Judy, Anyone with the artistic power to take Maharishi's ideas and make them visually tasty would be long gone from the movement -- making money like Bloomfield, Grey, DeAngelis, and Chopra. Maharishi's nitpicking drives away any skilled and creative types who cannot generally handle someone making them color between another's lines.
And, from my POV, it would take a real world class artist to use such a restricted palette with much success....possible, but it's unlikely to inspire an artist for much more than one attempt. I don't know where Maharishi got his taste. Given the bright colors of typical Indian religious art, you'd think MUM publications would look like Hawaiian shirts made in Haiti designed by Japanese cartoonists. Go figure. That, and the fact that the first MIU catalog made such a big deal about the brain vibes of the artist being echoed in the brains of the viewers, makes you wonder why the covers of TMO publications don't "cut it" intuitively like, say, gazing for the first time at, okay, how about the Taj Mahal? You'd think that an enlightened man's color choices etc. would knock off our socks instead of make us shudder at the thought of opening the book. They said "merely reading the catalog would take a person 10% more towards enlightenment." You know, the catalog was such a work of art, see? Remember that? Geeze. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Marek Reavis" > <reavismarek@> wrote: > <snip> > One thing that always bothered me (particularly as an artist) > > was just how unappealing Maharishi's aesthetics were. Of > > course, in matters of taste there can be no dispute, and > > Maharishi comes out of a popular culture of excess and > > grandiosity, which I can personally really get into; but the > > aesthetic of the TMO is a peculiar amalgam of rococo and > > blandness that has neither elegance nor power, and it > > comes directly from Maharishi, of course. > > Who isn't an artist... > > I agree with your critique of the aesthetic. On the > other hand, it seems to me entirely possible that > the "blandness" has been intentional, an attempt to > strike a middle ground that would appeal to, or at > least not repel, the greatest number of people. > > Maybe if he *were* an artist, or had access to > artists who understood what he was aiming for, the > aesthetic would have had more elegance and power, > even if restrained. >
