Derek again responds with an irrelevant challenge to something that was not
asked for.:
"I cannot give you good 'reasons' why Mozart's 20th piano concerto or
anything is a work of art and I don't believe anyone - repeat anyone - can. If
you
know of anyone who has done so
successfully, please let me know who they are. I will guarantee you I will
drive a horse and cart through the holes in their 'reasons'."
Derek goes on:
"Cheerskep and Chris don't want a definition of what art does - its human
function and significance. They want 'reasons' - in effect, a list of boxes to
tick which will justify a claim that item X is or is not art."
It's hard to believe Derek can't comprehend the difference between the two
following requests, but maybe he can't:
"Derek, please tell us your own personal reason for CALLING the airport novel
"not art"."
"Derek, please tell us the reason why the airport novel IS not art."
Maybe an example will clarify things a bit. I can sympathize with someone who
might say:
"I call a work 'art' when it gives me an aesthetic experience. The Mozart
gives me a big a.e., the airport novel gives me none at all."
Notice: That's not a definition of 'art'. I've repeatedly told Derek I'm not
asking for a definition, but he repeatedly makes the accusation.
And the fact is, that position -- that he calls a work "art" when it gives
him an a.e. -- is what I've felt all along to be Derek's position -- though he
won't call it an "aesthetic experience"; he calls it "my response to art".
But Derek will not confine himself to saying he's only CALLING a work "art"
when he gets a strong, favorable response -- using the word in its praising,
honorific sense, the way we frequently use the 'great'. "That was a GREAT
kick, Pele!" Derek believes there "IS" a mind independent "quality" of
"artness"
that the-fact-of-the-matter is a work either "has" or "has not":
"I call Mozart's 20th piano concerto art because that is the only word I know
to describe music of that quality. I deny the term to airport novels
because they do not have that quality."
This does sound very like the picture I conveyed yesterday of his way of
thinking. "It doesn't require your "defining" 'art'," I said. But it does
somewhat
require something more than this: "When do you call something 'art', Derek?"
" When it IS art." "And why do you call P not art?" "Because it isn't."
He admits that he and Malraux are given a difficulty by the fact that there
seem to be degrees of "artness" -- i.e. works are more or less close to the
perimeter of the circle of art. Nonetheless, Derek sticks to the position that
implies that at some degree of closeness to the center, a work must suddenly
change from "not art" to "art".
Derek goes on:
" You yourself believe that some works are what you call
cherishable - which is presumably something like what I call art. What are
your criteria? More importantly do you think you cherish those works because
you have applied criteria - ticked off boxes - or simply because they have a
certain effect on you?"
I'm glad Derek believes this is important. My answer is the second -- I
cherish them "simply because they have a certain effect on me."
I cherish them because they give me that mysterious murky feeling I've been
calling an "aesthetic experience", which I've been pleading that the forum
examine. I don't claim that simply because they give me an a.e. they must "be
art", but Derek does. He sees no difficulty in reconciling this celebration of
his
sensibility over that of other sophisticated people who don't get an a.e.
from some things he does, or over that of those who do get one from works that
leave him cold -- like jazz.
Nor has he ever tried to reconcile it with his announced belief in something
he terms "bad art".
Derek feels that if it gives him his "response to art", it must "BE" "art".
If you doubt him, you could look it up in one of Plato's Great Ledgers in the
Sky.
**************
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