an elite culture.
That is the difference.
The majority of men in 15th century Europe were illiterate and poor, and had little time to think about art, as their lives were very short [but ars longa]. There was no mass market for art then.
Renaissance artists made a good living, yes; and they worked for an elitist and refined culture which valued the classical canon, and despised the masses.






Q.What is the difference between an "artistic nude" photograph and pornography?




A.Take for example, Mapplethorpe's photographs: some of Mapplethorpe's work is good [particularly the more 'Classical' shots], but it really pales in comparison alongside the sculpture that it imitates.
However, Playboy photographers are not Mapplethorpes - they are hacks!
And taking a photo is far easier than carving a statue or painting a fresco.


Its easier to get a recognisable result in photography as compared to painting. Take a nude, for example. Take one novice who is no painter or photographer.
Let him take a photo of her; then let him try and paint her in oils.
The former is generally easier than the latter.
Not only that, painting can actually get details that photography can't [see Rembrandt's portraits].


A great art teacher said that every portrait we paint of somebody else is also a self-portrait.
This kind of intentionality cannot be conveyed in photography.




Q.Are you saying that Photographs do not have as much symbolism implicit in them as paintings?


A.In a way, yes; hence the use of double exposures, for example. However, even the best photography cannot rival the depth of painting. Really the progress from photography towards cinema is indicative of this lack in still photography [nobody calls painting still pictures].




Q.What of Vermeer's art, since he used a camera obscura ?


A.There is always for me a big difference between a brush stroke and a mechanical shutter which captures light at the press of a button.


Compare calligraphy done with the brush to the letters on this blog ...


The Vermeer has a delicacy of touch that can only be painterly; that is vital for me, and why it is superior to any photography taken of a similar scene. Also there is a sense that the painter's own "self" is looking in one the scene in a Vermeer. Whereas in a photo, only you are the voyeur; the photographer is always absent [similar in film].




I do, however, consider some photography to be good.
But that does not apply to the Playboy which is the point of comparison here with the Titian. I appreciate that some photos can be art, although I find that even the most artistic photos are not at the same level as the greatest paintings.
Let's face it, a comparison of the greatest photos would be a pretty poor thing compared to an array of the greatest paintings.




Q.What of The Impressionists?




A.The Impressionists, being slaves to light, had much in common with photography!
However, I disagree that photography replaced Realism in painting.
At most it gave painters a tool to use to avoid long sittings [painters use photographs of models etc.,]


But essentially there is no substitute for the effect of having a portrait of someone filtered through the consciousness of someone else [or self-portraits, which are great psychological studies, worth a thousand words].
Painting is very philosophical in that sense, in a way that photography is not.


As I said, I see photography as a stepping-stone towards cinema in that case.






Q.Should mere "difficulty to make" be the standard of art appreciation?




A.It is a factor because we apportion respect to mastery. We admire a Caravagio, for example, because of his mastery of his medium.
Of course, it is not the only factor. There must be a multivalent element too, most certainly. Depth, poetry, if you will.




This is the heroic, mountaineering element to great art. The difficulty of composing and scoring for an orchestra; the difficulty of grappling with a block of marble; the difficulty of painting a giant fresco etc., This is all part of the artistic achievement which begins to vanish in a world where everything is made easier.




The main difference is that the techniques you refer to are essentially reproductive.
The point about Titian has already been made; look at his paintings in the gallery; see the very brush-strokes which have preserved the very direct and visceral contact of the painter's hands. The connection between creator and creation is very direct.
Increased mechanisation not only puts barriers between the creator and the object created, in the case of photography it actually removes the creator!
In other words, in a photograph we see the work of a mechanism which has recorded the play of light!
We see very little of the photographer [whereas in the Titian we can almost smell the artist].


True, a good photographer has 'an eye', and is able to select the right 'moment'.
Even so, the end result is still impersonal.
It actually lacks the aesthetic [literally 'feeling'].
And Playboy photos have none of this real photographic aesthetic; they are mechanical [and therefore strangely non-erotic!].






Q.Why is Titian's Venus any less the shallow expression of a greedy, materialist culture?


A.Because it was the product of the Renaissance, a time when there was a great fervour for learning and for Classical art. A time when those things were valued the highest of all. It reflects that high-point in western culture, just as the Playboy represents the shallow materialism of today's Capitalist culture where Pop advertising has replaced art, and information has replaced learning.


The Playboy is meant to be porn and only operates on that level [attempts to make porn into art, such as Jeff Koons or Kathy Acker etc., are usually disasterous, being even more boring than real porn].
The Titian operates on so many more levels, and its eroticism isn't pornographic in our sense of the term. It is rather the profound Dionysian eroticism which tells just as much about Thanatos as it does about Eros.
So art is profound, porn isn't.


That Titian et al didn't give their patrons [who were, as I said, cultured men of a tiny elite] the lowest common denominator, but rather gave work that not only innovated, but excelled their wildest expectations, speaks volumes.
There is no comparison here with Playboy, which is reproductive work, rather than innovative art. Baudrillard's 'Simulacra' comes to mind here.
Like the advertising image, it is intended only to sell a product; it is unidimensional; it is intended only to sell a product to aparticular market. It is throw-away, therefore. Real art operates on a multiplicity of levels.


Pornography has one level; art has a multitude of levels which can include the erotic, but far surpasses it.

Q.Why are pornographers "hacks"?




A.Because they are creating one-dimensional work for a market which demands that it be one-dimensional. If they want to be real artists, they won't be satisfied with this, and will probably do more profound work in their spare time. Some fashion photographers try to do this, for example.

Q.Is it because the centerfold comes in a magazine of other such photographs?
Wherein lies the difference? Certainly not in intent, since both are intended for private (masturbatory) use. Is it simply because one is painted and thus seems to require more "effort" than the other?


A.One is a great work of art because it is just as much a representation of what is in the artists' creative imagination as it is of the model before him. Notice how Venus' body is stylised implying a kind of Sphinx-like symbolism. It has depths not found in the matter-of-fact product of the photo-shutter.
I have no issue with 'masturbation' or the sex-drive as such; the great Degas said that he "painted with his penis". I am rather comparing the shallow commodifying anti-aesthetic of the Playboy, with the artistic power and glory of an Old Master.




The Renaissance patron is wealthy and powerful, but he is also a man of culture. His own taste leads him to find the greatest artists of his time and is given the wherewithal to make great art to glorify the power and taste of the patron.
The patron is also a collector of ancient art, seeking out the best examples of Greek and Roman antiquity.


The Renaissance patron is a man of classical values, and feels no shame towards Eros.
He knows too that the great art works he will commisssion will outlive him, and remain as exemplars of the highest artistic standards - standards that he, the Patron, recognises were established in Greco-Roman antiquity.


Now the Playboy, on the other hand, is produced by a Capitalist entrepeneur who cares only for making images of girls that are to be mass-produced and make as much money as possible from a huge and undifferentiated mass-public.
He cares nothing for antiquity, aesthetics, taste or glory; he cares nothing for posterity.
He cares only for a quick-turn-over as cover follows cover at incredible rapidity. This is a shallow operation which has nothing in common with real art. It is all a matter of business.
The Playboy photographers are mostly anonymous, and have nothing in common with the Great Artists. They knock out hundreds of images within a week, caring little for the individual images which are selected by the magazine's editors; the magazines themselves survive on advertising.
As to "circumstances", the culture of the Renaissance was an aristocratic one; the cultured were a tiny elite; the ethos was still very much one of heroism & honour.
The Playboy magazine appears in a mass democratic culture, where escapism and indulgence reign, and all popular culture [such as Playboy] is aimed at the lowest common denominator.
So not only is the content different, but so is the context.
This is why the Titian and the Playboy cannot be confused.




The Playboy is in a small, portable and furtive format ... for obvious reasons [and such formats have always been available].
In contrast, the Titian is an objet d'art meant to be displayed out-right in all its glory.
It also resonates with the tales of Venus in Classical Mythology, and with all of those added associations.
It brings the concept of Venus into the contemporary life of the Renaissance, and says; 'here is a living, breathing, Venus here amongst us today. The gods and goddesses are here on earth too!'
The Titian operates on so many levels, whereas the Playboy only operates on one.





Titian's Venus of Urbino






Titian was painting within his own tradition, and drew on Giorgione's Sleeping Venus of 1510. Indeed, Giorgione had left the work unfinished upon his death, and Titian applied finishing touches.
Titian's own Venus of Urbino was an homage to his master. So clearly, Titian was intentionally painting a Venus.




Titian was famous for his allegorical and symbolic paintings, hinging around Greco-Roman mythology and Christian iconography.
Also, the educated of his time were able to read deeply into such symbolism [i.e., they would asscociate the mythological tales of Ovid, for example, with this imagery].




One aspect of the girl in the background of the picture is that she is in furious activity [as contrasted with the static venus]; this adds a dimension of Time to the painting - we are witnessing a Moment, rather than a Still Life tableau. The girl is not a voyeur, she is actually oblivious to the Venus and the painter [and to the woman beside her].


Again, this is why I give importance to the content of the painting.
Playboy Centerfolds tend to focus only the girl, with no other persons in the pictures.




Note the stylisation of the body of Venus - its elongation [I think El Greco passed through Titian's studios]; her challenging gaze to the viewer [not a feature of pornography]; there is also the mysterious activities of the young girl rifling through trunk in the background.
That latter detail would not be found in a Playboy centrefold.


The symbolic reclining nude, or 'Venus', is very much a constant theme in the western canon, and fosters one of our standards.


Such symbolism would be out of place in the Playboy; it would work against the desired effect which is of pure arousal and nothing else. If you add levels onto the Playboy, it vitiates its function, whereas the true art-work benefits from added levels of symbolism - nay it demands it.
Another difference between art and non-art.




Q.Aren't the Playboy and the Titian the same?


A, Ah, "the same" - the mantra of [post]modernism!


It tries to reduce the Titan to the level of a Playboy snap, by stripping it of intention, context, techinque, artistic milieu and symbolism.


By breaking down the image it hopes to devalue it; however, the image is indestructible - it is part of the tradition of the Venus, inherited from the ancient Greeks, via the Renaissance, and is part of our rich culture. It is a standard against which we judge all representations of the female nude - even the Playboy, which is found wanting as it is one-dimensional.






I demand of all media, that I see the artist's thumbprint. Not just in the sculptor's chisel marks, the writer's manuscript, the extraneous noise of the musician's instrument, the painter's brushmarks etc., but also in the very real impression left on the work by the artist's Will and Intelligence.




Q.Is it even advisable to see the artist in an artwork?


A.Indeed, western art began with the anonymous artist. However, with the Renaissance the artist began to assert himself [Leonardo, Michelangelo etc.,], until he took the name of genius and virtuoso [Beethoven, Goethe etc.,]. So the western canon actually develops along with the notion of the genius, of the Great Artist.
We experience the Great Man through the art.
Art puts us into contact with Greatness, if we will.
The tendency to remove the artist is, in western terms, retrogressive.


It is not the thing that is depicted that is art, it is the atists's depiction that is art. Choice of subect-matter is itself governed by certain standards though.


Of course, a beautiful woman is a beautiful thing of Nature, but she is not a work of art as such [of course some may say that she is, but only metaphorically].


An artwork is an artistic creation of man, wrought by his hands, utilising the various media of the visual arts, auditory arts etc.,
Aesthetic judgement focuses on the artistic expression of the artist as recorded in the art-work.




The medium must allow direct expression in a way that mechanical and electronic media do not. The art-work must be replete with levels of symbolism and the direct impress of the artist's will and intelligence. It must also be part of the long tradition that is the western canon, full of all the significance that that imparts to the work. It must also be created within the context of an aristocratic milieu.




This is not to say that any old painting is a work of art!


Of course purely pornographic images were made in the pre-modern era; however, the Titian is not one of them, as it operates on more levels than one, and has disturbing elements [such as the challenging & insolent gaze of Venus, and the distracting mise en scene].






Q.Does the mass reproduction of artworks devalues them?




A.This applies only to the reproductions, not to the original. The original still has its uniqueness. Paintings and sculptures must be viewed in the 'flesh', just as music must be heard live. This is why original works are so much more valuable than copies.




The Great artist makes the image original by the very stamp of his genius. That's why Titian's Venus is readily recognisable, even if it does follow what you call 'stock imagery' [and it is what is subtly done with such 'stock' that is important].
It has the stamp of genius on it - that is its uniqueness. Again, it is like a thumbprint - it is a unique signature that says, "I am a Titian".


Q.Weren't paintings in the Renaissance only intended as products to be sold to a particular market (the emerging bourgeoisie and the established aristocracy)like an advertisement?




A. An ad is only valuable insofar as it sells a product - that's all.
If it doesn't sell the product it will be taken down and pulped.
Any symbolism used in ads today can only be aimed at the intended audience. High class and expensive ads for the European market may use Classical imagery, because that class still has some vestiges of class and taste.
However, ads aimed at the mass-market will use Pop imagery only; and really it is the mass-market that rules in a Capitalist society.
Allusions to the classics, to Virgil, Homer, Dante, Spenser etc., are wasted in a culture when those things are not generally understood.
But whether symbolism is used or not, it is still a fact that an ad is on a par with the Playboy - it is merely a means to an end.





Q.Who's to say porn's one-dimensional?




A. If it is not one-dimensional it is not good porn. If it is not a means to and, it is not a good ad. The best porn and the best ads say nothing deep ... they can't 'afford' to.




Mastery and artistry - virtuosity; the Renaissance Man [someone able to master many disciplines, such as Leonardo or Goethe] - all these things are highly valued by the canon. It is the Punks and the Dadaists, with their anti-art who tried to say that anyone could make art. This is against the canon.




Q.Wasn't Rembrandt most famous in his time as a printmaker?

A. If we are to talk of his etchings, we should be aware of the incredible drawing technique needed then to make such pieces.


His self-portraits which have a psychological intensity impossible to capture in a photograph because it comes from within the artist.

Q.Why should one medium be inferior to another, if it all involves human mastery over the medium itself?


A. Actually, both painting and photography are visual media.
They are different ways at arriving at a visual image.
The differnce between them is what is important.
Also the fact that painting actually has a history, while photography is a relatively recent invention and has no canon of its own which isn't derived from painting and sculpture.
Some media are more conducive to serious artistic expression than others;
Compare TV to Film. Compare a glossy magazine to a novel. Compare Pop Chart Music to Classical Music etc.,
There is some serious work in photography, but the Playboy is not it.




An artist has to eat; there is nothing wrong in an artist getting commisssions and getting paid, as long as the pay is a means to an end, and the end is the great work of art.
In capitalism the art work is means to an end, and the end is profit. Hence Warhol's work, for example, being based on ads and reproduction.


Just as Titian exemplifies the aristocratic ethos of the Renaissance, so does Warhol's exemplify the Capitalistic ethos of the 20th century.
The canon places art, not profit, as the supreme value [Beauty being equated with the Good].




Greek statuary reflects the Greek ideal of beauty - in the Venus and the Apollo, for example, who were not particularised, but were idealised forms.


Classical art is also an abstract ideal that certainly lives on, even if the buildings crumble and the colours fade.


But Classical line survives; the line that we see on the Greek Black and Red figure vases. And sayings, poems, which are passed down survive so long as there is a culture to transmit them.




And even more than that, ideas live on - 'you cannot kill an idea'.
That's why I love philosophy - philosophy is the great achievement of the Classical canon.


The Classical Ideal is more enduring than bronze.




While art today tends towards anti-classicism [although there have been some notable revivals], this is due to the low cultural point of our epoch.


Because the Classical Ideal cannot be killed [it survived the Vandals, for example], it will always rise again during the high-points of our culture, just as it did during the Renaissance.




No 'tracing' can capture the swift free movement of a free hand, as found in the best Chinese calligraphy. The mind itself may have 'grids' in its mind's eye, but the hand of a great draughtsman must always be free to make that quality of line which is typically Classical.




All painters use preliminary sketches, rough lines; many painters divide their canvas up into perspectival grids.
They use many such techniques before they paint in the lines.


It really does come down to touch, ultimately, as it is very easy to detect a clumsy tracing.


A great artist will have all kinds of structures sketched down - he may even have photos pinned to the side of his easel; he may use measuring devices too. All of us have surely used the outstretched arm and the tip of the pencil to judge proportions.
This is all technique, as I said. It is all part and parcel of creating a great painting.
A medicore painter could be taught all these techniques but still not make a piece of art.
The point is that the grid is not the art-work, any more than the paint-brush is.




Realism in painting returned when it became clear that painting can offer a hyper-realism that cannot be attained by photography.
While it's true that painting moved towards abstraction, it's true that it also moved back to realism.


Photography is not real enough!


That's why the Playboy is not as erotic as the Titian.
The Titian has far more to offer than eroticism, though.
The Playboy only has eroticism to offer - and a pretty poor offering at that.




In the Classical canon, Beauty is the goal, connected as it is, with moral excellence, which led Keats to say;
"Beauty is truth, Truth is Beauty".


'Realism' is not Beauty; Beauty [according to the canon] is an Idealised Reality.


This is the standard of Beauty set by the Greeks and revived in the Renaissance and later by the Neoclassicists.




The canon always aspires to Beauty [given the above definition]. When evil, low, base entities are depicted in the Classical canon, they are usually shown as being ugly.




That the Greek notion of Beauty developed can be charted by the development of Greek statuary. The canon formed its notion of Beauty as it evolved [and this was a symbiotic development]. Beauty, as we understand it, starts to appear in Classical Athens, in the faces of Apollo and Venus.




The canon exists so that Great Individuals [such as Titian] may be thrown up. However, without that collective structure, such individuals couldn't be possible, as they are all children of tradition.






In the arts, the Beauty of a Helen, a Venus, an Apollo or an Adonis are legend. This is not a superficial notion to do with fashions in body weight and so forth; it is rather an archetype which is lodged deep into the western psyche.
It is, as I said, about an Ideal. Beauty is judged by its proximity (or not) to the Ideal.


'Painting' as a medium has its own message which is another level entwined with the painter's intent, his technique, mastery, will and intelligence, as well as the historical/cultural context, the symbolic archetypes, the subject-matter and content.
All these things and more are necessary to Great Art.




Of course, art [because it works on more than one level] can be erotic.


That does not mean that you can call it porn.


Titian's Venus of Urbino is erotic - but it is not pornographic.






Paintings and sculptures must be viewed in the 'flesh', just as music must be heard live.


This is why original works are so much more valuable than copies.




The original remains and carries the original hand-made signature of the artist - no reproduction affects this.


So those who want to claim that reproductions devalue an original need to explain themselves.


Original Old Masters have not been devalued in any way since billions of reproductions have been made from them ... quite the opposite.






The Playboy, to be effective pornography, must have everything focused on the girl.
The personal stamp of the photographer would just be distracting and lessen the pornographic effect.
The viewer of pornography has to believe that he is the only one ogling the girl, the awareness of an Other would deflate him, so to speak.






Is it not rather a combination of the artist's intent, the cultural context, and the symbolism used that determine the meaning and the richness (or otherwise) of the 'statement'?
Not only that, isn't it also the [i]imputations[/i] of the works' viewers that add to the statement, as they read things into and out of the artist's work?




Putting porn into an art galary will devalue its pornographic nature [public gallerys tend to inhibit open masturbation], but it does not make it art.
It is merely porn in another context.


#65