Tribulations on What Art is? - anchored to Goethes works (Werke in vier Bänden)

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (Autor), Gerhard Stenzel (Herausgeber, Einleitung), IBS (Tribulations)

Finde dieses Buch bei buch7.de | eurobuch.com | buchhandel.de | books.google.com ASIN=B00C2HSL0K, Category: Philosophy, Language: D, cover: HC, pages: 364+601+458+668, year: 1983.

Tribulations on What Art is?

> Visited a rather humorous exhibition "What's the point of it?" earlier this year. I've since sided with Martin Creed on his opinion.

never heard this name. found in Creed's wiki:

"I don't know what art is"

"I wouldn't call myself an artist"

I've read about art from authors like ortega y gasset, goethe, soloviev, steiner. here are some quotes [missing those from Heinrich Bluecher whom I discovered this author only recently; he lectures brillianty about the meaning of art and its function in evolution of mankind]:

What is true art? That's one of the topics in Solovyov's writings about "The Philosophy of Love" of which "The Meaning of Love." is one part. According to Soloyov

"[Art is nothing but] the sense-perceptible presentation of whatever object under the viewpoint of its finalized state, or what is the same, in the light of the higher world, in which mankind and with him the whole creation find again their lost homeland. 'Ars est artium, ars amoris*'."

-- quote p194, from vol. 7 (cognition theory) of Solovjov's complete works (in german)

"Art can't be tought. Art is the product of an ingenium (a man of genius), which lives by remembering earlier mythical epochs."

-- quote p36 (my translation from german), Goethes Werke, Band 1, Hrsg. G. Stenzel, Verlag Buch und Zeit, 1958

"Art is implanting imagination into real world objects."

-- Herder?

What Is Art? Conversation with Joseph Beuys

"Art is born from deviations from social norms or common sense. It should be valued based on various definitions, not from absolute point of view. This book is written from a unique viewpoint so that the more you read, the better the perspective for enjoying art and music develop."

-- Michio Kitahara (MK — is a quite thought-provoking existentialist. There are many forms of existentialism. Roughly, for these people there is no spirit, no God; this is why Neale Donald Walsh's (NDW) bestseller book 'Conversations with God' is so ridiculous! — NDW being an existentialist**. But that's another story...)

"History of contemporary art and contemporary music" by MK (published in japanese)

"Then I state that art is the most advanced form of stimulus seeking behavor in which beauty is experienced. In order to experience beauty, you must be able to experience the routine standard and deviation from that, which in some cases leads to the experience of beauty."

-- MK (private communication)

"In reality art is the divine child which keeps men from being swallowed up in lies."

-- at the end of The Mysteries of Light, of Space, and of the Earth by Rudolf Steiner

"Art is the expression of spiritual world with material means."

-- Goethe? Steiner?

"Poesie can't be tought. Poesie is the product of an ingenium (a man of genius), which lives by remembering earlier mythical epochs."

-- Herder, 27 years old, when he talked to Goethe in 1770, quote p36 (my translation from german), Goethes Werke, Band 1, Hrsg. G. Stenzel, Verlag Buch und Zeit, 1958
(I believe one could safely replace poesie with art.)

"Nature is the phenomenal expression of the spirit behind the things"
and
"Art is a mediator between nature and spiritual realm."

-- Goethe

"Art is an astral event of which the cause has been forgotten."

-- Rudolf Steiner (related quote: "In the astral world the cause comes after the effect")

p.s.: while I searched the quotes I found this - unrelated:

"It is illusion when we believe that in health, youth, freedom, sufficient income, love (sexual enjoyment), pity, friendship and family life, honor, reputation, glory, power, religious edification, pursuit of science and of art, hope of a life hereafter, participation in the furtherance of culture, - we have sources of happiness and satisfaction."

-- Rudolf Steiner

*) sadly life is so short; we can only read the best books - literatic books.

**)

"Walsch's philosophy is existentialism (def: A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts). But he never uses this term."

-- On Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, and The New Revelations by Joseph George Caldwell. (Note, apart from this quote, sparing any explanations (because 'it is not even wrong***') IBS neither endorses (nor recommends to read the rest of) JGC's article — 'eventhough' :) quite interestingly Rudolf Steiner gets mentioned several times — the brilliant bits we found in the text are sparse compared to its length.)

***) Quote Niels Bohr from Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics by Gino Segre (highly recommended reading!)