[59540]

I think the mistake is in setting up a rigid objective-subjective dichotomy and then congratulating yourself when an "objectivist" (which is really a straw man anyway) can't come up with scientific proof.

 

[59540]

^^^^@EdwardBast and dissident: I have no problem whatsoever with either of your posts/positions. I think we can all agree that Beauty, Excellence, "Greatness" resides not in the art object but in the perceptive net in which we apprehend the object (conditional propositions)...

Not necessarily. There is a perceiver but also a thing perceived. If everything is dependent on my own perception of it, I wouldn't need ever to listen to Bach or Mozart to get my doses of "beauty" or "greatness". I could simply create it all myself.

 

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"On the other hand, for the French, Mozart was certainly not 'one of us' from a national point of view. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, before Berlioz's time, some influential critics - for instance, Julien-Louis Geoffroy - rejected Mozart as a foreigner, considering his music 'scholastic', stressing his use of harmony over melody, and the dominance of the orchestra over singing in the operas - all these were considered negative features of 'Germanic' music."

-Groups of people who did not think highly of Mozart's style have existed in the past. Just cause majority of them are dead now, it doesn't mean they were "objectively wrong". If "greatness" changes with time, how can be "absolute"?

Who said it's absolute?

At certain points in history, they weren't just a "minority", but a dominant group, and it's probably how Una cosa rara eclipsed Le Nozze di Figaro in popularity back then.

Regarding Mozart I don't think the naysayers were the "dominant group" even in his lifetime. The quality of his work was pretty readily recognized shortly after his death, regardless of the objections of some French critics. The question to be answered is what is it about Mozart's work that causes it to be "popular" and considered "great" in the first place.

-How much of Mozart's traits is a result of "different style" and how much is a result of "superior quality" is, still to this day, a matter of subjective opinion and perception. Things can be and have qualities to be popular. "Greatness" is something fans use to frame and attribute to things they love and want to glorify. ...

"Greatness" doesn't depend on unanimity. It's that dichotomy again: if it can't be measured like gravitational pull, it must not exist. It's also circular: it's considered "great" because it's "popular", and it's "popular" because it's considered "great". Bach isn't all that "popular" worldwide.

 

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I am not at all sure whether this gets to the heart of the matter. It is a given, a commonplace that there are perceivers and the perceived. I do not see the conclusion drawn here. When one says "everything is dependent on my own perception", this, I hope, does not fall into an aberrant solipsism by accident or design. Why cannot one be fully capable of enjoying Beauty and Greatness where you find it? For Beethoven perhaps, he could and did create it all himself, though that would be a rare case. Ditto Van Gogh? William Blake?

Since the notions of what you find "beautiful" and "great" reside solely in your own brain, why can't you realize those perceptions in artistic work of your own?

 

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My answer to the above question is--wait for it--Yes. And the reason that Le Nozze has remained in the repertoire for over 200 years is that a large cluster of people like it, pure and simple. ...

Why is that? That's begging the question.

 

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Simple. My "gift" is in arguing about things, and in being content with appreciating the creative gifts...

So there is something objective called "creative gifts" which separate the Bachs and Beethovens from arguers like you and me.

 

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It is because the work more strongly appeals to/triggers positive emotions on the part of the neurochemical and/or psychological and/or life experiences of a greater cluster of folks than some less well-regarded music, among a certain population predetermined (a bit of predestination here) to prefer it.

That's still begging the question. What is it about that work that triggers that effect as opposed to Salieri's Falstaff?

 

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Yes. They are excellent, through skill or luck, at triggering positive responses among select audiences than are others.

And how do they do that?

 

[59540]

I have come to learn that a torrent of rhetorical questions as a method of countering an opposing argument rarely elucidates but serves rather as a squid's ink cloud behind which time is spent scrambling for supporting data. I try to be very sparing in my use of such practice as followers of my posts will attest.

I don't think they're all that rhetorical. Given the confidence you have in your stated position, you should have an answer to cut through the squid ink.

Things are good and they are liked because certain purely subjective premises/criteria are met

Are the differences between the Mozart and Salieri operas mentioned above strictly subjective? If neither has any intrinsic quality in themselves as works of art, then the Salieri should be just as popular and aesthetically pleasing as the Mozart. In fact anything I come up with sitting at a keyboard would have to be on the same Mozartean level. Meaning no level.

 

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Sorry but I will not be drawn into such a whirligig. I prefer clear, terse exposition of viewpoints to which cogent replies can be made. When you are on the receiving end of such torrents I think you will understand what I am about.

Oh I've been there lots of times.

 

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We have discussed this topic previously in countless other threads as you recall. You will recall then my example of the great skill of the painter Ingres lavished upon kitsch. There are many other examples.
...

And partly for that reason Ingres isn't mentioned in the same breath as Rembrandt.

 

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I think the current "orthodoxy" would be that if someone subjectively prefers the stick man, then it's "greater". That's the modern dismantling of "art" in a nutshell.

 

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We could have a paint-off between the two upon a mutually-approved subject.

We have that already. It's called a "body of work".

 

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Think of it this way; Mozart's opera and oratorio works from years 1766~1775, for instance, are also "staples of the repertoire", whereas other composers' works from the same period are collecting dust in library basements. Is the mentality "Because Mozart's music is so perfect, it deserves this level of treatment" in this case — really different from the mentality displayed by the "Mozart partisans" in the thread <The Greatest Opera Composer>, for instance (in their argument, "because Mozart is prolific in other genres, and he is so perfect in expression, barely a note is wasted.. bla bla..")? —The "target" is different ("Mozart's contemporaries from the period 1766~1775" in the former case, and "composers from other periods" in the latter case); and other composers of the same period 1766~1775 haven't grown a stable "fanbase" (due to their lack of exposure in textbooks, concert repertoire, recordings, etc), a force of "advocates/defenders", so they become "easy targets".
If anyone uses the sentences below with "Bach" replaced with the name of a composer from 1766~1775, for instance, would the statement become less "valid"?:

I still stand by both statements. They're not the "gotchas" that you think. "Great" doesn't mean "perfect" or "beyond criticism".

 

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however, that's just the way it is.

That's the way it becomes when you've been stewing in "what is traditionally called 'great art' is thought so primarily because that's what structures of 'soft power' have led people to believe" ideology for decades, as most of us have. But a lot of us are seeing that approach is a dead end that leads necessarily to absurdities like the stick man comparison. Then there really is no such thing as "art" at all.

 

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...or 3. no work should be called good or bad, and if I like looking at stick men more than looking at Bernini sculptures you can't say I'm not a man of exquisite taste.

And thaaaaaat's the ticket.

 

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And what was the mutually-agreed-upon subject? It would be worth walking many miles to see.

Representations of thought or character through paint on a canvas. You can have vast amounts of skill and still think very small.

 

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I continue to wonder how someone who frequently posts about composers with a great amount of detail with examples (and that is not a criticism) can have that perspective. It begs the question as to what those posts are meant to accomplish? I’ve always assumed that you were trying to educate or convince us about the accomplishments and even ‘greatness’ of the composers being discussed. If not, then what’s the point if their output is just a ‘an abstract combination of sounds’ with nothing objectively special about it?

And the scorn for the John Cages and Stockhausens and praise for Michael Haydn. Puzzling.

 

[59540]

but I would question your description of the latter's work as kitsch. First, I don't think anyone who believes that any person's aesthetic judgments are as good as any other's should use such a value-laden term, especially one with negative implications suggesting criticism of others' tastes.

I didn't catch that one. Ouch! Those value-judgement habits are apparently hard to break. And anyway kitschy compared to...? I smell a...hierarchy!

 

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"I find it unfair that an "indecent pot-boiler" like Cosi fan tutte survived, while stuff like the "proto-Schubertian" pastoral poem, Die Hochzeit auf der Alm with its later added supplemental music and its "anthem of fidelity" and Die Ährenleserin did not. ...

I don't understand. If the one survived and the other didn't, how can you compare...