Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Roger Kimball: The End of Art (Profound Essay)
First Things ^ | July 2008 | Roger Kimball

Posted on 12/27/2008 12:54:23 PM PST by mojito

Nearly everyone cares—or says he cares—about art. After all, art ennobles the spirit, ­elevates the mind, and educates the emotions. Or does it? In fact, tremendous irony attends our culture’s continuing investment—emotional, financial, and social—in art. We behave as if art were something special, something important, something spiritually refreshing; but, when we canvas the roster of distinguished artists today, what we generally find is far from spiritual, and certainly far from refreshing.

It is a curious situation. Traditionally, the goal of fine art was to make beautiful objects. The idea of beauty came with a lot of Platonic and Christian metaphysical baggage, some of it indifferent or even hostile to art. But art without beauty was, if not exactly a contradiction in terms, at least a description of failed art.

Nevertheless, if large precincts of the art world have jettisoned the traditional link between art and beauty, they have done nothing to disown the social prerogatives of art. Indeed, we suffer today from a peculiar form of moral anesthesia—as if being art automatically rendered all moral considerations ­gratuitous. The list of atrocities is long, familiar, and laughable. In the end, though, the effect has been ­anything but amusing; it has been a cultural disaster.

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: art; avantgarde; beauty; fineart; nihilism; thomaskinkaide
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 121-130 next last
To: Desdemona
See the Serra Sculpture, St. Louis, Missouri, between 10th and 11th Streets, Market and Chestnut Streets - and yes, it is an entire block.

Check this out...

Park Avenue Gets a Mao
By KATE TAYLOR | September 8, 2008

The final piece of the Asia Society's exhibition "Art and China's Revolution" was installed over the weekend [Sept 2008]: a 10-foot-tall sculpture of a Mao jacket, by the artist Sui Jianguo, which will stand on a median in the middle of Park Avenue at 70th Street until mid-November.

The sculpture, called "Mao Suit," is made of corroded steel and weighs 5-and-a-half tons. It is part of a series of Mao jackets — shown without the head or hands of their famous wearer — that the artist, who is in his 50s, began in the late 1990s and has made in a variety of materials, from steel to resin to colored plastic, the Asia Society's museum director, Melissa Chiu, said.

http://www.nysun.com/arts/park-avenue-gets-a-mao/85310/

61 posted on 12/27/2008 2:37:03 PM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]

To: ETL
That at least has form.

Check this out: http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/parks/parks_div/serra.html

62 posted on 12/27/2008 2:41:28 PM PST by Desdemona (Tolerance of grave evil is NOT a Christian virtue (I choose virtue. Values change too often).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: mojito

www.artrenewal.com

‘Nuff said!


63 posted on 12/27/2008 2:48:16 PM PST by chesley (A pox on both their houses. I've voted for my last RINO.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mojito

*


64 posted on 12/27/2008 2:50:17 PM PST by Sam Cree (absolute reality)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Desdemona

Kind of looks like Maya Ying Lin's Wall.

"The Three Servicemen statue is the result of the controversy surrounding Maya Ying Lin's design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Some veterans and their political supporters felt that The Wall was "a black gash of shame" or a "giant tombstone." It was too abstract a design for others who wanted a more heroic, life-like depiction of a soldier.

To meet these concerns, it was decided that a traditional statue would be added as an integral part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The late Frederick Hart, who had won third place in the original competition, was selected to create a suitable work of representational sculpture to be added to the Memorial site. The statue was unveiled in 1984, two years after The Wall's completion.

http://www.vvmf.org/index.cfm?SectionID=103

65 posted on 12/27/2008 3:10:22 PM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: mojito

Most art (and most architecture) these days is a monument to the artist’s ego. Nothing else.


66 posted on 12/27/2008 3:29:57 PM PST by Lorianne
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mojito

btt


67 posted on 12/27/2008 4:00:21 PM PST by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mojito
Great article - one of the BEST reads in a long time. Sheds light on the subtleties that push man farther from God, shaping and changing our society and culture for the worse.

“When human reason is made the measure of reality, beauty forfeits its ontological claim and becomes merely aesthetic—merely a matter of feeling. “

Bingo.

68 posted on 12/27/2008 5:27:28 PM PST by txzman (Jer 23:29)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the invisib1e hand
I think the boy’s obsessed.

The dead don't laugh!

69 posted on 12/27/2008 5:37:33 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Many come here to merely strike poses, posture and feel superior to others.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: ETL

It may look like a lot of things, but it’s supposed to be the confluence of the rivers.


70 posted on 12/27/2008 7:35:24 PM PST by Desdemona (Tolerance of grave evil is NOT a Christian virtue (I choose virtue. Values change too often).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies]

To: woofie

Goya's The Colossus

71 posted on 12/27/2008 8:10:57 PM PST by Buckhead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: woofie

Goya's self-portrait

72 posted on 12/27/2008 8:14:57 PM PST by Buckhead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: woofie

Goya's The Third of May, 1808

73 posted on 12/27/2008 8:21:42 PM PST by Buckhead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: mojito
This much, I think, is clear: Without an allegiance to beauty, art degenerates into a caricature of itself; it is beauty that animates aesthetic experience, making it so seductive; but aesthetic experience itself degenerates into a kind of fetish or idol if it is held up as an end in itself, untested by the rest of life.

Bingo.

74 posted on 12/27/2008 8:30:13 PM PST by GOPJ (GM's market value is a third of Bed, Bath and Beyond. Why is GM "too big to fail"? Steyn)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mojito

Heart of the Andes, Frederic Edwin Church 1859, Metropolitan Museum of Art


The Rocky Mountains: Lander's Peak, Albert Bierstadt, 1863

75 posted on 12/27/2008 8:59:23 PM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mojito

Storm in the Rocky Mountains (Mount Rosa), Albert Bierstadt, 1886
76 posted on 12/27/2008 9:11:14 PM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mojito

Yosemite Valley, Albert Bierstadt (American, 1830 - 1902) 1866


Sunset in the Yosemite Valley, Bierstadt, Albert, 1868

77 posted on 12/27/2008 9:20:44 PM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ETL

Those are awesome. Did not know Bierstadt. Thanks very much.


78 posted on 12/27/2008 9:38:12 PM PST by Buckhead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 77 | View Replies]

To: Buckhead
You're welcome. Church and Bierstadt were members of the 'Hudson River School' of landscape painters.

http://home.att.net/~hudsonriverschool/home.htm

http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Hudson+River+School/Albert+Bierstadt/

79 posted on 12/27/2008 9:54:39 PM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 78 | View Replies]

To: Buckhead

Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California

http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Hudson+River+School/Albert+Bierstadt/Albert+Bierstadt+-+Among+the+Sierra+Nevada+Mountains_+California.jpg.html

80 posted on 12/27/2008 9:58:49 PM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 78 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 121-130 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson