Art and philosophy

[wittgenstein]

Does anyone know of any site that is about how particular works of art manifest the insights of the great philosophers? Note that I am not asking for a ' philosophy of art' site. Philosophy of art usually only takes on the issue of 'what is art?'

[Pedro]

I don't know of any such site. I would question if it would be possible to sustain such a site given your sin qua non of 'particular' and 'insights of great philosophers.' Traditionally art express the corporate belief of a people and not the belief of an individual. Modern art may claim to do this but always fails when examined under the microscope of intelligence.
To simplify, look at it this way. There are only two kinds of art, good and bad. One qualification of good art is that it expresses the will of the group. Bad art expresses the individual, the egotist.

[vera]

I don't know of any such site. I would question if it would be possible to sustain such a site given your sin qua non of 'particular' and 'insights of great philosophers.' Traditionally art express the corporate belief of a people and not the belief of an individual. Modern art may claim to do this but always fails when examined under the microscope of intelligence.
To simplify, look at it this way. There are only two kinds of art, good and bad. One qualification of good art is that it expresses the will of the group. Bad art expresses the individual, the egotist.
Why would you call that "bad"?

[Pedro]

Why would you call that "bad"?
On no you don't... You are not going to suck me into that kind of discussion.
I meant to keep it simple and broad by limiting myself to two categories. And I'm not quite sure what it is you question.

[vera]

On no you don't... You are not going to suck me into that kind of discussion.
I meant to keep it simple and broad by limiting myself to two categories. And I'm not quite sure what it is you question.
I would love to have a discussion with you. What I am asking is why you consider art that is made from the point of view of the artist and not a group - bad. What makes it so.

[Pauke! Pauke!]

Art is but in the eye of the beholder, in my humble opinion. Good or bad behold what professes to be art. We do sometimes think we need to define art and there is the rub. I think that some folks at Historum could do the research, although I am not worthy. I just like to play the tunes. And somehow, I feel that Wagner would get a bad rap in this discussion and rightfully so.

I'm drawn to 3rd world murals ala Picaso's "Guernica."

I once had a conversation with a Basque man who at the time of the Spanish Civil War had been a young man and had later immigrated to Winnemucca NV USA of all places. But, then if you know of the Basque shepherds in the western United States in the late 1940's and early 1950's it would be of no surprise. I spoke to him in the bar of the hotel that he then owned. I was amply supplied with very stiff libations of Manhattan cocktails at the time as I waited for the family style dinner to begin seating.. He had been a witness to the aftermath of the bombing of Guernica. He knew of the Picaso painting. He admired Picaso and his work but more so I feel because of their Iberian connection than of any philosophical connection to the work he had. He had been appalled at the carnage and graphically described the horrors revealed as the rubble had been cleared from the bombed-out city. I think he missed the symbolism in the painting. Then again, I had not seen the crushed bodies in the broken masonry nor smelt the decay of moldering flesh left for many days in the warmth of a Basque spring in 1937. That experience certainly was beyond my imagination or philosophy. The stark reality needed no symbolic representation in his mind. He expressed no philosophy other than distaste. Ironically, after the Spanish war he had served in Franco’s military in the early 1940’s and expressed an admiration for the Italian armaments that they had been equipped with.

He was absolutely convinced that immigrating to the USA was the best thing he had done. He did try to keep much of his culture and language intact. Perhaps that was the essence of his philosophy.

"We philosophers are never more delighted than when we are taken for artists." Friedrich Nietzsche's Gesammelte Briefe, vol. iii, p. 305

[Pedro]

I think I got off on the wrong foot when I used the words good and bad. Did I detect a slight threat to your esthetics? Fear not. I wasn’t even close to doing any such thing. You pose a good question, one that I assume for it was not directly stated. The more I think about it the longer my thoughts get. God knows how many words I would spew if I started to type my thoughts.

I will dare a few thoughts; to begin:
Eastern thinking I find more universal and less local at least that is how a typical western mind would express it, the eastern would reconcile the two thoughts.

This is where I start.
Western thinking is very dichotomous almost to the point of bi-polar. In the ‘traditional philosophy’ of the east I resonate to their ways of thinking.

These concepts are difficult to convey to the western mind, mostly because modern scholars lack the vocabulary to understand. Excepting of course those who are specialists and have command of western and eastern languages.

Since I posses only a superficial acquaintance with oriental languages necessity has limited me to English or Spanish translations. I have found that the western vocabulary that best corresponds for our purpose is the vocabulary of the Medieval philosophers known as the schoolmen.

What I have to say about art is nothing original. All the good ideas have already been expressed. Everything else is a variation.

I did not pick up my ideas about art from sophomoric bull sessions. (OH so much I have had to unlearn!!)

It is these studies that give me definitions that seem to be in harmony with the sciences.

It is these studies that taught me what functions an artist serves in society.

It is these studies that taught me that before all else I am first a human being.

It is these studies that taught me that (was it Plato who said) ‘the artist is not a special kind of man but every man a special kind of artist’.

It is these studies that taught me that egotism is the great evil, that egotism destroys civilization which in turn is expressed in its works of art.

Well… that ought to be enough to kick off more conversation.

In the mean time here is something I wrote about my early art training.
This is for Vera only.*
Beware! It is 10,000 words.

http://peterwessenmemoir.blogspot.com/

From there we can end up writing a book. Lol
* OK you can look too.