Ah, now I finally get it. Beauty is a subject or like
a species of snail studied by Stephen Jay Gould that
once existed in a certain locale, under certain
climatic conditions, in a particular South Sea Island
ravine, and nowhere else on earth. Yes, of course,
beauty, that strange snail, only existed, what was it,
from Raphael to maybe Manet. Never mind that Raphael
studied with Perugino who inspired his love for the
swaying figure and who himself borrowed the idea from
late Roman work, fragments of which lay scattered
along the nearly deserted streets of Rome, eagerly
scavanged by wandering artists long before Raphael.
And where did those Romans obtain such an odd
fascination for contrapposto, the elegant line, the
stony cheek that seemed soft enough to kiss? And from
where did those gory Greeks take their fascination for
the frozen Egyptian pose, the single position that
enabled one's eye to encircle the form without
stepping an inch?
OK, Beauty is an historical term, limited to time and
place. Moreover it is a term, a noun, designating
particular qualities of sensual form that do not exist
otherwise. It is like the term Manifest Destiny, used
to designate a particular historical epoch in American
history mainly between about 1790 (the first US
census) and 1893 when historian Frederick Turner
declared the closing of the American frontier. Never
mind that any examination of Manifest Destiny reveals
the self-same features of imperialism, a bloody old
idea that seems to have neither beginning nor end in
human history.
There's a neat logic to Derek's proclamations on
Beauty. I accept them. They enable me to use
language as a saw to cut apart the tree of human
history and endeavor and stack them into dead limbs
for critical dissection into varied moldings and
mullions. But after so much neat lumbering, I can't
restore the sap, or the moisture to the roots, or the
leafy refuge, or the vital spirit -- the very stuff
that was always beauty, by any name.
I'm jealous of Derek, probably sitting in a charming
Parisian cafe this very moment. Maybe he's thinking
of Goya's famous Sleep of Reason (which could be the
dreamy, monstrous aspirations of reason and not simply
the nightmarish absence of reason... and that paradox
certainly troubles our neat stack of lumber). Lucky
fellow, Derek. I uge him to wander to Nore Dame -- he
may be there now -- and then tell us what beauty was
before it was beauty and how it differs from beauty
after the era of beauty.
Today, same as every other day, someone laid a few
fresh roses at Raphael's tomb in the Pantheon in Rome.
Some human empathy has endured. What shall we call
it? If not beauty, what? What name can we ascribe to
this touching and sad sentiment that continues day
after day long after the time of beauty?
Words are like little sticks, scattered. When we think
visually or sense the world everything blends
together. Why do we assume that the wholeness of the
world can be measured by those sticks? Is beauty a
little stick?
WC
--- Derek Allan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> RE: 'Derek chooses a
> crummy, impoverished, caricatural description of
> beauty to impugn ALL descriptions of beauty and
> makes
> no effort to enlist quality as a judmental
> standard.'
>
> Once again, I do not impugn all descriptions of
> beauty. But, as I said, I
> think the best descriptions of it for visual art
> purposes can be provided
> via representative *works* from the period in which
> beauty (plus certain
> related qualities) held sway and was a genuine
> value. Raphael, Veronese and
> so on. Not pre-Renaissance and not post Manet, and
> not in any culture apart
> from our own.
>
> This ' crummy, impoverished, caricatural
> description' by the way comes from
> a published author on aesthetics (in the US)..
> Needless to say he is not on
> my bookshelves.
>
> DA
>
>
>
>
> .
>
>
> On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 3:15 AM, William Conger
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> > There's heaps more of mediocrity in everything. I
> > said somewhere, despite increasing dizziness due
> to
> > Derek's continual running around the subject ,
> that
> > the quality of what is said is (remains )
> important.
> > What people say about concepts that can be
> described
> > but not defined, can be judged. Derek found a
> > particularly icky statement describing beauty to
> make
> > his point. Why is that different --less
> worthless--
> > from my showing an especially ridiculus, crude,
> vague
> > caricature of George Washington claiming it to be
> a
> > good portrait (nuanced, insightful, ambiguous) of
> the
> > man? After all, any "good" Washington portrait is
> > also only a descriptive metaphor, never a
> definition,
> > and thus is different only in quality from the
> > caricature. The qualitative difference would lie
> in
> > the descriptive "abundance" (per Frances) of
> either
> > the caricature or the portrait. Derek chooses a
> > crummy, impoverished, caricatural description of
> > beauty to impugn ALL descriptions of beauty and
> makes
> > no effort to enlist quality as a judmental
> standard.
> >
> > Do we need to be shown a ludicrous example of
> > description to affirm that most writing on beauty
> is
> > probably qualitatively worthless? Most writing
> on
> > anything is qualitatively worthless. Most
> artworks
> > are qualitatively worthless. Should we therefore
> give
> > up on writing and artworks? Or should we admit we
> > can't define art and beauty and realize instead
> that
> > we can describe the concepts metaphorically and
> aim
> > for quality in doing so. I think quality needs to
> be
> > judged by ends and not means or purposes. What is
> the
> > end of quality? I'll say beauty.
> >
> > Derek may find another and another and another
> silly
> > description of beauty, ad infinitum, in a vain
> effort
> > to underscore the futility of confusing
> description
> > with definition -- the former qualitatively
> possible
> > and never universal, the latter always impossible.
> > I'd advise Derek to clean out the woo-woo authors
> from
