Well, are you asking about some eternal truth, or does "universal" simply mean consistent, popular consensus?

The Mona Lisa definitely qualifies as "universal" by the second standard. If Gretzky or Jordan are watched and appreciate for a sufficient period of time, they too will enter that pantheon.

I think popular, sustain consensus is the standard. Art is all about expressing something in a way that others can relate to.

Excellence. It doesn't matter the form it takes, but that ability we humans have to apply ourselves to something to achieve standards above that of everyman. Ronnie O'Sullivan playing snooker has that same quality that is in all great works of art. Transcendent excellence.

iconoclast.

I have to disagree with you Didymos when you say that...

[QUOTE]Art is all about expressing something in a way that others can relate to[/QUOTE]

One 'quality' of art that we can judge by is the expression of it; the 'quality' of the expression, and the communication 'quality' as well.

Critiques frequently use expressions such as 'work x is a mirror' when they want to express how well the peace enables them to relate to it. I think this is one judgment basis for art that you refer to. And with regards to sports virtuosos who seem to meet Kant's art criteria of sublimness and beauty... at university we often refer to people who take similar angles to the one necessary for sport-as-art appreciation as technicalists. In music they always refer to the player's level of 'talent' in order to qualify a judgment of the art as positive.

In art to it is not wrong to judge visual art by the effort and skill gone into, let's say, a naturalist oil painting. Contrary to a technicality angle there is the aesthetic angle where we judge what is readily available to the senses from the art; here message portrayal and skill are irrelevant. And what of the grinding, bellowing academic & philosophical sounds of some of the early electracoustic artists like Schaeffer and John Cage? When we studied tem last year we were seemingly judging the quality of the music by the essay in the liner notes as appose to anything on the CD?!

I think all art is somewhat esoteric, if not we make it so, and that universal art is a different phenomena which can be seen as part of the evolution of art; from cave paintings and interior design, to statues of gods and earthenware; dance & music of worship and possibly religion itself. We find a natural tendency to submerge our surroundings and free time in creativity, and it is a truly expressive thing I think. I would only qualify such things as 'universal' art, and the solo act of dancing, playing and painting, as art for arts sake is something separate in my opinion. Psychology and the natural human condition drive one while arts, craft, artists and artisans drive the other.

Your definition of 'Practical Art' is a part of 'regular' art, as is the Mona Lisa and both can be judged from separate angles using different criteria and frames of reference for comparison (so no need to worry about saturation, the whole art community is so divided and esoteric about things they will never merge.) Hence I would say there is no competition, and in the case of the original post's dilemma, Universal Art is Evolutionary Art driven by psychology and the human condition and I think it is much seperate from good old box standard Art.

Sporting virtuosos can be appreciated in the same way I appreciate jazz virtuosos, as well as aesthetically- the physical flow of football (soccer) for me is sublime in itself, and I found myself appreciating the martial arts of this just gone last Olympics similarly... except for the Taekwondo, wathcing team GB being robbed so... :nonooo:

Dan.

Victor,

There is a British television show called Top Gear. And in one of the newer episodes, one of the co-hosts (Jeremy Clarkson) was reviewing the Alfa 8c and remarked that, and I quote from him, "?a car can never be considered art because for something to be art it can have no purpose other than itself? no function." How is this remark relevant? Universal art implies some degree of objectivist perspective.

I think you may wonder if there can be an entirely objectivist stance on art. That is, can that one piece of art that you examine posses some artistic quality even if there were no one to predicate any artistic qualities to it. Simply, would it be art if there was nobody there to judge it. That seems to be an implication when you posit the existence of universal art. Consequently, we do not assert any subjectivist position, that the art relies on someone's opinion to make it art in itself (the exact opposite of the objectivist stance.)

I think Didymos has a valid point about consensus being a standard. To tell the truth, I fall more into his camp, because it is anti-realist, that "art is in the eye of the beholder" and by extension subjectivist. I also like de_budding's response about how art has some degree of esotericism. The thought falls into the same subjectivist camp. That I can full heartedly agree on. So I guess there is a scale of whether or not art is intrinsic or esoteric? though it seems like relativism seems rampant and the subjectivist perspective is a bit stronger than the intrinsic camp.

On the other hand Plato (amongst others) argued that art for arts sake was empty and that art should always be shaped after the beautifull and the sublime.

Plato versus Top Gear.



p.s. I disagree with Plato and with Top Gear. (True) Art (to me) is something else: Time is Art. But that would be a totally different story.

Not necessarily Arjen? I don't think your views are a different story. In fact, I believe they are very much in line with the context of the thread. Suffice to say that Plato said many things. LOL! Even to the point of contradicting himself in the Phaedrus as to Socrates' stance on rhetoric.

Thinking about it, your view on time being art is in some degree a type of universal art in the extreme essence of the word. But you would also fall into the subjectivist camp with most everyone else that has posted thus far.

I ment it in the sense that time sprouts art. Without time there can be no art and all art is an expression, a celebration of time. It reminds me of a case I once made for creativity being equal to relativity in the sense that the more one allows the creativity to take over, time taking a different position towards us in the sense of it coming to an almost complete halt....for example..

Perhaps if we considered a piece of contextual art, let's say, a urinal in an art context- the Tate Modern. When no one is around to view the urinal or even when every one has forgot it, can the intentional art context, the Tate, maintain the piece as art?

Also a related thought experiment that has jumped to mind is...

A deserted artist's shed lay baron in the woods; at one time a great artist used to come out here and paint using a tree stump as his easel and dye made from the plants and trees as his paint... but he was long gone.

His last canvas sat outside on the tree-stump-easel. The wind whipped up one day and knocked some of the late artist's green-oak paint over the canvas. A seagull from on-high relieves himself over the painting-to-be and the rain adds to the canvas; the finishing touch is the paw prints left by a gang of roaming squirrels.

A man finds the work and assumes it to be of the late artists, who often created abstract naturalist work like this. The work is sold for ?50, 000 at local auction and no one was the wiser until a gang of disgruntled squirrels and a rather sheepish looking seagull turned up to claim their prize.

I think that with ease we can turn art into non-art and that this supports the idea of an esoteric, closed art community that needs rules and judgment systems to best level the playing field, lest we miss some quality art.

Another quick example of this is a playschool painting I did (at age 3) which turned out to look rather like an abstract painting of sorts. I left it at my grandfather's house after he picked me up from playschool one day, he is a wonderful naturalist painter, and when some art seekers came over one night to buy some oil paintings they found my playschool painting. Offers were made to buy the infant painting assuming that it was painted by my grandfather. The offers were declined and they all had a good laugh about it afterwards. The painting is framed in my living room still and it fools people to this day!

Dan.

Arjen,

So you mean to say that time is a catalyst for art? I can buy into that seeing as though art is constantly evolving in perception and taste. I think we could see time as the only real means of artistic conveyance.


De_budding,

The idea of a urinal in art brings this to mind?


It is a diamond encrusted toilet. Art? Maybe.

But don't mess with disgruntled squirrels, they hide their nuts in places where the sun wont shine on them for a reason. LOL! But I agree with you, there is always some degree of relativistic approach to art. But your supposition of a closed art community is interesting (in a good way). On one hand, I do not like the idea of a closed system. That system creates the value of a certain object which is determined by a select few and then translated to the public. But I think we need that kind of closed system, though I honestly have to say I would not completely agree with it.

But look at those diamonds from the diamond encrusted toilet. Those diamonds hold no utilitarian value aside from what palladium or titanium would have. But we would spend gross sums for a fraction of a carat compared to the utilitarian value of palladium or titanium. To cut to the point, the diamond system (controlled by the London diamond exchange) controls the value of the diamond. But supposing that system weren't there, what would the real intrinsic value of a diamond be?

I see your point VideCorSpoon, and the diamond system is a good example of a closed system gone wrong perhaps, but does the system need repairing or destroying? In the same way that art would quickly be saturated and meaningless without a closed system, would diamonds be pointless without the London diamond exchange?

Perhaps both need repairing; the 'pop industry' in the UK is a fickle shambles of shame and talentlessness and needs repairing! But to rid of it completely would mean perhaps mean the loss of a future Michael Jackson.

So what is the alternative? I have only ever had my own fixed views of art where we make standards to judge by... is there another way? Maybe I will prefer it

Dan :a-ok:

If you look at it from the perspective of the diamond system, you would seriously consider dismantling the system brick by brick. One matter of contention in the diamond system that I do not like is that the London diamond exchange holds a true monopoly over the industry. When I say true monopoly, I mean true monopoly. Get this? all legal diamonds go through the London diamond exchange one way or the other. That exchange has such a hold over the industry that vendors who sell us diamonds (USA, UK, Europe, etc.) buy the diamonds form the London exchange without even knowing what they are buying and what amount or quality they are buying in. They virtually hand over a blank check and hope they get something good. And if you go against the monopoly? you are black listed from the exchange and your company will go under.

Can you imagine insanity of such a monopoly?

But you bring up an interesting point about whether or not diamonds would be pointless without the diamond exchange. My answer is yes. But it is yes because of the fact that they withhold, or more precisely "forcibly ration" 80% of the world's supply of legal diamonds they receive, thus inflating the price of the common diamond. Art, I would imagine is the same way, except it is the attribution of the label "this is art" that is rationed.

But the issue of an alternative system is an excellent topic. What kind of system would work? I wonder about that myself. I will have to think on it, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts on better system.

Actually it is a mayan insinght.

[quote="www.lawoftime.org]
The principle formulation of the Law of Time -T(E) = Art, Energy factored by Time equals Art - accounts for the intrinsic elegance of all natural phenomena.[/quote]

Try to realise that the realm of time is a bimitless state where synchronisation exists by its very nature (facilitation telepathy among other things). Time itself can be understood as a frequency expressed by a mathematical ratio constrant 13:20. To tell you the truth I am not exactly sure where the Maya found that. I do know that their entire spiritual calendar (The 260 ((13 Intentions)x(20Aspects)) day Tzolkin) is based on this as well. They have three calendars though,, which makes everything muddled. The Haab (bookkeeping and tax purposes), The Tzolkin (energy of entire creation and mission of people being born on this day) and the Tun (profetional and movement of celestial bodies). My personal research into the matter has been halted due to research into method (by studying Descartes, Spinoza and Kant).

Perhaps you can use some of the insights on the website though, I know I could (can).

you have to be very broad to lay down a definition of art that everyone agrees on, this is the one i usualy go with: Anyone who says they are creating art is, so anything created that is meant to be art is. you have to remember: even if you hate a paticular peice of art (for example the toilet) that doesn't mean it's not art.

but this eaves out the whole concept of nature being art, perhaps nature is god's art?

i think an artist can't just be an observer, meaning you can't just look at a tornado and say "that's art" I think art has to be created by humans with art in mind, any definition that includes more than this is impractical because no one needs art to be anything more than that, except you guys arguing that time is art, but does it need to be? how would this help if it was?