1. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    How Often Do You Think About Aesthetics?

    Discussion in 'General Writing' started by Teladan, Apr 14, 2021.

    By aesthetics I don't mean style, although that does play a part. Since I've practiced art and love art almost as much as writing and reading, I tend to focus on the look and feel of a story more than the plot. Not to sell myself short on the narrative aspects--I don't think I consider myself a good enough prose stylist at all to say that I focus on language rather than story--but aesthetic considerations are what kickstart my stories. I'll often make mood boards and collect fantastic imagery from online sources.

    I thought it'd be fun to perhaps discuss our aesthetic inclinations and post images which inspire our stories.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    I suppose these three images represent my own style. I do deviate from this sometimes, but for the past few months I've been deep into this look. Burton, Beksinski, Brom, Mortensen. Anything slightly dark and twisted will suit me just fine.

    Very interested to see what you all choose.
     
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  2. EFMingo

    EFMingo A Modern Dinosaur Supporter Contributor

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    Ah, I see you have a fondness for the negative aesthetics. I certainly do as well. They make for an awesome display and work well if used as a Burkean form of the sublime. I.E. young woman in a white dress fumbling through the darkness of catacombs she is imprisoned in, or maybe an idyllic cottage in a green field that has the extended shadows of sharp mountain peaks slowing creeping along its fields. The negative builds such tension and casts a foreboding sense on the underlying themes for the reader. Good stuff.

    I tend to enjoy hiding the negative aesthetics behind a lighter plot, such as a romance. Then the negative can subtly follow the intended themes.
     
  3. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    I agree. I suppose I'm just naturally drawn to the darker side of things. Otherness, darkness, weirdness. It has to be done with tact though otherwise it becomes a bit juvenile or--I hate this word--edgy. Goya, the darker art of Dr Seuss, Clark Ashton Smith's illustrations, Alfred Kubin's work, Bosch's craziness, etc. Fuel for the fire for me.
     
  4. Madman

    Madman Life is Sacred Contributor

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    I just love the classical style.

    [​IMG]

    It truly inspires me. I'm learning how to incorporate it into my writing right now, trying out what works and what does not.

    There is so much life and order to it. For me, it exemplifies human civilization and love all at the same time. True craftmanship. Matching elaborate patterns, objects adorned with love. It shows that "here was something built with consideration and love." Something that will withstand time, yet is not immortal to it. Its aesthetic can be appreciated by a lot of people.
     
  5. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    Excellent. You probably wouldn't be able to guess from what I've posted, but one half of me is also in favour of classical aesthetics. I have a canvas print of Diogenes on my wall and a marble bust of Homer on my desk. This is something of an inner battle for me. I've read Roger Scruton's Beauty, but I'm not convinced that art is objective, as he suggests. I adore Gothic sculpture and stained glass art. I was floored by Prague's architecture and one of my favourite buildings is The British Museum. Have you read Piranesi? I think that'd be perfect for you.
     
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  6. Madman

    Madman Life is Sacred Contributor

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    I have not read Piranesi, but I just looked it up. It's going on the reading list! Thank you for the recommendation.
     
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  7. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    It's one of my favourite books. The premise is simply about a man lost in an series of seemingly endless ornate halls. Phenomenal work of fiction.
     
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  8. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    @EFMingo

    You make interesting points when discussing the Sublime. This is why Frankenstein is one of my favourite novels. In my large-scale world-building project, started in 2016 but largely discontinued, I favour these types of grandiose aesthetics and severe emotions. In one scene a zealous paladin finds himself lost in the upland wastes surrounded by soul-dominating mountains. Six wolves surround him. He realises he's just a man. I wanted to read the aesthetic philosophers, but I'm not sure I'm up to the task just yet. So far I've only read Scruton and Tanizaki in terms of aesthetic treaties, two authors diametrically opposed in their ideas.
     
  9. EFMingo

    EFMingo A Modern Dinosaur Supporter Contributor

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    If you want to see negative aesthetics and significant action, I recommend two novels. They are essentially the main two initial sides of the Gothic coin. The school of terror, and the school of horror. They are Anne Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis' The Monk.

    Udolpho has the absolutely most gorgeous prose in use of the negative regarding the sublime, especially in natural contrast. It is certainly very long, and the near lack of horror makes for not the most exciting novel of all time, but the use of the Gothic aesthetics to build terror in the characters is stunning. She can just pack so much in and make you feel like you are there with the characters. Then you have the monster that is The Monk. It is a brutal and fairly evil novel that caused quite a scene back in the day. It mirrors the tensions and violence of the French Revolution and anti-Catholic/anti-Enlightenment sentiments of the late 18th century. The negative is pervasive and drives the reader to keep coming back for more. Waht's almost more incredible is how it stands even despite its age. Some concepts are almost modern in the writing. Way beyond its time.

    Just a start. I study this for my degree so I'm always happy to discuss this aesthetic.
     
  10. EFMingo

    EFMingo A Modern Dinosaur Supporter Contributor

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    As for philosophers on this, I would read Edmund Burke A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful for lessons in the application of the sublime and how to read it. I would also look at Freud's study of The Uncanny for a lesson in the psychoanalytical approach to negative aesthetics and darkness in dreams.
     
  11. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    I really should read those some day. I've read Otranto, Dracula, Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, quite a lot of the standard Gothic novels, but never those old masterpieces. I think I was going to get The Monk at some point. It really does appeal to me. I'd heard it was almost modern in its outlook. Thanks.
     
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  12. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, totally. I'm always looking at the mood, vibe, and shape of the story (assuming, of course, that the plot, characters, et al are competent enough to keep me engaged). I kind of look at like a world view. Each story, like each person, kind of has its own way of interpreting the world. That could be gothic pessimism of Cormac McCarthy or the mundane Americana of Richard Ford or whatever. Might be one of the reasons I've never taken to fantasy much. For whatever reason, most of their aesthetics don't vibe. That's not the author's fault at all. That's totally on me and how I engage fiction.
     
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  13. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    For me the most fascinating part of Art History is when the Classical style begins to give way to Modernism or Hellenism, or whatever the current negative/feminine aspect is called in its day. The Classical is always a celebration of strength, grace, beauty, youth, and pure form. Modernism; the Hellenistic, the Baroque etc, are periods following a Classical period, when the opposite begins to move into the spotlight. Weakness, defeat, old age, disease and death, darkness—the Yin to Classicism's Yang. Each by itself is incomplete, and a too-strong adherence to either one is destructive, each in their own specific way. It's natural and necessary that the pendulum swing one way and then the other.

    And the most exciting periods for me are the liminal space where Classicism is on the way out and its opposite coming in. In the Modernist period of art history, starting with the Impressionists, the artists were classically trained, so they were able to encompass both aspects at once, but unfortunately the following generation of artists didn't get that kind of rigorous training, so Modern art degenerated into Abstract Expressionism and other unskilled approaches.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2021
  14. EFMingo

    EFMingo A Modern Dinosaur Supporter Contributor

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    Actually that's a large reason I've strayed so far away from fantasy in general. I think they tend to rely more on intrigue and coming-of-age than aesthetics, leading me far away from the genre.
     
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  15. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, with some notable exceptions. China Mieville uses some jaw-dropping aesthetics. But in general, I just find it hard to get through the first few pages of most fantasies without rolling my eyes at all the cliches. But all genre fiction does that. Like I said, on me for not having the patience/wherewithal to give it a chance.
     
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  16. EFMingo

    EFMingo A Modern Dinosaur Supporter Contributor

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    He's an interesting exception because he's able to pull multiple genres into different aesthetics and just do what he wants with it. I know he's pretty well known, but he should honestly be more known because he isn't a one trick pony.
     
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  17. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    Most fantasy is generic, especially that which leans too heavily on the European Middle Ages. I do love fantasy aesthetics, but I think you can only have so much swords and magic. It all starts to blend together. I say this even as someone who adores the works typical of the genre. I mean, I record myself reciting Tolkien's songs and poems dressed up in a cloak and wielding a Oakshotte-type blade in the woods. But yes, overall I think I prefer darker twists. Recently I've been obsessed with the strange, the weird, the 'other', particularly when contrasted with mundane life.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2022
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  18. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    Coming-of-age? In YA, perhaps? The fantasy I've read is much more grandiose or concerned with literary themes. The Worm Ouroboros is a baroque faction war written in 16th century prose, Mythago Wood is all about thresholds and distortions in time and space, The Other Side is a weird Gnostic work about an anti-modernist settlement built in Asia. Fantasy can obviously be quite unique, but it's plagued by boring knights and dragons.

    Edit: Other unique and 'literary' fantasy include: Lud-in-the-Mist, Thomas the Rhymer, Phantastes, The Gormenghast Trilogy.
     
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  19. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    Brilliant way of putting this. I'm going to have be restrained here though. I do not favour Modern art. I love the early impressionists, but I cannot stand works by Pollock, Hirst, Koons, etc. I'm all for subjectivity and relativity (mostly) but a work of art needs to have some semblance of skill for me to be engaged by it. This is why I favour a Beksinski over, well, a canvas of random blue, orange and red squares. Anything weird, decadent and surreal I enjoy, but there has to be a trained hand beneath the brush strokes. I used to read a lot about the "degeneracy" of Modern art and architecture. Suffice it to say, I'm not a fan of globalist technocratic aesthetics. Natural materials over steel boxes, please!

    Glad to see how active this thread has become.
     
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  20. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Many of my favorite artists were part of that 1st generation of Modernists—Van Gogh, Degas, Lautrec, Picasso in his early phases before he devised Cubism and the weird cartoonish stuff he did afterwards. And a lot of my favorite writing and film plays in that area between the Classical and the Modern. It's the interplay between them that's fascinating. To move too far along the spectrum in either direction ignores the influence of the opposite side of the equation.

    Here's something I ran across recently in the book Into The Woods:

    "You must have seen children playing with a string and a pebble. They tie the string to the pebble and swing it around over their head. They pay out string and it makes bigger and bigger circles. The pebble is the revolt against the tradition, it wants to break away. The string is the tradition, the continuity—it's holding it. But if you break the string the pebble will fall. If you remove the pebble the string cannot go that far. The tension of tradition and revolt against tradition are in a way contradictory, but as a matter of fact are a synthesis. You will always find this kind of synthesis in any good art.

    "However radical the work, it is radical in relation to the primal shape. And the shape seems undeniable."​
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2021
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  21. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    That's one genuinely good bit of writing. This is why I'm, uh, somewhat suspicious of people who want to break with tradition entirely. I'll have to look into this book.
     
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  22. alittlehumbugcalledShe

    alittlehumbugcalledShe Active Member

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    *Boromir voice* Gondor has no aesthetics. Gondor needs no aesthetics.

    I think it depends on what you're writing. The brilliant thing is that I'm trying to write stuff about art anyway, so I literally get to use aesthetics as much as I want :cheerleader:
     
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  23. hyacinthe

    hyacinthe Banned

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    I'm confused. if it's not beautiful why write it
     
  24. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    Well, yes. I'm asking what type of aesthetic/look/style you favour.
     
  25. hyacinthe

    hyacinthe Banned

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    i don't think I have a favorite. aesthetic themes are tools. why would I want only one screwdriver?
     
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