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Reader comment on:
The Uncertainty Principle of Beauty
in response to reader comment: Spectrum

Submitted by Christopher Orloff, Feb 18, 2007 22:52

"There is no a priori judgment that might reveal what will prove evanescent and what sustaining."

"As a reader, one knows that he or she is in the presence of artistic genious (sic)..."

There's no a priori judgment for genius either, in spite of what most everybody will say. The idea that there is is the reason there seems to be a famine of brilliant art lately. Manet's Olympia is a perfect example that symbolism contains the art. Today, you don't need symbolism, so nothing holds together. Those who notice this will be remembered as the great artists of the 21st century.

Here's authority: "The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly, will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait." --Aristotle

That's indirectly about symbolism, because the antithesis of confusion is precision, and nothing is more precise than controlling every element as it were something else. This is the meaning of meaning: Representation.

You can spend hours dissecting Olympia. Plenty of modern artists whose names I haven't attributed to memory will not even make an effort to give their work meaning. I insist that this attitude is an excuse for laziness. Furthermore, it's disrespectful to the audience. The artist hasn't taken the consideration necessary to add any meaning to their work, and they expect their observers to find meaning. It's an Easter egg hunt without Easter eggs.

Nothing can be uglier than wasting time.

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Other reader comments on this article

Comment	By	Date
Desire has a cognitive aspect. It is difficult to imagine a passionate pursuit of pleasure without the curiosity to know... [MORE]	Dilip Chitre	Mar 25, 2007 00:07
Perhaps the pursuit of beauty has been abandoned because of our abandonment of the pursuit of truth. We now live... [MORE]	Arthur Pontynen	Feb 22, 2007 13:25
"beauty is identical to desire, that desire longs for engagement". Engagement with the object? And we desire this engagement because... [MORE]	James Kirwan	Feb 21, 2007 09:32
From personal experience, the diagnosis that philosophy departments have given up, not only on the idea of beauty, but of... [MORE]	Alex Dunn	Feb 18, 2007 19:45
Actually, Plato states clearly in the Republic and related texts that beauty is strongly linked to virtue and the good;... [MORE]	Philosopher	Feb 18, 2007 12:14
My teacher, Thomas Hora, M.D., defined beauty as "that which is uplifting to the spirit." Inciting desire, which is always... [MORE]	Bruce Kerievsky	Feb 18, 2007 11:49
I wonder if our inability to consider or engage with the question of what is beautiful can be construed as... [MORE]	Cyril Reyes	Feb 18, 2007 02:36
It seems to me that there is one major error in this article i.e. the claim that philosophers have long... [MORE]	Shalom Freedman	Feb 18, 2007 01:41
I am a girl of 18 from The Neherlands, and my experience of the never ending discussion about beauty is... [MORE]	Daphne Andersen	Feb 17, 2007 23:44
Fine review (really more than a review--a mini-essay, which in my experience nearly all very good reviews are). I was... [MORE]	Jim Lilly	Feb 17, 2007 17:41
"There is no a priori judgment that might reveal what will prove evanescent and what sustaining." "As a reader, one knows...	Christopher Orloff	Feb 18, 2007 22:52

Reader comment on:The Uncertainty Principle of Beautyin response to reader comment: Spectrum

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Reader comment on:
The Uncertainty Principle of Beauty
in response to reader comment: Spectrum