The goal of a composition

Does it need a goal? You compose because you love it, to paste the time, to make money, to impres friends or whatever. Art reflects the artist and his feelings, music is a medium used to share those feelings and ideas probably because most of us arent that good of a story-writters, painters or what have you...

My main question here is, do you think music has to have emotion?

I'm actually kind of tired of this question. I'm more interested in whether or not emotion has to have music. And it does. Everything has to have music!

~

I'm actually kind of tired of this question. I'm more interested in whether or not emotion has to have music. And it does. Everything has to have music!

~

Well that statement raised an interesting scenario in my mind. I don't think emotion has to have music, for example: If an evil dictator took over the world and burned every piece of music, disposed of every musical instrument, got rid of technology, and removed the vocal chords of every living being, would we not be sad at this sudden loss of music. Wouldn't we be feeling an intense emotion in the absence of music?

Also, a more simple argument. People born deaf certainly have feelings and emotions don't they?

Well in my opinion, the goal of a composition is expression, whether it be emotions or abstract ideas being expressed. Or sometimes the composer might just want to realize a certain sound he/she likes.

As for language vs. music, I think that language is much more "applied", in the sense that it is used more as a tool for communication than a medium for self-expression. Languages can be diverse though, C++, python, Java, etc. can also be considered languages, but overall it seems like language in general has more rules and axioms than music (sentence structure, grammar, syntax, what have you) and is somewhat more limited than music. So I'd say that there are certain things music expresses that language can't, or at least can't express as effectively (eg. background music in horror movies project fear more effectively than a narrator describing the scene).

Music can have emotion but it doesn't have to. Atonal music like the stuff written by Charles Ives is chaotic and meaningless but yet fun to listen to. Music might not have emotion but it can cause emotion(and Commotion) Take Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring for example. Yes, it did have emotion, but it also caused emotion to the audience watching it be performed(it also caused commotion) So in conclusion, music can have emotion and cause emotion and it can have no emotion what so ever and still cause emotion and the other way around. The goal of composition is to build great music no matter what it causes.

Music can have emotion but it doesn't have to. Atonal music like the stuff written by Charles Ives is chaotic and meaningless but yet fun to listen to. Music might not have emotion but it can cause emotion(and Commotion) Take Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring for example. Yes, it did have emotion, but it also caused emotion to the audience watching it be performed(it also caused commotion) So in conclusion, music can have emotion and cause emotion and it can have no emotion what so ever and still cause emotion and the other way around. The goal of composition is to build great music no matter what it causes.

There is... so many things wrong with this sentence.

Quick point by point:

1) Ives didn't write 'atonal music'. Ever.

2) Ives had very specific, programmatic meanings with almost all of his pieces.

3) If his peices didn't have programmatic meanings, they had cultural implications.

4) Ives was known for being very, very passionate about his and others music. There was 'emotional' intent.

1) Ives didn't write 'atonal music'. Ever.

What?

1) Ives didn't write 'atonal music'. Ever.

What? (x2)

To my knowledge, Ives experimented in heavy polytonality and music that was so densely contrapuntal at times that it obscured a sense of center. So not 'tonal' in the traditional sense. But... I wouldn't call anything by Ives 'atonal.' Another problem obviously being that 'atonality' is very loosely defined and subjective.

On 4/2/2010 at 2:23 AM, guitarplaya1990 said:

Well that statement raised an interesting scenario in my mind. I don't think emotion has to have music, for example: If an evil dictator took over the world and burned every piece of music, disposed of every musical instrument, got rid of technology, and removed the vocal chords of every living being, would we not be sad at this sudden loss of music. Wouldn't we be feeling an intense emotion in the absence of music?

Also, a more simple argument. People born deaf certainly have feelings and emotions don't they?

 

I listened to Mahler's song "Wo die schonen Trompeten blasen" today and it was so beautiful that I cried as it made me reflect on some bad times that I have had recently. I was emotional but I don't believe that music or any other can be logically described as emotional. Music exists as the vibrations of air tickling our inner ear to begin the process of music occurring in our minds but sounds can't carry emotions. Humans are emotional but music is agnostic to all that. 

Of course, it still can make sense to say things like "I love the emotion in that sonata" but when this is said I believe the point that is usually being made is that the music brought out the emotions of the *listener* - but not the music - and in a good way, a way that makes music alive and valuable to us. But who would want to listen to a piece of music like Mahler's "Songs on the Death of Children" and while listening, feel the exact emotions that would occur if that person was contemplating deaths of their own children? I don't think those two experiences are even close to being the same hence I conclude that if one of them,  can be described as emotional, then the other cannot. All of this is not to say that music is flawed if it is not emotional, if it cannot be so...I would say that music allows us to get closer to our emotions, helping us to understand them, deal with them, appreciate them. After this has occurred, Music does not dance happily in the sun, it merely fades away until we summon it again.

 Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen

An old topic but one that persists. Music like speech - a medium of communication. It shares some of the properties of language (at least at the semiotics level). Whether or not music need have emotions is maybe a separate question - a lot of what passes for "music" these days may have associations but doesn't have emotion. 

However, if a composer has something emotional to say music is a better medium than words which are hopeless at expressing personal experience except at the grossest level. There is no experiential vocabulary hence no way to express comprehensively what one feels. Like, if I claim I have toothache there's no way someone else can appreciate the quality of my toothache. If they've never had toothache the statement is meaningless.

Music (alone) is just a little better since it contains the means to provoke emotional reactions - at the simplest level major or minor keys - but even in atonality the ability to manipulate the combination of pitches, timbres, tempi and dynamics to provoke pleasure or displeasure, sadness, warmth, chill, jubilant excitement and on; reliant on a mix of the human neurophysiology and culture to differentiate between concord, degrees of dissonance, resolution/movement - and react. It doesn't mean the reaction will be as the composer intended but it's likely to be closer than that to words at an audience-wide level.  (I suppose the best is when the two are combined with the visual in a multi-media thing. (Again a semiotics thing - advantage can be taken of each medium.)

Point is, the goal of any composition is surely that the composer has something to say; i.e. communicating, emotional or not.

It sometimes surprises me when here and elsewhere a composer declares that it doesn't matter about criticism/review as they wrote it for their pleasure alone. They're talking to themselves. No problem with that. Long gone the days when talking to oneself was "a sign of madness", but still therefore a question about why such composers feel it necessary to post the music for others to hear.

Yeah, I'm gonna stir the pot as I always do in these sort of questions but it's just being honest

The goal of a composition is the same of all art: To create something beautiful and great. Rivaling nature and worthy of a God.

A secondary goal would be to musically embody some sort of thematic concept or environment. For example, if my goal is to write a sweeping, romantic desert piece, but it fails to convince the listener of this idea, then it has failed in this regard.

It's only excusable to fail at the secondary goal provided your not writing to accompany a film or something, but never the first. 

Everyone who knows me knows that I not only don't accept, but am openly hostile to modernist conceptions of music, art and architecture which instead argue that the goal of these things is to "say something"; i.e., propagandize. Abstract conceptualism which uses political or philosophical "meaning" allegedly reflected by the piece as being more important than the piece itself and certainly more than the actual quality or aesthetics since those things are rejected as "oppressive" by modernists.

Which leads me to...

On 2/8/2021 at 4:06 AM, Quinn said:

It sometimes surprises me when here and elsewhere a composer declares that it doesn't matter about criticism/review as they wrote it for their pleasure alone. They're talking to themselves. No problem with that. Long gone the days when talking to oneself was "a sign of madness", but still therefore a question about why such composers feel it necessary to post the music for others to hear.

 Because they're lying. What they were hoping for is that you would gush over their work, but instead pointed out flaws with it.

Why do they lash out? Simple, and this is the most taboo subject in the world right now: They're totally brainwashed by the "equality" religion. They simply cannot accept that they are not as good as someone else in some regard.

Everywhere you go, at least in the West today, everyone believes in "equality" in all things and people and that everyone is a blank-slate individual all equally-capable.

People who have not been indoctrinated by this simply do not believe it. It is not an organic belief. Which is why no person who hasn't been indoctrinated by it genuinely believes that Kandinsky was good a painter as H.J. Draper.

When someone gets mad at you pointing out that their melody is incoherent, doesn't work with their chord choices, and the lines are too stale because of lack of vibrato or whatever, the reason they are made is because you have claimed that their piece is inferior to others. That they are not "equal".

and you know what? People who are superior, and know that they are, tend to be the most humble and helpful.

Musicians and composers who were and are better than I, were only ever helpful to me but every guy making avant-garde noise music that sounded dated in '95 is SURE that I'm a d*ck who doesn't know what he's talking about when I say that music that sounds musical is indeed better than music that doesn't.

I have never had a beautiful woman, or attractive people in general be rude to me — but every wicked witch of the west happened to also look like one...and insist they should be "models" too.

I think you get the idea. It's the people who don't believe in equality that allow themselves to become the best can be at any given thing, because if you believe everything is equal by default, then you do not believe there is room for improvement...and improve they never shall.

On 2/24/2010 at 12:42 AM, Tokkemon said:

The point of music (and indeed all art) is to communicate something, usually an emotional or spiritual idea, to an audience. If I want an audience to feel warm and fuzzy, I'll create music that sounds warm and fuzzy and sentimental. If I want an audience to feel uncomfortable and churn in their seats, I'll play Rite of Spring. If I want an audience to experience love, I'll just play Mahler 3, Mov. 6 since I don't think anyone can top that.

 

Now we come to the tricky part...you say the point of music is to communicate something...sounds good to me...but evaluating whether a given combination of tones is actually music is not always so easy to do. One of my favorite, I suppose you would say "composers" on SoundCloud creates these mysterious, sometimes lush pieces of sound that do not, upon first hearing, seem to have anything in common wit h a Beethoven Symphony, a Bach fugue, Row row row your booty, Achy-Breaky Heart, that part of Mahler's "Wo dein schonen trumpeten blasen" where one of the most beautiful moments in all of music, in my opinion, is achieved with a simple V-I movement in the harmony in the orchestral or the piano accompaniment version of that work, in combination with a lovely, heart-breaking soprano line. The one thing they do all have in common is their noble and wonderful sounds, excepting perhaps 1 to 4(?) of those pieces I mentioned above, and if they have that, then I am satisfied. Hmmmm...I feel that the things I have stated so far have not yet congealed into a meaning. On that accord and to perhaps clear up one minor point, I do not mean to say that Achy-Breaky heart cannot be noble and wonderful, its all in the ear of the beholder, isn't it? I like the approach you take to your compositions but as for my own feeble attempts, I don't think I have ever tried to make any music that comes out of me - actually that which comes out of that part of the universe where all possible sound combinations exist and waiting for a Muse to send them out into the musical mind-soul of person who shall then forever after be credited with the effect that they have upon listeners when that effect is actually created by the sounds AND  the perceptory faculties of individuals experiencing them, no great revelation here but I think sometimes that point is lost - that comes out of me to be either this or that or the other or the other other. If I like that which comes out then I am satisfied. Regarding heart-breakedness in music, I question whether that is actually possible or at least that it is all that common. Who would want to listen to something that is going to break their heart? I suggest that anything in music referred to as being emotion is not really emotion at all. The human soul goes much deeper than mere emotion and it is that which is tapped into by those sounds that we refer to as music. Of course, not to put too fine a point on it, I would at times go ahead and say the third movement of Mahler's 6 is wonderfully emotive and emotional and not bother to explain my true thoughts on that matter, no one wants their language to always be so perfectly precise, a little bit of lee-way can go a-long way. Regarding the Rite of Spring...seriously, Kemosabe? 🙂 ...that one makes me want to dance across the living room with utter and pure joy so perhaps our view of that piece differs somewhat or at least on its intended effects. Re: Mahler's Third, movement 6: I think you are right on point there.

I would be interested to learn the various processes you go through when getting your music to achieve the exact effect that you intend. I would find that fascinating in comparison to my usual approach, possibly best illustrated by a fugue I am writing...decide upon subject, state it, re-state in different voice and hey, what combinations of tone in the first voice now work, etc, etc, and the piece is developed measure by measure, for the most part. It is only a bit later in the process that I begin to think in terms of the overall structure. Maybe not the best approach - and perhaps next time there will be more look-ahead than currently - but it sure is as fun as heck to see just what is going to come out of all that next. If I am lucky then a Muse will send something my way that is at least halfway decent as a sound, a combination of tones, music, whatever you want to call it.

On 2/8/2021 at 7:06 AM, Quinn said:

Point is, the goal of any composition is surely that the composer has something to say; i.e. communicating, emotional or not.

It sometimes surprises me when here and elsewhere a composer declares that it doesn't matter about criticism/review as they wrote it for their pleasure alone.

 

On the first point I am not so qualified to speak as I have not constructed, discovered and/or composed many groupings of tones into combinations that might be called music but I will say that I cannot ever remember myself specifically deciding on something that I want to say or communicate in a piece of music. Perhaps the reason for that is that anything I have done has not really been thought of or planned in advance, the process is more like discover what I can about the current state of the combinations and then decide what to do next. Taking this in comparison to wanting to "say" something in words and it would be me saying "i want to communicate with on some level but i have no specific thoughts in mind, you are going to have to wait until i come up with something" a process that is ridiculous as far as using words is concerned but which can work for music. So I am living proof that a composer, if composer I actually be, can compose without any thought of their labor's eventual effect. I do not claim the appellation of composer so no answer to these issue likely resides in me.

BTW, I admire your ability to discuss tone sound combinations in detailed and descriptive words and I enjoy reading and thinking about these topics but sometimes it becomes too much, my brain cant latch onto music as language, language as music, etc

About composer's reactions to their work, a composer who gets upset at words that are not so appreciative might take that as a direct cut at their musical or self worth or they may not consider that an affront at all but maybe only that in such a situation they had failed at communicating

On 2/24/2010 at 12:20 AM, guitarplaya1990 said:

I am wonder what your opinions are when it comes to the purpose of compositions. Not as a whole, but individually. For example, When I listen to my preferred genre of progressive metal, I am most captivated by the instrumental proficiency and technicality of the compositions. But many people dislike a lot of my favorite parts because they "don't have any meaning or emotion". I understand the perspective because I have other favorites based on the lyrical meanings, and musical emotions put into the piece, regardless of how technical it is. But to me meaning and emotion is not a pre-requisite of a good composition.

My main question here is, do you think music has to have emotion?

It seems like a must for most main stream music, but after finding this site, and listening to some of the classical pieces, a lot of them seem purely experimental and emotionless, but still attractive. More recently i have been composing on the emotion side, but I used to be all about technicality and experimentation, using odd time signatures and such.. My girlfriend and I disagreed on one point: Sometimes i start a composition with nothing but the curiosity of using a certain time signature combination or technical scale patterns. She says that using those are fine, but only if thats how the music comes out, you shouldn't try to constrain the music to those limitations.

To me, thats when composing becomes fun and challenging. i set a challenge for myself by using unnatural time signatures or patterns, and try to write something that works well with them. It doesn't need to be emotional, it can still be a journey for the ears.

I once wrote a short metal bit completely based off of the fibbonaci sequence, and i enjoyed it as much as any other piece.

What do you think?

 

Are you asking about real emotions of the sort you would feel apart from any musical matters?

Sing a song in such a way that you feel the same emotions that you would feel if a dear friend had died. Thankfully I do not have that ability. Why would anyone want to do that anyway, to feel the sadness not as a result of a specific death but only as a reaction to a song about it? I think it would be very difficult for anyone to do that and yet sing we do and often and sometimes about the death of friends. So I conclude that at such times of singing we are not tapping into emotions but instead into our ability to realize their existence, to give us insight into our very existence as living beings.

Perhaps this is putting to fine a point on things, its just that I like to know what I am dealing with.

5 hours ago, Mabry said:

I would be interested to learn the various processes you go through when getting your music to achieve the exact effect that you intend.

The problem is this is never going to be exact. Believe, the composer might, that they've arrived at a combination of timbres linearly and vertically that 'express' something that to them is exact, they cannot guarantee that the listener will interpret the performance in the way intended or anywhere near it. The composed can write 'happy' or 'sad' or 'abrasive' but within that framework the interpretive latitude is huge. Further up the thread people were extolling the emotional heart-rending of Mahler. My dentist (who plays "classical" music in his surgery) and I, have a joke about always play Mahler to hide the cries of pain! Now, Bruckner's a different matter. 

2 hours ago, Mabry said:

On the first point I am not so qualified to speak as I have not constructed, discovered and/or composed many groupings of tones into combinations that might be called music but I will say that I cannot ever remember myself specifically deciding on something that I want to say or communicate in a piece of music. Perhaps the reason for that is that anything I have done has not really been thought of or planned in advance, the process is more like discover what I can about the current state of the combinations and then decide what to do next.

A valid point. But it could be that music doesn't pass through the intellectual processes of reasoning and rationalising but bypasses then as it wells up from the imagination. Taking for example emotion or the impression of a scene or mood, the quality of these is so often impossible to describe in words because it's personal and esoteric, the property of the individual. But that doesn't deny they invoke all manner of reactions in the 'experiencer'. Thus it's possible that these emerge in sounds, daubs of paint, kinetic/dance and so on, with no intellectual pre-planning other than to ponder on how to translate them into the medium one's working in.

A bout of anger may not be expressible in words other than 'I'm damned angry about....' but crash out a few furious fff chords on the piano leaves few in doubt of the person's mood.  Nothing intellectual about it. It bypasses all reason!

So I suppose what I'm trying to say - and probably failing - is that you may not be aware of having anything to say when the inspiration for a work strikes but of habit you have your style such as it may be evolving, and just get down to the music. Intuition? Noumenon?

But yes, this point might be fallacious; and certainly there'll be times when intellect is called upon. "I'll write a fugue" is a plan but what of your selection of thematic material? Does whether you like what you've done involve the intellect?  Would a wish to move away from (musical) conventions be intellectual?

To me an interesting subject but I'm waffling on....! Don't want to become the forum's insomnia treatement!

On 2/16/2021 at 5:33 AM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Because they're lying. What they were hoping for is that you would gush over their work, but instead pointed out flaws with it.

In response to my assertion about composers who claim to write just for their satisfaction; that critique and audience reaction don't matter.

What you say is unfortunately true in cases that come with that particular claim from a composer.

It is possible for such an attitude where the composer really doesn't care. Coming to mind is the British composer Havergal Brian who wrote heaven knows how many symphonies and other works presumably because he derived pleasure from the process. He made no effort to have anything performed and it was some well-meaning musicologist who created his cause after his death. There are others. 

Otherwise some most valid points in your post. 

7 hours ago, Quinn said:

 

To me an interesting subject but I'm waffling on....! Don't want to become the forum's insomnia treatement!

Dont worry about it, you waffle well, very well indeed and there are lots of ideas in your response, I will revisit them soon, now I am sleepy but not in any way because of you. Good night if this reaches you at night.

17 hours ago, Quinn said:

(((quite a bit and interesting to boot))) <<<---I said that, not Quinn

 

I agree with you on all this but one thing further that fascinates me is how it is possible to extract from the muses, AKA compose, a piece of music that you are absolutely familiar with due to all the time you have spent with it and then, further on up the road, go back and listen to it and experience and notice things, either meeting with your approval or not, that you never noticed before, that you had no clue of their existence. So sometimes it is possible for a composer to express, to him/herself something that h/she had no knowledge about. I suppose such a thing is possible in prose and almost certainly true in poetry, good that it is true of music and poetry because things can be revealed there that otherwise would be hidden; doesnt quite work well for prose, I would be a bit embarrassed, if, perhaps I made a point that unwittingly suggested that the music of Bruckner is so stodgy when compared to that of Brahms when I had no such intention of suggesting such a thing. I confess that I once thought of Bruckner in those terms, I think I was unduly influenced in that regard by a comment I once read that Bruckner wrote the same symphony 8 times - allowing if I remember correctly the abbreviated 9th a noble recognition - and so I haven't listened to him much over the years, a failing that I have begun to rectify on hearing a stellar performance of his 8th that I stumbled upon while looking for cat videos. Here, regarding Bruckner and all that, take a look (are these allowed here on YC? I suppose so, they take up such a small amount of storage, you could probably fit a million of them into the avg piece of music posted on YC):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3U0udLH974

Regarding the esotericness of an individual person, I would say that it is that very esoteric quality which determines so much of how one experiences. One thing that I often think about is how the way one experiences a piece of music is determined by what we bring to it, our experiences in life and music (as if there is a distinction to be made between them) and I don't just mean partially determine or somewhat determine but practically fully determine. I'm kind of annoyed at myself for making this point because perhaps it is blatantly obvious. Or heck, maybe not. Damn it all, combining music with prose, such difficulties encountered there, excuse me while I go and listen the F major from Book II for a break.

Oh, point of order: I tend to yammer on, not so much waffle. Waffle...sounds like something someone with a Hugh Grant inflected accent might say. Are from Great Britain? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufqC1LCpHV4

Did I fool anyone with that cat vid? Had to share, its the cutest/funniest one I have ever seen and believe me, I have seen quite a few.

On 2/16/2021 at 12:33 AM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Yeah, I'm gonna stir the pot as I always do in these sort of questions but it's just being honest

 

 

 

,

 

Oh, we have a pot stirrer here, do we?

Is that even allowed on YC

Or did you just decide to "go with it"

In any case, kudos whatever the heck those are to you for asserting yourself!

You can work my kitchen utensils whenever you like.

Now I shall go away and chew on the above and see if I can drum up a response that might even be called coherent.

On 2/16/2021 at 12:33 AM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

The goal of a composition is the same of all art: To create something beautiful and great. Rivaling nature and worthy of a God.

 

I wonder how often artists explicitly adopt a goal such as this? If I one day acquire the abilities to produce actual music and art, I do not believe I would approach following works hoping out loud to myself that they will be deemed brilliant, beautiful, great, but internally would - in a silent way to myself and only to myself - hope that they do exactly that. And why would I not do that? I would much rather hear someone say about any such works that "that is great and so very beautiful thou most talented individual" instead of "oh, what were you thinking when you concocted that, thou most musically malodorous peon of pretended-musicality?!?!?"

(((not sure if  I addressed any pots and/or stirring issues here but i do what i can. see you in the stacks!)))    

15 hours ago, Advanced Blowhard said:

I wonder how often artists explicitly adopt a goal such as this?

In times not so long ago, it was 100% of the time.

The purpose of the arts has always been to beautify and create an uplifting environment which reflects the unique aesthetics and sensibilities of the people who inhabit it. Post WW2, that's been eradicated. Local traditions, customs etc. are bad for the profits of International Corporations so now you'll find the same garbage in clothing, music, architecture, art, and so on from Mexico to Berlin to Tokyo. 

The fact that, at one time, you found unique things in these places meant that it was too hard for McDonald's or Nike to gain a stronghold in every country if you're making your own food or shoes. So now everyone wears the same shoes and eats the same crap fast food because unlike your Oma's home cooking or shoes from the local shoemaker, these can be mass-produced. We also have to remove all sorts of self sufficiency. Can't drink raw milk because you might die! Totally! Here, hand over all dairy production to private companies and the government for "public health!"

Can't have you being self-sufficient or preferring your own local culture — that would be "racist, fascist, etc." and we'll brow beat you until you agree that Amazon and Google are the future of the world!

They started doing the same to arts about 100 years ago. Picasso could churn out garbage "painting" one after the other and sell them to anyone, anywhere. If you wanted to actually be able to paint, that took skill, years of study, and an aptitude for it that not everyone possess. Can't mass produce that.

Nothing illustrates this concept better than "Daybreak" by Parrish

This became the single most popular art print of the entire 20th Century? What was the second? Andy Warhol's stupid soup cans about 40 years later.

This design, if one can call it that, probably took an hour at most to come up with. See all those details on the rocks, the light on the pillars, in Daybreak? Good luck doing that in an hour. The same people that seethed when Donald Trump said he wanted to make it so that all new government buildings need to be built in the classical style, are the same types who've seethed for 100 years now that Daybreak beat out the soup cans!

"Well, sure it LOOKS good! But we can't stuff as many worker drones in here! It's not practical!" they said, along with the usual stream of name calling.

There is no mentally-healthy person on this planet who'd rather hang Andy's soup can paintings on their wall than Daybreak because daybreak is objectively a better work. It's way more inspiring and beautiful to look at.

You can judge the health of a society by its beauty standards. Not so long ago, Christie Brinkley and Eva Habermann were what we could have called models, today every obese chick with a unibrow and bad teeth has an Instagram and calls herself a "model" and "influencer" and men have become so desperate for any amount of female attention, they'll pay them. We used to live in beautiful Fachwerkhäuser adorned with flowers, but now have hideous, soviet apartment blocs or literal shipping containers. "Pods" like in China are next on their list.

 Not a Fing chance.

Strangely, we're at the highest suicide rates since WW2 and there is no war. The Chinese weren't building suicide netting around their buildings when their buildings were traditional instead of Mao and they were making great calligraphy, terracota soldiers, Forbidden cities, wore elaborate garments and jade, and didn't have to dye their grass in order for it to be green.

Apparently tho, today were supposed to believe we're more "enlightened" than in the past and art is "better" when it has some bullsh!t political message, regardless of the fact that it's the most ugly, depressing thing you've ever seen in your life.

In a world full of Andy Warhols, choose to be a Maxfield Parrish.

3 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

In times not so long ago, it was 100% of the time.

The purpose of the arts has always been to beautify and create an uplifting environment which reflects the unique aesthetics and sensibilities of the people who inhabit it. Post WW2, that's been eradicated. Local traditions, customs etc. are bad for the profits of International Corporations so now you'll find the same garbage in clothing, music, architecture, art, and so on from Mexico to Berlin to Tokyo. 

The fact that, at one time, you found unique things in these places meant that it was too hard for McDonald's or Nike to gain a stronghold in every country if you're making your own food or shoes. So now everyone wears the same shoes and eats the same crap fast food because unlike your Oma's home cooking or shoes from the local shoemaker, these can be mass-produced. We also have to remove all sorts of self sufficiency. Can't drink raw milk because you might die! Totally! Here, hand over all dairy production to private companies and the government for "public health!"

Can't have you being self-sufficient or preferring your own local culture — that would be "racist, fascist, etc." and we'll brow beat you until you agree that Amazon and Google are the future of the world!

They started doing the same to arts about 100 years ago. Picasso could churn out garbage "painting" one after the other and sell them to anyone, anywhere. If you wanted to actually be able to paint, that took skill, years of study, and an aptitude for it that not everyone possess. Can't mass produce that.

Nothing illustrates this concept better than "Daybreak" by Parrish

This became the single most popular art print of the entire 20th Century? What was the second? Andy Warhol's stupid soup cans about 40 years later.

This design, if one can call it that, probably took an hour at most to come up with. See all those details on the rocks, the light on the pillars, in Daybreak? Good luck doing that in an hour. The same people that seethed when Donald Trump said he wanted to make it so that all new government buildings need to be built in the classical style, are the same types who've seethed for 100 years now that Daybreak beat out the soup cans!

"Well, sure it LOOKS good! But we can't stuff as many worker drones in here! It's not practical!" they said, along with the usual stream of name calling.

There is no mentally-healthy person on this planet who'd rather hang Andy's soup can paintings on their wall than Daybreak because daybreak is objectively a better work. It's way more inspiring and beautiful to look at.

You can judge the health of a society by its beauty standards. Not so long ago, Christie Brinkley and Eva Habermann were what we could have called models, today every obese chick with a unibrow and bad teeth has an Instagram and calls herself a "model" and "influencer" and men have become so desperate for any amount of female attention, they'll pay them. We used to live in beautiful Fachwerkhäuser adorned with flowers, but now have hideous, soviet apartment blocs or literal shipping containers. "Pods" like in China are next on their list.

 Not a Fing chance.

Strangely, we're at the highest suicide rates since WW2 and there is no war. The Chinese weren't building suicide netting around their buildings when their buildings were traditional instead of Mao and they were making great calligraphy, terracota soldiers, Forbidden cities, wore elaborate garments and jade, and didn't have to dye their grass in order for it to be green.

Apparently tho, today were supposed to believe we're more "enlightened" than in the past and art is "better" when it has some bullsh!t political message, regardless of the fact that it's the most ugly, depressing thing you've ever seen in your life.

In a world full of Andy Warhols, choose to be a Maxfield Parrish.

 

 l

Those Parrish paintings look huge, no way they are going to fit inside my apartment. And Warhol's soup can pictures awaken in me long lost nostalgia for those long winter days spent playing in the snow of the upper quad located behind the house (read mansion) and followed by cans and cans of tomato soup  - mater soup, we called it - lovingly prepared by Aunty Emily - yes, we did call her that! - before moving on to the nappy-poo portion of yet one more day of our pathetic existence. ((wow, was THAT a trip down memory lane)). So by my standards, Warhol's cans are way superior to any other damn thing, including the Parrish-es. Now of course I understand that my standards will not, should not and cannot be taken as golden. So whose can? No ones. The only standards that .can be used by any individual to determine the relative greatness of a work of art are ONLY those that exist within themselves and this is true whether they know that or not else we would need to conclude that it is actually possible for one person to impose their own ideas, conclusions, standards on another and make them take root and be fully internalized and believed. I am sure that some of the propagandists that you mention do try to impose in this manner but they shall not win me over to their cause. They have standards but they are not like mine at all. And if all of this true then you cannot show me a Court of All Things Great wherein such matters are decided. If I perceive something as being great, then it IS great, end of story, just by virtue of the fact that it achieved greatness with me. What happens outside of me, even though it be honest and heartfelt, is meaningless to me.  ((ok, now the part where I look back to previous comments to see if my so called points addressed previous concerns but I will abort that process this time around)). I have made my one point and will just stick to that.

Point of order: the idea that some post pieces only looking for praise is quite valid. I have only been back here at the YC for a short time after a period of hiatus and have yet to determine whether or not such things occur with reference to our posted words: is it possible that some posters post only in hopes of having their pure and utter brilliance exposed/recognized?  

6 minutes ago, Advanced Blowhard said:

is it possible that some posters post only in hopes of having their pure and utter brilliance exposed/recognized?  

 

and is there a way here on YC for posts to be archived for an indefinite or eternal period of time? hey, dont read anything into this query, I am just asking!!!