Oh it's Wollheim is it? - the knower of the aesthetic secrets - the keeper of the Holy Grail of Standards. I've read - or should I say plowed through - bits of Wollheim, but they must have been the wrong bits because I don't recall the chapter on 'Standards for judging what is art and what is not'. Perhaps you can jog my memory William? Then we can cc in Prof Thingy and the Louvre. Problem solved. Or are there other books to consult too? (Like the scene in 'A day at the Races'..).
Re: 'You want a Ten Commandments of Art. The good prof is not Moses and there is no promised land of fixed art standards.' Me? By no means. I am simply replying to those - such as your good self - who often imply that I should have such a Ten Commandments. Don't you remember telling me quite emphatically that I should be able to explain why something is art or not and justify my opinions? Now, to do that I would need standards to judge by, wouldn't I? I know I don't have any such standards and never will have, but I thought that this disagreement between the learned professor and the no doubt equally learned Louvre might be an appropriate occasion for those on the list - you perhaps? - to say what those standards might be. You tell me now that these standards are 'out there'. I have read acres of aesthetics in my time and never encountered them. (No doubt I read the wrong books.) But if as you say they are 'out there', could you perhaps bring them in? The need, as the Louvre's dilemma shows, was never so great. DA --------------------------------- They're out there Derek. You just have to read them. Why not begin with Wollheim. Nuance is important to art so why shouldn't it be important to art analysis? After all, what separates a Michelangelo sculpure from one of those Nazi pieces of junk that Miller likes if not just a few millimeters of stone here and there. Of course it's not just that but also knowing which millimeters to leave and which to cut away, plus the mental mystery guiding it. The good prof is no Moses who has just had tea with God. . More likely he's protecting some defunct, widely attacked thesis in his books. Remember that hall in the Louvre with the Delacroix and Gros? All of them ridiculed in their day. I'm sure the good prof would've been first in line to condemn them. You know better than most that an art museum is a place where one is invited to experience, compare and contrast art values and ideas. It's not simply a place where declarations are made. A good museum actually respects its publics and invites them to engage in the same dialogues that artists carry on through their work, across time and regions. Every museum has far more stuff relegated to the basements than are on display -- much of it is art that used to be on display and may come back. The dialogue is what matters. You want a Ten Commandments of Art. The good prof is not Moses and there is no promised land of fixed art standards. WC
