Last edited by Ravenwing on Mon Jun 24, 2013 9:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Oh, I certainly don't agree! Just as there's room in the world for all different kinds of music, there is room for many different kinds of art. Raphael, if the elephant YouTube video is the one I'm thinking of, that elephant has been trained by its mahout/human companion to paint in order to delight tourists. While very clever and very interesting, it's not, IMO, art. My grandmother had a parakeet that could say the Rosary, but that doesn't mean it was praying.
Keats may very well have been puzzled if he had been confronted by some of the works in a modern art museum. But, let's face it, he was a pretty clever guy, quick to catch onto things and was "capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. . ."
Last edited by Ravenwing on Mon Jun 24, 2013 9:52 pm, edited 3 times in total.
I think I know what you mean Ravenwing. I volunteered at galleries where some "modern art" was so odd that captions were needed to explain it- people simply would have no idea what the art was supposed to be without it. Contrast this to paintings by the great artists of earlier centuries.
Also, I will argue that there was plenty of art produced in past centuries that was praised at the time of its creation, only to be criticized in later years as too sentimental, too perfect, or too something. There was, too, a lot of art that was panned when new (Think of the Impressionists.) that is now loved by the general public and celebrated by art historians.
The reaction many people have to the work of the American artist, Andy Warhol, is "Huh? You've got to be kidding!" Yet, I love most of his stuff and I'm not alone in admiring it.
The glass art of Dale Chihuly is widely and justifiably praised. Most of his works are a delight for the eyes, but there is one piece at a university in a nearby city that looks like nothing so much as a bunch of blue plastic grocery bags caught on a telephone pole. http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3622/3429176587_ae4b8b8a25.jpg I chuckle to myself whenever I drive past it and enjoy the work, but probably not in the way the artist intended.
http://www.inquisition21.com/pca_1978/img/cupidpsyche.jpg I wonder how the painting was received when it was new. Most of the artist's works are very serious with this being a notable and delightful -- at least to me -- departure.
Again, the world is a big place and there is room here for all kinds of art and music.
Last edited by Cybele on Mon Jun 17, 2013 8:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
Last edited by Ravenwing on Mon Jun 24, 2013 9:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I'm sorry don't want to start an argument here but I do not see whatsoever the necessity of having a religion or religious education to being a poet, totally irrelevant and deeply insulting to people like myself who choose not to believe in any form of religion.
This forum is not a platform for such prejudiced views.
Saturn wrote: I'm sorry don't want to start an argument here but I do not see whatsoever the necessity of having a religion or religious education to being a poet, totally irrelevant and deeply insulting to people like myself who choose not to believe in any form of religion.
I have to agree with Saturn about the necessity of a connection between a religion and being a poet. To be brief, Keats was (most likely) a Deist but not a Christian, and in a moment of emotional fervor claimed love was his religion and that he could die for it. I'd say he's the most perfect poet ever, but I'm obsessively partial.
What about modern day poets who write about every day things like riding on a bus? They probably have never even read any religious texts- poetry is just a literary form like the novel and it can be inspired by just about any subject.
I am baffled by your response Ravenwing- some topics are nothing to do with religion whatsoever!! Please just drop the subject, it is getting a bit weird.