I'm surprised to not see any of the obvious issue that come to my head
-- conspicuous consumption by the wealthy and powerful, choosing to
focus on buying up that which some consider valuable. After all,
this continues in a more distributed market driven manner, commissions
issued by noblemen to gifted artists who would gladly paint their
patrons in generous light, showcasing their worldly wealth and
property and even depicting servants with smiles on their faces to
round off the aura of benevolence. (See, for instance, Ways of
seeing, by John Berger.)
Sri
On 4 Oct 2008, at 17:00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: The Fascination of Art (Joseph Brenner)
From: "Joseph Brenner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 4 October 2008 09:09:41 BST
To: "Pedro C. Marijuan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "fis" <fis@listas.unizar.es
>
Subject: Re: [Fis] The Fascination of Art
Reply-To: Joseph Brenner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Dear Colleagues,
I plead guilty to having contributed to the overstretching and
apologize herewith.
To try to answer Pedro's specific question, I feel that the source
of fascination in art definitely goes beyond the art object, the
physical "antique painting" as such. The fascination with art
might be related to the information content of art works, which I
see as concentrating a great deal of emotional and social
information in a more or less dynamic entity (a dance performance).
A play by Shakespeare or Goethe, a Rembrandt, or a Picasso condenses
information at several levels of complexity such that the perceptual
processes that are activated are both conscious and unconscious. As
Heidegger said, the Angel in Rilke's "Elegies" "assures the
recognition of a higher level of reality".
I think one can apply some of E. O Wilson's ideas outlined in my
first reply to Sonu: there seem to be some kind of epigenetic rules
governing the process of attraction to art. Being able to receive
this complex information content of art, e.g. from a cave painting,
and store it might have good survival aspects as well. This is not
inconsistent with Stan's point about the "pleasures" of art.
Thank you and best wishes.
Joseph
----- Original Message ----- From: "Pedro C. Marijuan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
To: "fis" <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 1:09 PM
Subject: [Fis] The Fascination of Art
Dear colleagues,
My impression is that when art is discussed form the point of view of
scientific disciplines, the "diminishing returns" effect starts quite
soon --as discussants we should be aware when overstretching is taking
place and leading the theme astray... anyhow, kindness and abiding by
the two messages per week rule are to be expected at any
circumstance in
this list.
A question I was going to ask to the people who contributed last week
(of course, and to anyone interested) is why do we have such an
enormous
social and individual fascination with art. Probably the most
expensive
products on any postindustrial market economy are not chips or design
molecules... but antique paintings. Historically the development of
art
is quite related to the emergence of urban life --its beneficial
effects
on the individual having to suffer "domesticate" life in the urban
environment. But we have artistic "enchantment" in prehistoric caves
(not much urban life at that time). What perceptual processes --maybe
social traditions are not needed-- in order to "chain" and enslave the
observer to the artwork?
best wishes
Pedro
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