From: ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman)
Subject: Re: What is art?  (was: What do you do when your child thinks Metallica is cool?)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 17:00:43 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.215619.9395@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> crow@coos.dartmouth.edu (Preston F. Crow) writes:
>caw@gtech.com (Christopher A. White) writes:
 
>>I've brought this up before, too, but what constitutes Good art/bad art?
>>I'm with Tolstoy on his universality theory, namely, that the more effort
>>or education that is required to appreciate a piece of art, the less
>>likely it is that it is art. 
 
>I would tend to disagree here.  I find that the more of a challenge a
>song is to understand, the more I enjoy it.  The songs that I listen to
>the most are the ones that I have trouble understanding.  Once I know
>what's being said or can fully anticipate the music, I am no longer as
>excited about the song.

I agree. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Tolstoy's universality
theory is no longer valid, or at least universally applicable :-).  
Tolstoy was writing for a fairly homogeneous society.  His words would
have only been read by the educated upper-class members of Russian society.
Since old Vladimir down on the potato(e) farm probably couldn't even read,  
he obviously wouldn't have been aware of or cared about Uncle Leo's
theories, or, for that matter, about art in general.  The "universe" in 
the universality theory was a very small and select one. 

Obviously that's no longer true in our culture.  Communications 
technology has made art accessible to every member of our society.
And that means that any attempts to pitch art to everyone must
necessarily be geared to the lowest common denominator.  Can you
say "Married with Children" and "Beverly Hills 90210"?  But here's
the catch.  The educated members of the society tend to thumb their
noses at such fodder, while the cultural Neanderthals are seemingly
incapable of understanding anything *but* the fodder.  Cultural
impasse.  Breakdown of universality theory.   

>I find that the element of mystery is very important to my enjoyment
>of music.  Taken simplisticly, it can be achieved for a limited time
>by making the literal words hard to understand.  At a higher level,
>the mystery can be extended by making the meaning of the words less
>than obvious.

Yep.  The best art functions on multiple levels.  And that's an aspect
that CCM has largely ignored.  It *is* getting better.  But to many
Christians, the ideal is still to present straight Scripture in a 
musical form, and any deviations from this approach are seen as
watering down or compromising the Word of God.  

The very things that are seen as assets in the rest of the artistic
realm - ambiguity, mystery, tension, poetic language, humor - are seen 
by many Christians as elements that obstruct the "plain" truth.  And 
that creates a different kind of impasse.  The end result of it is someone 
like a T-Bone Burnett or Sam Phillips or Bruce Cockburn, whose music is 
permeated by Biblical truth, but who are branded as apostates because 
their music is not easily understood or "plainly" presented or readily 
digestible in one sitting.  

>Of course, this can be taken too far and the message can be lost,
>leaving behind a "song" consisting entirely of randomness.  Still,
>the best art is not that which is easily understood, but that which
>maintains interest as the listener struggles to understand.  Art
>without thought is dead.  [In fact, most anything without thought
>is dead.  Taken to an extreme, lack of brain activity is death.  :-)]

Very little art is truly random.  There are exceptions, but I find
that most art that is branded as "random" is usually the victim of
a critic who doesn't have the cultural tools to understand it. 
No, I don't believe the best art is only appreciated by people with
doctorates in Art History or graduates of the Julliard School of
Music.  But I *do* get tired of people protesting that they don't
understand art, and my natural response is to want to tell them to
shut up then and work on understanding it a little bit more. 
It doesn't matter if it's music or literature or the visual arts -
it's worth spending the time to work at it and to understand it
better.  That's when you find the best stuff.  

>--PC
>--
>"And he [Christopher Robin] respects Owl, because you can't help respecting
>anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling
>isn't everything.  There are days when spelling Tuesday just doesn't matter." 
>-- _The House at Pooh Corner_ by A.A. Milne

Andy Whitman
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio
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