It's not just I playing the philosopher of language when I say the fuzziness is appalling in all you guys as you talk about "achievement" and "excellence".
For openers, it's not clear if you think of these whatever-they-are as something you are ascribing to a creator, or the created thing, or in some blurry way to a "career", or to an event, or..... William seems to think of it as a "quality/property" in a work that causes a certain feeling. He reaches for poetry to convey something of what's on his mind: "You won't forget its presentation of the moment, the precise moment of consciousness of the "frozen right now", fusing spectator and painting in a sphere of infinitude." William here appears to be trying to describe an "aesthetic experience" -- a phenomenon that I applaud examining. Notice: it can't be the "consciousness" of the artist that's doing this fusing of spectator and painting. And yet it hard to think of the spectator's moment of consciousness doing the fusing. Or maybe William in some way means the painting is doing the fusing of a moment.... And so forth, or, rather not forth, sideways maybe, or backward... William writes: "excellence is a one-time experience in relation to an object". Wait -- the contemplator's experience is the excellence??? So it isn't that Delacroix had "excellence". It's not even that the painting has "excellence". William goes on: "whereas achievement is abstract, a standard, a measure." But others on this thread seem to think of a given work's being an "achievement", or winning a prize, or being elected to the Academy at a very young age. If one wants to call "excellence" a quality/property that a work "has" that produces an a.e., then a work can "have" "excellence" for one man, and not for the next. As for "achievement" as an "abstract, a standard, a measure", then no work is an "achievement", no prize, no election. And it prompts the questions: A "measure" how? Of what? When? Moreover, go look at the various winners of prizes for literature. Sometimes the winner is a work -- Pulitzer Prize -- sometimes it's the writer. William may again claim I'm kicking a dead horse. But I assert the listers in this thread are monumentally fuzzy and confused, and the dead horse looks very lively as it extrudes a great deal from its anal aperture. (Don't fash yourselves; I'm just a fellow lister trying to reinject some liveliness into the forum.) ************** Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00 030000000001)
