And there you have it, Derek, your first rough sketch of what distinguishes a WoA -- a "kind of clarity and apprehensibility" in representing everyday experience.
Of course, that's only a beginning -- since that language doesn't seem to fit what might distinguish Mozart from all the music you would disqualify as art. But at least it's a start -- with 'clarity' and 'apprehensibility' as your first two criteria. And perhaps --- there's something about 'everyday' that would serve as a criterion as well. This is the criterion, that for me, eliminates most of the pulp fiction and popular cinema. The inner lives of the characters just don't feel like they have had to live every day -- they're more like fantasy cardboard displays -- the ones that video stores use to advertise cheesy movies. It's what, for example, should eliminate Tolkien or Rowling from a canon of great literature -- but would not eliminate a fantasy epic like "Journey to the West" -- where even though the characters have fantastic abilities, they are too flawed to serve as objects of fantasy identification - their flaws are the subject of each episode -- and rather than good defeating evil (self defeating other) -- an outside agency always resolves the problem so the characters can continue on their way. It would also eliminate sporting events -- that are only about moments of high-pitched competition and over achievement -- fun to occasionally spectate -- but way too extraordinary - way too shallow. And maybe it would eliminate some popular genres of music as well -- like "New Age" or "Smooth Jazz" that just seem to be escapist. Are we going to propose some kind of reality test to a WoA? Even in the most abstract of paintings -- I take pleasure from feeling a recognition of a specific real time and place -- like WC's late 20th C. Chicago lakefront -- or Robert Herrmann's Cincinnati. *************************************************************** It's arguable in fact that our everyday experiences are so chaotic - so formless and lacking in consistency - that, while they may be real enough in terms of their consequences (they affect what we actually do), they never possess the kind of clarity and apprehensibility they achieve in a work of art. So in a sense they only become real i.e. distinct and fully described - in a work of art. _____________________________________________________________ Get an Unsecured Loan - Fast and Low Cost. Click here! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2211/fc/Ioyw6ijmOeiusoDQClXBaDzef23prb wNeSS1n7nCR0uNkT9amQlbDm/?count=1234567890
