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> a lot of modern art, at a visceral level, is visually ugly and modern music sonically ugly Uhm, ugly relatively to what exactly? When you say some art is "ug
by mojuba 6y ago
> a lot of modern art, at a visceral level, is visually ugly and modern music sonically ugly
Uhm, ugly relatively to what exactly? When you say some art is "ugly at a visceral level" you need to show art that's beautiful at the same level.
Is Modigliani's depiction of women beautiful or ugly? I'm sure you will hear both if you ask different people. To me it's breathtaking, whatever that means on the ugly-beautiful spectrum.
On the other hand, there's a lot of earlier art (anything pre-impressionist basically) that tended to be more photographic and less inventive. You can find objectively beautiful things there but by today's standards they are boring, though you can appreciate this art within the context of the era.
I think we should remove all forms of modern art from this debate. Beauty is no longer the goal of art.
- clairity 6y ago> "Uhm, ugly relatively to what exactly?" before, you said > "...human beauty in my view is totally different because it's natural..." which is the yardstick from which i was extrapolating (that is, natural == visceral). > "Beauty is no longer the goal of art." i agree that modern art is no longer about (natural, visceral) beauty, but rather about conceptual/contextual interestingness. but those aren't relative, those are different yardsticks, hence my attempt to disentangle the two.
- toyg 6y agoRaffaello, Caravaggio, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Leonardo... they are not boring to anyone even today. The Nike of Samothrace is spectacular even when you don’t know when and where it comes from. Your impressionist cut off is very arbitrary. I agree that official art abandoned the search for absolute beauty a long time ago (basically with modernism), I just wouldn’t chuck away 2500 years of masterpieces because “realism boring”. In fact, looking at attendance numbers for art events, one could easily make the case that “old and boring” art remains more popular than XX+ century art.
- cjohnson318 6y agoI agree with you, mostly. I don't think Rembrandt, or Caravaggio, or almost any other pre-impressionists look photographic. They're representational, but they're also highly stylized. All of the 'Old Masters' exaggerated or idealized forms, and exaggerated temperature, gamut, and contrast. The number of people that actually meant to practice trompe l'oeil (fool the eye) is very small. Trompe l'oeil is generally seen as a schtick; if you don't have anything original to add, then don't bother.
- airstrike 6y ago> Beauty is no longer the goal of art. Yes and most disgracefully.