Hi All Interested in Art Theory and the MOQ:
I previously offered Pirsig’s theory of art by citing the passage in
Lila where you see or hear something so good that it stops you in
your tracks.
Here’s another offering for your consideration—a theory of art
proposed by an artist:
“An immortal instinct, deep within the human spirit, is a sense of the
beautiful. This is what administers our delight in life. But there is still
something in the distance which we know of, but are unable fully to
attain.
“This thirst belong to our immortality, a consequence and indication
of our perennial existence. It is no mere appreciation of the beauty
before us, but a wild effort to reach the beauty above, to attain a
portion of that loveliness whose very elements appertain to eternity
alone.
“When we find ourselves near the point of tears in apprehending
beauty, we weep not through an excess of pleasure, but through a
certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now,
wholly, here on earth, at once and forever, those divine and
rapturous joys of which, in rare moments, we attain a brief and
indeterminate glimpse.
“The artist struggles to create such supernal beauty, to make one
see or hear with shivering delight a sight or sound which cannot
have been unfamiliar to angels.”
Read that short quotation from Edgar Allan Poe to any group of
students from grade school through graduate school and art will be
completely and instantly understood at a level which no long-winded,
complicated, academic treatise can ever hope to attain.
Beauty, truth, goodness and freedom stand at the apex of a Quality
universe. Art strives towards all four. But, beauty for the artist is
foremost. By aspiring to beauty, the others follow naturally.
Platt
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