So much acclaim in art; at least american art, because that is my experiance; is paint and print. So many original american artisans in wood, metal, cloth, etc. receive very little national recognition. It seems as though the gallery driven market promotes the " if it's usable; it's not really art", unless it's very old. So many of todays" craftsmen " will be artists in 100-200 years; maybe?. Has it always been that way? Do I just not understand "art"?
The question - Is it art or is it craft? - is an old one. For it to be art, it must say something. It must deliver a message from artist to the receiver of the art, and in this message, there must be feeling. Art is communication between artist and receiver, and I'm not sure that admiring workmanship fulfills this criterion, unless it is an original sculpture.
This painting by Da Vinci actually looks like he’s a real man inside that painting. It’s so lifelike.
Also I actually had the novelty of viewing the real Mona Lisa in France at the Louvre Museum back in 2005. Nothing like these carbon copies because she’s so lifelike you’d think she’d flinch if you touched her . And she has an aura that kind of glows. I recommend the visit.
L.L.; precisely my point. Arts or crafts? Who makes these decisions? We have been conditioned to believe that if its usable it is only "craftwork", therefore not "art". A painting of a soup can is art. Samuel Yellin ironwork is but a craft. That it must speak to us is very true. But; "I'm not sure admiring workmanship fulfills this criterion"; is exactly why in this country we are losing so many artists in so many mediums.
I guess whether it is art or whether it is craft is in the eye of the beholder. If it stirs a message inside of you, if it stirs some emotion, something the artist did feel, then it is art. I wasn't aware we were losing artists?
Which points out the trouble of trying to assess the merits of a work of art when all you've seen are copies or images and not the genuine article. I recently saw an exhibit of Norman Rockwell's art and was impressed with all the details of color and shading that never came across in the magazine covers and such. As for the many comments on this thread that have already pointed out the different reactions that a work of art can elicit, I can only add that while much art tells a sort of story to the observer, the stories are not always the same, but they are alike in that they strike a chord with the observer. That's the key thing. One of the contributions of abstract expressionism is that it refuses to let you know what story it is, and forces you to make some sense of it using your own reactions. Everybody sees something different in a Jackson Pollack creation, and that's exactly what he intended.
But do teenagers use their phones to admire themselves? Maybe if they're taking a selfie. But normally a phone, with its social media, leads to more insecurity than self-love.
Narcissists thrive on social media. But I don't want to get into details and diagnosis etc. And note the way it's lying flat on the floor, taking the place of the reflecting pool he looks into in the original, and its light 'reflects' up onto his face.
The current notion is that narcissists are driven more by self-hatred than self-love. That's why there's such a drastic attempt at building pseudo identity (which is culturally encouraged anyway with avatars, social media like Facebook/Twitter or dare I say internet forums). The associated vanity is about the character they want to be more than it is about themselves. It's a funny thing about narcissism, is that it's still a 'safe' insult to use against someone, even though the accepted literature indicates that narcissists are suffering as much if not more than those with other serious mental ailments. I personally miss the old days when we could just accuse someone of being vain or selfish.
Homage to Crick and Watson (Galacidalacidesoxiribunucleicacid), 1963 by Salvador Dali Dali conceived Homage to Crick and Watson as an elaborate cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. In the center left, the double-helix spiral of the DNA molecule represents the building-blocks of life, which is counterbalanced on the left by a group of Arab gunmen in "molecular" formations who signify death and self-annihilation, in addition to the scientific legacy of the Arabs in Spain. Above, God the Father extends his arm downward to lift up the dead body of Christ, as Gala, her coiffure in the form of a eucharistic crust of bread, looks on. Figures kneel in prayer before the image of God the Father, whose head contains an image of the Madonna and Child surrounded by angels. Floating in the clouds in the upper left is the Prophet Isaiah, who foretold the birth of Christ. In his hand is a scroll inscribed with the title of the painting.
Memento mori (Latin for: Remember that you die) is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The most common motif is a skull and bones, but the impermanence of mortal life may also be represented by a coffin, an hourglass, or wilting flowers. Below, the Dance of Death, a 15th century fresco (National Gallery of Slovenia); No matter one's station in life, the Dance of Death unites all.
I'm thinking forever. No escaping the natural rhythm of birth-life-death. Nor should we try. Just watched a video that mentioned how some rich people want to achieve immortality through AI, by uploading their minds to computers. Such endeavors miss the whole point. Hubris in the extreme. It's better to accept our place in the grandeur of the universe. Make the most of it while we're here, but don't mess with nature.
Eventually, everything probably dies, that is true. But life extension already favors the rich. People in poor countries live shorter lives. Heck, even people in the US who are poor live shorter lives than their counterparts. It might be that the rich of the future will be able to escape death for millions of years, perhaps even longer?
I don't know how anybody can believe it's going to be possible to upload yourself into a computer. Even if it were somehow possible to duplicate your mind perfectly, that would be a virtual copy of you, how would you transfer your self into it? This is the same level of bizarre desperation people used to have over cryogenics, where they would have their bodies or heads frozen believing at some point in the future they'll figure out how to unkill a dead body and somehow bring the life back to it. And if you could upload yourself into an algorithm or whatever, what happens as soon as the power goes out? Multiple backups? What would that mean, there are many of you on different systems, and somehow you're going to 'transfer' yourself from one to another? None of this makes any sense. People have just transferred religious beliefs into near-future promises of impossible technology. It's the promise of eternal life, now through computers. Even though we can't seem to get them to do any of what they're already supposed to do. What happens when the computer you're stored in gets hacked into? Or is infected with a Trojan?
I'm trying to imagine how it would happen. Somehow they build a copy of your mind in a computer. What then? Are there two of you? While your body is still alive I mean? How could you exist in the computer while you still exist as you, in your body? Can there be more than one of you at the same time? And what if multiple duplicates are made of the virtual copy? Would you somehow be inside each one of them? This isn't possible. It wouldn't be you, they'd be copies.
Good point. So the question becomes, how do we make the world a fairer place? Something like Universal Health Care, like we have in Canada, is one step in the right direction. Yet there are still many people who don't believe that health care is a basic human right. I don't believe that immortality is a realistic goal. I just don't believe it will happen.
Bizarre desperation is right. Now imagine if all that energy was put instead into helping others less fortunate, and give them a fighting chance.
It's impossible. Computers lack the parallel processing of an organic brain. Computers can only process linearly. Computers are task-specific. The human brain has a versatility a computer can never replicate.
