Is the word "Disegno" the same as Diseqo or more like Designio.
Or it plain Design?
On Oct 7, 2008, at 8:36 AM, William Conger wrote:
I stand by all of my comments regarding this worn out thread.
Miller is wrong because he bases all of his arguments on reception,
that is, the viewer, any viewer, and particularly the less informed
and sensitive viewers. Would he advocate the man in the street as
the deciding expert on a musical composition, a symphony by a major
composer?
Ordinary viewers get what they look for. Art is not made for
ordinary lookers but for some elusive standard of excellence, based
on the excellences already evident to the most expert judges.
That's how it works. Art quality is not a mob rule sort of
degraded pop contest, despite the now pervasive notion that all
passive audiences can evaluate anything.
As for the decorative, non-decorative issue, it's mainly moot. The
word decorative has become a pejorative word, robbing it of the
values it evokes, which are every bit as expressive as any
illustrative narrative work. Since Hans Hofmann is still being
mentioned here (by me, I suppose) one should read his own remarks
about decoration. In fact, when the more civilized past was less
drunk with vulgar culture, the word was quite honorific. However,
it should be said that the decorative is also metaphoric in the
sense that a configuration of form (the whole design) can easily,
and always does, in fact, bring to mind multiple associations and
imagery that we regard as explicit, or representational. That's
why any shape at all will always "look like something else". The
expression of any visual artwork depends on its decorative
elements, synonymous with Form, Design, "Disegno" Composition.
WC
These topics are interesting but they deserve more nuanced
investigation that the list is willing to consider.
--- On Tue, 10/7/08, Chris Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Chris Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Perceptual Cropping was Marks on Canvas
To: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2008, 10:03 AM
It looks like William's dogmatic formalism has gotten
him into a hole, and
even the loyal Brady has only helped him dig it a little
deeper.
Once again, it's time to apply the Miller test for
aesthetic discrimination.
Change the nose of the Mona Lisa by only a millimeter or
two -- and every
healthy human over the age of 10 will be able to
distinguish (and deplore) the
difference.
But change those lines in the background by a similar
distance, and I'm
doubting that even the visual artists on this list would be
able to notice.
While entire lines could be removed or added in a Jackson
Pollack painting,
and no one in the world would be the wiser.
Unfortunately, William refuses to recognize that his
aesthetic ideology is
appropriate to his own school painting (for which he should
be proud) but
doesn't apply outside modern formalism or historically,
what is usually called
the decorative arts.
Impressionable guy that I am -- the more I chat with
William -- and look at
his work and the other geo-form painters, the more
interested I am -- just
as my interest has grown in other non-figurative genres
like calligraphy and
painted ceramics.
But once the thrill of new-ness is gone from modern
abstract painting (and I
think it left about 40-50 years ago) -- how can it still
maintain it's appeal
-- or more importantly -- how can it still maintain that
high cultural value
that elevates it above the merely decorative arts - and
allows the
practitioner to call himself an artist rather than a mere
artisan.
This is a real challenge for those who care about this
genre.
Trying to apply, as William does, its doctrines/ideologies
to the rest of art
history, is not going to get very far any more.
The better strategy, I think, is to remove the notion of
"merely" from the
words "decorative" and "artisan" -- as
Asian cultures have done -- as they
allow a few brush marks on a tea cup to have equal or
greater value to pieces
that represent men or gods.
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