Hi All Interested in Art Theory and the MOQ:
I previously offered Pirsig�s theory of art by citing the passage in
Lila where you see or hear something so good that it stops you in
your tracks.
Here�s another offering for your consideration�a theory of art
proposed by an artist:
�An immortal instinct, deep within the human spirit, is a sense of the
beautiful. This is what administers our delight in life. But there is still
something in the distance which we know of, but are unable fully to
attain.
�This thirst belong to our immortality, a consequence and indication
of our perennial existence. It is no mere appreciation of the beauty
before us, but a wild effort to reach the beauty above, to attain a
portion of that loveliness whose very elements appertain to eternity
alone.
�When we find ourselves near the point of tears in apprehending
beauty, we weep not through an excess of pleasure, but through a
certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now,
wholly, here on earth, at once and forever, those divine and
rapturous joys of which, in rare moments, we attain a brief and
indeterminate glimpse.
�The artist struggles to create such supernal beauty, to make one
see or hear with shivering delight a sight or sound which cannot
have been unfamiliar to angels.�
Read that short quotation from Edgar Allan Poe to any group of
students from grade school through graduate school and art will be
completely and instantly understood at a level which no long-winded,
complicated, academic treatise can ever hope to attain.
Beauty, truth, goodness and freedom stand at the apex of a Quality
universe. Art strives towards all four. But, beauty for the artist is
foremost. By aspiring to beauty, the others follow naturally.
Platt
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