From: lmollett@lunatix.uucp (Laura Mollett)
Subject: Re: My last reply.
Organization: Lexington Public Access Unix. -KY- (606) 255-9121
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 05:34:13 GMT

In article <1992Dec28.213912.28781@netcom.com> dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>mlabossi@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Michael C LaBossiere):
>>The great works of humanity will have value as long as humanity exists. True 
>>art is timeless. For example, the Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Meso-American
>>works, the great wall of China and other forms of art will be inspiring and 
>>impressing people for ages to come for they touch on something in all of us.
>
>Art may be long, but it's hardly timeless.  The works of antiquity, in
>particular, tend to draw most of their importance *from* their antiquity.
>15,000-year-old cave paintings are significant precisely because they
>tell us that humans were painting 15,000 years ago.  When such paintings
>are produced today, they typically go on fridge doors.  Modern technology
>allows us to easily (if not cheaply) produce a pyramid twice the size
>of the largest Egyptian pyramid.  How inspiring would you find that?
>
I probably shouldn't get into this, as I very seldom post in this group (I'm
a horrible lurker :), but I disagree with this strongly.  Admittedly, different
people are inspired by very different things, but, IMO, great art is, as the
gentle stated, something that touches something deep in [lots of] us.  I don't
appreciate works _just_ because they are old.  When I think of cave paintings,
I remember the wonderful deer from the cave in France (can't recall the name
at the moment) in red browns and the shaman (mebbe) in the deer antler 
headdress.  I appreciate these works because they capture something of the
power and feeling in nature that other paintings don't - often.  Perhaps you
might not be touched by the same thing, but please don't assume the work is
uninteresting for art's sake.  And many people do such works today that are
certainly _not_ intended for fridge doors...the true primatives, and the
"educated" primatives (there is another term, but I can't remember it at the
moment).  Gaugin built a whole career on similar works...and I enjoy many of
his Polynesian Island pieces.  I, personally, do not find Egyptian pyramids
quite as inspiring, but I'm sure others do, and for much more than how big
they are.  While time changes much about humans, there is some "basics" to
human nature, and (again IMO) awe of nature and awareness of the power of
nature is one of these basic concepts.  Those cave paintings remind me of the
strange and wonderful feelings I get when I spend time out-of-doors (not often
enough these days) and it is too rarely captured even in "nature" paintings
now-a-days.  Of course, I'm _also_ interested in what humans painted such a
long time ago, and why, but there is more to it than that.  I should also
probably add that since I am a artist, I may look at such things with a 
different itenerary than those who are not trying to "touch" that something
in people, but I certainly hope others see it as well.
			Laura Mollett
>-----
>Dani Zweig
>dani@netcom.com
>
>   God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine  -- Edmund Spenser
>
>


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