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We mostly deal with social, political, and cultural analysis here at OneSTDV. We discuss prevailing trends with the discussion grounded primarily in reason and rational debate. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the author of this site finds himself bound by this same sort of rationalism in daily life. Everything has to have a reason, it has to follow predictably from some chain of events or from some logical foundation. Order and reason define the world. Sure, I've often left plenty of room for the nebulous complexities of man, but I still find myself trying to explain everything according to quantifiable metrics or logical arguments.
Perhaps surprisingly then, I find myself often moved by art, that aspect of human experience defying explanation, that piques our sensibilities just because. I know evolutionary psychologists and scholars probably have many explanations for it, but in the end, art just hits us. We like it because it's beautiful and it's beautiful because we like it. Admitting the axiomatic beauty of art often makes me uncomfortable. I understand art intuitively, I can experience art as everyone else does (personally, a good song is most potent), and I recognize many forms of art as valuable. But I sometimes have to shake off the nagging question, "why?" Not 'why' is it beautiful, but why would anyone think of that, why would someone do that there, why would someone write that sentence or draw that line or play that note just for the aesthetics of it all. It almost doesn't make sense to me that people would create art in the first place, even though I can enjoy it just as others do.
Well anyway, this video went around online a few years back and I occasionally watch it again just because it gives me chills (the extremely pretty girl doesn't hurt). I don't really "get" it intellectually, but it makes me feel good inside and hopefully it does so for you as well. Enjoy:
13 comments:
Amazing video - I'm still getting chills thinking about it.
Ayn Rand had it right on art:
Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments. Man’s profound need of art lies in the fact that his cognitive faculty is conceptual, i.e., that he acquires knowledge by means of abstractions, and needs the power to bring his widest metaphysical abstractions into his immediate, perceptual awareness. Art fulfills this need: by means of a selective re-creation, it concretizes man’s fundamental view of himself and of existence. It tells man, in effect, which aspects of his experience are to be regarded as essential, significant, important. In this sense, art teaches man how to use his consciousness. It conditions or stylizes man’s consciousness by conveying to him a certain way of looking at existence.
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What are the valid forms of art—and why these? . . . The proper forms of art present a selective re-creation of reality in terms needed by man’s cognitive faculty, which includes his entity-perceiving senses, and thus assist the integration of the various elements of a conceptual consciousness. Literature deals with concepts, the visual arts with sight and touch, music with hearing. Each art fulfills the function of bringing man’s concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allowing him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts. (The performing arts are a means of further concretization.) The different branches of art serve to unify man’s consciousness and offer him a coherent view of existence. Whether that view is true or false is not an esthetic matter. The crucially esthetic matter is psycho-epistemological: the integration of a conceptual consciousness.
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Art (including literature) is the barometer of a culture. It reflects the sum of a society’s deepest philosophical values: not its professed notions and slogans, but its actual view of man and of existence.
-Romantic Manefesto
I have a question. Is there any African produced art that is purely for asthetic reasons?
I know they carve beautiful masks and other fethish items for magic and ritual. The weaving and pots can be beautiful but are for utilitarian purposes has the continent of Africa produced art for the sake of art?
I am thinking this is a sign of an advanced culture and was just curious.
MuayTyson
It shouldn't surprise anyone that the author of this site finds himself bound by this same sort of rationalism in daily life.
Except on the issue of climate science, where the author of this blog takes his positions from talk radio and the likes of the George C. Marshall Institute (which originated the "scientific controversy" tactic on behalf of the tobacco industry and recycled it for climate) instead of looking at what actual evidence underlies the science.
What can you say about someone who pounds on the (politically-motivated) denial of the scientific evidence for HBD, then signs on with the politically-motivated denial of the scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change?
You can call them a hypocrite, that's what.
Amazing video! What a talent, what an execution.
In case if anyone is curious: The general theme of the piece is WWII experience. The radio voice at 1:35 is the one of the original Soviet announcement of the German attack in June 22, 1941.
The video shows how - to this day! - WWII means to people in Ukraine, Belorussia and Russia.
At 6:30, by the way, the music is Finnish group Apocapiltica playing Metallica's Nothing Else Matters.
At 8:10 she wrote "You are always nearby" in Russian, which, in the context, is better translated as "you are always with me".
The music is wonderful in this video as well, especially in conjunction with the sand art.
For One:
It is ironic that you chose a Ukrainian artist to demonstrate your point. I married a beautiful Ukrainian professor and it lasted 8 months!! That God for prenupts!! However, in visiting Ukraine and Kiev I discovered a whole street level art world of interesting people mostly in their twenties. They were absolutely wonderful as people and artists. I was under stress because they were mostly dirt-poor. I bought several paintings but wished I could help more of them. In 1995 I visited a Moscow artist who kindly introduced me to a first rate painter whose absolutely stunning wife-girlfriend was perhaps the most beautiful woman I ever met. Art in Eastern Europe seems inextricably wound up with female beauty, in my humble opinion.This art sold in the thousands so I passed even as I adored some of the works.
My current wife, who is Russian, plays piano and has great appreciation for classical music.Thus, art as paintings or music has enormous appeal and we travel to Washington, D.C. or NYC for exhibitions, especially of Russian art.
One, it is interesting that Social Realism, the Soviet party line, was so utterly destructive of genuine art. Can artists really achieve their best results if tethered to the political plow of Stalin?? Nyet!They mostly tried to avoid the demands of THe System, but those that did produce art were robotic propagandists.
My Ukrainian wife and I went to a Russian art exhibition at Rutgers University around 1999. It was a catastrophic experience as she broke down into hysterics.She cried for twenty minutes and I began to appreciate the terrible effects of Soviet lies. This art was a tool of the devil, so to speak.Her memories were too painful.
Art represents ideas, feelings, objects, and events. It is a wondrous way to enter another's world of imagination and meaning.Art can be poisonous, ugly, and even meaningless, but at its best it allows our emotional life to be greatly enriched. Alas,modern art has moved to an abstract level that leaves most observors confused and drained of any meaningful reaction.Even classical music would die if dependent upon today's very abstract composers.I treasure the glorious experiences of classical opera and symphony, as well as great art that I can find right in little St. Petersburg, FL. Even the great semiologist, Humberto Ecco, found Sarasota and St. Pete to have surprising masterpieces.Having the wealthy elderly means having a few art collectors whose property sometimes benefits all of us if the state makes it available. Florida is lucky that way.There is much neurosis and gloom in modern art or what passes for art. As standards are dismantled to accommodate our Leftist Utopia, we will find art ever more distasteful and ugly. I no longer attend plays because they revel in disfunction. Silly, shallow plays are degrading to the human spirit. We pray now to gods of diversity and enjoy depravity and horror because violence is now accepted as normative. A crass, vulgar society cannot enjoy great art from the past because religion profoundly influenced people like DaVinci and Michelangelo. The world's greatest museums still attract large crowds but I wonder how the human spirit can rise in a dark age of diversity and degradation. Most of us thrive on sex and violence and not scenes of pastoral sublimity. Art changes to reflect the evolving culture-a fact which should make us wonder about the future. Today's Cezanne's or VanGogh sems to be well hidden in the muck of modern culture. Is Leftist PC the new Social Realism?
I had never seen that video before. It was mesmerizing to watch, even though I wasn't following the story she was depicting at the time. In Eastern Europe and Russia, the most talented women seem to seem to also be incredibly beautiful and feminine, and she's no exception. I love those Slavic girls.
Eastern Europe also seems to be one of the few places left where artists are still driven to create create beautiful pieces that move the human spirit, rather than pieces that serve as ironic social commentary or as a shock to middle class respectability. On a personal level, I feel that I experience sufficient ugliness while out in the world that I don't need an extra dose from the art that I experience.
Interestingly, Kseniya Simonova had a father who was a military officer and a mother who was an artist, which would seem like a extreme cultural mismatch in the United States. She's also is a full-time mother during the day, while only focusing upon her art during the hours of 11 pm to 4 am. She's an active member of the Orthodox church, and an anti-abortion activist. You can read more about her here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kseniya_Simonova
In contrast, most of the self-proclaimed "artists" in my town are unemployed or working as barristas, influenced by Dadaism and surrealism, and produce ugliness for the sake of shocking sensibilities that are no longer even present to experience shock anymore.
Also in contrast is the following semi-finalist's in the "Britain's Got Talent" competition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaERXPcQYNU
produce ugliness for the sake of shocking sensibilities that are no longer even present to experience shock anymore.
Piss Christ anyone?
"Also in contrast is the following semi-finalist's in the "Britain's Got Talent" competition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaERXPcQYNU"
The cultural poverty is almost too much to take when contrasting the two - black influence is truly cancerous to Western man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PPe5Zxy4bI&NR=1&feature=fvwp
[i]"In contrast, most of the self-proclaimed "artists" in my town are unemployed or working as barristas, influenced by Dadaism and surrealism, and produce ugliness for the sake of shocking sensibilities that are no longer even present to experience shock anymore."[/i]
Very well said. Stupidity, ugliness and nonsense, we had enough of it already. I can see how a bored mind in the beginning of the century could be enthusiastic about it, but somebody must tell them it's time to stop!!!
Digusted thus flagrantly added to his carbon footprint:
"Except on the issue of climate science, where the author of this blog takes his positions from talk radio and the likes of the George C. Marshall Institute (which originated the 'scientific controversy' tactic on behalf of the tobacco industry and recycled it for climate) instead of looking at what actual evidence underlies the science."
Settle down, sweety. Your side won. The US is in the process of replacing all its reliable carbon energy with expensive, unreliable wind and solar. Your power bill and food bill will rise by about 10% per year until the day you die and mercifully cease raping Mother Earth with your every exhaled breath. Pray to Goddess that your smug self-righteousness more than compensates for your lowered standard of living.
Finally, a tip: invest in blackout curtains so that you never have to notice that the weather is pretty much the same as it ever was.
prawnster
My side won? When we're seeing a bubble in unprofitable natural gas drillers, and mercury emissions from coal-fired plants are making the fish in my state ever more toxic?
My side won, when several countries have taken the wrong lesson from Fukushima?
Certainly not. My side won half a battle during the Bush II administration, but has lost a lot of that ground at home again. The only bright spots are India and China, which helps me not at all.
The US is in the process of replacing all its reliable carbon energy with expensive, unreliable wind and solar.
No it isn't. They're a couple percent of the electric supply combined.
Nuclear is 19% of US electricity, despite a prohibitory burden of regulations, technology which was all but frozen in the 1960's (by regulators and managers), abundant fuel and a near-zero carbon footprint.
Nuclear power has been handcuffed under both Democrats and Republicans since the 1970's. The Democrats oppose it because the "back-to-nature" interests are part of their coalition, and the Republicans don't remove the shackles because they get a lot of campaign money and ideological support from nuclear's competition, Big Coal. The ideological support is why you're still reading hysterical articles about the horrible cleanup at the Dai'ichi plant (death toll to date: 0), and the people removing mud and debris and cargo ships from their cities are ignored.
That's the difference between taking a scientific view of issues versus hyping trivia while the major problems go ignored. OneSTDV, for all his good work publicizing HBD, is doing himself no favors by taking positions contrary to the data. On the contrary, he limits himself to preaching to the conservative choir.
Finally, a tip: invest in blackout curtains so that you never have to notice that the weather is pretty much the same as it ever was.
Ozone holes are just barely better than at their worst. Glacier National Park already down 5/6 of its namesakes. Record low ice cover in the arctic. Tens of thousands dead from killer heat waves in Europe a few years ago, and heat and floods beyond all records in the USA already this year.
Who's the one living behind blackout curtains again?
Thanks for the art video, amazing.
Go Slavic whites,thats the bright spot for the future of white survival. They haven't drunk the Koop-aid like other white countries.
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