Classically trained Hindustani musician that he is , Dutton is ending his performance with a very fast, dramatic flourish - addressing that mostcontroversial of questions: what is greatness in the arts? What "bearing does evolutionary theory have on understanding the qualities of the greatest artistic masterpieces"?
Many controversial ideas will be quickly and briefly discussed - beginning with those of Clive Bell and his "limited, not to say dunderheaded, musical perceptions" Dutton quotes that same passage that Kivy worked with: "Tired or perplexed, Iet slip my sense of form, my aesthetic emotions collapses, and I begin weaving into the harmonies, that I cannot grasp, the ideas of life. Incapable of feeling the austere emotions of art, I begin to read into the musical forms human emotions of terror and mystery, love and hate, and spend the minutes, pleasurably enough, in a world of turbid and inferior feeling" But Dutton does nothing more with this passage than use it to introduce the following: "I have been using art as a means to the emotions of life and reading into it the ideas of life... I have tumbled from the superb peaks of aestehtic exaltation to the snug foothills of warm humanity. It is a jolly country. No one need be ashamed of enjoying himself there. Only no one who has ever been to the heights can help feeling a little crestfallen in the cosy valleys. And let no one imagine, because he has made merry in the warm tilth and quiant nooks of romance, that he can even guess at the austere and thrilling raptures of those who have climbed the cold, white peaks of art" The "cold, white peaks of art?" Are those the same heights that humanities professors fight to be king of? It's interesting that Dutton is letting this passage serve to distinguish between high art and all the rest. He's not especially happy with the word "cold", but "Bell's mountain analogy , suggesting climbing, an exploration, the achievement of a vista, does make the grandeur of the Himalayas a fine metaphor for the greatest works of art" But before considering those peaks, he does "want to deal with three areas of jolly aesthetic foothills and the intellectual quicksands that surround them" -- by making these four assertions: 1. The arts are not essentially social 2. The arts are not just crafts 3. The arts are not essentially religious or moral or political 4. High art traditions demand individuality All of which is quite puzzling because Dutton has defined art with a Wittgensteinian set of cluster criteria - none which are necessary or sufficient or more important than any other. So how can he say that "the arts" are essentially anything at all? He's suddenly, and enthusiastically, abandoned his own premise - so what's the point of following hm any further" Except that -- each of his four assertions is interesting, and he's always fun to read with plenty of references to other thinkers. So here goes: 1. The arts are not essentially social: While agreeing that "music and dance would seem to increase empathy, cooperation, and social solidarity" - as noted by social theorists from Emile Durkheim to Ellen Dissanayake. But Dutton notes that artworlds are riven with "intense competition, feuds, jealousies, and gnawing resentments of every kind"(case in point: our listserv) - and he humorously quotes Tolstoy's description of an opera rehearsal - where the conductor is continuously rapping the podium with his stick and calling his performers "asses", "fools", "idiots", and "swine". And Dutton joins Pinker in disputing the theory of group selection in evolution - because - as Pinker argues - "in order for it to work as a valid evolutionary process, the actual structural characteristic of the group - its size, for instance - must be specifically selected for repeatedly across generations in the way that genes are". While Dutton adds that "the evolutionary process that pits suitors against each other.... undermines the communal spirit as having an intrinsic role in the arts" Lacking any evidence from the Pleistocene, the arguments about evolution are pure speculation -- while the example from Tolstoy can be turned around if, ultimately, the orchestra pulls together and gives a great performance. (and many great conductors are known to have been strongly disliked by their orchestras) And actually -- the same thing might be said about our listserv, which eventually produces some informative discussion, even if every possible insult has been hurled along the way. Isn't that how all social situations work? 2.The arts are not just crafts. Wherein Dutton will follow R.G. Collingwood in defining the craftsman as one who knows in advance what the finished product will look like -- and applying this to the expression of emotion - the craftsman will produce a predictable tearjerker - while, as Dutton says, the artist "probes the content of human emotional life with an eye toward articulating, or making clear, an unique emotion, an individual feeling". But I wonder how many soap opera script writers really do know exactly how their stories will end and what variety of emotions they will produce. And I also wonder if many famous painters, Corot, for example, didn't have a very clear idea of the emotional effect of each painting (since most of Corot's paintings feel so similar to me). 3. The arts are not essentially religious or moral or political -- following the lead of Plato who would prohibit them for that very reason - and the recent comment of Ihab Hassan that politics "when it becomes primary in our lives, tends to exteriorize all the difficulties of existence....tragedy is not injustice" However, to jump ahead a bit, Dutton will soon be claiming that two of the "four central characteristics of the greatest art" is "serious content" and "purpose" which accompanies the belief that "real beauty exists, there is objective truth, and the good is a genuine value independent of human cultures and choices" So I'm not sure how Dutton can reconile these apparently opposite notions - ie. religious faith produces the best art, but the best art is not essentially religious. 4. High art traditions demand individuality - just as in the competitive courtship that results in sexual selection. Except that -- aren't all peahens looking for the same high qualities from their chosen peacock? Couldn't one also say that high art traditions demand the same kind of excellence, but since everyone is different, those excellences cannot help but be different as well? It may be agreed that "those artists whose work has survived and achieved wide cross cultural appeal are people whose output is marked by a persistent, distinct emotional tone" - but was that distinctness demanded by their traditions - or was it just the inevitable result of human differences ? Dutton presents the comparison between Rachmaninoff and his friend and contemporary, Nikolai Medtner who is more obscure because "he cannot express the same distinctly brooding personal atmosphere" Or -- is it just that Rachmaninoff was a much more exciting person, so when he expressed that self, the results were more memorable? So none of these four assertions are argued all that convincingly. But he does end this section with the interesting observation that "if art is a vestigial fitness marker for courtshipk or a way of knowing another mind in social interchange, it follows that the love of art made by dead people is an evolutionary mistake" Indeed. And I would even suggest that death immediately makes an artist more attractive. At least, it did for Michael Jackson. ____________________________________________________________ Diet Help Cheap Diet Help Tips. Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/c?cp=xGMY0_uvEkuGkq_egIRE6AAAJz6c l_zTaptgNR5c8Mer1v9kAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYQAAAAAA=
