Hullo Platt, Denis, Victoria, Jeremy,
Thanks for the kind words, Platt. I really feel quite inadequate to your
challenge to explore beauty in terms of the MOQ.
My own art is 'traditional' in the sense that it still explores the ideal of
beauty. John Carroll, in his fine book 'Puritan, Paranoid, Remissive', says
it well. In describing "the decline of art into entertainment" he says,
"Beauty exhilarates; in its intimation of some eternal harmony, some image
of perfection, some mysterious and enduring truth, it brings a serene and
compelling joy. Beauty mediates reality, it reveals deepest essences ...
Morover, its images endure; it is not transitory." (Pp 55/56)
He goes on to state "The argument is rather that culture and art, which
depend on care, on cultivation over a long period of time, and which exhibit
the property that they endure, are being destroyed by being transformed into
entertainment goods, subject to the principles of novelty, accessibility and
transience; that is, subject to the principles of consumption." (p 56)
I would add to this that there is a further transformation, described by Ken
Wilber, from a focus on depth to a focus on surface. I suspect this is what
Pirsig is alluding to when he describes "thin art".
Carroll describes how some Puritan characters will "survive the constant
pressure towards remissive adaptation; their securing attachments to the
values of perfection, discipline and responsibility may resist erosion with
each new generation. But they will face a hostile public domain ... at the
most [they] will maintain a small, marginal, though possibly widely
respected elite." (p 92)
This last sentence remains very real to me as an artist, who can look at the
twenty finalists in the most lucrative sculpture prize in Australia last
year, and fail to find one which clearly illustrates a sense of quality,
though plenty illustrate the consumer values Carroll enunciates so well.
Beauty is indeed marginalised in our remissive consumer society.
However, as Pirsig reminds us in Zen, "the real cycle you're working on is a
cycle called yourself." (What a pity that Lila didn't follow this trail,
rather than become a metaphysics.)
Ultimately working on oneself becomes the creation of beauty.
John B
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