Can you tell masterpieces from junk?

[Don_Simus]

@Miller

You can’t actually think that test means anything, can you? They’re a nice bit of stupid fun, but you can’t draw any meaningful conclusions from any of them, and the Dickens quiz is the most egregious. Dickens is rightfully lauded as many things, but a prose stylist is generally not among them. He’s famous for his well-drawn characters, excellent plotting, and keen eye for the social intricacies of his day. None of which attributes can be particularly well displayed in a single paragraph quote.

This is what you say after taking the test. Since his style is on par with the worst in history of letters, Dickens must have been famous for something else.

Besides

Note, however, that the Bulwer-Lytton quotation, used as an epigraph for the wretched writing contest is just as long as those used in the quiz. At the very least results of the quiz show that the contest could well be named after Dickens.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09296174.2012.754602

@Miller

Dickens and Bulwer-Lytton were both extremely prolific writers. Dicken’s has over a dozen novels to his name, and Bulwer-Lytton twice that number. In that vast output, even the best writer is going to come out with some clunkers, and even the worst is going to get something right. Did the guy writing that test take the best of both authors for comparison? The worst? Or, most misleading of all, the worst of Dickens, and the best of Bulwer-Lytton?

After taking the test you should have seen a link to the article with scientific analysis of its results. It says that the test includes

representative literary passages, written either by Bulwer-Lytton or by Dickens.

@Miller

And, finally, the idea the Edward Bulwer-Lytton was the “worst writer ever” is ridiculous hyperbole, and not something anyone seriously believes. He was a popular writer at his time, whose works have not aged well. Basically, no different than a Clive Cussler or John Grisham.

Read this

Statistics against irritations: a response to Dickens’s apologists

[An_Gadai]

100% on Michaelangelo.

[rowrrbazzle]

83% Michelangelo/not
80% Poe/Riley

[Don_Simus]

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

But that doesn’t mean that whatever they bring onto a canvas is incapable of invoking a reaction. Who painted it intending what needn’t matter (see ‘death of the author’).

What is this? A revelation of a new religion? This is just something someone wrote.

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

What if Hamlet had actually been writtin by the proverbial million monkeys—would that lessen its quality?

If.

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

Or conversely, what if those ape paintings had, in fact, been produced by a human, whose intention was trying to be as rough, as primitive, as inhuman as possible—wouldn’t they then be brilliant successes?

In that case he should not get offended if we put him in a zoo.

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

I’m not arguing that such suggestion effects don’t exist, that there are no empty fads, no overblown hypes, etc. in art (see my first post in this thread); just that your inference from the existence of such things that hence, art must itself be empty or a sham, is simply false.

The inference is based not on the existence of the phenomena of suggestion, but on the results of the quizzes.

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

Think about what would happen if I were to start writing random equations and asked random people on the street whether they were meaningful or just symbolic gibberish. Do you believe that, on average, we’d get a good score differentiating meaningful physics from gibberish?

People do not sport mathematical equations on their walls, but do exhibit apestract art. Besides you may expect a significantly higher score among Ivy League people on such test. And this is not what we see in the case of apestract art.

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

Or play a few rounds arXiv vs. snarXiv. Can you tell real from fake physics paper titles? If not, does that mean that theoretical physics is bullshit? No, of course not; it simply means that such quizzes and surveys are a bad gauge for the content of a given field, especially those that are far removed from everyday experience.

If you read [the article analyzing the results of Dickens or Bulwer quiz](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0929617 4.2012.754602), you learn that the study had its inspiration in observation from science:

Are the very famous writers different from the obscure ones?

The question may seem shocking to some people, but recent scientific research makes it quite reasonable. The study of misprints in scientific citations had
lead to the conclusion that about 80% of citations are copied from the lists of references used in other papers. Thus, in a majority of cases, a citation is not a result of an independent evaluation of the qualities of the cited paper but merely an imitation of another citer’s behavior. This way a paper that already was cited is likely to be cited again, and after it is cited again it is even more likely to be cited in the future. Thus some papers can become much more cited than others even when identical in merit. Mathematical modeling of the process of citation copying demonstrated that major features of the citation distribution could be explained even under assumption that all papers are created equal. One can suspect that, similar to highly cited scientists, highly popular writers can become such as a result of the ordinary law of chances. One way to check that is to see if people can appreciate the prose of a famous writer when his name is detached from it.

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

And before you hold that in the case of physics, certainly the experts can reliably tell fake from real, read up on the Bogdanov affair.

Read this: Opium for Scholars

[Half_Man_Half_Wit]

@Don_Simus

What is this? A revelation of a new religion? This is just something someone wrote.

It’s a very well-known and basic concept in modern literary/art criticism.

The inference is based not on the existence of the phenomena of suggestion, but on the results of the quizzes.

The quizzes attack a straw-man conception of art nobody actually holds, which does not survive the slightest amount of scrutiny. They purport to show that there is no value to art, while only at best establishing that the value is not inherent; to you, the two seem to be the same, but nobody has seriously held the inherent value theory of art in a long time.

Again, why do you think a particular melody is beautiful? Is it an objective quality of the melody that makes it beautiful, or could somebody with a different cultural background or neural wiring perceive it as profoundly disharmonious? Is one set of tones just objectively better than another when played together?

People do not sport mathematical equations on their walls, but do exhibit apestract art. Besides you may expect a significantly higher score among Ivy League people on such test. And this is not what we see in the case of apestract art.

People have televisions, computers, and all other sorts of things that are a direct result of a scientific practice that is just as easily ‘attacked’ by such quizzes and similar maneuvers as the modern art world is. The functioning of all these devices, of course, is proof that the practice works despite these attacks, which thus miss their mark, as they do regarding art. The average arXiv vs. snarXiv score is 57%, barely better than chance. But of course, this does not show that theoretical physics is a sham: it shows that the quiz has nothing to say about whether it is or isn’t.

Perhaps as a stark example to bring out the faulty logic regarding these things, consider that, due to some genetic quirk, 50% of all people like a certain food, while the other 50% abhor it. The 50% liking it will extoll its virtues, praise it to others, maybe wax rhapsodically about its qualities, etc. An online poll in the manner of those you keep flaunting will, of course, show that whether or not the food is judged good is a matter of chance. Your inference then is that those that like the food are mistaken, duped, have fallen for a sham: after all, people can’t really tell whether it’s good or not—they merely guess! And look, you’ve cleverly exposed the rampant fakery. The story can easily be amended to cover cases providing a better analogy—such as there being two foods which taste alike to one group, and not to the another; nevertheless, the test might indicate that you can’t distinguish better than chance between them—but I trust the moral is clear.

Another story of how far the whole ‘distinguishing fake from true’ misses the mark is provided by Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. Provided with the original (or a replica, as it’s long lost), and an actual urinal, nobody could distinguish the two: they’re physically identical. And of course, that’s the point: a urinal isn’t art, not on its own. But imbued with the right context, i.e. signed, placed in a museum, rotated from its normal angle of display, thus making it unusable for its original purpose, it is, as it makes just the statement that art is not in the object (on one reading, at least). But asking people in a plumbing store to decide which of two urinals is art is simply absurd, and claiming that the people’s failure to correctly identify the ‘art’ one, regardless of whether they are plumbers or college professors, establishes that there’s thus nothing to art, shows either a deep confusion about the notion of art or a disingenuity in the argument.

But, as a final comment, there’s a lot of ways to approach modern art; even your categorical denial can be used to open up a fruitful way of engagement with it, turning your entirely negative sentiment into something constructive. For suppose there were no ‘true’ modern art; everything produced under that umbrella were, part and parcel, just the same crap. There’s no difference between Jackson Pollock and an ape, and your four year old could paint that, and a urinal is something you piss in no matter whether it’s in a museum or a public toilet. Then, you’d still have to explain: why is it that this particular creation became famous and well known, and not that other one?

You’ll probably want to answer that it’s random, that in the absence of any difference to distinguish between this and that, simply blind chance was at work, allowing this one to bubble up to the top, while that one sank. Somebody claimed this is good, and, due to their standing and reputation, the rest of the sheep blindly followed. And you could leave it at that.

But of course, that would be a rather dissatisfying answer. After all, there’s no real randomness on the level of society. Social processes are chaotic, but they are deterministic. At least on a statistical level, everything chosen by society is chosen for a reason, simply by virtue of the fact that it can’t be chosen without a reason. So, far from being random, the pattern of what bubbles to the top is actually a direct result of the state of society, and, in a sense, provides a mirror to it.

This is an effect that is made very effective use of in certain kinds of psychological therapy: free association is never free, rather, it provides a snapshot of subliminal influences the patient may not be aware of. Similarly, aleatoric forms of art, unless they rely on some truly random process, provide a snapshot of the mind of the artist: random words on a page, drawn by the poet from his mind without any conscious intent to produce something meaningful, nevertheless aren’t produced randomly; rather, there is a reason for every word that is chosen—otherwise, it could not have been chosen. Neural processes are deterministic, and thus, these apparently random words (or other creations) actually provide us with a pretty good snapshot of what goes on behind the scenes—one just needs to be able to interpret it.

Thus, you can look at modern art as something that tells us a lot about the state of society; far from being meaningless, then, it is is in this sense a distillate of what makes our society tick. A far more productive approach towards modern art, even if one, like you, believes in its worthlessness both inherently and in context, is then in using it as a tool for the analysis of society (of course, in the context of being such a tool, it would then be anything but worthless, but that’s a problem I’ll leave to you to sort out). So, your art pessimism needn’t be completely negative, but rather, can be turned into the kind of constructive criticism that is needed to make art come alive; it is only in the refusal of such engagement with it that it could be said to be ‘meaningless’ or ‘worthless’. Art comes alive with (constructively) critical engagement. So ultimately, it’s up to you.

[Don_Simus]

@Martian Bigfoot

I liked Malevich before I knew I was supposed to. A zillion years ago, me and some friends were decorating one of our first apartments, and we came across a Malevich poster at IKEA. We thought it looked absolutely awesome (plus it matched the furniture). None of us had heard of the dude, or had any idea that it was “art”, as opposed to some random poster. It went on the wall in the living room. I always loved that poster. A couple of years later, I started reading art history, and found out that he was famous.

I’ve had a few of moments like that. Just more proof that I have great taste, I guess.

If IKEA displayed one of the fakes from the quiz in place of Malevich, the result could well have been the same. Don’t the test results imply it?

[Don_Simus]

@The_Hamster_King

I find that my own critical moves usually start with a moment of naive reception. I like something, or I don’t like something, and then I start thinking about the mechanics of my liking or disliking and go on from there.

And blink thereby.

[Evil_Captor]

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

Don Simus, perhaps the following analogy helps: ask yourself why you like a piece of music, something simple, like a melody. It’s wholly abstract, in fact more so than most modern paintings: there’s nothing at all in the world which it represents or even resembles, it is just a time-structured sequence of frequencies, like many modern paintings are only spatially structured ‘sequences’ of colors, or forms. Nevertheless, none of the most rabid anti-modernists or anti-abstractionists would argue that thus, all music is nonsense. And this isn’t just because there are quite stringent rules that a piece of music must follow in order to sound good, because these rules are arbitrary: they are wholly a function of how our brains are wired up, and of our cultural prejudices, etc. (consider how music from outside your cultural circle, Chinese or Indian traditional folk music for instance, just sounds off to most western ears). Presented to somebody with different wiring, something that might be the most sublime symphony to you may sound like the worst of cacophonies. It is, in a word, the context that the listener brings to the melody that makes it sound good or bad.

Now, think of visual art in a similar way (in fact, there’s a strain of modern art, visual music, that has attempted to develop this analogy somewhat more). However, while the context we bring to music is more or less universal (modulo the aforementioned cultural differences), regarding visual art, judgments can be far more diverse. But even here, some universals can be abstracted: certain juxtapositions of color create tension, others a feeling of warmth, etc. So just as the musician employs their knowledge of our shared context to construct melodies of near universal appeal, the artist may endeavour to create visual arrangements that are pleasing, or unsettling, or create any sort of emotional response whatsoever in the recipient. And like the musician, in that, he may fail: thus, there is a difference, though perhaps one harder to perceive, between junk and masterpiece. A discordant note in a harmony stands out, and if there is no good reason for the tension it creates, the piece is in that respect just bad; likewise with visual arts.

You also, I think, fail to appreciate the role of criticism wrt art. You seem to believe that criticism is merely intended to pick out the good from the bad, but again, that’s a naive theory. Criticism is engagement with its subject, viewing it from different angles, placing it in different contexts. It’s not digging up the nugget within the artpiece that designates it as being good, but rather, it is an important aspect of the societal recipience of art, and thus, creates contexts for it. It’s a much more creative, rather than eliminative process.

Yes, Tom Wolfe wrote eloquently about the role of criticism wrt modern art in ThePainted Word.

(It’s about the money, Lebowski!)

[Don_Simus]

@Evil_Captor

Yes, Tom Wolfe wrote eloquently about the role of criticism wrt modern art in ThePainted Word.

(It’s about the money, Lebowski!)

We are supposed to buy it. But does that 2008 book contain anything new compare to this 2006 article

Properly Prescribed

[Flywheel]

@Don_Simus

We are supposed to buy it. But does that 2008 book contain anything new compare to this 2006 article

Properly Prescribed

The Painted Word was published in 1975.

[Don_Simus]

@Flywheel

The Painted Word was published in 1975.

OK. That was a new edition of the old book. It seems I can even recall the name of the author. Is he that “Thomas Wolfe, a bore” mentioned by Bukowski?

Since it was published in 1975 I guess you had enough time to read it. Does it contain any facts, or is just a rant?

[Balance]

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

So just as the musician employs their knowledge of our shared context to construct melodies of near universal appeal, the artist may endeavour to create visual arrangements that are pleasing, or unsettling, or create any sort of emotional response whatsoever in the recipient. And like the musician, in that, he may fail: thus, there is a difference, though perhaps one harder to perceive, between junk and masterpiece. A discordant note in a harmony stands out, and if there is no good reason for the tension it creates, the piece is in that respect just bad; likewise with visual arts.

I have suggested in the past that “good vs. bad” is not an especially useful way to judge art, or at best, is only one axis on which to judge it. I find “successful vs. failed” to be more useful, and of late, I have been entertaining an “aesthetic vs. unaesthetic” axis as well. Understanding that I have no particular claim to artistic expertise and am just noodling around, consider:

Craft Axis: Is the art well implemented? Was it skillfully written/painted/sculpted/performed?

Aesthetic Axis: Does the art evoke an emotional response from the audience? (Aside from evoking boredom or disinterest, that is, though I suppose art aiming at those emotions could be a valid undertaking in its own right. If it is, though, would anyone care?)

Success Axis: Does the response evoked from the audience match the response the artist was trying to evoke, assuming we have information as to that intent?

These three axes can be regarded as lying along three different relationships. Craft is between the artist and the art: how closely does the art resemble what the artist intended to create? Aesthetic is between the art and the audience: what impact does the art have on the audience? Success is between the artist and the audience: how successfully did the artist communicate to the audience through the art?

There are correlations, to be sure. A piece of art is hardly going to be successful if it is not aesthetic…but how aesthetic it is will inevitably vary between audiences; further, the piece may well be aesthetic, but invoke the “wrong” emotion, making it a failure with that particular audience. Good craftsmanship no doubt corresponds positively with success, but even a badly implemented piece of art can get the message across to the right audience.

[Flywheel]

@Don_Simus

OK. That was a new edition of the old book. It seems I can even recall the name of the author. Is he that “Thomas Wolfe, a bore” mentioned by Bukowski?

That’s Thomas Wolfe, not Tom Wolfe.

[Don_Simus]

@Flywheel

That’s Thomas Wolfe, not Tom Wolfe.

But Tom is a form of Thomas. So could have been either of them.

[Flywheel]

@Don_Simus

But Tom is a form of Thomas. So could have been either of them.

Unlikely, since he’s mentioned during a scene that takes place in 1940, when Tom Wolfe was 9 years old.

[Don_Simus]

@Flywheel

Unlikely, since he’s mentioned during a scene that takes place in 1940, when Tom Wolfe was 9 years old.

If it was in 1940, as you say, the other guy was dead for two years.

[Flywheel]

@Don_Simus

If it was in 1940, as you say, the other guy was dead for two years.

Yes, of course.

[Evil_Captor]

@Don_Simus

OK. That was a new edition of the old book. It seems I can even recall the name of the author. Is he that “Thomas Wolfe, a bore” mentioned by Bukowski?

Since it was published in 1975 I guess you had enough time to read it. Does it contain any facts, or is just a rant?

It’s full of meticulously researched reporting that establishes that modern art, most especially minimalism, was pretty much created by top art critics writing in prestigious journals … the kind of journals that museum curators and art collectors read … artists created paintings that dealt with “the plane of the canvas” AFTER the art critics described such issues. So their paintings would be praised by those curators and collectors, and become important pieces that would sell for big money.

Getting snide and dismissive about The Painted Word will not work … it’s got the facts.

[Don_Simus]

@Evil_Captor

It’s full of meticulously researched reporting that establishes that modern art, most especially minimalism, was pretty much created by top art critics writing in prestigious journals … the kind of journals that museum curators and art collectors read … artists created paintings that dealt with “the plane of the canvas” AFTER the art critics described such issues. So their paintings would be praised by those curators and collectors, and become important pieces that would sell for big money.

That the idea came from art critics rather than from artists does not prove that that art is worthless.

@Flywheel

Yes, of course.

What’s of course? That you got a wrong year?

[Flywheel]

@Don_Simus

What’s of course? That you got a wrong year?

I assume we’re both discussing this scene:

“You read The New Yorker” Harper’s? The Atlantic?"

“Yeah…”

“This is 1940. They’re still publishing 19th Century stuff, heavy, labored, pretentious. You either get a headache reading the stuff or you fall asleep.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s a trick, it’s a con, a little inside game.”

“Sounds like you’ve been rejected.”

“I knew I would be. Why waste the stamps? I need wine.”

“I’m going to break through,” said Becker. “You’ll see my books on the library shelves one day.”

“Let’s not talk about writing.”

“I’ve read your stuff,” said Becker. “You’re too bitter and you hate everything.”

“Let’s not talk about writing.”

“Now you take Thomas Wolfe…”

“God damn Thomas Wolfe! He sounds like an old woman on the telephone!”