Is contemporary art indicative of "the spirit of lawlessness?"

[TheReturnofLive]

What the great artist does it not make a perfect copy of what merely meets the eye, but he sees and captures the soul of the entire image of that moment in time behind it so that we can experience it, to some degree, again and receive its meaning in a way that a simple photograph of a mere visual impression cannot; what the abstract artist does is capture nothing, and his work has no intrinsic meaning but requires an explanation of a theory to accompany it that will speak to the intellect and have it say, "That is clever". Or it's just a room full of pretty artificial lights.
no longer deep, cosmic, a song of the Earth and the heavens.

Would landscape art not be considered art in your eyes then, Mr. Chernyshevsky?

As he would say,

"The definition of art as imitation of nature reveals only its formal object; according to this definition art should strive as far as possible to repeat what already exists in the external world. Such repetition must be regarded as superfluous, for nature and life already present us with what, according to this conception, art should present to us. What is more, the imitation of nature is a vain effort which falls far short of its object because in imitating nature, art, owing to its restricted means, gives us only deception instead of truth and only a lifeless mask instead of a really living being."

...

"The simplest way to solve this riddle would be to say that the sphere of art is not limited only to beauty and its so-called moments, but embraces everything in reality (m nature and in life) that is of interest to man not as a scholar but as an ordinary human being; that which is of common interest in life – such is the content of art. The beautiful, the tragic, and the comic are only the three most determinate of the thousands of elements upon which vital interests depend, and to enumerate them all would mean enumerating all the feelings and aspirations that stir man's heart."

Source - https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/chernyshevsky/1853/aesthetics-reality.htm

[John Lamb]

There is a definite decadence in modern art but disorder is not the most accurate way to capture it. There are two things I think people should read to get more of a handle on the historical trajectory of art and some of the historical parallels with modern art. The first is The Invention of Art by Dr. Larry Shiner, which traces the evolution of the meaning of 'art' from antiquity to the present. He examines the gradual divorce of 'art' from 'function,' in other words the birth of the concept of 'fine' or 'high' art in the 18th Century. When a concrete function is demanded of the work of art the decadence typical of modern art just isn't possible. What Shiner doesn't get, or at least doesn't get into, is how the concept of functionless art is connected to the socially disintegrating effects of urbanism and the industrial revolution, viz. atomization and elitism. What defines elitism in art is the turn away from works seeking universality towards works catering to a relatively small, "properly educated" audience of sophisticates. To better see how modern art is connected with elitism, what renders this process spiritually decadent, and how it has been paralleled (to a lesser degree) in previous ages, I recommend reading Leo Tolstoy's essays on art. I think it's really this interconnected triad of ideas: absence of function, social atomization, and elitism, that go furthest to explain what is generally wrong with a lot of modern art.

I just came across a passage in St. Thomas where he follows St. Ambrose in dividing goodness into three aspects: the useful, the virtuous, and the pleasant. He explains it roughly as follows, (1) the useful is the good which our appetite is directed towards immediately in the pursuit of some end, (2) the virtuous is the good which our appetite is directed towards ultimately as its own proper end, (3) the pleasant is the good which our appetite finds rest in when it arrives at its end.

According to this classification, I have to say that what makes good art qua art is definitely pleasantness, not usefulness or even virtuousness. The pleasant good is more parallel to beauty than the useful good or the virtuous good. Beauty is what our mind finds rest in through contemplation – it is pleasant. What separates art in the romantic sense from art in the vulgar sense ('craftsmanship') is that a piece of romantic art (e.g. poetry, music, painting – I'm not speaking here exclusively of so-called "Romanticism") is an object meant solely for contemplation and the pleasantness or beauty it contains.

That is not to say that art in the romantic sense is totally cut off from the useful, because it may happen that such art may find a religious, cultural, or educational use. Neither does it mean that romantic art should escape condemnation & censorship if it is un-virtuous / vicious, because even if it is pleasant in itself or relative to the observer, if it is not ordered ultimately towards God (either directly in the case of virtuous sacred art, or indirectly in the case of virtuous secular art) then it misleads or distracts men away from that ultimate Beauty which is God and the infinitely pleasant contemplation of Him, so it cannot even be called "pleasant" absolutely speaking.

I agree there's a danger of aesthetic elitism when it comes to art, especially when cut off from any context of religion or the state, but that's not the fault of the art itself or even necessarily the artist, but a mere corruption or abuse of it. The ideal of the romantic artist is that he creates solely for beauty's sake in the pursuit of his own inspiration, and in doing so he imitates God's act of creation so far as is humanly possible; he is a 'secondary creator' and his art is 'secondary creation'. I think this is the correct ideal, not a modern extravagance. The ancient Chinese & Japanese poets clearly had this same ideal because they wrote short poems seemingly of no religious or educational purpose but solely for sharing among circles of like-minded artists and connoisseurs for their aesthetic enjoyment. The ideal of the artist actually is that he creates his work and doesn't care if it is recognised or not by the public. This attitude can be corrupted into a kind of pompous disregard for the public and megalomaniacal esteem of oneself, but the attitude itself is right. The highest possible ideal of the artist then is that he creates his work solely to magnify God's glory in showing forth His splendour through His creatures, regardless of any popular appraisal or social use. I think this is the spirit in which King David wrote his psalms. Yes, the psalms have been immensely useful for thousands of years; but I don't think David wrote them so much with that in mind, as in simply giving glory to God. That is, he would have written the psalms even if he knew nobody would ever come to read or sing them, just as a way of carrying on his personal conversation with and devotion to Almighty God. This is what gives the psalms, and all art in general, vitality & authenticity.

"Art for art's sake" is perfectly true. What makes much of contemporary art lawless is not this principle as it stands, but a lack of insight in seeing that only the virtuous is ultimately beautiful, and therefore art which is not also virtuous is in a sense not art, i.e. not an object worthy of contemplation for its own sake. I think what the modernists in art were trying to do, partially and perhaps unsuccessfully, was to liberate art in the sense of putting it within every man's scope of being an artist, i.e. you don't have to be an academically trained professional in order to engage in this act of artistic 'secondary creation', you simply have to be authentically true to your inspiration, and even if the result is not some classical piece worthy of cultural veneration, it at least has the dignity of that authenticity. I think this is basically true. As human beings with souls made in the image of God, we are all born to be artists. I think the modernists wanted to unlock that human potential in those who would be discouraged by academic elitism, but ironically they seem to have only become more elitist and more alienating to the public.

[John Lamb]

"The definition of art as imitation of nature reveals only its formal object; according to this definition art should strive as far as possible to repeat what already exists in the external world. Such repetition must be regarded as superfluous, for nature and life already present us with what, according to this conception, art should present to us. What is more, the imitation of nature is a vain effort which falls far short of its object because in imitating nature, art, owing to its restricted means, gives us only deception instead of truth and only a lifeless mask instead of a really living being."

When we say that art is supposed to imitate nature, we are not talking about a photographic imitation or mere mimicry of forms submerged in matter, but nature in the Platonic sense of the eternal types or essences. The ideal of the artist is the one who can use the accidents of the material creation to reveal the invisible Essence hidden within, and which subsists ultimately in the Mind of God. In that sense the artist is a kind of prophet or declarer of God's kingdom, insofar as he is a good or true artist.

This is why I like Renaissance painting. Whereas Baroque, Romantic, and Modern painting usually relies on added effects to create its impression, the Renaissance ideal of painting seemed totally to be dedication to purity of Form in the Platonic sense. Even supernatural scenes are depicted in an apparently "naturalistic" way, since the supernaturalness is conveyed through the beauty and perfection of the form rather than a particular effect (e.g. Baroque's use of dramatic lighting).

[Graham]

That was nicely put John. I would encourage you to look up the Shiner book, because while you referenced Sts. Thomas and Ambrose the view of art you took almost could not be more foreign to them. What you are presenting as the truth of art is just an 18th century aesthetic bias, akin to "absolute art," "art for arts sake," "purposeless purposiveness." These are 18th century slogans most at home in the writings of Schopenhauer, Wagner, and Kant, not Ambrose or Thomas.

What is the difference between a concert performance of gregorian chant and its performance as ritual? If we are stuck in the aesthetic bias, if anything the concert performance is very likely to be held superior. Not only in terms of technique but precisely because it is shorn of the "accretions" that give it a physical, social, and ritual function, that key it to the needs of neighbour and community, but which weigh it down as Art.

Thats a view of Art where the glory of God gets easily confounded with the glory of Art, the glory of the Artist, because it grows from an atomized and elitist social context. Art is not about great masters and solitary geniuses, it has far more to do with "vulgar craftsmanship".

[John Lamb]

Actually I think in the romantic notion of art the liturgical singing of Gregorian Chant would generally be considered aesthetically superior to a mere concert performance, because the former has a greater degree of authenticity, integrity, completeness - even if the concert performers happen to be more technically proficient. In fact, I've had this very experience even in two liturgical settings. At one Missa Cantata we had a concert group of experts (mostly nonbelievers) sing a polyphonic Mass, which was excellent in its own way. But I don't think it was equal to the Missa de Angelis we had on another day sang by two or three self-taught amateurs who are believers. The former was more technically proficient by a wide margin, but the latter seemed far more authentic in its simplicity and in my opinion the aesthetic result was superior.

Although I don't think art requires any church or state use, I think the highest forms of art can and should be put at the service of the church and state because the grandeur of these two supreme institutions can lift the art up to a greater dignity.

The problem with the Romanticist movement is that it often isolated itself too much from church and state due to an overly individualist view of art. I said earlier that the artist should follow his inspiration and not care for public appraisal, but at the same time the highest artist will know how to use the powers of church and state to lift up his art and inspiration to the highest possible level. Just as King David did in writing the psalms. Many of the Romantics thought that society was entirely artificial, but of course human society is a natural outgrowth of human nature and so real art which is true to nature ought to find a fitting place in the church, the state, and the home.

The reason why Gregorian Chant can be aesthetically superior to a polyphonic or orchestral Mass is because it can harmonise better with the overall liturgical act, so the aesthetic principle of integrity or wholeness is better maintained and the result is a greater sense of beauty. Artists should know how to harmonise with ritual so that the beauty of their work can be enhanced. Even something as simple as Auld Lang Syne sung on New Year's Eve embodies this principle. The one who wrote that song knew how to exploit men's feelings in that social situation / ritual, he understood the pathos of the scene - which is a talent artists should generally have. The singing of the Dies Irae during a Requiem Mass is another example. The Dies Irae is an awesome song in its own right but in the context of the Requiem Mass it has a transcendence it couldn't have of itself.

[TheReturnofLive]

There is a definite decadence in modern art but disorder is not the most accurate way to capture it. There are two things I think people should read to get more of a handle on the historical trajectory of art and some of the historical parallels with modern art. The first is The Invention of Art by Dr. Larry Shiner, which traces the evolution of the meaning of 'art' from antiquity to the present. He examines the gradual divorce of 'art' from 'function,' in other words the birth of the concept of 'fine' or 'high' art in the 18th Century. When a concrete function is demanded of the work of art the decadence typical of modern art just isn't possible. What Shiner doesn't get, or at least doesn't get into, is how the concept of functionless art is connected to the socially disintegrating effects of urbanism and the industrial revolution, viz. atomization and elitism. What defines elitism in art is the turn away from works seeking universality towards works catering to a relatively small, "properly educated" audience of sophisticates. To better see how modern art is connected with elitism, what renders this process spiritually decadent, and how it has been paralleled (to a lesser degree) in previous ages, I recommend reading Leo Tolstoy's essays on art. I think it's really this interconnected triad of ideas: absence of function, social atomization, and elitism, that go furthest to explain what is generally wrong with a lot of modern art.

I just came across a passage in St. Thomas where he follows St. Ambrose in dividing goodness into three aspects: the useful, the virtuous, and the pleasant. He explains it roughly as follows, (1) the useful is the good which our appetite is directed towards immediately in the pursuit of some end, (2) the virtuous is the good which our appetite is directed towards ultimately as its own proper end, (3) the pleasant is the good which our appetite finds rest in when it arrives at its end.

According to this classification, I have to say that what makes good art qua art is definitely pleasantness, not usefulness or even virtuousness. The pleasant good is more parallel to beauty than the useful good or the virtuous good. Beauty is what our mind finds rest in through contemplation – it is pleasant. What separates art in the romantic sense from art in the vulgar sense ('craftsmanship') is that a piece of romantic art (e.g. poetry, music, painting – I'm not speaking here exclusively of so-called "Romanticism") is an object meant solely for contemplation and the pleasantness or beauty it contains.

That is not to say that art in the romantic sense is totally cut off from the useful, because it may happen that such art may find a religious, cultural, or educational use. Neither does it mean that romantic art should escape condemnation & censorship if it is un-virtuous / vicious, because even if it is pleasant in itself or relative to the observer, if it is not ordered ultimately towards God (either directly in the case of virtuous sacred art, or indirectly in the case of virtuous secular art) then it misleads or distracts men away from that ultimate Beauty which is God and the infinitely pleasant contemplation of Him, so it cannot even be called "pleasant" absolutely speaking.

I agree there's a danger of aesthetic elitism when it comes to art, especially when cut off from any context of religion or the state, but that's not the fault of the art itself or even necessarily the artist, but a mere corruption or abuse of it. The ideal of the romantic artist is that he creates solely for beauty's sake in the pursuit of his own inspiration, and in doing so he imitates God's act of creation so far as is humanly possible; he is a 'secondary creator' and his art is 'secondary creation'. I think this is the correct ideal, not a modern extravagance. The ancient Chinese & Japanese poets clearly had this same ideal because they wrote short poems seemingly of no religious or educational purpose but solely for sharing among circles of like-minded artists and connoisseurs for their aesthetic enjoyment. The ideal of the artist actually is that he creates his work and doesn't care if it is recognised or not by the public. This attitude can be corrupted into a kind of pompous disregard for the public and megalomaniacal esteem of oneself, but the attitude itself is right. The highest possible ideal of the artist then is that he creates his work solely to magnify God's glory in showing forth His splendour through His creatures, regardless of any popular appraisal or social use. I think this is the spirit in which King David wrote his psalms. Yes, the psalms have been immensely useful for thousands of years; but I don't think David wrote them so much with that in mind, as in simply giving glory to God. That is, he would have written the psalms even if he knew nobody would ever come to read or sing them, just as a way of carrying on his personal conversation with and devotion to Almighty God. This is what gives the psalms, and all art in general, vitality & authenticity.

"Art for art's sake" is perfectly true. What makes much of contemporary art lawless is not this principle as it stands, but a lack of insight in seeing that only the virtuous is ultimately beautiful, and therefore art which is not also virtuous is in a sense not art, i.e. not an object worthy of contemplation for its own sake. I think what the modernists in art were trying to do, partially and perhaps unsuccessfully, was to liberate art in the sense of putting it within every man's scope of being an artist, i.e. you don't have to be an academically trained professional in order to engage in this act of artistic 'secondary creation', you simply have to be authentically true to your inspiration, and even if the result is not some classical piece worthy of cultural veneration, it at least has the dignity of that authenticity. I think this is basically true. As human beings with souls made in the image of God, we are all born to be artists. I think the modernists wanted to unlock that human potential in those who would be discouraged by academic elitism, but ironically they seem to have only become more elitist and more alienating to the public.

This post pretty much sums up my initial thoughts of what I viewed art to be.

[Graham]

Actually I think in the romantic notion of art the liturgical singing of Gregorian Chant would generally be considered aesthetically superior to a mere concert performance, because the former has a greater degree of authenticity, integrity, completeness - even if the concert performers happen to be more technically proficient. In fact, I've had this very experience even in two liturgical settings. At one Missa Cantata we had a concert group of experts (mostly nonbelievers) sing a polyphonic Mass, which was excellent in its own way. But I don't think it was equal to the Missa de Angelis we had on another day sang by two or three self-taught amateurs who are believers. The former was more technically proficient by a wide margin, but the latter seemed far more authentic in its simplicity and in my opinion the aesthetic result was superior.

This seems to me like an ad hoc introduction of ideas that have nothing to do with "art for art's sake" in an attempt to explain why a ritually embedded artwork is superior to a concert performance. If you consider it more fully I think you'll come to see why the idea that art should have function provides a more parsimonious and, if I may say so "authentic and integral" explanation of that superiority.

The problem with the Romanticist movement is that it often isolated itself too much from church and state due to an overly individualist view of art.

Individualism is just the philosophical expression of social atomization and elitism.

Artists should know how to harmonise with ritual so that the beauty of their work can be enhanced. Even something as simple as Auld Lang Syne sung on New Year's Eve embodies this principle. The one who wrote that song knew how to exploit men's feelings in that social situation / ritual, he understood the pathos of the scene - which is a talent artists should generally have. The singing of the Dies Irae during a Requiem Mass is another example. The Dies Irae is an awesome song in its own right but in the context of the Requiem Mass it has a transcendence it couldn't have of itself.

I think you are getting somewhere here, but I'd propose that it's not a matter of "harmonizing" with ritual so as to "enhance" art. That still evinces a somewhat reified concept of art. What I'm saying is that art exists to serve ritual and other more concrete functions. When removed from that framework it should be no suprise that it loses savour. The romantic object of so-called high art, purposeless beauty, shrined in passive and anemic beourgeois rituals, becomes unbearably boring in a matter of a few generations, and then the very meaning and existence of art becomes upon to question, and we begin to see exhibits of "found art," heaps of rubbish, the courting of controversy, and every other modern deviation.

[Graham]

The Idea of Beauty

Medieval thinking was also as far removed from modern conceptions of the aesthetic as it was from modern ideas of art and the artist. This does not mean that medieval people were blind to the beauty of line, shape, or color or that they found no pleasure in harmony, rhyme, or trope but only that appearance was not systematically separated from content and function. Poetry, for example, was still conceived to have the dual function of instruction and pleasure (Horace) and one of the main justifications for allowing images in Western churches was their didactic function. Music was still primarily devised to accompany texts, and even secular music was largely tied to social function.

As for the idea of beauty, many medieval philosopher and theologians reflected on it, but most discussions of beauty dwelt on the beauty of God and Nature, not the beauty of the products and performances of human art. As in antiquity, the term "beauty" had a much wider meaning than it does today, embracing moral value and utility along with pleasing appearance. Among those theologians who did discuss the beauty of mundane things, the harmony of parts or proportion within an object was not enough to make it beautiful; only right proportion in relation to purpose could do that. "Stained glass, music, and sculpture were not beautiful simply because they gave pleasure. They might give pleasure, or they might give instruction; but in either case, the medievals took the view that their true beauty lay in their conformity to purpose" (Eco 1988, 183).

Nevertheless, well-meaning historians eager to rescue the Middle Ages from enlightened opprobrium have reinterpreted theological texts against their obvious meaning, looking everywhere for signs of a "secular" aesthetic attitude. But to read the modern idea of aesthetic disinterest into passing comments of Scotus Erigena or into the creation of gargoyles or Romaneque capitals is as false to the general outlook of the Middle Ages as is the stereotype of a relentless religious functionalism. This constant search for signs of a purely aesthetic response reveals the stultifying restriction produced by the modern art-versus-craft polarity. As David Freedberg has shown, historians under its spell tend to dismiss those pieces designed to arouse an immediate emotional response as craft or religious kitsch (1989). It seems more plausible to suggest that in the Middle Ages there was neither fine art nor craft in the modern sense, but only arts and that people responded to function, content, and form together rather than holding one or the other in suspension.

From The Invention of Art

What's missing from Shiner's work IMO is a clear connection of function with ritual, a distinction between anemic and robust functions, as well as the very clear distinction Tolstoy makes between universality and elitism.   

[Traditionallyruralmom]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IoW7pA1-yc[/yt]

[Graham]

What the great artist does it not make a perfect copy of what merely meets the eye, but he sees and captures the soul of the entire image of that moment in time behind it so that we can experience it, to some degree, again and receive its meaning in a way that a simple photograph of a mere visual impression cannot; what the abstract artist does is capture nothing, and his work has no intrinsic meaning but requires an explanation of a theory to accompany it that will speak to the intellect and have it say, "That is clever". Or it's just a room full of pretty artificial lights.
no longer deep, cosmic, a song of the Earth and the heavens.

Would landscape art not be considered art in your eyes then, Mr. Chernyshevsky?

As he would say,

"The definition of art as imitation of nature reveals only its formal object; according to this definition art should strive as far as possible to repeat what already exists in the external world. Such repetition must be regarded as superfluous, for nature and life already present us with what, according to this conception, art should present to us. What is more, the imitation of nature is a vain effort which falls far short of its object because in imitating nature, art, owing to its restricted means, gives us only deception instead of truth and only a lifeless mask instead of a really living being."

...

"The simplest way to solve this riddle would be to say that the sphere of art is not limited only to beauty and its so-called moments, but embraces everything in reality (m nature and in life) that is of interest to man not as a scholar but as an ordinary human being; that which is of common interest in life – such is the content of art. The beautiful, the tragic, and the comic are only the three most determinate of the thousands of elements upon which vital interests depend, and to enumerate them all would mean enumerating all the feelings and aspirations that stir man's heart."

Source - https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/chernyshevsky/1853/aesthetics-reality.htm

I don't know who Chernyshevsky is, but I want to point out that if Kreutzritter's aesthetic theory slightly resembles Chernywhatever's it isn't because there's anything Marxist about it, it's because both theories are based more or less, knowingly or unknowingly, on the aesthetic theories of 18th c. German idealism, particularly Kant and Hegel. Almost all modern, non-relativistic theories of aesthetics are in that family. Again, reading Tolstoy's essays will put this beyond question.

On the topic of function in art, it's easier to lose sight of it's importance when you consider only highly sensuous arts like painting and music. It's much harder to neglect when you widen your outlook to include, for instance, architecture, because there the artwork's "mechanical" function is inescapable. Either the building stands or it doesn't. Either it keeps out the elements or it doesn't. Either it's interior spaces suit it's intended uses or they don't. You can design and build an ever so "deep, cosmically meaningful" structure but if it isn't appropriate to its mechanical and social purposes it is BAD ART.

[Graham]

From Chartres: the Making of a Miracle, pg 21:

But John James has other surprises in his attempt to sub-divide the cost of building Chartres. The glass, covering nearly an acre of window area, cost only ten per cent of the total, while 'the sculpture which so enthrals and moves us cost less than three per cent'. He believes that even this figure is over-generous, for he reached it by asking [modern] sculptors the time they would take to carve a figure and then doubling it, and by similarly doubling the normal contemporary labour rate for a skilled man. 'Yet we know from medieval accounts that sculptors were paid little more than other skilled carvers. They were not a race apart as they are today. The Middle Ages had no concept of the artist as a special sort of man, as we do. The post-Renaissance belief in individual genius had not entered their minds. They were paid well, but in proportion. Our exaggerated claims for artistic effort were happily unknown.'

Let that sink in for a moment. Christendom's greatest artistic achievements were produced in a time when there were no exaggerated ideas about high art, artistic genius, art for art's sake, pure beauty pursued by secluded aesthetes (whether for the sake of God or not), nor of great men plumbing the vital depths of nature for cosmic meaning. At a time when the artists were simply regarded as skilled workmen who made high quality products to suit their patrons and social requirements. Many of the ideas presented by John Lamb and (to a lesser degree) Kreutzritter are foreign to this and self-evidently have more to do with 18th c. German idealism than with the artistic realities that gave rise to our greatest patrimony. It's a law of inverse proportion: as the claims of art and individual genius increase (recall: elitism), as the 'emancipation' of art from mechanical and social/ritual function increases (recall: atomization), the quality and profundity of the artistic product actually decreases.

Now, it's true that these skilled workmen were involved in guilds which perceived their art as, in some sense, a 'mystery.' I think the meaning of that and how it distinguishes them from modern skilled labour is worth drawing out. It's possible that there could be some connection between the mysterious and some of what Kreutzritter has said about vitalism, although I suspect it has more to do with sacred geometry.

[TheReturnofLive]

What the great artist does it not make a perfect copy of what merely meets the eye, but he sees and captures the soul of the entire image of that moment in time behind it so that we can experience it, to some degree, again and receive its meaning in a way that a simple photograph of a mere visual impression cannot; what the abstract artist does is capture nothing, and his work has no intrinsic meaning but requires an explanation of a theory to accompany it that will speak to the intellect and have it say, "That is clever". Or it's just a room full of pretty artificial lights.
no longer deep, cosmic, a song of the Earth and the heavens.

Would landscape art not be considered art in your eyes then, Mr. Chernyshevsky?

As he would say,

"The definition of art as imitation of nature reveals only its formal object; according to this definition art should strive as far as possible to repeat what already exists in the external world. Such repetition must be regarded as superfluous, for nature and life already present us with what, according to this conception, art should present to us. What is more, the imitation of nature is a vain effort which falls far short of its object because in imitating nature, art, owing to its restricted means, gives us only deception instead of truth and only a lifeless mask instead of a really living being."

...

"The simplest way to solve this riddle would be to say that the sphere of art is not limited only to beauty and its so-called moments, but embraces everything in reality (m nature and in life) that is of interest to man not as a scholar but as an ordinary human being; that which is of common interest in life – such is the content of art. The beautiful, the tragic, and the comic are only the three most determinate of the thousands of elements upon which vital interests depend, and to enumerate them all would mean enumerating all the feelings and aspirations that stir man's heart."

Source - https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/chernyshevsky/1853/aesthetics-reality.htm

I don't know who Chernyshevsky is, but I want to point out that if Kreutzritter's aesthetic theory slightly resembles Chernywhatever's it isn't because there's anything Marxist about it, it's because both theories are based more or less, knowingly or unknowingly, on the aesthetic theories of 18th c. German idealism, particularly Kant and Hegel. Almost all modern, non-relativistic theories of aesthetics are in that family. Again, reading Tolstoy's essays will put this beyond question.

On the topic of function in art, it's easier to lose sight of it's importance when you consider only highly sensuous arts like painting and music. It's much harder to neglect when you widen your outlook to include, for instance, architecture, because there the artwork's "mechanical" function is inescapable. Either the building stands or it doesn't. Either it keeps out the elements or it doesn't. Either it's interior spaces suit it's intended uses or they don't. You can design and build an ever so "deep, cosmically meaningful" structure but if it isn't appropriate to its mechanical and social purposes it is BAD ART.

He was not Marxist, but rather a Utopian Socialist - a Nihilist (not a Nihilist in the sense of a Nietzschan, but rather it was a political movement in Russian in the mid 19th century that sought the replacement of the Monarchy with Utopian Socialism and the replacement of the Church with "Science."). He wrote the work "What's to be done?" (lit. in Russian: "What to do?"), which was a book that very obviously advocated for a Socialist Revolution, but somehow got passed the censors.

His works were heavily influential for Marxists, though.
"What's to be done" was one of Lenin's favorite books, so much so that he read it 6 times in one summer, and would write his own work with the same title.

[Elizabeth]

My Art Schols certainly taught and promoted lawlessness and nihilism.  One was a complete immersion of Process Theory. (the actions and procedures for working with paint are the Fine Art.  Completed works with some personal meaning were 'Precious' which equalled doom in the Critiques.  I burned tons of work from those years and was lucky to sell some good paintings. A lot of work I did I shudder to think about and now make restitution with Catholic work mostly.
Having had parents who had a very interesting and cool art gallery in the 1950s, and done art of one kind or another my whole life,I still love Absract Expressionism and the aroma of turpentine.  I love to see the handwriting of different painters, have loved to see really talented men and women work with their paint and produce modern work.

It is so interesting to read what you all are discussing about art, to see that people care about Art.
And I love those gorgeous light installations.