Romantic Realism
Romantic Realism is a school of aesthetics that developed as a consequence of the works of Ayn Rand. Rand saw herself (paraphrasing) as "the last of the Romantics or the first of their return." The label Romantic Realism appears nowhere in Ayn Rand's The Romantic Manifesto (1969). However, many of the artists who create these modern expressions of heroic values found validation in Rand's works.
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
This blog has a portrait of George W. Bush in a modern style that echoes Roman realism:
"The classical Greeks basically focused more on individuals and the ideals an individual should portrait in the society. They focused on achievement of an individuals and what they can do for the community. Their main focus was human being as the superior of all the being and nature as well, and, focused on its characteristics to create many sculptures and other forms of arts (Frank, 227). But, today's idealistic art don't seem to be constrained only to this aspect of idealism as far as my understanding."
http://appreciationofarts.blogspot.co...
The understanding of Greek idealism is well-founded. This is from Percy Gardner, one of the British experts on Classical Greece from the turn of the previous century.
"But wherein Greek idealism most widely differs
from the idealism of modern artists is, that in
Greece the ideas were always collective, furnished
by a city or a school, whereas in modern times the
ideas are individual. The modern artist tries to
look at the world in a way of his own and to inter-
pret it according to his individual bent. He ac-
quires a personal style, so that any critic looking
at a work of his will recognize the author. The
Greeks sought for beauty and emotion, not in-
dividually but in groups ; so that a student of Greek
art on seeing a statue will be far readier to de-
termine its date and school than its actual author."
-- March 1917, THE ART WORLD, 419, IDEALISM IN GREEK ART By Professor Percy Gardner
https://archive.org/stream/jstor-2558...
For one thing, its very definition: "The picturing in art and literature of people and things as they really appear to be." is illogical.
Either things really are, or they appear to be. How can something really appear?
I know, people are gonna try to nitpick this one!
The essence of this discussion, though is found in Ayn Rand's definition of art: "Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments." Even Picasso's Guernica (and all of his works, really) meets that definition. Rand did endorse the "unreal" art of Salvador Dali.
True, all there is is "reality. What matters is how the artist renders it. Rand (or Branden) gave the example of a cityscape, but done as a foggy night, with nothing distinct. Alternately, consider a scrapheap, but painted in crystal clarity. The scrapheap is the more worthy, more pro-life, more affirmative.
Here is an essay that I wrote about The Thinker a work that was condemned in Ayn Rand's Objectivist* magazine by Mary Ann Sures (March 1969). http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Art...
You said earlier that appreciation of art is subjective. Objectivists use that word as a synonym of "arbitrary." Two people can have different objective values without either one being subjective.
As if the world has been walled away; while he concentrates on his thoughts. Focus, maybe. As Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am". And I am sure it should be "I am, therefore I think."
I took a class in Creative Writing quite a while ago---did manage to write a short story---the text was a paperback called "The Here and Now", with paintings included to show how art produces emotions in the viewer. Those emotions are subjective, of course; they are unique to the individual vewing, or reading, the particular artwork.
When I view a painting I am emotionally charged, maybe even emotionally changed. Books, too, to a certain extent, but writing also offers food for thought. Painting does too, but first and foremost they bring out emotions, maybe even hidden emotions.
I hope you weren't insulted with Oscar Wilde's Preface. I thought it a good discussion piece for what art is. Or a debate piece.
For Oscar Wilde, all art is quite useless, because it is something to be admired. Don't forget the context of the times in which he wrote.
But I thought his reference to Caliban was genius: There is dislike of realism because it shows us who we are; there is dislike of romanticism because it shows us who we aren't.
I think you are a romantic, wanting to show what man can be, but want to rationalize your art, by trying to show what man really is.
And maybe that is contradictory.
I will read your link, though. I think my discussion topic, when I get it done will be both interesting and informative.
It will encompass the "I" and the "Thou" as perceived by primitives, and early man's ability to "separate" himself from objects in time-space-material reality.
THE PREFACE
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
OSCAR WILDE
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/17...
I'm re-reading a little treasure of a book: "Before Philosophy" by H. Frankfort et al, and may start a discussion on it soon.
Plato, in his "forms" and "cave shadows" or whatever, was attempting that very separation. Is the object that exists in time-space-material reality related to the conceptual "image" man has in his mind? Is the perfect "form" first found in one's mind, or is it external to that mentation?
I will work more on this, how to present it, this week.
Beyond that, I give you Oscar Wilde on "Aesthetics".
To say that subjective means something is only "arbitrary" takes the variety out of human experience. I don't agree that objective can mean anything other than an objective reality. And strictly speaking, there is only one reality.
My definition of realism is from my worn "Webstert's New World Dictionary". I will only say, if one wants to call any art form realism then it better be real, and not appear to be real.
Aesthetic "realism" did not portray people as "really" volitional, creative, and heroic, but just the opposite. "Naturalism" did not deliver people "naturally" using reason to overcome obstacles.
That's a nice painting, though.
MIke IS a romantic, isn't he? And that's not a bad thing.