Hi John,
Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your thoughts on art.
My brother is an illustrator (etchings) and iconographer, who lives in
Tasmania.
He and I are always amazed at the mediocrity that we see dispayed as "works
of art".
It seems the more shallow, tasteless and just plain boring it is the more
popular it is with the general public.
I remember approaching a large gallery here in Melbourne, the Owners praised
the quality and depth of my brother's work but said they could not exhibit
it as it wasn't accessible or commercial enough!
Just goes to show what getting bogged down in SPoV can do ;-)
Victoria.
----- Original Message -----
From: John Beasley <beasley@austarnet.com.au>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 12:13 AM
Subject: Re: MD Self, Free/Determinism : a short essay (again... ;)
> 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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