BEAUTY

Introduction

Plan for the course: Beauty through the eyes of an artist. What is it? What is the most valuable thing I can write about it? Do painters have any privileged position in understanding beauty as opposed to others who art not artists. Are artists and art-experts "changed" in a way they can no longer approximate or view like a non artist?

We will use sources like artist's actual works and their reflections on what they were doing, writings on art and beauty by art admirers and the non-art-producing public

Highlights or total history? (certain topics or more exhaustive) My contention is that while it is quite important to understand the materials and how they can be applied,

there remains the possibility of picking up the process of understanding art and admiring it without this technical knowledge. For example, let us say that a painting is rendered in only four colors and its theme is the good life. Isn't there the possibiity of understanding the theme of the work and analyzing it and comparing it with other similar or different

works of art without dwelling only on its material composition. All the details do add up when we consider an artist's personality, materials, aesthetics, purposes, etc. that are present

in his/her/their work to make a richer experience for the viewer. But unfortunately, we do no always have or remember these details.

Some Basic Considerations

beauty. objective or subjective. problem with total skepticism is that even the total skepticism can be called into doubt.

the role of viewpoint or perspective. what new viewpoint is wrought after much exposure and learning in the arts. does it give one a privileged position with respect to experiencing and understanding beauty?. are people who have not received the training naive about beauty?.

can beauty be repulsive? what is repulsive about beauty? superficiality? creates a mood of superficial considerations?

one phenomenon i encounter as an artist is being excited by the beauty of a work without knowing the entire meaning of the work - a meaning that could change, upon knowing, the excitement I could experience; it is like the work satisfies certain formal considerations that impress the viewer but later the knowledge of the work depletes or lessens the appeal

The nature of love. love of the beautiful. is it rational? what is the good of non-rational love? why is love useful and what is its relationship to virtue? Virtue is good as a guide for behavior.

x. preface - (sk)ecce homo a little about me: (include self-portraits?)

artistic and life preferences

if beauty depends on the beholder, it might be to our advantage to know more about me and my place in art history. My life story, even if only generally reviewed, can help place me in the context of others who are writing on this topic.

I went to art school for two years starting in 1994. It was a very particular type of school that I lucked into, in two ways. First, my parents were willing to pay for my time there and second, I learned of the school in the most unlikely way. Brandon Soloff

The purpose of this part of the course is to better inform you of the biases of my art and the contexts by which I view and practice art.

1. Greek beginnings:

kalos/kallos: beautiful appearance w or w/o moral dimensions

Kosman, :

pre-platonic views:

Platonic views:

Republic:

Symposium:

Phaedrus:

Greater Hippias:

non-Plato:

cross-cultural:

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2. Roman views

3. Middle Ages

4. Renaissance

5. Baroque/Rococo

6. 18th century

7. 19th century

8. 20th century

9. today

What is the purpose/value of a study of BEAUTY by an artist? Does the artist have any privileged position in understanding beauty or in creating it? Are artists part of a beauty elite? How else can a beauty elite, or experts on beauty, be formed? [teaching about beauty]

issues: experience, memory, cross-cultural, expertise,

Final Chapter: How does beauty relate to a good life, in what ways should beauty be incorporated into one's life and why?

Relaxation/diversion from useless content, idealized form to excel towards (beauty as destination), recharging the good work ethic, the ideal world minimizes useless ugliness and defect (error),

Can we love ugliness - is this logically possible by definition? Perhaps as a state prior to something superior that can actualy be made superior..certain ugly things perhaps cannot be made superior at all. If the goal is universal love of goodness, we had better understand our relation to good and beauty as best as we can iMAGINE a future like this - universally good. We should strive with all our good effort toward it.

We can "love" the defecs of people - for example, their physical defects when we truly love them for other more important reasons. But what kind of love of the defects is this? It is kind of a conflicted acceptance. It is not really a love or like but rather a willingnesss to overlook the negative status of the defect.

the great question - how much goodness to build into forms so that they are best-constituted; without this primary directive or teleological dimension. the life of the form may not fully realize its purpose, its capabilities and therefore be in error; the problem of course is defining this moral dimension

designing for other purposes-

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Distinctiions?

structural vs. content/narrative ??