Neuroaesthetics is killing your soul

nature.com ^ | 22 March 2013 | Philip Ball

[BenLurkin]

“It is only by understanding the neural laws that dictate human activity in all spheres — in law, morality, religion and even economics and politics, no less than in art — that we can ever hope to achieve a more proper understanding of the nature of man.”

to suggest that the human brain responds in a particular way to art risks creating criteria of right or wrong, either in the art itself or in individual reactions to it. .... experience suggests that scientists studying art find it hard to resist drawing up rules for critical judgements. The chemist and Nobel laureate Wilhelm Ostwald, a competent amateur painter, devised an influential theory of colour in the early twentieth century that led him to declare that Titian had once used the ‘wrong’ blue. Paul Klee, whose intuitive handling of colour was impeccable, spoke for many artists in his response to such hubris

But the problem runs deeper, because equating an appreciation of art with an appreciation of beauty is misleading. A concept of beauty (not necessarily ours today) was certainly important for, say, Renaissance artists, but until recently it had almost vanished from the discourse of contemporary art. Those who like the works of Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys or Robert Rauschenberg generally do not appreciate them for their beauty. Scientists as a whole have always had conservative artistic tastes; a quest for beauty betrays that little has changed.

Even the narrower matter of aesthetics is not only about beauty. It has conventionally also concerned taste and judgement. Egalitarian scientists have a healthy scepticism of such potentially elitist ideas, and it is true that arbiters of taste may be blinkered and dogmatic: witness, for example, the blanket dismissal of jazz by Theodor Adorno, a champion of modernism.

[ClearCase_guy]

Certainly in my first suggested purpose for Art, the admiration of the Creator, there is an implied reference to God. Music by Bach can be elevating to the soul and can make one think about God. But it can also make you admire Bach. We are made in God's image, and just as God is the great Creator, so are we also creators. I admire Bach, Michelangelo, or Brancusi. Craftsmanship of all kinds should be admired.

There are many ways that people with some skill can seek the sublime and the transcendent. Arts and Crafts are good when they help "take us out of ourselves".

I would maintain that some of what man creates just allows us to wallow in the physical world. Is Hip-Hop art? I suppose it's a matter of taste, but I see nothing transcendent there. I see the raw emotion and the laws of the jungle being played out in various struggles for dominance. I see no art there.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

That's one way of looking at it. It may be wiser to recognize it as designed for conquest.

I'm living for the emperor-has-no-clothes moment, when investment bankers, the world over, will be left holding the bag.

I've been waiting a long time. How much longer can this hoax last?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Thanks. My experience is that while trying to paint Arkansas scenes everything is overwhelmed with GREENS! Can’t get away from it.

When I did a painting of my barn I had to do a fall scene with dead grass around to break up the overwhelming greens.

I notice all my paintings of Arkansas are mostly fall scenes as there are more color variations at that time, whereas spring is GREEN!

I have lived here for around fifty years yet I know more about Oklahoma than Arkansas, but I do miss my New Mexico and the Four Corners region.

[Matchett-PI]

tsomer wrote: “Where does craft— of the woodworker or the ceramicist— fit in this formula? When we admire Michelangelo’s ceiling, don’t we admire the skill of the man as well as the subject?”

Things we think of as “subjective” are actually as objective as can be, including beauty. ...

Although many influential scientists claim — and most members of general public believe — that all of reality can ‘in principle’ be expressed as the dynamics of its constitutive elements (atoms, genes, neurons), some have intuitively felt that this reductive tenet is wrong, that life and the human mind are more complex phenomena. Critics of reductionism have pointed to Kurt Goedel’s 1931 ‘incompleteness theorem’ (which shows that in any axiomatic formulation of, say, number theory there will be true theorems that cannot be established) as a contrary example, but this paradigm-shattering result has been largely ignored the scientific community, which has blithely persisted in its reductive beliefs. ..... =====> http://tinyurl.com/a2plgkp

[Matchett-PI]

You wrote: “My only criteria for art is that it should be 1) pretty and 2) not sweet. If I like it, it’s art.”

There are eternal patterns in the implicate order (archetypes) One for instance: Politics as Religion :) http://tinyurl.com/acdg4q6

“Objective reality ‘out there’ and our personal reality ‘in here’ are thoroughly connected. :) http://tinyurl.com/cah3fjr

[cornelis]

Turns out these were all paid for with tax money.

Something must remind them of their dire straits. These paid for pieces typically increase in size the closer you are to their savior.

[blueunicorn6]

Art comes from the scientist. I believe that you cannot be an artist in any field without first mastering the science of the field. Anyone can write poetry or paint a picture or compose music. The artist understands that he/she must master the fundamentals, the science, of the field. After that, I look for work. Does the artist care about the audience? Is the artist willing to put in the time, effort, thought and care to produce something worthwhile? Crapping on a canvas may be “edgy”, but is it art? I actually studied under communist professors. “All art must support the revolution, or it is not art!” I asked him about Bach and Frost and Monet. He said that they weren’t artists. I think that much of what passes for art is just entertainment and groupthink.

[RegulatorCountry]

This is a nice example from the paintings of Margaret Speer, of handling an Arkansas Ozark landscape in a striking manner via high contrast and an unusual color palette that works on several levels, even as an abstraction:

http://www.biddingtons.com/os/itemhtml/ht503172.shtml?503172

[left that other site]

True, that.

[Matchett-PI]

You wrote: “Art comes from the scientist. I believe that you cannot be an artist in any field without first mastering the science of the field. ..”

We now understand how and why scientists are guided by feeling and artists by science. http://tinyurl.com/ajmj746

bttt

[Windflier]

I have a hard time finding any contemporary art, music, or literature that will be taken seriously one hundred years from now.

That's definitely true of contemporary (or popular) 'art'.

I tell my kids all the time that their generation has been robbed of the fruits of real artists, and that in thirty years time, few will glorify or remember much of anything from their era.

Oddly enough, they agree with me.

[left that other site]

As I back through the Millenia, at every culture, From ancient to modern, from primitive cave dwellers to sparkling civilization, from East to West, and from all races of people, I see one common thread. There is a constant search for beauty and artistic expression (often religious) that characterizes each society. From The hand-prints and animal figures of Aborigines, A Chinese Calligraphy painting, a Greek Adonis, Queen Neferteri’s Head, to the Sistine Chapel, The Quest for Beauty in the Service of the Almighty is evident in every culture. Each Culture expresses itself in a Unique Way, and is instantly recognizable, not only by Ethnic Origin, but by Era, Region, and sometimes even the original artist! Russian icons, painted to a Strict Canon of RULES, can still be identified by Artist, if one is schooled in that. The same can be said of Japanese Scroll Paintings, and even Greek Sculptures from Ancient Times.

During the recent Papal Conclave, there was a lot of space in the press spent marveling over Michelangelo’s magnificent works, which were done in the space of two years WITHOUT computers, Airbrushes, Photography, or other tools of the trade. Other frescoes by lesser-known artists were also admired, as they were definitely great works of art, though not on a par with the ceiling or “The Last Judgement”.

I just finished re-reading “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly, written by a teenage girl in the first half of the 19th Century, back when “Moby Dick”, “War and Peace”, and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” were written. I doubt if “Harry Potter” or “Twilight” will survive the decade, much less the Centuries. Remember this when you watch “Shakespeare in the Park”. The play you are watching is FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OLD.

So...Just what IS going on? We have the most AMAZING tools at our disposal to create the Greatest Art ever produced in the History of Mankind. Instead, Our entertainments are shallow and vulgar, our music is without melody, our paintings are childish, our brilliantly conceived republican government has become oppressive fascism, Our leaders are buffoons, and our art is trash.

I am sure every era had its “junk”, but now, “Junk” is the epitome of our culture.

Sad.

[Windflier]

Just what IS going on? We have the most AMAZING tools at our disposal to create the Greatest Art ever produced in the History of Mankind. Instead, Our entertainments are shallow and vulgar, our music is without melody, our paintings are childish, our brilliantly conceived republican government has become oppressive fascism, Our leaders are buffoons, and our art is trash.

That question deserves the sort of dissertation that I only wish I had the time to compose. I would say the short answer is that as humankind's knowledge and advances in the material sciences has increased, it has little improved its understanding of itself.

We can now do things in the material world that would have rightly astounded our forebears, but we still have trouble fixing the human spirit. In fact, we've actually degraded as a culture. It's a recipe for disaster on a global scale. As a culture becomes more adept at manipulating the physical realm, it ought to be advancing as well in the area of human consciousness, morality, ethics, personal and group integrity, etc.

Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case, which bodes ill for the future.

[yorkie]

M-L, as you said, at every culture......there is a constant search for beauty and artistic expression (often religious) that characterizes each society.

It appears, that the society we live in today no longer has that thirst for 'beauty and artistic expression'. As you said so accurately, “Junk” is the epitome of our culture."

A large portion of our culture today, is the 'entitlement society'. Many thousands of babies that are not destroyed before birth are raised by a single mother.

The government actually pays these women more money per month, for each fatherless child born. Then, to add to the reinforcement of this abhorition, the government also hands out food stamps and free 'everything'.

These children are not being raised to be responsible adults, with goals, responsibility, self-discipline, pride or a quest for 'beauty'. Instead, they are being raised to believe the 'world owes them'.

Then, at the opposite side of our society today, we have the abortion issue. Thousands upon thousands of babies are aborted every year. Babies that could have been given a good home (through adoption) to a responsible mother and father; babies that may have been the next Beethoven, Einstein, DaVinci or Shakespeare.

I know this is a very simple phrase, but I call it, "The Dumbing Down of America".

[left that other site]

Indeed. I would also add that the degeneration of our culture has accelerated in the last 50 years.

It has been so rapid that it is observable.

[left that other site]

yep...Good Phrase!