Nice. Though I liked the earlier Heidegger quote, that art discloses truth. Would be nice if it included that...
On Sep 7, 2011, at 11:04 AM, [email protected] wrote: > Frederick Turner's Blog > > > Art Recentered: A Manifesto > > We stand for : > > 1. The reunion of artist with public. > Art should grow from and speak to the common roots and universal principles > of human nature in all cultures. > Art should direct itself to the general public. > Those members of the general public who do not have the time, training, or > inclination to craft and express its higher yearnings and intuitions, rightly > demand an artistic elite to be the culture’s prophetic mouthpiece and mirror. > Art should deny the simplifications of the political left and right, and > should refine and deepen the radical center. > The use of art, and of cheap praise, to create self-esteem, is a cynical > betrayal of all human cultures. > Excellence and standards are as real and universal in the arts as in > competitive sports, even if they take more time and refined judgement to > appreciate. > > 2. The reunion of beauty with morality. > The function of art is to create beauty. > Beauty is incomplete without moral beauty. > There should be a renewal of the moral foundations of art as an instrument to > civilize, ennoble, and inspire. > True beauty is the condition of civilized society. > Art recognizes the tragic and terrible costs of human civilization, but does > not abandon hope and faith in the civilizing process. > Art must recover its connection with religion and ethics without becoming the > propagandist of any dogmatic system. > Beauty is the opposite of coercive political power. > Art should lead but not follow political morality. > We should restore reverence for the grace and beauty of human beings and of > the rest of nature. > > 3. The reunion of high with low art. > Popular and commercial art forms are the soil in which high art grows. > Theory describes art; art does not illustrate theory. > Art is how a whole culture speaks to itself. > Art is how cultures communicate with and marry each other. > > 4. The reunion of art with craft. > Certain forms, genres, and techniques of art are culturally universal, > natural, and classical. > Those forms are innate but require a cultural tradition to awaken them. > They include such things as visual representation, melody, storytelling, > poetic meter, and dramatic mimesis. > These forms, genres, and techniques are not limitations or constraints but > enfranchising instruments and infinitely generative feedback systems. > High standards of craftsmanship and mastery of the instrument should be > restored. > > 5. The reunion of passion with intelligence. > Art should come from and speak to what is whole in human beings. > Art is the product of passionate imaginative intelligence, not of > psychological sickness and damage. > Even when it deals, as it often should and must, with the terrifying, tragic, > and grotesque, art should help heal the lesions within the self and the rifts > in the self’s relation to the world. > The symbols of art are connected to the embodiment of the human person in a > physical and social environment. > > 6. The reunion of art with science. > Art extends the creative evolution of nature on this planet and in the > universe. > Art is the natural ally, interpreter, and guide of the sciences. > The experience of truth is beautiful. > Art is the missing element in environmentalism. > Art can be reunited with physical science through such ideas as evolution and > chaos theory. > The reflectiveness of art can be partly understood through the study of > nonlinear dynamical systems and their strange attractors in nature and > mathematics. > The human species emerged from the mutual interaction of biological and > cultural evolution. > Thus our bodies and brains are adapted to and demand artistic performance and > creation. > We have a nature; that nature is cultural; that culture is classical. > Cultural evolution was partly driven by inventive play in artistic > handicrafts and performance. > The order of the universe is neither deterministic nor on the road to > irreversible decay; instead the universe is self-renewing, self-ordering, > unpredictable, creative, and free. > Thus human beings do not need to labor miserably to despoil the world of its > diminishing stockpile of order, and struggle with one another for possession > of it, only to find that they have bound themselves into a mechanical and > deterministic way of life. > Instead they can cooperate with nature’s own artistic process and with each > other in a free and open-ended play of value-creation. > Art looks with hope to the future and seeks a closer union with the true > progress of technology. > > 7. The reunion of past with future. > Art evokes the shared past of all human beings, that is the moral foundation > of civilization. > Sometimes the present creates the future by breaking the shackles of the > past; but sometimes the past creates the future by breaking the shackles of > the present. > The enlightenment and modernism are examples of the former; the renaissance, > and perhaps our time, are examples of the latter. > No artist has completed his or her artistic journey until he or she has > sojourned with and learned the wisdom of the dead artists who came before. > The future will be more, not less, aware of and indebted to the past than we > are; just as we are more aware of and indebted to the past than were our > ancestors. > The immortality of art goes both ways in time. > > In the light of these principles we challenge contemporary thinking and urge > the reform of existing institutions. > > > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
