Dogmatism

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>If stuff is just splattered around in a painting or photograph, some visual medium, we're programmed as living things to not look.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And some artists have attempted to look and have us look at those things we may not have otherwise been programmed to look at. Art can be both a feeding of the naturally programmed and a thwarting of it.</p>

<p>The artifice of art.<br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>After walking through some exhibits I'm so tired I just want to collapse.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Like I said above, no rule that I know of says that art should be easy or relaxing or whatever. I think the response you have to some exhibits is similar to mine and I often feel great for that "tiring to collapse" experience. <br>

<br>

Speaking of nature, don't you sometimes come home from a great and nourishing hike feeling tired enough to collapse? On that hike, weren't there times when you were able to push yourself beyond what you thought were your own physical limits and come out the other side?</p>

[Brad_]

>>> Brad brings up the point about why worry about it (something to that effect). I'm not sure why I belabor it at

times. For me personally -- partly because I don't have many people I know who I can discuss these kinds of things

with, and at times I do enjoy thinking about it and trying to put down in words why I feel a certain way, or what my

reaction is to a certain group or dogmatic approach.

<P>

Hey Steve... That's cool. For me, seeing how the sp "industry" has evolved over the years to where it is now with

workshops, "influential" spokespeople defining it restrictively for others in an attempt to keep their relevancy,

collectives, flickr/facebook groups of people who seem unhappy/frustrated/sad (seems misery really does love

company), etc.

<P>

I found it best to jump off the sp treadmill-o-drama and not give a flip about what others, especially the self-

proclaimed spokespeople, think. Not that I don't like discussing photos with photographers who are knowledgeable and shoot on

the street, such as yourself - I enjoy and do that a lot. But I really am happier doing my own thing not treating sp as a "thing," and not worrying

about others who really are more about making noise rather than photographs - it has helped me become a much

better photographer in the process. Give it a whirl - GW will nod in approval from up above... <P>

 

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<img src= "http://www.citysnaps.net/2014%20Photos/CloudsBelow.jpg"><BR>

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Up Above • San Francisco • ©Brad Evans 2014

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[charleswood]

<p>Actually, Fred, yes, at times I do find it worth the effort to get absorbed in abstract/conceptual art. It does take more effort though, that's for sure.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>"We all want to create good work that is thought provoking and aesthetically pleasing."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>But I don't. Not always, anyway.<br /> <br /> Sure, I intend some of my photos to be thought provoking. Others have no particular conscious intention at all and are primarily visual representations of an impression gathered in a fraction of a moment in time, perhaps with some subconscious baggage but no other overt message or intention.<br /> <br /> And I'm not even sure what aesthetically pleasing means, other than the clues other folks give about what they find aesthetically pleasing. Regarding my long winded and barely relevant anecdote earlier in this thread regarding the Trinity River, Brian Luenser's admirers are adamant about what they prefer - pretty, colorful, well composed and exposed, conventionally pleasing photos that extol the virtues of the Trinity River because it flatters the downtown revitalization that a lot of people have invested in both financially and emotionally. And in their opinions, Terry Evans' depictions of the same river were just plain ol' butt ugly. Possibly blasphemous too. One does not simply wade into the Trinity. It is a baptismal font, not merely a flood control drainage ditch.<br /> <br /> But when I see an abandoned house slipper in a parking lot, a hat on top of a cigarette butt on the ground without a dapper gent to fill it and smoke it, a single baby shoe, a gimme cap next to a syringe on a mattress under a tree in a vacant field, I see a kind of beauty that resonates with the Southern Gothic aesthetic and the Christian evangelical beliefs in a rapture. And even if I don't happen to share some of the specific parameters of those beliefs I can understand the appeal of a hopeful sort of beauty in a hopelessly frightening world. Even when it's held by folks who can lift their voices in praise to the great raptor in the sky on Sunday and then on Monday through Saturday, with a brief break on Wednesday evening, decry a photographer as the spawn of satan because her icons did not flatter their vision of their personal west bank of the Jordan River where the father, son and holy spirit will trine to wash their sins clean. Selah.<br /> <br /> In this sort of world artistic and religious dogma are inextricably intertwined and rules of thirds and golden rules are embraced and applied to every situation wherever possible, and sometimes impossible, because they help frame a seemingly chaotic universe in small, manageable, definable, digestible and reassuring patterns.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>Unfortunately in practice it's difficult to receive (or give, for that matter) meaningful, useful or relevant feedback without some context.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> Lex, I only partially agree. (Imagine that!) I think it depends on the photo. I do agree that some photographers will benefit from critiques if they provide some context for the photo. I have a bunch of work that I provide context for when showing it. And some I wouldn't even show independent of an entire series, because for me they are not meant to be stand-alone photos. So both text and other photos can provide context. But I think there are lots of photos that do stand on their own and don't require context in order to be critiqued or viewed with depth and appreciation.<br>

<br>

Take a look at this week's POTW. Several people have talked about whether or not this or that was the intent of the photographer . . . for instance whether the face and hair was purposely so dark and messy to provide a sense of mystery. Well, if it were intentional, that wouldn't help it much. I'd still say it doesn't look very good. Now, where I do think some answers about intention might be helpful would be if the photographer was then asking me how to improve it. I'd want to know if the darkness was a mishap or intentional. Then my critique would either talk about the possibility of lightening it to see the face clearly (assuming that could even be done at this point) or the possibility of keeping it dark but making it more effectively mysterious yet not quite so unsightly and outstanding relative to the rest of the photo. If I were asked how to do that, I'd first suggest the photographer give it a few tries or at least that we discuss various thoughts he or she has before diagramming a solution. As a critic, I wouldn't want the solution to be mine. That would bore me and wouldn't much benefit the photographer.<br>

<br>

When I post for critique, I'm not always looking for suggestions or judgments, though I welcome them and learn from them when they come. Sometimes I just want to hear reactions, interpretations, whatever. And I don't necessarily want to direct those reactions by giving a context or back story. It's more fun for me to hear what the viewer sees, especially when there's some ambiguity in the photo. Often, people want to know what was actually happening. That is usually less interesting than what the photo shows to a viewer or what the viewer imagines he's seeing in the photo. If I'm documenting something, then what it was at the time will be important. If I'm making a different kind of photo, one that has a potential reach beyond what was actually happening, then my providing context could very well severely shorten that reach.<br>

<br>

<a href="/photo/6381585">HERE'S</a> one I preferred not to say too much about specifically (as you can read in the discussion below it), though we all did get into some interesting areas of discussion. And if someone had asked at the time what I was trying to accomplish, what my goals were, on what basis I wanted to be critiqued, I'm not sure I'd have even known what to say.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>In any case, Lex, I wasn't suggesting that we not be able to submit our work into categories, just that we have the choice whether to do so or not. And, as always, we have the choice to make any kind of artist statement we want along with the work we submit either to our portfolios or for critique. I like having that choice as well.</p>

[clive_murray_white]

<p>My real art is sculpture - photography just came along because I was dissatisfied with the way/dogma that surrounds the photographing of artworks, so I set out the develop my own way of giving my viewers some sort of photographic potted version of what I see in my own sculpture. Its funny really because most people who think of me as a "good" sculptor have only ever seen my photos.</p>

<p>Of course once you've got a camera and know a fair bit about art there is a temptation to see if you could put the two together.............if you really want to see dogma at work you should listen to my dealer and others who get terrified that I may give up sculpture for photography, you would hear every weighted comment possible.</p>

<p>Enough of that, lurking in the back of my mind has been a particular kind of landscape photo that delves into a major perceptual problem, forgive the expression but the "normal" landscape photo is composed in a hierarchical way meaning that the photographer has fixed the way he/she wants you to see it (usually employing "good" composition). This is completely at odds with how we actually see, we choose things at random that for some reason interest us, we look at them for as long as we are interested and then move on to something else. So the idea is to give the viewer the right to choose what they look at in whatever order they like.</p>

<p>I try this out in forests that are by anyone's standards very messy and where hundreds of little details will start to pop out at you if you care to look........so far they don't really work because everyone is so used to "normal" that all they see is a mess!!! no "subject" etc. For fun once, to test my theories, I posted one of these in a landscape section of a forum with the caption "Am I crazy?" and of course got the desired result getting an almost perfect cross section of every stereotypical landscape dogma that could be imagined.</p>

<p>I wonder what would have happened if I accompanied my picture with "Look I've mastered democratic composition at last"</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>I wonder what would have happened if I accompanied my picture with "Look I've mastered democratic composition at last"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>LOL. But in all seriousness, sometimes, as Lex suggested above, a few words of context (even direction to the viewer) can help them see in a different way, so if it worked to direct your audience, and they then got something more out of your photos, more power to you. I suspect that, without a decent image that would capture their imagination, whatever you called your photo or your series wouldn't matter too much, but it still might. The trick can sometimes be utilizing at least some of the tropes of the past in order to give enough familiarity for something to grasp onto while at the same time creating just the kind of new vision you're contemplating. Not always, of course. Sometimes a photographer or artist will make a complete break and be successful at communicating. Sometimes, he will only be successful long after he's dead and culture has had time to catch up with his vision. Sometimes, he just misses the mark completely. </p>

<p>We do get used to normal, and sometimes even when we're reaching beyond normal we have to use it a little and effectively as a ground to transcend.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>This is completely at odds with how we actually see, we choose things at random that for some reason interest us, we look at them for as long as we are interested and then move on to something else. So the idea is to give the viewer the right to choose what they look at in whatever order they like.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Clive, thinking a little more about what you said, I also am thinking that how we "actually" see when we're in the landscape is likely somewhat different from how we see when we're looking at a framed image that's been isolated from that actual scene. It may be that, when we look at a photo, our senses and brains react differently and have different expectations from those we have when we are out and about in nature. You mention our choosing things at random, but when part of a scene has already been framed by the lens, have we already lost some of the randomness? What might seem random and acceptable in nature might just be a mess when seen as a photo.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>I agree a shot of randomness isn't although in the frame it can come close. Democratic shots on display frustrate me a little because I look for 'Waldo' somewhere in the frame and he isn't there. So, to create dogma here is my formula. Identify some preference peculiar to me. Then strike out 'me' and substitute 'we'. Add modifiers like 'all', 'every' and emphatically characterize opposing views as defective. To cleanse dogma, run the formula backwards. For example:</p>

<p><em>"No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition." </em>—Claude Monet</p>

<p>Which becomes: I don't feel I am an artist unless I have a picture in my mind before I paint it and further, for me to feel like I am an artist I must also be sure of my method and of my composition before starting the painting. I am so committed to pre-visualization and to planning both composition and method that I cannot acknowledge art in my own work unless I have done so.</p>

[clive_murray_white]

<p>Your comments have clarified a few things for me Fred re: how we actually see, and a chance look around my office had me stopping on an interior design magasine, what caught my eye was that although the picture was well composed, undramatically lit, and was a thing (a view of an interior) all the things within that room got looked by me in much the same way as I would have done in real life - I don't think it inspired to replace landscapes with interiors though.</p>

<p>Charles - Monet's quote is but one of many very possible ways to create a picture and I for one can't see the point of imagining something and then going out and making it. I find the opposite way much more interesting, finding out what I'm trying to achieve by making it and discovering through the process of making.</p>

<p>I would even dare to suggest that Monet wasn't quite honest about pre-visualising, I think he'd have a general concept about what he hoped to achieve and then let reality of making add in the magic. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p><em>"No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition." </em>—Claude Monet</p>

<p><em>"I don't feel I am an artist unless I have a picture in my mind before I paint it and further, for me to feel like I am an artist I must also be sure of my method and of my composition before starting the painting. I am so committed to pre-visualization and to planning both composition and method that I cannot acknowledge art in my own work unless I have done so."</em> —Reconfiguration of Monet's words by Charles</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Though I agree with Clive that there are many other ways to work and to paint, the rewording of Monet's statement really loses in the translation. I say, keep the dogma and keep the universality. It's emphatic. It's committed. It liberates Monet. It allows him to go beyond himself, and to speak to and for a wider audience. If I, as Monet's audience, need to, I can simply acknowledge to myself that he's really just speaking for himself and that I have a different view, but I'd still rather hear him speak in the terms he does. It's gutsier and so much less qualified. I'd just go with it.</p>

<p>A little food for thought on the individual and the universal from Jean-Paul Sartre (<em>Existentialsm Is A Humanism</em>). I don't completely agree with Sartre here in the grander picture, but that doesn't reduce the value of considering it, especially in light of Monet's phrasing and what we're discussing here.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p><em>"Thus, the first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders. And, when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men. The word “subjectivism” is to be understood in two senses, and our adversaries play upon only one of them. Subjectivism means, on the one hand, the freedom of the individual subject and, on the other, that man cannot pass beyond human subjectivity. It is the latter which is the deeper meaning of existentialism. When we say that man chooses himself, we do mean that every one of us must choose himself; but by that we also mean that in choosing for himself he chooses for all men. For in effect, of all the actions a man may take in order to create himself as he wills to be, there is not one which is not creative, at the same time, of an image of man such as he believes he ought to be. To choose between this or that is at the same time to affirm the value of that which is chosen; for we are unable ever to choose the worse. What we choose is always the better; and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all. If, moreover, existence precedes essence and we will to exist at the same time as we fashion our image, that image is valid for all and for the entire epoch in which we find ourselves. Our responsibility is thus much greater than we had supposed, for it concerns mankind as a whole. If I am a worker, for instance, I may choose to join a Christian rather than a Communist trade union. And if, by that membership, I choose to signify that resignation is, after all, the attitude that best becomes a man, that man’s kingdom is not upon this earth, I do not commit myself alone to that view. Resignation is my will for everyone, and my action is, in consequence, a commitment on behalf of all mankind. Or if, to take a more personal case, I decide to marry and to have children, even though this decision proceeds simply from my situation, from my passion or my desire, I am thereby committing not only myself, but humanity as a whole, to the practice of monogamy. I am thus responsible for myself and for all men, and I am creating a certain image of man as I would have him to be. In fashioning myself I fashion man."</em></p>

</blockquote>

[charleswood]

<p>Monet's statement comes off to me as well intentioned advice to an aspirant, for the artist formed as Monet would have her to be, to be in the sense of the grander picture that Sartre suggests. </p>

<p> </p>

[cyanatic]

<p>I don't want to turn this discussion into a philosophy lesson, but I have trouble grasping what Sartre is saying. Or rather I should say that I do not understand how he reconciles <em>I am thereby committing not only myself, but humanity as a whole, to the practice of monogamy, </em>with the individual who chooses polygamy or total abstinence and thereby commits all mankind to polygamy or total abstinence. I know that your quote is taken out of context and that I would need to read what comes before and what comes after to obtain my answer. I know that it cannot be taken in an absolute literal sense, but I am missing the nuance here. Does it have to do with his statement that<em> man cannot pass beyond human subjectivity</em> and therefore it is only the individual's subjective perceptions and actions that exist? Just curious...</p>

<p>Clives' comment on "democratic composition", though likely a bit tongue in cheek, is interesting. It requires a different way of viewing, based upon a different set of criteria. A negative reaction to it is exactly the sort of thing that has occurred in the past when an artist, or group of similar artists, presents a new vision or sound that is radically different from, or contrary to, a prevailing manner of viewing or listening.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Steve, like I say, I think Sartre's thoughts are worth pondering and do say something important about ethics and the individual's sense of community and sharing but he takes it a bit further than I would (in keeping with dogmatism and in kind with Monet's statement). And he came to reinterpret some of the things he said in the essay quoted (<em>Existentialism Is A Humanism</em>).</p>

<p>What he's saying in the quote is that we choose what we think is a good choice. And he does believe in each person's freedom to choose. So, in choosing to be monogamous I'm sure he would allow for another's freedom to choose not to be monogamous. But he'd also say that one's choice to be monogamous means one thinks that's good, and if one thinks that's good, that goodness goes beyond just the individual. Sartre really believed in strong political and social commitments. And he leaned more toward Marx than Kant, though what he's saying in the above quote sounds a little bit like Kant's version of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others . . ." In Kant's hands, it was that we should act as if what we are doing would become a universal law. Sartre really wouldn't assert such a strong moral imperative but he does want to assert a strong sense of responsibility for one's actions. And I think he's trying to lay on us a very big responsibility. To see all our choices as if we were choosing for everyone, as a community, as a whole and to, therefore, take each action very seriously and to consider the societal ramifications of them. He was eventually dissatisfied with this essay/lecture (<em>Existentialism Is A Humanism</em>) because it was too emphatic about ties between individual actions and universal ethics. He was more of a Socialistand consistently rejected Kant. What he was really trying to do was to contextualize individual action within wider social structures, but I don't think he really wanted to insist that whatever action I perform is necessarily the same action everyone else should perform.<br>

<br>

In any case, what I take away from Sartre and Monet is to wonder just how much of my more strongly-held views and opinions impact on and reflect what I also think is good for others or for the overall community.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p><em>"The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude." </em>—Friedrich Nietzsche</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>What a wonderful quote from Nietzsche, Fred. Nietzsche used to be "my man" when it came to philosophy, and I still read him for inspiration from time to time. Yet, yet, somehow this passage had escaped me.</p>

<p>As a theist, I am inclined to thank more than the artist, but finally it really is for me about gratitude--for the beauty itself. Today I visited a friend in the hospital who has had her back broken in five places. She is now in her mid-nineties. She came through today's surgery alright and will likely make a full recovery. Then I walked outside and found that I was on the opposite side of the hospital from where I had entered. I walked almost a mile to get around that huge medical complex. Somehow, magically, everything was beautiful. There was beauty everywhere. I have actually been in this mode for the last day or two, and so it was not all about her and her survival of a dicey surgical procedure. It is almost as if I am seeing everything through a viewfinder and loving what I see.</p>

<p>When one has that special sense of "seeing the beauty," one has to wonder what is going on in one's psyche--regardless of where it comes from. More to the point: why is it there some days but not others?</p>

<p>I wish I knew.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Sartre on monogamy? Well, there is obviously something else I have missed. When I read about Sartre, I typically think of Simone de Beauvoir and their open relationship. Obviously there was a lot more to the man than I saw before. </p>

<p>I have got to go back and read these skeptics again for some insight into the source of <em>their</em> insight.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>Does it have to do with his statement that<em> man cannot pass beyond human subjectivity</em> and therefore it is only the individual's subjective perceptions and actions that exist?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Steve, in true philosophical fashion, it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Subjectivity is important to Sartre in that we are each to make our OWN choices. But, for Sartre, inter-subjectivity was an important part of subjectivity. He talks a lot about the eye of the other upon us and how that affects and even creates our own self-perception. We are inextricably tied to others and so our subjectivity is also an inter-subjectivity. I had a professor once who thought, somewhat loosely, of Sartre as kind of rewriting Descartes's famous c<em>ogito</em>. She liked to think Sartre was in some ways transforming <em>"I think, therefore I am"</em> into <em>"We think, therefore we are."</em></p>

<p>Here's a little more of what Sartre had to say on the subject:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"Our aim is precisely to establish the human kingdom as a pattern of values in distinction from the material world. But the subjectivity which we thus postulate as the standard of truth is no narrowly individual subjectivism, for as we have demonstrated, it is not only one’s own self that one discovers in the cogito, but those of others too. Contrary to the philosophy of Descartes, contrary to that of Kant, when we say </em>“I think”<em> we are attaining to ourselves in the presence of the other, and we are just as certain of the other as we are of ourselves. Thus the man who discovers himself directly in the cogito also discovers all the others, and discovers them as the condition of his own existence. He recognises that he cannot be anything (in the sense in which one says one is spiritual, or that one is wicked or jealous) unless others recognise him as such. I cannot obtain any truth whatsoever about myself, except through the mediation of another. The other is indispensable to my existence, and equally so to any knowledge I can have of myself. Under these conditions, the intimate discovery of myself is at the same time the revelation of the other as a freedom which confronts mine, and which cannot think or will without doing so either for or against me. Thus, at once, we find ourselves in a world which is, let us say, that of “inter-subjectivity”. It is in this world that man has to decide what he is and what others are."</em></p>

</blockquote>

[clive_murray_white]

<p>A beautiful story Landrum - though I can't help observing that a different person could have a completely different reaction and have been made quite sad by the experience.</p>

<p>My general feeling is that philosophers are usually pretty poor at anything to do with art - the Nietzsche quote sounds warm, cuddly and likable but so airy-fairy that its hardly useful. What is "beautiful" "great" or "gratitude"? and given that any discussion about beauty in art is seen, these days, as being very old fashioned, and at least 50 years out of step, we are going to have to find something else to hang our views on.<br>

<br>

My favourite view about what makes great art comes from Bernard Berenson in his 1949 essay - <em>Seeing and Knowing,</em> generally lampooned as the ranting of a die-hard anti-modernist - but I've never been able to get this idea out of my head. Great art is, according to Berenson, made up of substantial amounts of what is seen (visual) and what is known (intellectual) and that you cannot have great art that either one or the other. How that for a neat lump of dogma?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I always liked the Koine Greek idea of beauty, which was derived from the word for "hour." Beauty is being of one's hour. So a ripe fruit or someone who acts their age is beautiful, which allows for older folks to be as beautiful as younger folks. Though I surely wouldn't limit art to beauty, I also wouldn't necessarily toss it out in favor of finding something else. It might just be a matter of re-understanding beauty in a way that goes well beyond those 50 years! But again, I wouldn't buy any notion of art that restricts it to any definition of beauty.</p>

<p>I like what you speak of as Berenson's idea, which combines knowledge and perception. That's likely the short form of Berenson, but so succinctly stated it's not just art that combines knowledge and perception. Classically speaking, it pretty much sums up most ways of life we can think of.</p>

<p>_________________________________________________</p>

<p>ADDITION: I didn't know of Berenson, but just read <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203347104578102943040337134">THIS ARTICLE</a>, which seems to bias Berenson's theory of art more toward feeling than toward intellect. Clive, do you have other sources of Berenson that discuss his knowledge/perception combination? In the article I cited, I particularly like his idea of the painter's tactile approach to sensory impressions. As a sculptor, in particular, I imagine that would appeal to you. The textural quality of visual art has long intrigued and inspired me.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>My general feeling is that philosophers are usually pretty poor at anything to do with art</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I think that this is true, Clive. Aesthetics is a field of philosophy, but, when we want to get serious about esthetics (I like the simplified spelling), we typically go to anyone besides mainstream philosophers--with a few exceptions.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>I always liked the Koine Greek idea of beauty, which was derived from the word for "hour." Beauty is being of one's hour.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Fred, I wonder if one would do much violence to that interpretation to say "in the moment." When we are most sensually aware and thus attuned to beauty, we are very much "in the moment."</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Clive, Fred, thanks for Berenson, interesting guy.</p>

<p>Sartre "<em>I cannot obtain any truth whatsoever about myself, except through the mediation of another. </em>"</p>

<p>Compare to the ideas expressed in this quote from the Berenson article "Art teaches us not only what to see but what to be." He writes: "So invincible is the task of learning to see for oneself, that all except a few men of genius—with a gift for seeing—have to be taught how to see.""</p>

<p>So in one sense Sartre democratizes 'seeing' when compared to Berenson who suggests seeing as attainable by but a few 'men' of genius by whom the rest of us are tutored (if we're lucky enough to have a tutor!). I rather think that we all see and best see at times when seeing is mediated by art, art also Sartre's 'other', indispensable "...<em>to any knowledge I can have of myself." </em><br>

<br /> But I do wonder at that emphatic statement by Sartre, that self-knowledge, truth about one's self, is unattainable without the mediation of another. The Johari window's fourth pane is that which about myself is unknown to me and to everyone else (unlike the open area we all know about me, unlike the area where others know things about me I don't, and unlike the area I know that no one else knows about me.) We don't know our potential, for example, nor does anyone else, or we rise to an occasion we and no one else expected that we even <em>could</em>. If there is truth about me in the unknown then another can't mediate it for me because it is also an unknown to her. The unknown: Lannie's seeing experience seems unmediated by anything in Sartre's lexicon. <em><br /></em></p>

<p>But beyond the Johari window mapping of known and unknown: I would argue that in the life process itself there are mediations of 'another' we know virtually nothing about, the 'other' being a natural process of growth. Less unfamiliar: those mediations by instinct alone, which is 'another' too: I've by instinct known at times to go no farther, where for my own well being instinct was an authoritative source of information about myself and the consequences of a contemplated action or course, instinct authoritative knowledge about me that no other person could mediate for me. I don't think it is the case that experience precedes essence, the relationship between essence and experience not so easily stated.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Interesting to consider Monet's statement (or Adams's pre-visualization; visualization if you prefer) with regard to <em>"existence precedes essence."</em> I'd say the essence (if there is such a thing, of which I'm skeptical) of a photo or painting is in the made photo or painting, not the idea or the mind's picture of it. As Clive pointed out, the reality of the making adds in the magic. I think that's what Sartre was saying. Biology, heredity, culture, instinct, are all like the pre-visualization. Living, choices, action, deeds are the making.</p>

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<p>My general feeling is that philosophers are usually pretty poor at anything to do with art -</p>

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<p>I don't know. To be honest, I go back and forth about it. But I've also felt that artists are not the best at describing it either. Very often they're much better at doing it than at distilling it into something understandable. Just look at the deficiencies in the Monet quote. Really no better or worse than what Nietzsche had to say. And, actually, I think Aristotle is well worth reading on the subject of art, especially his thoughts on tragedy and catharsis relayed in <em>The Poetics</em>. <br /> <br /> I think we get some some significant insights into art not by searching for a definition or explanation by one philosopher or critic or artist but by putting together a multitude of approaches that have been attempted through the ages by various doers and thinkers. And, of course, by experiencing it ourselves.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>I don't know Fred I may be reading Sartre incorrectly when I ascribe to him the view that we are born without essence, the tabula rasa idea of human nature where essence, whatever that is, is an accretion from experience alone, derived entirely from social experiences and choices. At the point that science provides compelling evidence contrary to that view, we aren't entitled to it any longer. If empirical methods demonstrate morality as an instinct then cogito and society become less important where morality isn't entirely a choice for good, good has more of a life of its own as do our stomachs mediate our food choices. If on the other hand I've misread Sartre on that point, I wouldn't be surprised.</p>

<p>Here is a teaser video I like about the reality of making in the magic where for not knowing any rules about applying a finish to woodwork, the man became a self taught master: <a href="http://shopclass.popularwoodworking.com/p-653-faux-finishing-for-the-ages-with-wesley-lloyd-thomas.aspx?et_mid=692713&rid=242201283">http://shopclass.popularwoodworking.com/p-653-faux-finishing-for-the-ages-with-wesley-lloyd-thomas.aspx?et_mid=692713&rid=242201283</a> .</p>