I have attended college and graduate school and I read lots of books. I've
visited museums and been to europe, in particular, to Italy twice. And i
don't have a clue about what art truly is. I know what music I enjoy hearing
and what music I don't like and what I like includes folk, country, popular
songs from the days before rock and roll, and some classical music. My
appreciation of the visual arts was hampered by poor vision, but I did like
impressionist paintings, and paintings that tended toward being
representational. On some of the trips arrange for blind people in which I
participated, I was subjected to art and explanations of art by specialists
in various museums, and I always felt like the specialists were being
patronizing and I was being stupid. I've read a number of novels which dealt
with the experience of artists, particularly contemporary artists and the
ways in which they express themselves in various art forms. I haven't been
able to truly relate to most of what I've read. I'm aware that what artists
do is related to, and influenced by the societyies in which they live and
the culture that informs their sensibilities. And I know that some
governments have used art as propaganda. Also, many years ago, I had friends
who were professional classical musicians. Some of their friends made a
steady living as music teachers in public schools and they played in
orchestras at concerts when they were able to get this work. My friends did
not have steady teaching jobs. They might teach at a community college for a
semester or at a music school, but making a living involved a constant
scramble for work. It meant networking and staying alert to every
possibility for making a bit of money. True, after a concert, there was some
discussion about the skill or lack thereof, of other musicians, but I don't
think I ever heard a discussion of music per se. I assume that most of us on
this list are somewhere at the same level as I am in terms of understanding
true art or what makes an artist.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, January 01, 2016 11:34 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy]
[blind-democracy] 'Art is incompatible with lies, hypocrisy and conformity'
Good New Years Day Alice and All,
Probably I haven't much of a grasp on anything. Take my theories regarding
the Creation of God, or my grasp on the need to have a one people, one
people's government and a united respect for all life, World.
No grasp on any of those topics, and many other crazy notions I conjure up.
But then I also don't have much of a grasp on this blind democracy list,
either. I figured we might simply toss out ideas and explore our thinking,
rather than make character judgements. Most of what I put out on this list
is straight off the top of my mind. I don't often research my opinions, nor
do I expect you all to do likewise. So having babbled around for a while, I
want to return to this topic of artistic sensibilities.
Art is created within the brain of individuals. Some folks are far more
creative and talented than others. Still, even the most creative are
influenced by the world around them. In some cultures art is encouraged.
This was the case in the early days of this nation. But Madison Avenue, an
Oligarchy form of government, a Corporate Empire, pressure to seek financial
gain as a measure of success, and much more have warped what we consider to
be Art, or Creative Talent. Indeed, we are far closer to the Roman Empire
in our creative talents, than to the Glory Days of Greece.
So is this what was bothering you, Alice? If so, then I stand on my
statement.
By the way, anyone wanting to set me straight privately, or tell me to shut
up, can do so privately. I am at:
carjar82@xxxxxxxxx
Carl Jarvis, who is heading for a bacon and egg and toast with jam
breakfast. First one of the new year. Hopefully not the last.
On 12/31/15, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,rebellion.
I'm afraid you do not have a very good grasp on artistic
sensibilities, personalities, expressions, lives, etc.
No artist worth his/her salt will be stifled. alice On Dec 31, 2015,
at 11:12 AM, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It is hard for me to imagine what pure art would look like in a Land
that is so controlled that the Masters corrupt artistic expression,
or stifle it altogether.
Freedom of expression is not to be tolerated by the Empire.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/31/15, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2016/8001/800149.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 1 January 4, 2016
(Books of the Month column)
'Art is incompatible with lies, hypocrisy and conformity'
Art and Revolution by Leon Trotsky, a central leader of the 1917
October Revolution, is one of the Books of the Month for December.
From the vantage point of a leader in the early Soviet republic
along with V.I. Lenin, and then its defender against the political
counterrevolution after Lenin died led by Joseph Stalin and the
bureaucracy he spoke for, Trotsky examines the place of art and
artistic creation in building a new, socialist society. Expelled
from the Soviet Union in 1929, Trotsky got asylum in 1936 in Mexico
with the aid of Diego Rivera, the country's leading artist. The
excerpt is from "Art and Politics in Our Epoch," originally
published as a letter to the August
1938 Partisan Review, a political and cultural magazine published in
the U.S. Copyright C 1970 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
BY LEON TROTSKY
You have been kind enough to invite me to express my views on the
state of present-day arts and letters. I do this not without some
hesitation. Since my book Literature and Revolution (1923), I have
not once returned to the problem of artistic creation and only
occasionally have I been able to follow the latest developments in
this sphere. I am far from pretending to offer an exhaustive reply.
The task of this letter is to correctly pose the question.
Generally speaking, art is an expression of man's need for a
harmonious and complete life, that is to say, his need for those
major benefits of which a society of classes has deprived him. That
is why a protest against reality, either conscious or unconscious,
active or passive, optimistic or pessimistic, always forms part of a
really creative piece of work. Every new tendency in art has begun with
historical plane.
Bourgeois society showed its strength throughout long periods of
history in the fact that, combining repression and encouragement,
boycott and flattery, it was able to control and assimilate every
"rebel" movement in art and raise it to the level of official
"recognition." But each time this "recognition" betokened, when all
is said and done, the approach of trouble. It was then that from the
left wing of the academic school or below it - i.e., from the ranks
of a new generation of bohemian artists - a fresher revolt would
surge up to attain in its turn, after a decent interval, the steps
of the academy. Through these stages passed classicism, romanticism,
realism, naturalism, symbolism, impressionism, cubism, futurism. .
Nevertheless, the union of art and the bourgeoisie remained stable,
even if not happy, only so long as the bourgeoisie itself took the
initiative and was capable of maintaining a regime both politically
and morally "democratic." This was a question of not only giving
free rein to artists and playing up to them in every possible way,
but also of granting special privileges to the top layer of the
working class, and of mastering and subduing the bureaucracy of the
unions and workers' parties. All these phenomena exist in the same
orders, but by its very essence, cannot tolerate them.
The decline of bourgeois society means an intolerable exacerbation
of social contradictions, which are transformed inevitably into
personal contradictions, calling forth an ever more burning need for
a liberating art. Furthermore, a declining capitalism already finds
itself completely incapable of offering the minimum conditions for
the development of tendencies in art which correspond, however
little, to our epoch. It fears superstitiously every new word, for
it is no longer a matter of corrections and reforms for capitalism
but of life and death. The oppressed masses live their own life.
Bohemianism offers too limited a social base. Hence new tendencies
take on a more and more violent character, alternating between hope
and despair. .
The October Revolution gave a magnificent impetus to all types of
Soviet art. The bureaucratic reaction, on the contrary, has stifled
artistic creation with a totalitarian hand. Nothing surprising here!
Art is basically a function of the nerves and demands complete
sincerity. Even the art of the court of absolute monarchies was
based on idealization but not on falsification. The official art of
the Soviet Union - and there is no other over there - resembles
totalitarian justice, that is to say, it is based on lies and
deceit. The goal of justice, as of art, is to exalt the "leader," to
fabricate a heroic myth. Human history has never seen anything to
equal this in scope and impudence. .
The style of present-day official Soviet painting is called
"socialist realism." The name itself has evidently been invented by
some high functionary in the department of the arts. This "realism"
consists in the imitation of provincial daguerreotypes of the third
quarter of the last century; the "socialist" character apparently
consists in representing, in the manner of pretentious photography,
events which never took place. It is impossible to read Soviet verse
and prose without physical disgust, mixed with horror, or to look at
reproductions of paintings and sculpture in which functionaries
armed with pens, brushes, and scissors, under the supervision of
functionaries armed with Mausers, glorify the "great" and
"brilliant" leaders, actually devoid of the least spark of genius or
greatness. The art of the Stalinist period will remain as the
frankest expression of the profound decline of the proletarian
revolution. .
The real crisis of civilization is above all the crisis of
revolutionary leadership. Stalinism is the greatest element of
reaction in this crisis. Without a new flag and a new program it is
impossible to create a revolutionary mass base; consequently it is
impossible to rescue society from its dilemma. But a truly
revolutionary party is neither able nor willing to take upon itself
the task of "leading" and even less of commanding art, either before
or after the conquest of power. Such a pretension could only enter
the head of a bureaucracy - ignorant and impudent, intoxicated with
its totalitarian power - which has become the antithesis of the
proletarian revolution. Art, like science, not only does not seek
bureaucracy.Artistic creation has its laws - even when it consciously serves a
social movement. Truly intellectual creation is incompatible with
lies, hypocrisy and the spirit of conformity. Art can become a
strong ally of revolution only insofar as it remains faithful to
itself. Poets, painters, sculptors and musicians will themselves
find their own approach and methods, if the struggle for freedom of
oppressed classes and peoples scatters the clouds of skepticism and
of pessimism which cover the horizon of mankind. The first condition
of this regeneration is the overthrow of the domination of the Kremlin
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