Part VI How does Clive Bell define significant form 317 318 Purposiveness without a purpose lines and colors formed in a particular way Forms that move us in a particular way moving combinations and arrangements Kant and clive bell agree on disinterestedness because we should appreciate the way the colors and forms are not the meaning of the painting He says that beauty refers to all kinds of stuff sexually attractive nothing to do with art Kant beauty nature and art Bell beauty don t feel same emotion for butterfly and painting Art better thrill than from nature What does CB promise 316 He promises to reveal the peculiar quality of art he is very sensitive to the aesthetic feeling and claims that it must be a personal experience Art is better than nature He proved nothing 324 What is the argument here about representational painting 320 321 That we will rarely find significant form in representational painting Representational is unrelated to aesthetics Will rarely find significant form in picture paintings Significant form will likely be found in human made stuff and primitive art no accurate representation will be found only significant form o Ancient art o Art from other cultures 3 characteristics found in significant form 321 Absence of representation Absense of technical swagger Impressive form Can you guess Clive Bells feelings toward the then new abstraction in painting He likes it he is making a pitch for this form Bloomsbery group a group of writers intellectuals and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century in London Their work deeply influenced literature aesthetics criticism and economics Clive Bell s sister in law was Virginia Wolf who was in this group Susan Langer the problem is that you can apply it to certain random objects Just because all things in a class have a certain quality doesn t make that quality a special unique quality 324 Significant form 325 Bad art could possibly have significant form i e painting from monkey children 327 Counterfeits would have significant form Calder fakes 328 a slashed painting could have significant form in every meaningful way Duchamp French 1887 1968 anti kant Most famous gesture was the urinal 1917 This was an argument that refutes significant form A slap in the face for the idea for art for arts sake Art should have something else besides significant form a conceptual ideal part 1 Retinal antiretinal clive bell far too much importance given to the retinal He is about art that provokes ideas the concept antiretinal is part of the experience of art refutation of Kant s idea with the pure experience Clement Greenberg 1909 American 331 Avant garde and Kitsch o Avant garde 332 refers to people or works that are experimental or innovative particularly with respect to art culture and politics a new kind of criticism of society an historical criticism It is a part of Western bourgeois society it is the latest term of succession of social orders It is a hope of culture It is moving away from mainstream culture traditions urban it is art for arts sake Very much about form The very processes and disciples of art A kind of specialization and purifying putting aside things that extraneous About painting Poetry is about a sound Painting is about surface texture and culture Its not about illusions of space or depth This is insular and remote bohemian urban sub culture that Kandinsky was weary of Bohemian people living the intellectual and artistic life Socrates would not agree with any of this Burgeouise have time and money and want culture Kitsch 338 marketplace from mainstream culture Comes from the German word for commercial popular arts A product of the industrial revolution Universal literacy Recognize it and might enjoy it sensation It is a fake cheap culture imitations Associated with facists government Sense without experience Is jima memorial kitsch No It doesn t really give us anything honest Kitsch is one kind of an argument The original post was staged The difference between the Vietnam memorial and the jima memorial in terms of kitsch the image of the flag is easy to be reproduced Sensibility flag portray Americans in a glorious light the wall doesn t have a particular message much more complex There is something superficial about jima that only shows a certain kind of feeling about battle and war that isn t deep enough for us we want something more Kitsch in my life eifel tower I love ny shirt lawn ornaments Greenberg is associated with Jackson Pollock Born in 1909 Wrote av g and K in 1939 Camp 350 Susan Sontag 1933 2004 American Date of the essay 1964 She defines Camp as an unnatural mode of sensibility if there be any such It is a love of the unnatural of artifice and exaggeration 2 And camp is esoteric something of a private code a badge of identity even among small urban cliques Examples of camp King Kong james bond old fashioned lunch box care bears beanie babies Kitsch in real word they use this term when they are really describing camp o A useful and noble attempt to draw distinctions between fine arts culture and commercial culture o Greenberg s essay hasn t aged that well He describes kitsch way too broadly We are used to complex things PART VII Arthur Schopenhauer 371 1788 1860 German Echoes the traditional view of the Romantic period Comes from an upper class commercial family Father was a voltarian Enlightenment thinker He hates the idea of Prussia and nationalism Moved to hamburg Education in England He forgot how to speak german He was an anti vivisectionist against cutting up animals while they were still alive Influences kant plato Buddha Upanishads 3 key ideas o will 373 pessimistic philosophy We are all part of this enormous will to survive there are no significant differences among us Our separateness is an illusion Will is a source of suffering and pain and cycle that gets us nowhere Soap bubble we just keep puffing it up and we know that it will eventually explode After the bubble miya explodes its just this stupid hopeless instinct for survival outside Nothing will ever satisfy you you will always want more Drugs are the epitome of the cycle of suffering Prescription is to exercise will as little as possible just don t do anything gospel of resignation what appears as perception to my body is really my will Maya myth of Nirvana which is contrary to the Christian doctorine the body appearance will reality timeless God cosmic will and will altogether is wicked