Protozoa ... Which aspect? His extreme particularism? Take care Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
My simple definition of art: A creation by man that stimulates my sense of aesthetic pleasure. I've never heard a piece of music by Arcangelo Corelli that I didn't find lovely, yet I'd honestly rather listen to noise than hear a composition of Igor Stravinski performed. Likewise, I wouldn't cross the street to see an original painting by "El Greco." I simply walked by his works in Madrid's "Prado," yet I sketched into my notebook the beautiful lines I found in a steam engine at Munich's "Deutsches Museum." Wherever the hand of man has been at work there is both art and ugliness to be found. To live with ugliness bring's to mind Nietzsche's assertion that, "If you stare into an abyss long enough it begins to stare back into you." I can't help but think that the aesthetic quality found about us, eventually soaks into us. As a creator of art I'm nearly devoid of talent. Yet despite this dreadful lack of talent, I feel that somehow I manage to live an artistic, perhaps even a romantic life. The beauty in the forests and mountains of Vermont has by now permeated into the inner-core of my being, what I might figuratively refer to as my soul. In a regenerative process, a life spent in the appeciation of beauty further sensitizes one to beauty. Anyone might appreciate the beauty of a lone Trillium found in the spring on the floor of a dark forest, but there is as much charm to be found in the precious face of a tiny Newt crawling across the pathway to my garden. There are worlds stacked upon worlds of such subtle beauty to be found, if only we care to look. Croce thought that artistic beauty is found in whatever is "well-expressed." I wonder if Debussy's sublimely expressive, "La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin" (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair), might have succeeded in conveying the expression of his mood as he composed the piece? We occasionally hear artists complain that they are misunderstood. The success of an artist in expressing his mood rests as much on those who experience the work of art as it does the artist. Both the artist and the the admirer must speak the same language. In this sense, art is the most noble form of communication. An insensitive heart will remain impervious to a beauty which might reduce a perceptive man to tears. The appreciation of art relies upon an a priori recogition of beauty. "You do not love a woman because she is beautiful, she is beautiful because you love her." Without art, love, and the pleasure of contemplation, this life would be a penance rather than a delight. Michael
Well.... Art's anything you want it to be. I personally find joy in just about everything nature can offer, except for birth and human babies. *shudder* Babies, blech. Some days I just watch the sky, admiring the ever-shifting light play on cotton-candy wisps of clouds. And sometimes I can sit and admire human forearms, for its simplicity and smooth curvatures that seem so elegant. So you see, there is no exact definition of art. It's what you percieve as beautiful, and it's bound to vary from person to person. -Bleu
