I'm just catching up on postings I've been unable to get to recently. I found
none more rewarding than William's excellent mini-lecture of Feb 12 on the
failures of anatomical veracity in Greek sculpture. For a layman like me, it
was fascinating stuff. By coincidence, a friend and I last night saw on tv some
shots of the baseball player Alex Rodriguez ("A-Rod"). We agreed he comes
closer than any other ball player to the ideal male physique of the Greek
discobolus. Michelangelo's "David" is good looking, but the body of the
discobolus
seems to many of us "more perfect". And certainly no other baseball player
today
looks as "pretty" in the batter's box, as seemingly perfectly constructed to
be a graceful, powerful, efficient and effective an athlete as A-Rod. Of
course he plays with his uniform on, so one cannot see the proof of many of the
below-the-neck errors of Greeks. The point: As we looked at A-Rod, we both
thought of the Greek prototype.
I confess I can't go on to agree with William when he says, "Good art appeals
to all, I mean it offers something -- some access -- to any viewer. That
has always been true of the best art."
William admits his 'good' is a wiggle word. Ordinarily I'd claim the
assumption, the reification, of an entity or category that is art, is an
equally big
problem, but I'll skip that in this posting and focus on "appeal". I've several
times cited the celebration of Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT. Some have called
it the greatest work of theater art in the twentieth century. I loathe play,
it does not appeal to me on any level. Notice I'm not saying the likes of "I
don't understand it." I can't grant I see any way in which I'd claim it's not
accessible to me. I've read a great deal of favorable comment about the work,
and nothing I've seen has made me say to myself, "I never thought of that."
Nothing I read about the play surprises me -- what does surprise is the
reaction
of some others.
The point: I maintain I am one of the "all".
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