Aesthetics

[speed]

To me, Aesthetics is the most important, but most troublesome field of philosophy. The impossibiliy of any methodology or objective valuation in Aesthetics is a double edged sword: on one hand, art will never rise above being mere opinion and judgment; on the other, art thus will continue to remain subjective and personal. And even more troublesome is that once widely held and classical ideal of the fact that art must possess the sublime and beauty to be art, is now very much gone--with Picasso and Duchamp, Stravinsky, Schoenberg etc. Thus, art can now be anything and everything. And this is a major cloud if you will, hanging over art. If art can be anything, and there is no theory or objective measure to value art, then has art hit its decline? Many great thinkers and artists thought so.

Thus, how do we define and value art, and will art continue to degenerate or not?


And on a interesting side note and discussion, Schopenhauer not only considered art the only way to escape the Will, but he forumalated quite a few interesting ideas regarding art itself. To Schopenhauer, music was the highest form of art, as it defied and created its own space and time and was ever moving. Poetry was next, followed by painting, sculpture, and then architecture. And furthermore, Schopenhauer broke music down into good and bad music. Simple beats and rhythms represented the primal Will, and were thus were not really art, whereas complex beats, rhythms, etc, represented the human intellect and ones conquering of the Will. Just some juicy topics for conversation.

 

[MURAI]

Picasso and Duchamp kicked the notion of art being merely decoration by questioning tradional conventions of it all together. Conventions like good work should just represent objects in the real world. The following quote is by Jackson Pollock:

The modern artist is living in a mechanical age and we have mechanical means of representing objects in nature such as the camera and photograph. The modern artist, it seems to me, is working and expressing an inner world - in other worlds - expressing the energy, the motion and other inner forces

His quote explains another motive for modern artists to express the intagible such as emotion, energy and motion and the tendancy for art being viewed as something subjective. But this raises the problem of losing standards for art like you said. Still I still believe in such things as strong/weak (or true/false) art. Some even take it far, just to make contemporary art for the sake of being hip and making profit.

I read something interesting about Pollock's work in Man and His Symbols written by Car Jung and his associates. One of his paintings was compared to the molecular structure of Mercury and it was similar. As chaotic as his art seemed, his work may have represented the basic laws of nature with out him knowing it.

 

[speed]

Picasso and Duchamp kicked the notion of art being merely decoration by questioning tradional conventions of it all together. Conventions like good work should just represent objects in the real world. The following quote is by Jackson Pollock:



His quote explains another motive for modern artists to express the intagible such as emotion, energy and motion and the tendancy for art being viewed as something subjective. But this raises the problem of losing standards for art like you said. Still I still believe in such things as strong/weak (or true/false) art. Some even take it far, just to make contemporary art for the sake of being hip and making profit.

I read something interesting about Pollock's work in Man and His Symbols written by Car Jung and his associates. One of his paintings was compared to the molecular structure of Mercury and it was similar. As chaotic as his art seemed, his work may have represented the basic laws of nature with out him knowing it.

That is quite interesting about Pollock.

You stated you believe in such things and strong art and true/false art. I do too, and in every creative and aesthetic field. However, I suppose the problem becomes, how do we decide on what is strong and what is weak?

One of the most interesting themes I find in all areas of art, is how styles, tastes, and judgments change with each group and each period. For instance, many artists, writers, architects, and so forth, who were once lauded in a earlier age, may be condemned in a later period. And one of the reasons this happens, is that some new style or ideology comes into play--say the social realist movement, or the liberal (although I find it very conformist) sixties movement, etc where suddenly some artists, writers, etc, fall out of favor because they were racist, or sexist, decadent or mystical, or didnt create their art with the proper goals and aims (of that period) in mind. Therefore, it is my contention that all ideologies must be suspended when rating a piece of art, writing, sculpture, building: yet, I rarely see any reviewer, or even lay person suspending their ideological preferences. To me, this is a eternal problem in art, that must be addressed.


Another interesting foible of aesthetics, is that of the misunderstood in his time artist. How many artists, writers etc, do we know of, who went almost unknown in their lifetime, only to be discovered by a later generation to be geniuses? How do we explain this?

 

[OldScratch]

That is quite interesting about Pollock.

You stated you believe in such things and strong art and true/false art. I do too, and in every creative and aesthetic field. However, I suppose the problem becomes, how do we decide on what is strong and what is weak?

One of the most interesting themes I find in all areas of art, is how styles, tastes, and judgments change with each group and each period. For instance, many artists, writers, architects, and so forth, who were once lauded in a earlier age, may be condemned in a later period. And one of the reasons this happens, is that some new style or ideology comes into play--say the social realist movement, or the liberal (although I find it very conformist) sixties movement, etc where suddenly some artists, writers, etc, fall out of favor because they were racist, or sexist, decadent or mystical, or didnt create their art with the proper goals and aims (of that period) in mind. Therefore, it is my contention that all ideologies must be suspended when rating a piece of art, writing, sculpture, building: yet, I rarely see any reviewer, or even lay person suspending their ideological preferences. To me, this is a eternal problem in art, that must be addressed.


**Forgive me if this is too simplistic an example, but I have often wondered if this wasn't behind the near universal dismissal of Heavy-Metal music from the critical, and industrial acceptance standpoint. Historically, this artform is rather unpredictable, often extreme and not infrequently well outside the boundaries of "PC" tastes, courting Satanism, mysogeny, nihilism, intolerance, etc. No matter how proficient the music becomes it still remains largely ignored, if not openly ridiculed. Alas, there have been many crappy writers or forgettable philosphers, but no one writes off literature or metaphysics as a result.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Another interesting foible of aesthetics, is that of the misunderstood in his time artist. How many artists, writers etc, do we know of, who went almost unknown in their lifetime, only to be discovered by a later generation to be geniuses? How do we explain this?

One reason for this is that the artist's work is worth far more money after the artist is dead - this is because of limited quantities - no more is being produced, and the artist is also not painting self-consciously as a famous artist.

There has never been a requirement for art to be beautiful, especially as regards religious themes. Consider the monks' depictions of hell - or those of Hieronymous Bosch. Here is Hogarth's "Gin Lane"

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/reichert/cf/c2/images/hogarth_gin.jpg

The Impressionists were the first genre of artists who painted to please themselves rather than at the behest of a rich patron. This was a new freedom for artists.

The modern artists mentioned in the original post: Picasso, Schoenberg, Kandinski and Duchamp have a significant thing in common. All are Jewish. Before Impressionism became fashionable it was extremely rare for there to be a Jewish painter. The few that there were, were not inspired by their Jewish identity, and their art reflected their host nations.

Jewish artists prior to 1900 were painting in a European academic style and belonged to no traceable Jewish school.

Jewish art critic Earnest Namenyi said "Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, no single Jewish artist and no work of art created by a Jew can be proved to have definitely contributed towards forming the style of any one period".

Visual art has always been discouraged among conforming Jews by the Ten Commandments, one of which states: "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the water under the earth". Deuteronomy IV 17-18
Islam also follows this commandment - although there was a flowering of art and literature despite the restrictive commandment.

I will follow this post up, explaining the relevance of this to the abstract and surrealist modern art - if it isn't easy to guess!

 

[speed]

**Forgive me if this is too simplistic an example, but I have often wondered if this wasn't behind the near universal dismissal of Heavy-Metal music from the critical, and industrial acceptance standpoint. Historically, this artform is rather unpredictable, often extreme and not infrequently well outside the boundaries of "PC" tastes, courting Satanism, mysogeny, nihilism, intolerance, etc. No matter how proficient the music becomes it still remains largely ignored, if not openly ridiculed. Alas, there have been many crappy writers or forgettable philosphers, but no one writes off literature or metaphysics as a result.

I think this is an enormously important point. Today, metal is the most dynamic non-classical music being composed. Yet by critical reaction, it is the domain of over-the-top, sophomoric musicians trying to prove their adolescent masculinity; in addition to having no social value but hatred of society, violence and isolation.

Thus, instead of lauding those who really are doing something truly creative and artistic (in terms of all those wonderfully original, doom, neurosis-like ambient, death, and black metal bands), they heep praises on folksy pretentious Bob Dylan wannabes that havent done a thing to advance music (there are so many of them), retro-rockers who copy earlier styles and bands (The Killers etc.), hip hoppers and so on. The conformity and adherence of modern popular music critics to some ridiculous notion that music must be, or, bring about positive egalitarian social change, love etc, is pure claptrap, and signs of the absolute lack of any real talent and comprehension of music of the critics and media themselves.

 

[Justin S.]

Your post is spot on speed. (although I dont like "metal" as a genre)

 

[speed]

Your post is spot on speed. (although I dont like "metal" as a genre)

Metal as a genre is a generalization; however, the popular media lumps everything even remotely tied to metal (evil imagery/lyrics, violent rock-based imagery/lyrics, heavy or fast riffs, onstage theatrics), as "metal", and thus immediately said band so lumped in said genre is cast a disapproving glance.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Only at the end of the 19th century did Jewish painters begin to get a worldwide reputation.

Impressionism, being a revolt against academic art and authority, naturally appealed to the Jewish temparament, and attracted Jewish artists. Outstanding French Impressionist, Camille Pisarro (who was half Jewish) painted images that were close to nature. Because his paintings are thus so untypical of Jewish art, his name is not mentioned in the "Jewish Encylopaedia".

At this time, two more Jewish painters emerged, but they still painted in a European style: Max Liebermann and Josef Israels.

In the early 20th century, Jews began producing a lot of art, which was mostly very Jewish, representative of the emergence of a Jewish nation. From then on, many Jewish artists sprang up, and they have dominated modern art since its inception. Gentiles are not excluded however, as long as they obey the rules.

Jewish painting really got started as a distinctive trend in 1906, with Picasso. He became famous because of the strangeness of what he painted - deranged, twisted, surreal images - but equally because it had been so rare for an artist to be Jewish (because of the religious restrictions).

But Picasso had found a brilliant way to express his Jewish hatred of classical art. In this respect, he was approved of by the rabbis.

To represent a likeness of something alive, you can reduce it to squares, circles and random lines, leaving little trace of what you were using as a subject. This new Jewish art came in the forms "surrealism" and "abstraction".

It was not long after pictures went in this direction that archetecture, music , furniture and fashion followed a similar path. And again, the designers have been predominately Jewish. Even designs in Christian churches, the stained glass, the altar and the statues became, ironically, affected by the iconoclastic Jewish art fashion!

Since then, Jewish art styles have received overwhelming hype and postive reviews. The new orthodoxy has relagated all the classical art styles of the past as being dead and retrospective. A revolution of art has changed the art which is promoted and considered of worth in an act of what, some artists call: a calculated viciousness and vengeance springing from the Old Testament and "cultural annihilation".

Black metal contains a lot of themes concerning nature and the revival (or celebration) of pagan ancient culture, so it is no surprise that this is not favoured by the prevailing zeitgeist of anti-tradition in art favoured by the Culture Distorter.

 

[speed]

Only at the end of the 19th century did Jewish painters begin to get a worldwide reputation.

Impressionism, being a revolt against academic art and authority, naturally appealed to the Jewish temparament, and attracted Jewish artists. Outstanding French Impressionist, Camille Pisarro (who was half Jewish) painted images that were close to nature. Because his paintings are thus so untypical of Jewish art, his name is not mentioned in the "Jewish Encylopaedia".

At this time, two more Jewish painters emerged, but they still painted in a European style: Max Liebermann and Josef Israels.

In the early 20th century, Jews began producing a lot of art, which was mostly very Jewish, representative of the emergence of a Jewish nation. From then on, many Jewish artists sprang up, and they have dominated modern art since its inception. Gentiles are not excluded however, as long as they obey the rules.

Jewish painting really got started as a distinctive trend in 1906, with Picasso. He became famous because of the strangeness of what he painted - deranged, twisted, surreal images - but equally because it had been so rare for an artist to be Jewish (because of the religious restrictions).

But Picasso had found a brilliant way to express his Jewish hatred of classical art. In this respect, he was approved of by the rabbis.

To represent a likeness of something alive, you can reduce it to squares, circles and random lines, leaving little trace of what you were using as a subject. This new Jewish art came in the forms "surrealism" and "abstraction".

It was not long after pictures went in this direction that archetecture, music , furniture and fashion followed a similar path. And again, the designers have been predominately Jewish. Even designs in Christian churches, the stained glass, the altar and the statues became, ironically, affected by the iconoclastic Jewish art fashion!

Since then, Jewish art styles have received overwhelming hype and postive reviews. The new orthodoxy has relagated all the classical art styles of the past as being dead and retrospective. A revolution of art has changed the art which is promoted and considered of worth in an act of what, some artists call: a calculated viciousness and vengeance springing from the Old Testament and "cultural annihilation".

Black metal contains a lot of themes concerning nature and the revival (or celebration) of pagan ancient culture, so it is no surprise that this is not favoured by the prevailing zeitgeist of anti-tradition in art favoured by the Culture Distorter.

Art, is art, no matter who paints it: pink, purple, or maroon. I dont care if theyre pygmy baal-worshipping facists: their art itself, is what is important. May I possibly look at the art with the knowledge they were Baal-worshipping pygmys? Yes. Should that influence my judgment of the art itself? No.

And furthermore, there were a number of non-jewish painters who also dabbled in these styles. I had no idea Picasso and Duchamp were jewish. Are you sure about this?

Unfortunately, I find many of the modern artists--especially Duchamp, later not earlier Picasso, Stockhausen, etc. to be entirely without talent, and instead, artists of mere ideas and form. Although the lines have been made blurry over the last century, I do believe some talent must be present, not just a gimmick or a dabbling in form without some creative and artistic talent present.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Art, is art, no matter who paints it: pink, purple, or maroon. I dont care if theyre pygmy baal-worshipping facists: their art itself, is what is important. May I possibly look at the art with the knowledge they were Baal-worshipping pygmys? Yes. Should that influence my judgment of the art itself? No.

And furthermore, there were a number of non-jewish painters who also dabbled in these styles. I had no idea Picasso and Duchamp were jewish. Are you sure about this?

Unfortunately, I find many of the modern artists--especially Duchamp, later not earlier Picasso, Stockhausen, etc. to be entirely without talent, and instead, artists of mere ideas and form. Although the lines have been made blurry over the last century, I do believe some talent must be present, not just a gimmick or a dabbling in form without some creative and artistic talent present.

LEADING LAWYER AND WRITER ANTHONY JULIUS TO SPEAK ON 'WHAT IS JEWISH ART TODAY?'

Lecture will accompany exhibition by acclaimed painter David Breuer-Weil

LONDON—(25 January 2001) In his first speaking engagement following the publication of his new book, Idolizing Pictures: Idolatry, Iconoclasm and Jewish Art (Thames & Hudson), noted lawyer and writer Anthony Julius will speak on the theme of 'What is Jewish Art Today?' in a special lecture sponsored by JPR/ Institute for Jewish Policy Research.

http://www.jpr.org.uk/Press_releases/Jewish_art.htm

I am not saying this merely to have a go at Jews, but rather it is more that I am explaining the mentality behind most modern art today, and the reason why there is no more appreciation for artists today who paint in the style of the grand masters.

I found this reference to some initial resistance to the influence of modern art in France, which is quite interesting.

Not surprisingly, this polemic affects the reception of artists whose very, identities, if not their work, did not conform to France's self-image, namely, the foreign, and mostly Jewish, artists working in urban Paris. Intent upon preserving the purity of the "true" French art, curators drew clear boundaries between French and foreign work. Similarly, critics redefined terminology so that the Ecole de Paris, once a rubric for all modern art produced in post-World War I Paris, applied exclusively to foreign artists, while at the same time, the Ecole Francaise became the exclusive preserve of the native French. Of course, even in the period before World War I the reception of modernism, particularly Cubism, was often infused with xenophobia and anti-Semitism. But by 1925, certain critics turned their gaze to the "other" within, pointing to the "problem" posed by Jewish art and artists, and produced a critical discourse in which Picasso could be seen as the incarnation of the "'pan-Semitic spirit,' as the true heir of the Arab ornamentalists and the Spanish Talmudists"

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0422/is_n4_v78/ai_19178145/pg_8

Duchamp liked to dress as a Jewish woman, but he claimed to be Catholic which may have been the case.

 

[Justin S.]

To me, Aesthetics is the most important, but most troublesome field of philosophy. The impossibiliy of any methodology or objective valuation in Aesthetics is a double edged sword: on one hand, art will never rise above being mere opinion and judgment; on the other, art thus will continue to remain subjective and personal. And even more troublesome is that once widely held and classical ideal of the fact that art must possess the sublime and beauty to be art, is now very much gone--with Picasso and Duchamp, Stravinsky, Schoenberg etc. Thus, art can now be anything and everything. And this is a major cloud if you will, hanging over art. If art can be anything, and there is no theory or objective measure to value art, then has art hit its decline? Many great thinkers and artists thought so.

Thus, how do we define and value art, and will art continue to degenerate or not?

I disagree with much of this post. Firstly, I think the subjective-objective dichotomy is highly problematic (and not very useful). Secondly, I think it is a mistake to view art as a mere thing (a physical object or end). Certainly, the thing/result is an important component of 'art', but the heart of the matter, is the relationship and thought of the artist. This points again to our discussion on nihilism- typically people get confused by art evaluation because it does dissolve into "its just this or that thing, and neither one nor the other can be "proven" to be "intrinsically better". If art is understood as mere object then this is correct- one thing or another has no more "objective value".

Kant's Critique of Judgment comes to mind. If we take into account states of being of the viewers and creators of art (and what this relationship means), we open up a whole new dimension of thought and evaluation that is off limits if we are bound to nihilistic value creation concerning things-at-hand.

 

[OldScratch]

Metal as a genre is a generalization; however, the popular media lumps everything even remotely tied to metal (evil imagery/lyrics, violent rock-based imagery/lyrics, heavy or fast riffs, onstage theatrics), as "metal", and thus immediately said band so lumped in said genre is cast a disapproving glance.

Thank you Speed. This better clarifies what I meant by "heavy-metal" in my post.

 

[MURAI]

I disagree with much of this post. Firstly, I think the subjective-objective dichotomy is highly problematic (and not very useful). Secondly, I think it is a mistake to view art as a mere thing (a physical object or end). Certainly, the thing/result is an important component of 'art', but the heart of the matter, is the relationship and thought of the artist. This points again to our discussion on nihilism- typically people get confused by art evaluation because it does dissolve into "its just this or that thing, and neither one nor the other can be "proven" to be "intrinsically better". If art is understood as mere object then this is correct- one thing or another has no more "objective value".

Kant's Critique of Judgment comes to mind. If we take into account states of being of the viewers and creators of art (and what this relationship means), we open up a whole new dimension of thought and evaluation that is off limits if we are bound to nihilistic value creation concerning things-at-hand.

I dont think I agree with you saying that art can't be measured objectively. Do you not feel you can see an art movement for example through some objective window. For example, you can bring up its influence or its target. Can you explain further?

Yes, I believe art is open to interpretation between the creator, work, and viewer. What you said reminds me of Isaac Asimov writing about a case when he didn't agree with an interpretation of a reader. But the reader even said to him that you shouldnt believe you understand the whole story just because you wrote it. It may have multiple and deeper meanings with out the creator being exactly aware of it.

 

[MURAI]

That is quite interesting about Pollock.

You stated you believe in such things and strong art and true/false art. I do too, and in every creative and aesthetic field. However, I suppose the problem becomes, how do we decide on what is strong and what is weak?

One of the most interesting themes I find in all areas of art, is how styles, tastes, and judgments change with each group and each period. For instance, many artists, writers, architects, and so forth, who were once lauded in a earlier age, may be condemned in a later period. And one of the reasons this happens, is that some new style or ideology comes into play--say the social realist movement, or the liberal (although I find it very conformist) sixties movement, etc where suddenly some artists, writers, etc, fall out of favor because they were racist, or sexist, decadent or mystical, or didnt create their art with the proper goals and aims (of that period) in mind. Therefore, it is my contention that all ideologies must be suspended when rating a piece of art, writing, sculpture, building: yet, I rarely see any reviewer, or even lay person suspending their ideological preferences. To me, this is a eternal problem in art, that must be addressed.


Another interesting foible of aesthetics, is that of the misunderstood in his time artist. How many artists, writers etc, do we know of, who went almost unknown in their lifetime, only to be discovered by a later generation to be geniuses? How do we explain this?

I dont think its easy to judge the true value of work, but I feel a good way is to have it reviewed by a panel of good artists and critics. When it comes to strong work firstly, I agree that strong work "lasts the test of time" as they say. Secondly, as simple as this seems, is it done for the love of it? Whatever that is done only to make a living or to satisfy a patron or customer is forced. And thirdly, it boils down to whether the creator has talent.

I agree that at times one needs to look at art seperate from the viewer's preferance of idealogy like you have stated. Its stupid to denounce something because its creator affiliated with idealogies that you find offensive. I admit I did this in the past. But, idealogies have always been interwined with art whether it be related to the trends, artist, the viewer or the purchaser. But, looking at work from another time and setting, can be quite interesting because you can get an angle way different from your own.

Some creators maybe praised later in life because sadly you might have a better view of life when it ends than when you were living in it.

 

[Nile577]

The following is an attempt at a Nietzschean appraisal of Death Metal, and is definitely as pretentious and supercilious as you think it is…Then again of course, isn’t the majority of the metal movement? Anyhow, it’s not to be taken as preaching, just my own damned opinion with a little artistic license to exaggerate in complying with the spirit of The Birth of Tragedy, which it is largely based upon.

Nietzsche proposed that Dionysiac music (synthesized by the individual from the de-localized state of amoral nihilism) would usually embrace melodic structuralism, and, when made bearable for human consumption by the steadying aid of Apolline materialism (in the form of actors or singers), would allow mankind to confront the gaping nihilistic gulf of chance and fate, which threatened to otherwise overwhelm him, by allowing him to understand it aesthetically.

Good death metal is raw nihilism sculpted into sonic dissonance. Of course, the atonal, chromatic chaos of Death Metal seemingly distances it from the melodic condensation that Nietzsche believed integral to the formation of high nihilistic art, yet in my view, alongside experimental jazz, metal is the definitive form of nihilistic expression within music. Where Nietzsche’s one-time hero, Wagner, and his much adored tragic composers instilled melody into the music to ease human consumption, good death metal negates this facet, replacing melody not with humanistic expression of character – as Opera contains – but with archly nihilistic lyricism.

As Gorguts write on perhaps the definitive expression of nihilism within music:

"Flesh, the feeble flesh, confines the pain and soul,
Vault in which, the earthly way, I bear
Earthly love my denial"

"Once My Earthly Past,
Over and stuck in the past
I Will become one with the ground,
Dust I’ll be…
The carnal state; my only grief"

From, "Earthly Love" and "The Carnal State", Obscura 1998

Human life itself is something of a universal anomaly representing, in its creation, a reverse in the trend of entropy – which on a universal scale is increasing radically (the glass never spontaneously recombines after being thrown from the table etc&#8230. By endowing life with sacred qualities, Christianity rejects Chaos in favour of order, and thus attempts to damn this tide.

From a Nietzschean perspective, the structured chaos of technical Death Metal mimics the random, shifting quagmire of change, unordered occurrence and inconceivable complexity that is the universe, yet synthesizes it into an ordered form of sonic dissonance, allowing mankind to confront his irrelevance and understand it.

Christianity, a moralistic depravation cult that seeks to reward self-denial with eternal life, is innately non-nihilist in its outlook and hence has no place being orated from the scaffold of metallic dissonance offered by Death Metal. Christian ideals bolted onto a metal framework appear in total contrast to their musical surround – as salad appears on burger, a loan bastion of nourishment that seeks to label the entire product nutritious.

Of course, because metal does not create a successful hybrid with Christianity, does not mean that it must inevitably therefore be Satanic. Many bands assuming an anti-Christian stance simply adopt this view as a counterpoint to the confining and annoying moralism of Christianity, without professing devout belief in an anti-Christian deity.

It's another topic really, but some Death and particularly Black Metal could be argued to be Romantic - at least as that term is filtered through an understanding of nihilism. In many ways Black Metal is a post-Death Metal movement, offering a Romantic solution to the meaninglessness of non-inherent, created values. (Unfortunately sometimes in BM this leads to "NSBM", which is particularly sickening considering the love of freedom of the Romantic poets).

CONCLUSION:

In celebrating Death as a removal from organic weaknesses (e.g. emotions), Death Metal seeks to lead humanity to the Nietzschean state of 'Dionysiac ecstasy', achieved when one becomes at one with the universal flow itself and embraces acts of creation, destruction, death, birth, movement, stillness and chance without the filter of humanist rationality and emotion. (At least, this is a Nietzschean interpretation of it). As Michael Tanner in his introduction to the Penguin edition of 'Beyond Good And Evil' recognizes, all great artists confront 'the juxtaposition of unblinking recognition of the frightfulness of life with a stubbourn determination not to be subdued by it, which must often mean that even the greatest artists turn their backs on the things they have seen, and insist on carrying on in spite of them, while those who achieve the supreme heights perform the further feat of converting that 'in spite of' into 'because of'.

Of course the counter theory to all this is that the 'dissonance' and 'technicality' of Death Metal may be interpreted by people in entirely different ways and that the majority of musicians composing such music would likely laugh at you for suggesting they set out with these aims. Both criticisms are doubtless true: yet to the former I say: this is but an one opinion, or one way of looking at the genre; and to the later: who says that musicians have to know they are doing something to do it? Incidentally Nietzsche would probably hate this article - I'm doubtless probably guilty of falling into the category of doofuses he was talking about when he stated in a letter to his sister, 'I tremble when I think of all those who, without justification, without being ready for my ideas will yet invoke my authority'. Or roughly translated: your speaking a load of pretentious toss in an attempt to search for a non existent higher meaning to a genre which should always be fixated on beer and 'br00tality' - you'll have to make up your own minds on that.

Either way:

Buy Gorguts – Obscura, soon

 

[Anti-Racism]

I have often wondered if this wasn't behind the near universal dismissal of Heavy-Metal music from the critical, and industrial acceptance standpoint. Historically, this artform is rather unpredictable, often extreme and not infrequently well outside the boundaries of "PC" tastes, courting Satanism, mysogeny, nihilism, intolerance, etc. No matter how proficient the music becomes it still remains largely ignored, if not openly ridiculed. Alas, there have been many crappy writers or forgettable philosphers, but no one writes off literature or metaphysics as a result.

Heavy metal insists on reality, and the reality of death. Never popular. You'll go broke. Start a folk rock band instead and be like Jewel and Ani DiFranco: wealthy.

 

[Nile577]

Only at the end of the 19th century did Jewish painters begin to get a worldwide reputation.

Impressionism, being a revolt against academic art and authority, naturally appealed to the Jewish temparament, and attracted Jewish artists. Outstanding French Impressionist, Camille Pisarro (who was half Jewish) painted images that were close to nature. Because his paintings are thus so untypical of Jewish art, his name is not mentioned in the "Jewish Encylopaedia".

At this time, two more Jewish painters emerged, but they still painted in a European style: Max Liebermann and Josef Israels.

In the early 20th century, Jews began producing a lot of art, which was mostly very Jewish, representative of the emergence of a Jewish nation. From then on, many Jewish artists sprang up, and they have dominated modern art since its inception. Gentiles are not excluded however, as long as they obey the rules.

Jewish painting really got started as a distinctive trend in 1906, with Picasso. He became famous because of the strangeness of what he painted - deranged, twisted, surreal images - but equally because it had been so rare for an artist to be Jewish (because of the religious restrictions).

But Picasso had found a brilliant way to express his Jewish hatred of classical art. In this respect, he was approved of by the rabbis.

To represent a likeness of something alive, you can reduce it to squares, circles and random lines, leaving little trace of what you were using as a subject. This new Jewish art came in the forms "surrealism" and "abstraction".

It was not long after pictures went in this direction that archetecture, music , furniture and fashion followed a similar path. And again, the designers have been predominately Jewish. Even designs in Christian churches, the stained glass, the altar and the statues became, ironically, affected by the iconoclastic Jewish art fashion!

Since then, Jewish art styles have received overwhelming hype and postive reviews. The new orthodoxy has relagated all the classical art styles of the past as being dead and retrospective. A revolution of art has changed the art which is promoted and considered of worth in an act of what, some artists call: a calculated viciousness and vengeance springing from the Old Testament and "cultural annihilation".

Black metal contains a lot of themes concerning nature and the revival (or celebration) of pagan ancient culture, so it is no surprise that this is not favoured by the prevailing zeitgeist of anti-tradition in art favoured by the Culture Distorter.

Twentieth century Jewish art and philosophy explores uncharted aesthetic realms. Aside from the painters you mention: Freud opened dialogue with madness and the inner drives of the human mind. Anticipating him, Proust gives an aesthetic account of cognition, time and the mémoire involontaire. Kafka explores surrealist alienation. Benjamin proposes a poetic/surrealist philosophy of history. Mahler produces staggeringly beautiful symphonies through radical harmonisation in perfect-fourths and revolutionary nine-note sonorities. Schoenberg devises the twelve note row and incorporates atonal dissonance into the musical lexicon. Einstein corrects Newton and the ancients with E = MC2. Wittgenstein arguably 'solves' philosophy in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

I would pit the above body of work against that of any other culture or time-period.

Also: this Iconoclasm is not specific to Judaism. It is a tenet of much in Modernism and postmodernism. The Italian fascist Futurist movement, for example, under Marinetti, proposed the destruction of all libraries, museums, architecture and objects of tradition. Richard Wagner destroyed notions of classical harmony in the daring chromaticism of the Tristan chord. Charles Ives explored polyphony and dissonance in a wholly revolutionary fashion. Stravinksy caused a riot with 'The Rite of Spring.' Virginia Woolf deconstructed notions of textual narrative by killing off characters in parentheses. Baudelaire braved allegations of obscenity in Le Les Fleurs du mal.

Side note: we have considered jews creating art but what about Jews in art? James Joyce casts the quotidian Leopold Bloom - eating with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls! - as the (anti)hero of Ulysses. Here a Jew is analogous to a Homeric hero; transcending him even, and entrenching himself in the greatest work of literature in the twentieth century in the process. For me, Ulysses surpasses The Odyssey.

 

[speed]

Thank you for answering Justin S. Nile577. I had it on my agenda to write a long explanation, but I never got around to it. Perhaps I still will later.

 

[Justin S.]

Kant avers that there are four reflective judgments: the beautiful, the agreeable, the sublime and the good. The 'good' equates to what is moral, in accordance to the categorical imperative. The 'agreeable' is the bestially sensual - food, sex etc. The sublime and the beautiful are 'subjective universals,' meaning that they are subjective but comply to an 'ought' of the 'sensus-communis' (the community of taste). That is, intelligent people ought to find great art to be great.

*I wish Kant used more profound examples of art than ‘looking at wallpaper’*

I agree that studies of author/audience states of being are interesting, but I think Heidegger offers an important modification to aesthetic ontology when he proposes that great art discloses the ontological being of ontic items in and of itself - his famous example is Van Gogh's shoes. From looking at the painting, he argues, the meaning the shoes' Being is disclosed to us; their worn look, the earth they tread, the worker who wears them, the grueling nature of her work. In a sense, he kills aesthetics entirely, holding that art literally discloses Being in the most profound fashion.

Also, post-structuralist thought talks of the Barthesian 'death of the author.' For Barthes, the author is a scripter who is born along with the work. He does not explain but merely creates it - authorial intent is wholly overshadowed in an accentuation of audience-subjective semantics. In such thought, the intent of the author is irrelevant.

I dont agree. Ill post an explaination this afternoon.