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Neuroaesthetics is killing your soul
nature.com ^ | 22 March 2013 | Philip Ball

Posted on 03/24/2013 7:43:42 AM PDT by BenLurkin

“It is only by understanding the neural laws that dictate human activity in all spheres — in law, morality, religion and even economics and politics, no less than in art — that we can ever hope to achieve a more proper understanding of the nature of man.”

to suggest that the human brain responds in a particular way to art risks creating criteria of right or wrong, either in the art itself or in individual reactions to it. .... experience suggests that scientists studying art find it hard to resist drawing up rules for critical judgements. The chemist and Nobel laureate Wilhelm Ostwald, a competent amateur painter, devised an influential theory of colour in the early twentieth century that led him to declare that Titian had once used the ‘wrong’ blue. Paul Klee, whose intuitive handling of colour was impeccable, spoke for many artists in his response to such hubris

But the problem runs deeper, because equating an appreciation of art with an appreciation of beauty is misleading. A concept of beauty (not necessarily ours today) was certainly important for, say, Renaissance artists, but until recently it had almost vanished from the discourse of contemporary art. Those who like the works of Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys or Robert Rauschenberg generally do not appreciate them for their beauty. Scientists as a whole have always had conservative artistic tastes; a quest for beauty betrays that little has changed.

Even the narrower matter of aesthetics is not only about beauty. It has conventionally also concerned taste and judgement. Egalitarian scientists have a healthy scepticism of such potentially elitist ideas, and it is true that arbiters of taste may be blinkered and dogmatic: witness, for example, the blanket dismissal of jazz by Theodor Adorno, a champion of modernism.

(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: art; gagdadbob; onecosmosblog
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But the point is not whether aesthetes are right or wrong, but whether they can offer us stimulating and original ways of seeing, listening and experiencing.

No thanks. Keep it to yourselves.

1 posted on 03/24/2013 7:43:42 AM PDT by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin
1) Art can make you admire the Creator -- This aims at Joy, such as Beethoven's "Ode to Joy".
2) Art can make you admire the Creation -- ultimately, this results in sadness and loss. The transient nature of things becomes apparent when we focus on the Creation. In some cases (such as some Blues) this can help us focus of that which is not passing (see #1). In other cases, such as Michael Jackson, it allows us to wallow in the illusion of happiness within this passing world, and this can be our downfall.
3) Art can make you admire yourself -- this is Pride. This is sin. It is unavoidable, but we should be aware when we put ourselves on a pedestal, we set ourselves up as God and this is how we are lost. Much of Modern Art takes this form: "I'm so clever, I'm so sophisticated. I like splattered paint, if you do not see the beauty, it is because you are not at my level." Serrano's "Piss Christ" is "art" of this type, where the focus is really on the viewer's appreciation for counter-cultural values, not so much on the object itself.

Show me the art you like, and I'll tell you about your soul.

2 posted on 03/24/2013 7:53:08 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (The ballot box is a sham. Nothing will change until after the war.)
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To: BenLurkin
Hate to tell them but these days "art" is about expressing the right political or ideological leanings when describing the painting, sculpture, photo etc.

Andreas Gurskey's heavily post processed Rhine II went for some $4.3 million dollars. He said that he wanted to show the state of the heavily constrained once free rivers of the world.

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3 posted on 03/24/2013 7:56:09 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: BenLurkin

My only criteria for art is that it should be 1) pretty and 2) not sweet. If I like it, it’s art.


4 posted on 03/24/2013 8:03:43 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: A_perfect_lady
If I like it, it’s art.

That's really what should matter. I do what I like and if others like it enough to pay me for it, that's even better. However I'll never go out of my way to fit in with a bunch of pretentious liberal artists and art critics.
5 posted on 03/24/2013 8:11:41 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: cripplecreek

That thing needs two identical Ikea lamps flanking it.


6 posted on 03/24/2013 8:12:35 AM PDT by tsomer
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To: BenLurkin

Up until I entered Art College in 1970, I labored under the discarded but quaint notion that the purpose of creating art and music was to create beauty, inspire people, and even to stimulate thinking and discussion.

I was quickly disabused of this avuncular “nonsense” and lectured about dissonance and ugliness for its own sake.

I realize now that this was preparation to prepare our culture to accept mediocrity and propaganda as the norm.

The messianic image of obama that was peddled as “high Art” which echoed the Socialist realism of the Stalin Era is a perfect illustration of the elevation of mediocrity in service to the State.

The Coarsening of Our Civilization, evidenced by high-tech filth that passes for movies, debased language, pop music that is devoid of melody and looped around one electronic measure, the sexual exploitation of children, and “political correctness” are all symptoms of a deeper sickness which has infected all aspects of our culture.

Maybe I am just an old crank, but I have a hard time finding any contemporary art, music, or literature that will be taken seriously one hundred years from now.

Just my opinion.


7 posted on 03/24/2013 8:15:33 AM PDT by left that other site (Worry is the darkroom that developes negatives.)
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To: yorkie

ping


8 posted on 03/24/2013 8:16:16 AM PDT by left that other site (Worry is the darkroom that developes negatives.)
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To: left that other site
You said: "The Coarsening of Our Civilization, evidenced by high-tech filth that passes for movies, debased language, pop music that is devoid of melody and looped around one electronic measure, the sexual exploitation of children, and “political correctness” are all symptoms of a deeper sickness which has infected all aspects of our culture."

Response: Agreed, and the root cause is egalitarianism which intuitively seeks the lowest level.

9 posted on 03/24/2013 8:21:05 AM PDT by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: BenLurkin

Sounds like what they are saying is we can be as disgusting as we want in art.


10 posted on 03/24/2013 8:25:12 AM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: left that other site
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."


Communist Goals (1963)
11 posted on 03/24/2013 8:27:24 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: left that other site

” The Coarsening of Our Civilization, evidenced by high-tech filth that passes for movies, debased language, pop music that is devoid of melody and looped around one electronic measure, the sexual exploitation of children, and “political correctness” are all symptoms of a deeper sickness which has infected all aspects of our culture.”

You’ve got it, its called evil.


12 posted on 03/24/2013 8:29:02 AM PDT by TsonicTsunami08
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To: left that other site
Taxpayers paid for this "art" that was displayed in a Northern Michigan museum a year or so back.

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Its extremely basic photoshop at best.
13 posted on 03/24/2013 8:30:48 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas
Thought this might interest you.

This speaks to the humanist psychology piece you posted. It’s part of humans “knowing good and evil” without God’s help. Very depressing.

14 posted on 03/24/2013 8:31:56 AM PDT by Excellence (9/11 was an act of faith.)
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To: ClearCase_guy
1) Art can make you admire the Creator ...
2) ...Creation -- ultimately, this results in sadness and loss. ...
3) Art can make you admire yourself -- this is Pride. This is sin...

I've never heard it expressed this way. It's elegant and rings true.

And it raises questions, for example:
Where does craft-- of the woodworker or the ceramicist-- fit in this formula?
When we admire Michelangelo's ceiling, don't we admire the skill of the man as well as the subject?

One of the things about craft is that it "says itself." It does not mimic nature; some would say it is analogous to music in this way. This was one of the arguments extended in defense of abstract art-- that it sought the sublime and transcendent, not the outward appearance of things.

15 posted on 03/24/2013 8:36:04 AM PDT by tsomer
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To: AEMILIUS PAULUS

Yes. It is called “The Lowest Common Denominator”.


16 posted on 03/24/2013 8:38:26 AM PDT by left that other site (Worry is the darkroom that developes negatives.)
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To: cripplecreek

Yes. That “Manifesto” keeps coming up, as the leftists are right on schedule.


17 posted on 03/24/2013 8:40:09 AM PDT by left that other site (Worry is the darkroom that developes negatives.)
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To: TsonicTsunami08

That is exactly right!

Are we ALLOWED to say “evil” anymore?


18 posted on 03/24/2013 8:41:02 AM PDT by left that other site (Worry is the darkroom that developes negatives.)
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To: cripplecreek

Eyew....

That is REALLY bad ‘art”.

Not to mention a LIE!


19 posted on 03/24/2013 8:42:02 AM PDT by left that other site (Worry is the darkroom that developes negatives.)
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To: left that other site

Once I had collected the photos and patterns I wanted to use, I could have slapped it together in about 20 minutes.


20 posted on 03/24/2013 8:48:54 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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