3 ms·

Do you have an argument why making people upset (e.g. by ugliness) should be the criterion of good art?

matt4077 9y ago
It's not required, obviously. But art as its commonly understood (and specifically protected in many countries' constitutions) functions as one of the mechanisms of a "civil society", much like journalism, unions, religions etc. In that sphere, i. e. politics (broadly), there are no crazy new inventions that make everyone happy. Science can find a cure for AIDS and nobody will complain. But politics is to some degree a zero-sum game, where a finite amount of "power" can only redistributed. Almost any change will therefore have opponents: the sexual revolution frustrated catholics, #metoo unearthed buried guilt etc. "Ugliness" really doesn't play into it. Every city has places far uglier than any piece of publicly displayed art I can think of. More often, it's the actual idea that freaks people out: The holy Mother Maria spanking the infant Jesus[0] is not too bad on the eye, but it's a really strange idea[0] (From the 1920, by the way–shock value isn't a new idea). The Nazis hated Picasso not (just) for his Guernica, but because they abhorred uncertainty, subjectivity, and doubt. That's why they rejected his (and most other) abstract art. It's also why they really didn't like relativity and quantum physics: it's possible that they missed their chance to get the atom bomb first because they had aesthetic objections to this "strange new relativism". [0]: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2e/8b/96/2e8b9610aca3535a8d6b9fdee80b7a88.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2e/8b/96/2e8b9610aca3535a8d6b...
- cousin_it 9y ago
  I agree that art is communication, but not all communication is art. To me, good art is a message that relies solely on argument from beauty to prove its point. So any art that looks ugly to someone is self-defeating in their eyes, because it throws away its only weapon. The artists that speak to me most (like Pushkin, Orwell, Hunter Thompson, Andrew Hussie, davesecretary...) are keen observers of their time and have strong opinions, but they play fair in a sense. They make their points of view aesthetically compelling and stop there. What they can't say with beauty, they don't say at all. Anything more forceful is closer to a Fox News editorial than to art.
  - andybak 9y ago
    > any art that looks ugly to someone > Orwell, Hunter Thompson Orwell looks ugly to someone. Hunter Thompson looks ugly to someone Remember Room 101 in 1984? Have you read "Hells Angels"? These aren't uncontroversial works of "beauty". You are mistaking your personal aesthetic judgement for objective standards.
    - cousin_it 9y ago
      I'm not sure we disagree? My original comment said public art that looks ugly to many people is harming them, so elites should stop pushing it. Then Matt said art shouldn't be concerned with beauty. I disagreed, and argued that artists should try to express their ideas with beauty. That standard (whether the artist tried to achieve subjective beauty) is actually objective. For example, we know that Hunter Thompson tried to create something beautiful according to him. After all, many other people found his work beautiful, and that can't happen by accident. Another example of such attitude in modern art is Rothko. I'm not a fan of his paintings, but he clearly went to extreme lengths in pursuit of beauty, and I can easily imagine how someone could fall in love with them. Compare that to many artists today who don't try to express their ideas with beauty. They explicitly say as much. Read Matt's comments: beauty is merely "design", winning power games is what matters... That trend is causing the current wave of public art that looks ugly to almost everyone.
andybak 9y ago
If I can use music as a metaphor for a second - most of the music I love deeply is probably regarded as ugly by a lot of people. And I'm not talking about extreme serialism, avant-garde noise sculptures or anything too tricky. I'm talking about stuff I'd be happy to defend on it's intrinsic merits and stuff that genuinely gives me the same emotional response as a lot of the more mainstream music I like. So - moving back to art - I don't know what your tastes are. Maybe you only like pretty paintings of flowers. But assuming you are moderately eclectic in your tastes I would almost guarantee that a lot of the art you regard as non-ugly was regarded as heretical when it was first produced. Don't forget that romanticism in music and the visual arts was once regarded as a provocative and dangerously subversive trend. (Back to music because I know more about it than painting) Handel would have Beethoven incomprehensible. In fact the Große Fuge was regarded as incomprehensible for quite some time after Beethoven's death. There truly is no such thing as "ugliness" in any reasonably objective sense. Context, culture and time change everything. EDIT - I've got no particular love of modern high-end art but that's largely because it seems like an elitist, vacuous, cultural backwater than because of anything to do with the supposed "ugliness" of modern art.

It's not required, obviously. But art as its commonly understood (and specifically protected in many countries' constitutions) functions as one of the mechanisms of a "civil society", much like journalism, unions, religions etc. In that sphere, i. e. politics (broadly), there are no crazy new inventions that make everyone happy. Science can find a cure for AIDS and nobody will complain. But politics is to some degree a zero-sum game, where a finite amount of "power" can only redistributed. Almost any change will therefore have opponents: the sexual revolution frustrated catholics, #metoo unearthed buried guilt etc. "Ugliness" really doesn't play into it. Every city has places far uglier than any piece of publicly displayed art I can think of. More often, it's the actual idea that freaks people out: The holy Mother Maria spanking the infant Jesus[0] is not too bad on the eye, but it's a really strange idea[0] (From the 1920, by the way–shock value isn't a new idea). The Nazis hated Picasso not (just) for his Guernica, but because they abhorred uncertainty, subjectivity, and doubt. That's why they rejected his (and most other) abstract art. It's also why they really didn't like relativity and quantum physics: it's possible that they missed their chance to get the atom bomb first because they had aesthetic objections to this "strange new relativism". [0]: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2e/8b/96/2e8b9610aca3535a8d6b9fdee80b7a88.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2e/8b/96/2e8b9610aca3535a8d6b...

cousin_it 9y ago
I agree that art is communication, but not all communication is art. To me, good art is a message that relies solely on argument from beauty to prove its point. So any art that looks ugly to someone is self-defeating in their eyes, because it throws away its only weapon. The artists that speak to me most (like Pushkin, Orwell, Hunter Thompson, Andrew Hussie, davesecretary...) are keen observers of their time and have strong opinions, but they play fair in a sense. They make their points of view aesthetically compelling and stop there. What they can't say with beauty, they don't say at all. Anything more forceful is closer to a Fox News editorial than to art.
- andybak 9y ago
  > any art that looks ugly to someone > Orwell, Hunter Thompson Orwell looks ugly to someone. Hunter Thompson looks ugly to someone Remember Room 101 in 1984? Have you read "Hells Angels"? These aren't uncontroversial works of "beauty". You are mistaking your personal aesthetic judgement for objective standards.
  - cousin_it 9y ago
    I'm not sure we disagree? My original comment said public art that looks ugly to many people is harming them, so elites should stop pushing it. Then Matt said art shouldn't be concerned with beauty. I disagreed, and argued that artists should try to express their ideas with beauty. That standard (whether the artist tried to achieve subjective beauty) is actually objective. For example, we know that Hunter Thompson tried to create something beautiful according to him. After all, many other people found his work beautiful, and that can't happen by accident. Another example of such attitude in modern art is Rothko. I'm not a fan of his paintings, but he clearly went to extreme lengths in pursuit of beauty, and I can easily imagine how someone could fall in love with them. Compare that to many artists today who don't try to express their ideas with beauty. They explicitly say as much. Read Matt's comments: beauty is merely "design", winning power games is what matters... That trend is causing the current wave of public art that looks ugly to almost everyone.

andybak 9y ago

If I can use music as a metaphor for a second - most of the music I love deeply is probably regarded as ugly by a lot of people. And I'm not talking about extreme serialism, avant-garde noise sculptures or anything too tricky. I'm talking about stuff I'd be happy to defend on it's intrinsic merits and stuff that genuinely gives me the same emotional response as a lot of the more mainstream music I like. So - moving back to art - I don't know what your tastes are. Maybe you only like pretty paintings of flowers. But assuming you are moderately eclectic in your tastes I would almost guarantee that a lot of the art you regard as non-ugly was regarded as heretical when it was first produced. Don't forget that romanticism in music and the visual arts was once regarded as a provocative and dangerously subversive trend. (Back to music because I know more about it than painting) Handel would have Beethoven incomprehensible. In fact the Große Fuge was regarded as incomprehensible for quite some time after Beethoven's death. There truly is no such thing as "ugliness" in any reasonably objective sense. Context, culture and time change everything. EDIT - I've got no particular love of modern high-end art but that's largely because it seems like an elitist, vacuous, cultural backwater than because of anything to do with the supposed "ugliness" of modern art.