Diana McPartlin (diana@asiantravel.com)
Fri, 5 Sep 1997 11:31:15 +0100
Platt Holden wrote:
>
> Jarod and Miss Parker said:
> >
> > Perhaps a MOQ definition of art would be something like this:
> > "Art is any enterprise through which an agent attempts to
> > provoke a Quality perception-event." Art, in other words, would
> > be the set of human activities that seeks to provoke direct
> > experience of Quality.
> >
> An accurate and elegant definition. Thanks for sharing it!
Sounds good to me too.
In the EMM paper Pirsig says:
"The arts explore the Conceptually Unknown in other ways [than the
sciences] to create patterns such as music, literature, painting, that
reveal the Dynamic Quality that produced them."
He's kind of chasing his own tail in this sentence but if you strip it
down to its barest elements I think what he's saying is:
"The arts reveal Dynamic Quality"
That seems consistent with Kelly's definition so I guess we're all happy
(if only physics was this easy eh;-)).
What Pirsig DOESN'T say in the EMM nor in Lila is which static pattern
the arts fall into. The arts may be *about* Dynamic Quality but they are
not in themselves Dynamic Quality. The instant you put oil on the canvas
or strike a chord it is static.
If we're to fit them into one of the four levels, I think the most
likely candidate is Social Quality. I've never met an artist who could
say why he created something (at least not sensibly), so it's not
Intellectual. Animals aren't artistic so it's not Biological. And that
leaves Social.
Art is a form of communication and it has social funcions -
storytelling, dance, fashion. So it's possible...
But I don't feel that it fits very comfortably into this category.
Why? Well, seeing as you've asked. The direct relationship between art
and Dynamic Quality means that it doesn't behave like other levels.
If you look at the history of art there's a neat parallel between art
and the evolution of quality. In earliest human history the dominant
value was Biological. People drew pictures of animals, fire - things
with Biological value.
Later when Social value became dominant, people chose religious themes
for their paintings - religion is social.
Today art has become abstract, rules are being broken, boundaries
redefined. All very Intellectual.
This fits in well with our definition that art reveals Dynamic Quality.
What passes for Dynamic Quality has shifted from one level up to the
next and art has followed suit (creating in its wake a history of static
quality).
My problem is that if art describes static quality how can it also be
part of the hierarchy of static quality?
Also, humans today seem to attach as much importance to art as humans
have throughout recorded history. If it were to be part of a level or
even a level on its own, it ought to become dominant at one point. But
that hasn't happened. It has just always been there and looks like it
always will.
So there you are. Problems with no solutions. Apologies for generalizing
everything. When I talk about art I talk about visual arts because I
know more about that than anything else. I'd be most interested to hear
from those with knowledge of music, poetry, drama, dance etc.
Diana
-- post message - mailto:skwok@spark.net.hk unsubscribe/queries - mailto:lilasquad@geocities.com homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:41:55 CEST