| From: | Strago strago@***.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [OT] Art (was Re: [OT]-REVIEW- Cannon Companion) |
| Date: | Wed, 12 Apr 2000 16:31:37 -0400 |
> <SNIP>
> > > This is obvious, fellows. It's as simple as saying Kid Rock doesn't add to
> > > the field of music in any quality way.
> >
> > Do you enjoy listening to Kid Rock? Do other people? If so, then,
> > well... Yes.
> > By the way, you realize that people said about Bach, Beethoven, Mozart
> > is what you just said about Kid Rock?
>
> Please tell me you're not attempting to compare multi-layered music with
> hundreds of instruments to a band of a few men and their simple three-chord
> music. And while certain composers were indeed held as not masters in their
> own time - aren't you contradicting your above point here? - their music,
> objectively, is still much better than Kid Rock, on nearly any real scale
> one can name, unless one likes simplicity and repetition. And then one is
> silly. :)
No, but what she was trying to say was that many people in the time of Bach
(especially, even his own sons!) found that his works did not "add to the field
of music in any quality way" (your own words). His Baroque style was considered
pretentious and overly-theatrical. It was not until the 19th century when he was
rediscovered that his genius was truly appreciated. He was seen, in his own
time, as a brilliant organist. And this merely proves that there is no
"objective" scale. It's all the mores of the time. If you go by complexity, you
ignore much music which sounds good but is not very difficult to play, while
some complex compositions do not sound good at all, to my ear at least.
> <SNIP>
> <SNIP>
> I do indeed work for a living. And, when I was younger, I struggled for a
> living, and have even been homeless for a time. Now, no, I do not worry
> about mortgage payments or utilities or transport. These things have been
> taken care of, because I hate worrying about them. Yet another reason I
> could not be an artist; because I am not enough of an idealist. So I know
> whereof I speak, and yet I cannot imagine why you would worry about these
> things in comparison to art. Those I know do not; they could care less about
> food, or housing, in comparison to their art. But I, personally, am no
> artist, as I say, and therefore I speak only in the second-hand.
> <SNIP>
> Actually, it's a pretension used by the artists I know to justify their own
> obsession. But they are brilliant in their fields, and I will not gainsay
> them their due. Sometimes, they say, the empty stomach is more inspiration
> than the full one. <SNIP>
Speaking of "modern art," I just have a few things to say. I would hope that
these artists you know are actually artists, not the hacks which dominate these
days. I find no artistic merit in placing a black line on a canvas and calling
it "Suffering" or some such title. Nor do I see artistic merit in the new
post-modern writing. Why? Because, to me, art is a portrayal of the world. I
prefer strong emotion (like Beethoven) or a story I can read and comprehend
(like Crime and Punishment) to, for example, Finnegan's Wake or a work by
Brahms. These works aren't "art," they do nothing for me but make me turn off
the radio or throw away the book in frustration. And this "modern" art also
makes me hurt myself in frustration. Which is better, a Renoir or a blue dot?
I guess I'm just old-fashioned, I just believe art "holds a mirror up to
nature."
And that's also why I prefer Robert Jordan and Tom Clancy to the so-called
"classics".
--
--Strago
In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder,
bloodshed - they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.
In Switzerland they had brotherly
love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The
cuckoo clock!
-Orson Welles
SRGC v0.2 !SR1 SR2+ SR3++ h b++ B- UB- IE+ RN+ SRFF W+ sa++ ma++ ad+ m+ (o++ d+)
gm+ M P
