There's a good question about what constitutes "aesthetic value." I know of at least one really good painter, aesthetically speaking IMO, whose work didn't sell well during his lifetime and whose many good paintings are now sliding unloved on to the trash-heap of history. They are going to disappear.
This is sad for the man's friends but in the long run a small loss for mankind--the one thing people will never run out of is Kulchur. We can always make more. The idea that "aesthetic value" equals a seldom-achieved "unity of the true, the good and the beautiful" which equals incomparable greatness, is likewise incomparably rare, and is both unspeakably precious and supremely moral (and therefore, no matter how reactionary the theme, revolutionary)--this strikes me as questionable at best. I haven't seen Rorke's Drift but see no reason quarrel with the assertions about its thematic content--only with the implication that a greater degree of sublimity could have rescued it. Art matters, but only up to a certain point. It just isn't as important as professional aesthetes and romantics try to make it out to be. Beauty is not Truth; Truth is not Beauty; and that is bloody well not all we know on Earth or need to know. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#4672): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/4672 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/79118930/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
