On Sep 29, 2012, at 4:47 AM, joseph berg <[email protected]> wrote: > To keep style subordinate to substance, shouldn't an aesthetic ideal eschew > effects?
What do you mean by "style"? "substance"? "effects"? Everything has "style," and just enough of it. (It's like the joke, "My, we've had a lot of weather this year.") And everythng has "substance" (a vague term). You are making an impractical dichotomy between the two. "Style" cannot exist without "substance," nor can "substance" be made manifest without "style." Moreover, why do you propose that style be subordinated to subtaance? As I use the term, an "aesthetic ideal" does embrace "effects," but maybe not the ones someone (you?) might prefer. Some effects may be judged as sedate or serene (classical Greek sculpture) and others as dramatic or exaggerated (Hellenistic sculpture). One viewer may prefer, say, the turbulence of the Mausoleum sculptures and find the sedate effects of the Panathenaic frieze to be tediously intrusive. Others may like Satie's Gymnopaedies and be put off by Mozart's bombastic scores. Note, btw, that the word "style" is derived from "stylus," a writing tool, and is now often used to indicate the distincitve qualities of a work that are typical of the maker, as handwriting is uniquely linked to one person. Stylistic analysis is a common technique in artistic study and is used to help ascertain the authorship of disputed works. I read you comment to suggest that the maker's characteristic decisions and approach should be subordinated to some other consideration--content, I suppose, which is a reasonable interpretation of "substance"--but I don't see how that is practical because content cannot be expressed in immaterial form, and when the artist forms the substances, he does so in his typical, normal manner, i.e., with his style, which (at least in his mind) conforms to the substance of the idea. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
