From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Sat Feb 15 2003 - 11:25:24 MST
On Monday, February 10, 2003 10:27 AM Natasha Vita-More
natasha@natasha.cc wrote:
> Abstract art is full of verbal hallucination as
> it is a genre of poetry in painting - symbolism
> between the lines and the spaces.
There is a line though that when something becomes so devoid of any
objective meaning, that few people -- save for maybe some small clique
or club -- could understand it. That line might be fuzzy, but I believe
most Abstract Art is well over it.
>>> Abstract art, and all "art" cannot be meaningless.
>>> If so, it would not be "art."
>>
>> I think Kamhi would agree that art cannot be
>> meaningless. However, the question here
>> would be what kind of meaning does an
>> abstract work have. If it's purely symbolic,
>> then it's more like a code than an art work.
>
> Even poetry is written in code. The pictoglypics
> represented a symbolic world of code - images
> and shapes, forms and lines that represented
> meaningful thoughts.
Actual poetry, though, really relies on both the symbolic meaning
(meaning of words, phrases, sentence, etc.) and the aural meaning
contained in meter and other sound effects of poetry. A poetry lacking
the latter would collapse into prose. A poetry lacking the former
would, at best, be nonsense verse.
Literature -- in which poetry is contained -- too, is a special case,
since unlike the other the other arts it does rely on words directly to
convey meaning. So, I would not generalize -- as Rand often did -- from
literature to the other arts.
>> The symbols in a code need bear no direct
>> relation to their underlying meaning. An
>> artistic image -- using "image" loosely to
>> cover all art forms from music to painting --
>> on the other must pretty much have a direct
>> relation, even if it's somewhat fuzzy or loose,
>> to what it means. A word, e.g., does not --
>> save for the case of onomotapoeia and that's
>> debatable:) -- represent the same way an
>> art work does -- at least, not a representational
>> painting, say. Words, in fact, seem only
>> arbitrarily related to the things they designate.
>> Art works do not -- again, not representational
>> paintings and sculptures and the like.
>
> Art - whether music and its codes, or picture
> and its shapes, or dance and its steps - usually
> is perceived mentally in images - abstract or
> representational.
The difference between representational art and Abstract Art in
painting, to stick with one kind of art, though is one need not
understand any special code to get the work. Also, even in
representational works where symbols are used, they are usually not
private codes, but very public shared ones, such as crosses and the
like.
Also, I'd like to make another comment on this:
"It is possible, in fact, that abstract art became more appropriate as
scientific insights became more inclusive and abstract since the two
disciplines often work in complimentary accord." -- Kirk Hughey
You observed: "Excellent statement and I think Hughey makes the more
percipient point."
Hughey's statement fits very well into the rhetoric of Extropianism and
transhumanism, but can you recover the "scientific insights" and the
like that a particular Abstract Painting deals with? What does, e.g.,
one of Rothko's late canvasses tell us that is so "inclusive" that no
representational work could us the same?
> Thanks for your reply.
Likewise!
Dan
See "Splitting Hares" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/SplittingHares.html
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