Category: Art and Aesthetics
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Advice for Hollywood Liberals
Robert M. Thornton, ed., Cogitations from Albert Jay Nock (Irvington-on-Hudson: The Nockian Society, 1970), p. 59: If realism means the representation of life as it is actually lived, I do not see why lives which are actually lived on a higher emotional plane are not so eligible for representation as those lived on a lower…
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Of Kitsch and Kinkade
Here is a post of mine on kitsch and Kinkade. Does his mall art (mal-art?) deserve scholarly attention? "Aren't the aesthetics of garbage just another form of garbage?"
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Decadent Art
This by e-mail from a doctoral student in Canada: I am writing to you because I have a couple of questions . . . about your recent (May 12) blog post, and I was curious to hear a bit more about your views. [. . .] My questions concern your assertion that "I also agree that…
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Kitsch and Cliché
To the left is an example of kitsch from that master of kitsch, Thomas Kinkade. Is there no visual cliché that he will not avail himself of? Note the wisps of smoke emanating from the chimneys. Just as we are annoyed by those who thoughtlessly retail platitudes, we are also annoyed by the analogous thoughtlessness of…
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What’s Wrong with Kitsch and Sentimentality?
April Stevens' and Nino Tempo's version of Deep Purple became a number one hit in 1963. I liked it when it first came out, and I've enjoyed it ever since. A while back I happened to hear it via Sirius satellite radio and was drawn into it like never before. But its lyrics, penned by Mitchell…
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Marcel Duchamp and the Superiority of the Useless
Marcel Duchamp abandoned art for chess because of the latter's superior uselessness. Art objects, after all, have exchange value as commodities, and may make the artist some money. But with few exceptions chess lies entirely beyond the sphere of the utile. In this sense, the art of the 64 squares is the highest art. There…
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Salvation Through Art? Comments on Some Aphorisms of Wallace Stevens
Herewith, comments on some aphorisms of Wallace Stevens from Adagia, aphorisms that sum up much of the aesthetic attitude I am concerned to oppose. (To be precise: I am out to oppose it in its imperialistic ambitions; I have nothing against art properly chastened and subordinated to the ultimate dominatrix, Philosophia.) I have bolded Wallace's…