Poll: Art or Life? What's more beautiful?
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Yeah, I would have to say Art.
Art has its work cut out for it by its job being in essence to cover up and hide the ugly disgusting elements of life.
Life is anything but beautiful.
http://www.examiner.com/pet-news-in...gs-now-rehab-hospital-still-acting-like-a-dog
Now tell me life is beautiful.
The only real argument you can make is that without life there can be no art, and without art there can still be life. But were not discussing validity of existence, were discussing what is beauty. and stories much like the one I linked above are not rare and horrific occurrences. Quite frankly theres never been a shortage of examples of how ugly life can be.
Art has its work cut out for it by its job being in essence to cover up and hide the ugly disgusting elements of life.
Life is anything but beautiful.
http://www.examiner.com/pet-news-in...gs-now-rehab-hospital-still-acting-like-a-dog
Now tell me life is beautiful.
The only real argument you can make is that without life there can be no art, and without art there can still be life. But were not discussing validity of existence, were discussing what is beauty. and stories much like the one I linked above are not rare and horrific occurrences. Quite frankly theres never been a shortage of examples of how ugly life can be.
The entire thread is asking for opinions. There is no objective correct answer to the original question. The question is philosophical. Everyone will answer it in a different way. The act of contemplating the answer and then expressing one's answer (which is an opinion) is the point.Versuvius said:
People who answer life express something about their philosophy of life.
People who answer art express something about their philosophy of life.
People who answer both or neither express something about their philosophy of life.
I, by rejecting the binary, am expressing something about my philosophy of life.
That is what this thread does. It isn't about "winning."
I thought about it, and while it may seem a cop out as an artist myself to say art I'm going to have to say... art.
I say are because Art is different from Life in that Art is a visual representation of how we perceive Life.
Picture, for a second, three flowers.
First is the real flower, swaying in the breeze. You're there, you experience it, you feel it, and it's beautiful.
Next is a simple photograph of the flower. No modifications, just a still image of what you saw before. In this context, it's lifeless. You don't feel it, you don't see it swaying, you don't experience it. Sure, it looks nice, but that's about it.
Lastly, you have a painting of the flower. In the painting, the artist was able to use tricks and technique to do what the photo wasn't able to reproduce, it gave perceived movement to a still object. Now, you're back to being able to experience the flower again, the use of color and positioning conveying movement and life to what would otherwise be a stationary image of a flower.
Looking at this objectively, what you see in the photo is what you saw in the field. Everything that was beautiful about it was conceptualized in your mind, you made the flower beautiful by viewing it. The painting on the other hand has all of that built in by the artist, meaning it is beautiful in it's own right without needing input from the viewer.
Another way to look at this is exaggeration. Ever notice how even with the most advanced motion capture and visual rendering technology, humans rendered in games and movies in this fashion seem... lifeless? Or ever notice how the more real and 3 Dimensional a character is at any given time makes them a less interesting character to watch then say the one with the exaggerated personality? That's because Real Life and Reality are completely different.
Stick with me here, all will be explained. First, however, read this blog post on how Spongebob is a better, more believable character visually then NPCs in Fallout 3. [http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AlfredMacDonald/20110529/7696/Believability_in_quotRealismquot_Why_Spongebob_OutReals_Fallout_3.php] Done? Good.
The mind is a powerful thing, it can interpret and conceptualize things that aren't really there. However, when it comes to the literal representation on a screen it looses all life. This is easily rectified by exaggeration, which in art is the literal representation and is why the uncanny valley, the gap between real life and artistic representation of life, is so lifeless and disturbing to us. What is reality to us, what we perceive is reality, is a personal exaggeration of Real Life. One of which we don't get when Real Life is presented digitally.
As for characters, humans on a daily basis show every emotion in the book (all 6 of them and every color of the rainbow they make). Culturally, however, without context or experience to guide us we wouldn't be able to tell amusement from a chuckle or worried from put off. Emotions are in the same realm of personality, like emotions personalities are complex webs that interweave and it's up to our human minds to conceptualize and put into context an individual's personality. When given a digital representation of a human we no longer can do that, so every aspect of a character's personality practically acts on it's own and the character themselves becomes a mess. The solution? Simplify the character's personality in the work itself instead, which is what we as humans would do if the characters were real.
In short, Life itself is pretty dull without our minds breathing life and meaning subconsciously into it. In our own personal reality we make Life beautiful. Art does this for us, it's reality is self-contained and thus it is beautiful in itself.
I say are because Art is different from Life in that Art is a visual representation of how we perceive Life.
Picture, for a second, three flowers.
First is the real flower, swaying in the breeze. You're there, you experience it, you feel it, and it's beautiful.
Next is a simple photograph of the flower. No modifications, just a still image of what you saw before. In this context, it's lifeless. You don't feel it, you don't see it swaying, you don't experience it. Sure, it looks nice, but that's about it.
Lastly, you have a painting of the flower. In the painting, the artist was able to use tricks and technique to do what the photo wasn't able to reproduce, it gave perceived movement to a still object. Now, you're back to being able to experience the flower again, the use of color and positioning conveying movement and life to what would otherwise be a stationary image of a flower.
Looking at this objectively, what you see in the photo is what you saw in the field. Everything that was beautiful about it was conceptualized in your mind, you made the flower beautiful by viewing it. The painting on the other hand has all of that built in by the artist, meaning it is beautiful in it's own right without needing input from the viewer.
Another way to look at this is exaggeration. Ever notice how even with the most advanced motion capture and visual rendering technology, humans rendered in games and movies in this fashion seem... lifeless? Or ever notice how the more real and 3 Dimensional a character is at any given time makes them a less interesting character to watch then say the one with the exaggerated personality? That's because Real Life and Reality are completely different.
Stick with me here, all will be explained. First, however, read this blog post on how Spongebob is a better, more believable character visually then NPCs in Fallout 3. [http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AlfredMacDonald/20110529/7696/Believability_in_quotRealismquot_Why_Spongebob_OutReals_Fallout_3.php] Done? Good.
The mind is a powerful thing, it can interpret and conceptualize things that aren't really there. However, when it comes to the literal representation on a screen it looses all life. This is easily rectified by exaggeration, which in art is the literal representation and is why the uncanny valley, the gap between real life and artistic representation of life, is so lifeless and disturbing to us. What is reality to us, what we perceive is reality, is a personal exaggeration of Real Life. One of which we don't get when Real Life is presented digitally.
As for characters, humans on a daily basis show every emotion in the book (all 6 of them and every color of the rainbow they make). Culturally, however, without context or experience to guide us we wouldn't be able to tell amusement from a chuckle or worried from put off. Emotions are in the same realm of personality, like emotions personalities are complex webs that interweave and it's up to our human minds to conceptualize and put into context an individual's personality. When given a digital representation of a human we no longer can do that, so every aspect of a character's personality practically acts on it's own and the character themselves becomes a mess. The solution? Simplify the character's personality in the work itself instead, which is what we as humans would do if the characters were real.
In short, Life itself is pretty dull without our minds breathing life and meaning subconsciously into it. In our own personal reality we make Life beautiful. Art does this for us, it's reality is self-contained and thus it is beautiful in itself.
To put it. If I were in a burning museum. I'd see to it that life was preserved over art.
Paintings and statues can be remade. But once someone dies they're lost forever.
Paintings and statues can be remade. But once someone dies they're lost forever.
Now, as we all know art is a machine and men are part of life
I just needed to say that to put context over the next statement
Is not a man still a man if he is separated from his machines? Sure he may be weaker, but can he not still think and feel without it?
Now what is left of a machine without a man, is it really any more significant than a rock?
Life>art
I just needed to say that to put context over the next statement
Is not a man still a man if he is separated from his machines? Sure he may be weaker, but can he not still think and feel without it?
Now what is left of a machine without a man, is it really any more significant than a rock?
Life>art
Sorry in advance for attempting to haul this runaway thread back on track, but here goes...
Personally I find that Life is far more beautiful than Art could ever be. The OP's sister has some good points about how Art accentuates the wonderful little features of Life and highlights what may have been overlooked otherwise; However it is Life that originally created, shaped, and defined the subject, and it is Life that inspires Art in an attempt to capture some fragment of its wonder. In addition to this, Art is highly subjective and depends a fair degree on the ability of the artist to adequately produce their work, while Life goes on of its own accord with no regard to criticism or interpretation. Finally, despite how beautiful Art can be, paint chips, ink fades, stone erodes, but Life endures forever (or at least, until the heat death of the universe ;P)
You may now resume your various tangents and shenanigans.
Personally I find that Life is far more beautiful than Art could ever be. The OP's sister has some good points about how Art accentuates the wonderful little features of Life and highlights what may have been overlooked otherwise; However it is Life that originally created, shaped, and defined the subject, and it is Life that inspires Art in an attempt to capture some fragment of its wonder. In addition to this, Art is highly subjective and depends a fair degree on the ability of the artist to adequately produce their work, while Life goes on of its own accord with no regard to criticism or interpretation. Finally, despite how beautiful Art can be, paint chips, ink fades, stone erodes, but Life endures forever (or at least, until the heat death of the universe ;P)
You may now resume your various tangents and shenanigans.
Life beyond any shadow of a doubt, so much of it is beyond human comprehension- we cannot grasp the sheer scale at which tectonic plates shift, the time it takes for a species to evolve, how fast our planet revolves around the sun.
Whereas art lies within human comprehension as it takes a human mind to create it- it will never be as epic as the natural world.
Whereas art lies within human comprehension as it takes a human mind to create it- it will never be as epic as the natural world.
The bad doesnt make up the sum totality of life- accentuate the negative and your gonna have one miserable life.viranimus said:
Saying that just because bad stuff happens there can be no beauty is just plain silly.
No, something can still be beautiful even if its unobserved- sometimes its beauty comes from that itself- take Schrodingers cat for example, a more elegant brain teaser Ive not heard in a while but yet the point in demonstrates just blows my mind.AdamRBi said:
Ive never had art do that, and I know Im not alone.
Also, art is just a copy, and it will never fully capture the flower in your example, it will try but it will miss all the thousands of little subtleties that add up to make it what it is.
Well your right it doesnt make up the sum, but ugliness is a considerable part of life. From the neglect of a child by their parents, to animal cruelty to the exchange of bodily secretions in the act of mating, to the death invoked by the surviving, to the world being in a constant state of death and decay just as much as it is in a state of life and renewal, Every facet of this plane of existence is touched by an ugliness. Be it physically disgusting or an heinous truth, A living atrocity, to natural disaster.Togs said:
Life may well posses beauty, but at the absolute least, it is on equal measure with the disgusting and vile that permeates this existence.
Its not having a sad or miserable life. It is being conscious of the world in which we live and not falling prey to the delusional and looking at life through rose colored glasses. Truth is beauty, No?
That's my answer too, yep. There's no need to answer any differently, the two exist, both are good.Redingold said:
I took you seriously until I read this, this is gonna be rude but thats just laughably ridiculous.viranimus said:
Finding beauty in life is not rose tinted spectacles, focusing on the misery does make you deep or more intelligent it just makes you a bore.viranimus said:
You'd have a point if you hadnt already dismissed half of life by saying that "bad shit happens, everything sucks", yes theres bad but there's also good- theres a beautiful natural world, the sum of human achievement, the random kindnesses of total strangers, the miracel of birth, having a laugh with mates, reading a good book in front of the fire with a glass of wine and your pet cat sleeping on your feet.
I cant believe Im actually arguing this, your entitled to your emo worldview no matter how saddening it is. But I just want to add I used to share it, being gripped by adolescent existential angst but I grew up, learnt to give people the benefit of the doubt and not obsess over the all the petty little injustices.
On bodily fluids. Yeah Im sorry, laugh all you wish, that is disgusting given the level of things that can be transferred back and forth via that method of contact. That might well be an aesthetic opinion, but at least in my eyes and I know Im not the only one, its pretty disgusting, but your not there for the view, your there for the sensation/emotion.Togs said:
Anyway. If my worldview was Emo, it would be one that views everything as bleak and depressing with no redeeming qualities screaming how it isnt fair. Actually there is beauty in how fair the world can be at times. I love how well karma works. I also respect that there IS beauty in life, but again we could go on for infinity and for each example one provides the other can provide a counter example. If there is a disparity between the two, it would be a negligible difference for one camp or another. Given that the divide of beauty vs vile is roughly 50/50 does that really sound like life is the embodiment of beauty? When arts primary objective (though not always) is to convey beauty of a world that is not always beautiful.
As for my worldview. Given what youve stated Im sorry but I disagree with your analogy because based on what youve described as the view you held when you were younger has little or nothing in common with the views I hold. Just because I dont shit rainbows of delusion does not prevent me from seeing good where it exists. Seeing negativity does not mean I dwell on negatives. There is beauty in life, but for each beauty there stands something wicked or vile. To ignore such a fact is a delusion and a lie. Much as I said in the last post. 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
I have to agree, ask a kid in Africa with no food or clean water which is more beautiful and they'll probably tell you to fuck off and come back with food. Life is not something any one person can define as beautiful or ugly simply because everyone experiences it differently, obviously a billionaire will have a different outlook on life to a homeless man. As for art, well we can't even define art (are games art? Are they not? Two very different opinions held by different people) let alone generalise whether it as a whole is more "beautiful" than life? Just as life everyone will experience it in a different way.Womplord said:
