Why beauty matters

@CrazyMusicLover Well, it is a documentary. It was recommended to me.

I am very interested what you think of it after you have watched it.

@Mugin16 Interesting take on aesthetics, nice introduction to history of art and aesthetics.

But there are inconsistencies.

"looking at the sublime country" Sublime and Beauty are two separate and different concepts in Kant's aesthetics. So he shouldn't mix those two.

This example with a desire to hold a baby is unfortunate one. Hormones take a great role in this particular case and it's not universal. I think a better example would be if an atheist or a heathen enters a sacral building and listens to sacral music and despite being an atheist or a heathen he is captivated by the whole scenery. He is filled with beauty and this feeling has no connection to promised heaven that scripts of the given religion promise, there is no interest from his side, just to experience beauty for beauty. Something you don't want to own, consume or use for your personal profit. Personally I categorize music like this sometimes but still prefer sublime over Kant's concept of beauty.

48:40 - 100 points to the guy for revealing sad reality and ugly truth about temporary art schools. I can confirm that students are openly discouraged from gaining traditional artistic skills by their tutors. I respect many concepts of post modern art but it's stupid to push students to do the same type of art that has been here for 40 years already.

@CrazyMusicLover You find his take interesting? I found it normal and obvious. I struggle to understand how can anybody look at the old Western art and the modern and post-modern one and not see that the one was was beautiful and the others are not? These buildings in Reading were beyond ugly.

Looks like it is time for a restoration in the art schools and a return to tradition.

@Mugin16 Yes because it omits important explanations from history of art and aesthetics on why art became like this. The first thing that they taught us in school was the concept of Death of the art that started with a delusion of late 19. century, saying that once the photography was invented, there was no point in trying to achieve realism by any other medium so old mediums need revolution. I think he should have mentioned that and present his opinion why he disagrees with this approach to art and explain why it was a mistake that we should stop repeating over and over. Many art pieces mentioned there were a response to The death of the art in some way but yes, unless you are aware of these facts you are unable to read the art work in the gallery. You only see bricks. In other words, art lost the form, only concept remained, which gets lost without a proper explanation. And now there are disputes whether concept itself can be beautiful but as that guy said, anyone can come up with a brilliant idea - a medic, a lawyer...it doesn't make anyone an artist.

He talked about beauty but I constantly felt as if he wanted to talk about the importance of skills as the defining value of beauty in his personal philosophy. As it was a documentary quite strongly based on a subjective opinion and very Western oriented. He said beauty is objective but wasn't very convincing to me.
I missed objective explanations like for example harmony and symmetry that is crucial for supporters of classical beauty as opposed to emotionality and irregularity that is crucial for supporters of baroque and romantic beauty. That's one of the most important disputes in aesthetics throughout history. Of course, together with importance of moral values and The good, which he mentioned through the element of lust as something that can't be beautiful.

He mentioned the importance of creativity and that desperately lack in functionalist architecture which, I agree, is ugly AF. But I don't see why glass architecture should be perceived as ugly as well. I don't agree on this with him. Personally I don't think Gherkin is any uglier than Palladio's architecture. Not every new medium must be ugly just because it's not traditional.

Modern and postmodern art is about politics and philosophy. Mostly politics though.
We don't need to return to tradition, just to start to value hard work and skills over concepts, sensationalism and political messages. First objectively assessable skills, then the concept.

@CrazyMusicLover I have always felt that art is in the eyes of the beholder. As a member of the US Supreme Court once said, about a different firm of art, I know it when I see it!

I often wonder in museums why they chose certain art. Some of my grand children's art looks as good if not better, to me. I have studied art for over 70 years and still don't always "get it!"

@CrazyMusicLover A fact that I find quite interesting is that fascination with old objects of art, temples...has only happened in recent centuries in human history, mainly in the 19th and 20th century. It is like humans (or at least westerners) accept they cannot create any beauty that can match that of ancient times?

Is it by chance that 19th century is the century when Romanticism was born, and the concept of art as the expression of the artist's soul appeared? I don't think so.

@Cierzo Not sure that is correct. What else is the Renaissance as a fascination with old objects of arts and temples? In the landscape gardens at Stowe - the most beautiful in England - you will find imitations of Greek and Roman temples built in the 18th century.

@CrazyMusicLover Maybe you don't know that Scruton was a conservative and of course that shows in the documentary (maybe that is the wrong word for the film he produced). He also produced it for the general public and not for graduants from arts schools like yourself.

@Mugin16 You are right about the 18th century, there was a lot of imitation of classical Roman and Greek beauty, but not so sure about Renaissance, artist then may have looked back in search of inspiration but they did not imitate.

@Cierzo Yes, good point. They looked for inspiration in classical antiquity and found them.

@Cierzo The School of Athens by Raphael

https://mymodernmet.com/school-of-athens-raphael/

@CrazyMusicLover @Cierzo For me, the modern "art" shown in the movie is simply not art. A pile of bricks is not art. That installation with the lights going on and off automatically is a triumph of techonological innovation for sure but it is not art.

The guy with his posters against the Iraq war - that is not art either. He is right about the Iraq war and Tony Blair being a liar but his posters were not art. You can political art of course - just look at the paintings of Goya or David or Picasso's Guernica.

The guy with called a glass of water on a shelf at the wall an oak tree - that is not art and it is not an oak tree. If he had painted an oak tree, well, technically it would have been a painting of course but fair enough everybody would have regaded it as an oak tree. But so? It remembered me of totalitarian propaganda where the rulers of a society humiliate their subjects by forcing them to admit that 2+2=5 or saying that a man who takes hormones and has undergone surgery is now a woman.

Finally, that urinal is not art either for me. It is not only bad taste; it shows to me an ugliness of the inside. It is as if artists who are ugly on the inside want to make everything ugly too and force everybody to become as ugly as they are.

The world is of course a brutal, ugly and cruel place. Always was, always will be. But for me, the purpose of an artist should be to make the world better by bringing beauty in the world. They can do that by showing the horrors of the world in a way that makes the world more beautiful or in a way that helps to reduce suffering like the painting of the crucifixion or that composition "Stabat Mater" by Pergolesi, who was dying of tubercolosis.

Finally, you noticed all the classical music in the movie, right? ;-)

@Mugin16 There is too much cynicism in that so called 'art' shown in the video (I agree it is not art). Art needs humility. It requires accepting there is something bigger than us (we can call it the Divine, Sublime or whatever, these are just words), and the artist is the bridge between it and us.

@Mugin16
I agree. I don't even accept most forms of conceptual art as art. And now the blasphemy... 😱 I don't accept a single piece of a readymade object as art as well. I mean, if official literature insists on calling it art, then I don't want to have anything to do with art.
But I accept collages, assemblages and environments built from readymade objects if they tell an original story or have higher aesthetic qualities. Tracey Emin's bed has a higher value than Duchamp's Urinal for me because it shows a collection of objects that together tell a story. It shows a reality of a person very different from me because with all respect, I don't leave empty bottles of Absolute vodka next to my bed. There must be a reason why she picked all those objects and it makes me wonder why. But I can see absolutely nothing interesting in a single urinal.

These so called art pieces only show egotism. A cult of the artist. Individuals who might have zero talent and skills and only test what they can get away with with the power of institutions and a society called the Art world. Maybe not even artists...What institutions can get away with because they are the ones with full power at this point. Not artists themselves but art critics decide about what will be presented in galleries. And as a result art students are pushed this way under the threat that it's the only way to become successful.

@CrazyMusicLover Oh wow! 😲😱 I agree with you. There must be something deeply wrong with art institutions and art critics.

@Mugin16 There's something wrong with whole society I think. Galleries would go bankrupt long ago if they didn't have the audience. Everyone nods their heads and pretend to understand and feel important because they feel like intellectuals and of course if it's in a gallery it must be something culturally valuable. It's snobbery at its best. They feel important repeating words like inter-textual, postmodern, relational aesthetics and pretend that it all has some value, some genuinely believe it has...but what I think it's just a pretense to leave the money-making machine going with minimal efforts from so called artists. Same thing is going on in music. As long as it is alternative and resembles jazz it must be of a higher value and if you don't like it you just don't understand it because it's something for intellectuals. 🙄🤣 Intellectual my ass. Of course many believe their superiority even if they don't make money...There are simply way too many egocentrics among artists whether someone is willing to pay them or not.

I know you don't watch movies but the movie The Square (2017) perfectly describes what is going on in the art world.

@CrazyMusicLover There is definitively something with our societies. There are of course lots of snobs who pretend that something must be great art if something is in a gallery. People in a ways of life throw around jargon as if that makes them smarter - they do that mainly to disguise that they do not really understand what they are talking about. My experience is that truly intelligent speak very clearly and precisely.

I like that guy who was producing traditional sculptures in the movie by Roger Scuton. Also the architect who designed and built the traditional looking houses at the end of the movie.