From: jainy maewood (polkadotsf@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Oct 21 2004 - 20:27:03 BST
Platt:
Thank you for the kind welcome. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. I'm
very much a student here, so I hope that you will take my comments with that
in mind - and point out to me where you think I am missing the point! You
seem to be an accomplished writer, and from your bio a painter as well. So
I am actually more interested in what you have to say on the subject, than I
am in my own response!
"I'm interested in your "writing and assessing the qualities of paintings."
I'm
curious about you mean by "artistic intentions" and how you determine such
intentions by viewing a painting."
- I was referring to what Pirsig calls technological quality - the form. I
think one would have to have some sort of familiarity with the language of
painting in order to understand what the artistic intentions might be, and
from Mark, I understand that you are a painter. Certainly, without that
background it would be more difficult. But for instance, if I look at a
landscape painting by Richard Diebenkorn, I can tell immediately that his
artistic intentions were not the same as say for instance, Albert Bierstadt,
in the sense that they are building a different type of painting - using a
different language. Or, a bit more closer to home, if we read your piece
entitled "Say Hello to Now", I sense that your artistic intention was not to
write a poem, but a piece of narrative prose. Both are writing, but the
forms they embody are artistically different - have different purposes. If I
were to compare your writing to something written by Rumi, it would be
relatively meaningless from the point of view of setting any standard for or
measurement of quality, in my opinion.
"I also wonder if you agree with Ken Wilber that, 'Great art dissolve ego
in nondual consciousness and is to that extent experienced as an epiphany,
a revelation, a release or liberation--great art as release from the
tyranny of the separate self sense'. "
-Well, I'm not sure what HE means by this. If he's saying that art provides
an opportunity for having an intense experience that completely bypasses the
thought process that is so characteristic of the "separate self sense", then
yes, I whole heartedly agree with this. I think this is one of the primary
functions of art. This is the nowness of art. It's the romantic quality,
isn't it?
Platt, I think there is a huge difference between talking about art,
assessing it so to speak, as in Mark's "Poetic Quality" exercise, and
viewing art or taking it in on it's own terms. One is a function of
engaging in the subject/object dialogue. The other is an immediate, direct
experience that is nigh impossible to translate into words (doesn't mean we
shouldn't try). For me, that's what is so brilliant about ZMM. It really
provides an intellectual structure in which to place these qualitatively
different experiences.
As a painter yourself, how do you view these questions that you have posed?
jain
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