I'm interested in a very basic question: Why do humans need pictures? This includes painting and photography as well as other images on the wall. Must be something primeval here.
“On Photography, A Philosophical Inquiry” Diarmuid Costello, published by Routledge Press, First published in 2018.
This reminds me of an old saying, "The art is the idea."Photographers talk about light or the absence thereof. Musicians talk about the power of what you do not play in certain phrasings. (Or in the words of one of my teachers, "The funk is in the holes.")
I'm interested in a very basic question: Why do humans need pictures? This includes painting and photography as well as other images on the wall. Must be something primeval here.
Because we are all trying to achieve some level of immortality.
I find it interesting, but I read a fair number of academic texts. I’ll say that this particular text is less off-putting. The author summarizes contemporary schools of thought about photography and then proceeds to present ontological and epistemological arguments—again from the “orthodox” to the “postmodern” camps. I don’t know how difficult it would be to follow-up on some of the citations … unless you had a good library or, more likely, access to a university or college library.
I’d be curious to hear others’ reactions to this small, but engaging text.
When I did my undergrad, poststructuralism/deconstruction was all the rage, and being both an academic and bibliophile, there's a decent chance I have some of them at least on my shelves. I've got over 2500 books in my library now.
And what do you say about the photos where you start out being unsure about them, but they grow and grow and grow in your estimation of them until you realize they are great?You can tell a good photo in two seconds. We know.
No wonder you are looking for reality.
On the contrary. It has opened up and stimulated new avenues of thought. What is lacking today is visual literacy.Concur. Nothing did more damage to human knowledge IMHO than desconstructionism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. In less than 50 years, these "thinkers" managed to wipe out 5000 years of developed human thought, not to mention aesthetics and ethics ...
On the contrary. It has opened up and stimulated new avenues of thought. What is lacking today is visual literacy.
I'm interested in a very basic question: Why do humans need pictures? This includes painting and photography as well as other images on the wall. Must be something primeval hereCouCo
Oh, it definitely opened up new avenues of thought like:
- Filtering historically great art like Van Gogh or Carravagio though modern PC pieties
- Denying that objective truth exists in any real whatsoever including ethics, aesthetics, or normative law
- Proposing that everything is entirely self-referential and only the individual responds to the art is what matters, not the actual intent or message of the artist
And that only in the domain of art. The nonstop attack on history, philosophy, and political thought is certain awe inspiring...
You are being rather selective in your examples, bringing up only those that align with your narrative.
Oh, it definitely opened up new avenues of thought like:
- Filtering historically great art like Van Gogh or Carravagio though modern PC pieties
- Denying that objective truth exists in any real whatsoever including ethics, aesthetics, or normative law
- Proposing that everything is entirely self-referential and only the individual responds to the art is what matters, not the actual intent or message of the artist
And that only in the domain of art. The nonstop attack on history, philosophy, and political thought is certain awe inspiring...
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I actually don't have a particular narrative - that is, I am not promoting a singular worldview. But I do think that retrospectively inflicting contemporary thought on old art is just plain dishonest. I also think that relativizing aesthetics to "my truth" is deadly for art. All of this arises from a foundational premise common to these schools: That objective truth does not exist. That is, things that are true in their own right without regard to the individual experience and are normative for us all.
My narrative has to do with why people like Foucalt, Derridas, and their eventual intellectual heirs rejected the thinking of the Enlightenment ... but that's a discussion not for here.
OT but amusing...
But I do have a fun relevant story that may elicit a chuckle, heard as told by one of the people who was directly involved.
Years ago, Bell Labs was doing research into how human language is expressed and how it could be made recognizable by machines (in this case only English was in scope). They ended up writing a program that would take arbitrary standard English as input and produce output that was correct grammatically but utter gibberish. For example, one might see sentences like, "The Lord is my Shepherd, but I need a 1/2-20 washer to put into my beef stew."
These guys were not only very smart, but they had a vicious sense of humor so ... they put Derrida's original work through the program, and published the output on USENET (and early precursor to things like Reddit) as "Jacques Derrida's' newest book!!!!" It went viral and there was much rejoicing and celebration for this new font of thinking from the master of Deconstructionism.
They eventually had to confess their fraud when it turned out that there were Ph.D. students doing research based on this "new work". So, Derrida was apparently indistinguishable from gibberish even among the experts. The story, as told, had several hundred computer scientists rolling on the floor in laughter.
See also:
Kimball takes this up at some length in "The Rape Of The Masters" but I don't recall if he specifically addresses Caravaggio.Now maybe I'm not reading the right sources but I don't recall hearing any scathing postmodern critiques of Van Gogh or Caravaggio... where have you seen those and what were they? If anything Caravaggio has come in in the last 30 or so years for a major re-evaluation and elevation within the canon of Western art because of his social dissident nature. Foucault would have loved Caravaggio.
Actually, I think the critique of the established canon (of any genre, be it art, architecture, literature, music, politics, etc) is an entirely valid and valuable activity. Particularly as it pertains to analyzing WHY certain things are canonical or more importantly why certain things are NOT canonical. Why is it that the standard of canonical art is so Western/European driven? How many photographers who are considered canonical can you name who are European or Anglo/American? Conversely, how many Mexican? Peruvian? Argentinian? Egyptian? Nigerian? Indian? Thai? How many of those can you name who are women? The camera is an incredibly democratic tool - the talent required to use one is not the sole province of formal academic training. There is no good reason why there should not be equal numbers (in proportion to population) of Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Brazilian, Nigerian, Ugandan, Egyptian, or other ethnic/national groups.
There is a balance between intent and viewer response - we should not discount either when evaluating a work of art. To say that the artist's intent is meaningless is asinine - if the artist's intent had no meaning, they wouldn't have created the work in the first place. Conversely, to say that the artist's intent is the only way to interpret a work is equally asinine - if you see something in the work, you see it and respond to it that way. I may not share that experience, and I may align with the artist's intention, or I may see something else also distinct from both your interpretation and the artist's intent. That doesn't make you or me wrong - it just means that either A: we have to make our case for our interpretation, B: we're both on crack and delusional, or C: the artist failed to clearly convey their intent because their audience doesn't respond the way they intended.
Oh, don't get me wrong- I LOATHE Derrida. He did write in unintelligible gibberish, and he KNEW it. He did it on purpose to be an arrogant snob and look down on people who didn't understand it.
Concur. Nothing did more damage to human knowledge IMHO than desconstructionism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. In less than 50 years, these "thinkers" managed to wipe out 5000 years of developed human thought, not to mention aesthetics and ethics ...
It's funny - this is about 180 degrees from what I meant by my quip.
Sigh ... I have much work to do converting you heathens ...
Oh - you ascribe to a religious view of these issues.
Oh, it definitely opened up new avenues of thought like:
- Filtering historically great art like Van Gogh or Carravagio though modern PC pieties
- Denying that objective truth exists in any domain whatsoever including ethics, aesthetics, or normative law
- Proposing that everything is entirely self-referential and only the individual responds to the art is what matters, not the actual intent or message of the artist
And that only in the domain of art. The nonstop attack on history, philosophy, and political thought is certainly awe inspiring...
Actually, I think the critique of the established canon (of any genre, be it art, architecture, literature, music, politics, etc) is an entirely valid and valuable activity. Particularly as it pertains to analyzing WHY certain things are canonical or more importantly why certain things are NOT canonical. Why is it that the standard of canonical art is so Western/European driven? How many photographers who are considered canonical can you name who are European or Anglo/American? Conversely, how many Mexican? Peruvian? Argentinian? Egyptian? Nigerian? Indian? Thai? How many of those can you name who are women? The camera is an incredibly democratic tool - the talent required to use one is not the sole province of formal academic training. There is no good reason why there should not be equal numbers (in proportion to population) of Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Brazilian, Nigerian, Ugandan, Egyptian, or other ethnic/national groups.
Now maybe I'm not reading the right sources but I don't recall hearing any scathing postmodern critiques of Van Gogh or Caravaggio... where have you seen those and what were they? If anything Caravaggio has come in in the last 30 or so years for a major re-evaluation and elevation within the canon of Western art because of his social dissident nature. Foucault would have loved Caravaggio.
There is a balance between intent and viewer response - we should not discount either when evaluating a work of art. To say that the artist's intent is meaningless is asinine - if the artist's intent had no meaning, they wouldn't have created the work in the first place. Conversely, to say that the artist's intent is the only way to interpret a work is equally asinine - if you see something in the work, you see it and respond to it that way. I may not share that experience, and I may align with the artist's intention, or I may see something else also distinct from both your interpretation and the artist's intent. That doesn't make you or me wrong - it just means that either A: we have to make our case for our interpretation, B: we're both on crack and delusional, or C: the artist failed to clearly convey their intent because their audience doesn't respond the way they intended.
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