Going back to Brady's original post: *"Is there beauty "in Nature" (out there, objective, in the world, etc.)? If so, is there also ugly?"
I mentioned the dead and the dying. Must we call all such stuff repulsive instead of just ugly? I think that's a stretch. *"Can there be beauty without ugly? Isn't that like light (luminance), which is only perceived by comparison with dark?" OK -- drop 'ugly' -- but there is also the dumpy (a potato) and the shapely (an acorn squash) -- and various other qualities that are more or less attractive -- and, as we know, that most aesthetic of cultures, the Japanese, makes a big deal out celebrating the beauty of specific trees, rocks etc. *"Artworks embody, make concrete in one way or another, these qualities of beauty and thus isolate them, as it were, from the demands of utility, so that beauty, grace, radiance, quiddity even, can be contemplated. That's what Aristotle means by catharsis and vicarious violence." "Make concrete" --- hmmmmm -- someone's been reading Ayn Rand. OK -- but I don't think that's necessarily what makes an artwork more or less beautiful -- i.e. I think it has its own kind of beauty *"Art moralizes nature. The artist takes the material qualities of things and forms and arranges them in such a way to produce an order to these qualities. Canons and rules and guidelines and other prescriptions are the socializing of the raw, unordered, un-beauty and un-ugly of nature, the making of preferences for and against ways of perceiving these qualities. Art is a social endeavor, and by being social, it subjects its materials (the stuff of Nature) to the mores of the group, of the society. Art moralizes nature, imposing preferences on colors and shapes and forms that, in the wild, occur for other reasons and purposes." I'm not going to dispute what 'Art' does --- but will say that the kind of art that best exemplifies "Canons and rules and guidelines and other prescriptions" is not the kind that seems to interest me. (i.e. -- that seems to characterize the mediocre of every period) *"And Nature, which precedes art, is indifferent to these moral rules of Art. >From time to time, Nature rebuffs art, Nature supersedes art, Nature is superabundantly more than art, defeating the rules of art: There are no binding canons of portrayal in Nature. Ultimately, Nature demoralizes art--i.e., Nature de-moralizes art." This section just seems like nonsense to me. _____________________________________________________________ Click to see huge collection of discounted designer watches. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2211/fc/Ioyw6ijlx7Ig1bdv51ppXuhDjo79sm RrYxoig49J2OqqblCwFbh1Kc/?count=1234567890
