From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Feb 07 2004 - 15:44:13 GMT
Hi Mark,
> Hello Platt,
> I have been giving some thought to your recent posts. I can understand that
> exceptional Quality will receive almost Universal appeal. Let us consider
> that for a moment: The very best in art receives Universal recognition. Why
> should there be such agreement? Why are the top three on your quoted list
> so good? This fascinates me. However, as you suggest, 'What's more, there
> are degrees of excellence.' We may disagree about those lower down on the
> list - you have expressed variations between your values and those of the
> author of the list - but those top three?
My guess is that the sense of value that each of us is born with responds
universally to the top three for the same reason humans respond
universally to the beauty of a sunset. Those artists were somehow capable
of understanding and reflecting our very souls. How they reached that
understanding while the rest of us remain largely in the dark is as much a
mystery as existence itself.
> A thought comes to me Platt: 'Whenever exceptional excellence in art
> evolves, does it evolve in isolation?' I am thinking about Michelangelo and
> Leonardo. They knew each other, and there was a degree of friction between
> them, with Leonardo expressing sculpture as an inferior art to that of
> painting. Is this a recurring theme?
I don't think so. Most great art is developed by artists in isolation. The
exceptional excellence of those unknown artists who painted the animals on
the walls of the caves of Lascaux is a case in point.
> But to return to your central point regarding degrees of excellence. It is
> there, i think i can agree. But what does this say about me? Do i have to
> be able to become coherent with art in order to be able to value it?
Not at all. You can value art as pure experience and value it according to
your own taste or sentiment. David Hume distinguished between personal
sentiment and educated judgment. "All sentiment is right," he wrote,
because "no sentiment represents what really is in the object." Sentiment
is a matter of perception. When it comes to sentiment we may not argue
with the admirer. But judgment is a different matter, Hume says. Judgment
refers to the attempt to make true statements about the objects being
considered."
To put this in Pirsigian terms, your tastes (sensations) are Dynamic
Quality, judgements of truth (conceptions) are intellectual static
Quality. Both are values, the former being yours alone, the latter being
socially influenced.
Regards,
Platt
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