Getting Old Aint for Sissies

            On Friday, September 23^rd, as Aesthetics class began, Professor Russell talked about the essays we would be starting to write in a few weeks. He urged us to deep dive into something in which we are interested.

            He reviewed the type theory by giving us the example of two red chairs. Their colour is their type, while each chair is a token or instance of red. They each instance the colour.

            I was relieved when the professor told us that we don’t lose marks for wrong iclicker answers. I’ve gotten every one of them wrong so far.

            He spoke about the source of art properties.

            Sibley says that the source of aesthetics is in taste.

            Walton categorizes essential art.

            Dicky says it’s art only if it is made to be art.

            Carny says it is art only if it reacts to past art.

            Aesthetic properties come from us interacting around an object until it becomes art. What is the obsession with us?

            Arthur Danto says that art properties come from art practices. The six identical red squares that he describes are distinct because we ascribe different properties to each one.

Six identical red squares were projected onto the screen. Each one was lettered and accompanied by a different story:

A.     A painting of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.

B.     A painting depicting Kierkegaard’s psyche

C.     “Red Square,” a Moscow landscape.

D.     A still-life called “Red Table Cloth”.

E.      An unfinished painting that is just a surface primed in red

F.      Just something made that it is not intended to be a work of art.

Then we had an iclicker question, asking if our perceptions of the paintings were changed by the stories behind them. Only 25% said “a lot”. Devlin said that that quarter of the class are the ones who get Arthur Danto. I wasn’t among them, but I think I get him.

Danto says that story creates aesthetic and knowing different stories for identical works of art should give a different aesthetic for each one.

Spartans were trained to be fearless warriors and the legend is that they were also unaffected by emotion.

Professor Roberts asks us to imagine another society, but this one has no art. He says, let’s call them the Nartans. Danto would say that if the Nartans were shown the six red squares they would react the same to each one.

A five-dollar bill has value, but only depending on our currency practice. Our currency practice is a story that ascribes the value of five dollars to a certain coloured piece of material. It is the same with the red squares. They take on the value ascribed to them by the practice.

I stayed after class, since there was no other class waiting to get in. A few of us were asking him questions about the lecture. I told him the story of when I was fifteen and going to Anglican Church Young Peoples meetings. Our group was asked to create a work of art for the next meeting and then to bring it in to discuss it. I was lazy and waited till the last hour or so before I had to show my work of art. I went into my father’s workshop and grabbed three pieces of different coloured wire, and then I twisted them together. When I got to the meeting I just made up something on the spot as to what my work of art meant and what the different colours symbolized. Everybody thought that my sculpture was the best. I asked our instructor if that was what his lecture about the identical red square works of art with the different stories meant. He said it wasn’t because the different stories all describe a process. I’m not sure if I agree with him. I mentioned how non-minimalist works of art like Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” don’t need a story. He argued that more complex works do have a story behind them but that we just don’t notice it. I countered that no one was going to take several copies of Dali’s painting and offer a different story. He said that they could though, and offered that he didn’t know if anyone has done it but that someone could take an unaltered replica of the Mona Lisa and present it as something else. I suggested that they could call it “Hitler”.

            An old man in the supermarket asked me to reach for the 3% yogourt on the upper shelf for him. He thanked me and declared that there are advantages to being tall, but also to being short. I was going to say that an advantage to being short was being able to have sex in the back of Volkswagens, but I didn’t. He said that it’s no good being old though. Then he added, “You’re getting up there!” I thanked him for reminding me. He assured me that I’ve got another fifty years to go. I told him, “That would make me a hundred and eleven!” He said, “Wouldn’t that be nice?”