How Art Became Ugly | Stephen Hicks at Eseade | 2019

In this lecture, Dr. Hicks surveys modern art and the ideas behind its dismissal of beauty as a guiding principle in the last 100 years.
Timestamps:
01:10 Why did the art world become unusual
01:37 One reason is philosophical
02:02 Artists are philosophical
03:27 The art world has always changed rapidly
05:23 Art is personal and universal, particular and general
09:03 Are there limits to the subject matter of art?
09:59 Art & religion
12:58 Art & human nature
14:43 Art & Politics
16:54 1917-Duchamp, mass production, Russian Revolution
23:32 The 1960s-more of the same
28:43 Why is art stuck?
31:23 Major themes in literature: bleakness, darkness, loss, grief, betrayal and disappointment
40:08 Nietzsche, Darwin, Marx and Freud
49:04 The 20th Century: WWI, Depression, Nazism, nuclear age
51:33 How does an artist capture this modern world?
1:04:30 Contemporary reactions
1:15:00 Q & A
Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University, USA, and has had visiting positions at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., University of Kasimir the Great in Poland, Oxford University’s Harris Manchester College in England, and Jagiellonian University in Poland.
Other links:
Explaining Postmodernism audiobook: • Explaining Postmoderni...
Nietzsche and the Nazis audiobook: • Nietzsche and the Nazi...
Playlists:
Education Theory: • Education Theory
Entrepreneurship and Values: • Entrepreneurship and V...
Nietzsche: • Nietzsche

[@robertlynn7624]

I used to know some guys who worked for one of the top London art auction houses who would explain, when drunk, how they would often spend years talking up a market and grooming rich suckers into interest in particular artists and then purchases of low value stuff they had gathering dust in their warehouses for decades - pretending that it was a rare opportunity rather than a long con. Art died or was forced into residual gaps due to technology, ie photography and more recently other mass-production replication technologies etc with which humans couldn't compete. And as a result of loss of objective value/accuracy art became at the top end at least (away from more accessible levels of art bought for homes etc), entirely subjective and so mostly driven by manufacturing of demand and opinion - sales, exclusivity, fashion, narrative around artists, rarity etc... A fundamental aspect of human psychology is powerful demand for peer approval and status - which makes those lacking confidence in their social standing easy to manipulate, so inevitably a deeply exploitative, corrupt and borderline criminal fine art industry has evolved to exploit the foolish naked emperors and their urge to be part of the game.

[@Eyesayah]

Much to think about there. Thank you.

[@zupremo9141]

Art's death has nothing to do with tech, because Photos can't translate human reality into a picture. Real Art is very rare and not everybody who can draw, sculpt, paint etc are going to be able to make one in their entire life. I personally only saw one painting that made me smell and hear the sound of a river, I don't even remember the painting now but i can still clearly remember the experience.

[@frankdeville515]

Yet so many painters work from a photo.@@zupremo9141

[@stevenhanson6057]

“So, what do YOU like?” “Let me see what’s trending.”

[@stevenhanson6057]

@@zupremo9141 that was the sound you hear when flushing the toilet. And of course you’ll always revel in that experience.

[@donaldclifford5763]

For Hicks aesthetics is emblematic of the big picture in Post Modernist philosophy. More to the point, modern aesthetics mirrors this degenerative attempt to overturn Aristotelian philosophy, and by extension, the whole Age of Reason Enlightenment. As Hicks goes to great lengths to illustrate, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the progenitor of the progressive decline into this prevalent Post Modernism we experience today

[@richardzellers]

Another great lecture

[@kavorka8855]

I checked his references and quotes, they're all 100% accurate. Dr. Hicks is an unbiased scholar, and that's really rare nowadays. Most social and environmental scientists are biased, mostly leftists. They mix politics into their researches.

[@craxd1]

The Decadence Movement was what started it, which led to the others, with each new type being worse than those before, such as cubism, etc. Look for Félicien Rops painting, Pornokratès, 1878. I remember cubism from the sixties and seventies, when fiberglass chairs were a thing in lobbies, with square mosaics on the walls, and cube paintings, etc., hanging about. Plus, we can't forget how this affected architecture, which leads us to Nazi and Brutalist Architecture. The west even adopted Soviet architecture in places, especially in apartment blocks. If one wished to view the worst of this art, then travel to Venice, and visit the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

[@dantedante839]

Ugly architecture comes from the dark side of capitalism, stop talking shit.

[@robertjones447]

I would counter that Italian and Spanish Renaissance and baroque art, steeped in the Catholic faith as they are, are not shameful, do not have their faces planted in the dirt. Take Michelangelo's David, which gets an B+ when compared with Bernini's David, which wipes the floor with nearly most of Greek sculpture which preceded it. The Mexican Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the most beautiful depictions of the Virgin Mother ever made. As for Stieglitz, yes, that quote is surely from him. Yet, that is hardly representative of his work as a whole. As a photographer, his work was highly stylized, and his was as at home in the Art Deco movement as much as Charles Sheeler or Man Ray.

[@dalejames486]

Great lecture. Very interesting.

[@anyakirby2014]

WHAT AN EPIC LECTURE ! Thank you ever so much. Yes. Peterson, Pinker, Jonathan Haidt are definitely the light shining finally in the end of this postmodernist philosophical tunnel. I’d add to this list other enlightening figures like young Colman Hughes, John McWhorter, Glen Lowry, Nigel Bigger, and many other are coming up.

[@TheWhitehiker]

A good list indeed.

[@3Zeddy2]

But they're not offering anything new. They still rely on the mysticism that got us in this mess.

[@pascal8306]

Look up James Orr, philosophy of religion professor at Cambridge, he’s associated with Peterson a few times, and he’s very smart. Also don’t forget Iain Mcgilchrist, one of the rare few who genuinely deserves the title of genius.

[@ryam4632]

This is truly an excellent presentation. Thank you!

[@galaxytrio]

Brilliant lecture.

[@alhazed]

The last act of post modernism was to cast out art itself.

[@idicula1979]

When there is no deeper meaning in art it becomes trash. No religion no politics or history art in no way connects to our humanity, so why should we find a connection to art, both art and man lose their respective nature, What is art without the meaningful distraction they provide, to another way of being to a future more of our choosing and away from the mental slings and arrows to our sensibilities? Oh, art and the artist behind then pray you never lose your way, so in your disunion of man to his better instinct, we don’t fall close behind.

[@byron2334]

Deeper meaning? Like pride in your family and community expressed in art? Sorry, no. That's racist. You can't have pride in your heritage or a deeper meaning. You're meant to be a rootless, wage slave.

[@thereignofthezero225]

Feelings

[@Nonplused]

This was a great lecture, I normally don't sit all the way through something almost 2 hours long. Does anyone know where one could find an image of "The Model's Reaction"? That's a great painting.

[@chamwow168]

You mention that art has been stagnant over the last 100 years, but what about the massive animation and comic industry that didn't exist until the 20th century?

[@julienero960]

The comic craze has roots in European, but especially 19th c. Japanese print culture. These colorful prints were all the rage in the 1860s among European artists. 'Comics' are not new- just have become more widespread due to developments in mass publishing and printing techniques.

[@chamwow168]

@@julienero960 thanks for the input, isn't it also fair to say that these developments in the industry have led to improvements in art and story quality? Just because the medium has stayed the same doesn't mean its evolution should be downplayed

[@offshoretomorrow3346]

Music, arguably the greatest form of art has also been hugely vibrant in that century. Film too. I think Stephen is focussing on the elite 'Fine Arts' rather than popular culture.

[@mikemb123]

There was plenty of ugly art in the past too, like the gruesome religeous art of Medievel times or the Aztec art with all the demonic human sacrifice themes.

[@offshoretomorrow3346]

Medieval European art generally feels dark, mean and miserable.

[@rn9940]

​@@offshoretomorrow3346 Huh? Are we talking about the same art? The art in the Middle Ages believed in the existence of objective beauty which as they believed was rooted in God. No comparison to the ugly modern art.

[@offshoretomorrow3346]

@@rn9940 I suspect you mean the art of the Rennaissance - which started in Italy in the 1400s when, yes, Britain was still medieval. That is when the Greek/Roman concepts of beauty were rediscovered and art was reborn.

[@billnye8143]

The Aztecs did not look at it that way

[@benmlee]

Slight but significant correction. “Graven image” is an idol made for worship. It does not mean you can’t make a doll for your daughter or have a carved wooden bear on the porch. As long as you are not worshiping your carved bear, you are ok. But if you are worshiping you wooden bear, you got bigger problems.

[@christinejones9620]

@benmlee when Fine Arts Education pedagogy in the Public School System shifted during 1980s curriculum reform - Self reference (Generative Themes) & Self Expression became learning objectives over & above craft/techniques & comprehension. A sort of Immanentism (if that’s an appropriate term) philosophically in Education. ‘Creativity’ the catch all term reorienting Arts Ed to recreational purpose, on its way to thereby being claimed as political purpose; Social Justice - which is what curriculum policy is currently dictating. I would say that’s a very strong example of Idolatry and our Education System is ALL IN on it, stipulating it as The Purpose of Art(s) engagement.

[@plekkchand]

Uh-huh. And God should have said it's ok if you want to make teddy-bears, right? That's not only not significant, but a ridiculously off-point distinction if you understand the context of the biblical quotation. Everyone understands what graven images meant.

[@swedishguyonyoutube4684]

40:48 most important part

[@charlesclaudiooakley6449]

Good lecture but he seemed to be implying that abstract expressionism was part of the problem while ignoring Mark Rotho's Seagram murals or Barnett Newman's Stations of the Cross. Never mind Pollock's Autumn Rhythm. Abstract Expressionism was a robust and exciting artistic adventure that was distinctly American. Only showing De Kooning is a little like cherry picking.

[@johnkubek4246]

“All art is but imitation of nature.” ~Seneca c.4 BC-AD65 ~ "Deus sive Natura" ~Baruch Spinoza 1632-1677 ~

[@anaconda470]

I'm not sure if I understand the point about the prohibition of naturalistic art in some religions. From what I know some religions don't allow to do that not because "the divine world is so perfect and material world so imperfect". It was about making idols and worshipping them. In ancient times gods were ritually invoked inside statues.

[@tobiasbogner4147]

Who knows the painting from 1:05:25 ? I can't find it online.

[@werefeat0245]

Johannes Vermeer The Girl With a Pearl Earring.

[@ChopinIsMyBestFriend]

Great lecture. I have yet to finish but I wanted to say that the same thing has happen in parallel fashion with classical music. The complete negation of western tonality into a disgusting mess which hasn’t changed it’s tune since the 1960’s. Really starting around WW1. Theodore Adorno was even one of the atonal music theorists of the second viennese school of Arnold Schoenberg. I find it to be a poison. Beauty itself was attacked. It’s like the world itself is ugly and schizophrenic so the music and art looks and sounds ugly and schizophrenic.

[@werefeat0245]

LOL Welp, there's a book about this. The Painted Word. Tom Wolfe wrote it. But you have to omit the race of the perps. It's mentioned in The Protocols.

[@cherylnagy126]

The Biblical Exodus relates the escape from Egypt, with its firmly established tradition of Iconography

[@burnonedown2day]

I would love to know what Stephen thinks about the art coming out of the Burning Man community. I'm pretty sure that many of the artists are postmodernists and there art is beautiful most of the time. 🤔

[@mrdermody1984]

He shouldn’t be saying that , “girl with a pearl earring “ is Vermeers daughter, that’s not for sure .

[@ronjohnson4566]

well as a southern boy this "thou shall not..." was a very early hurdle for me. so first of all there are not higher persons than the artist because we look behind the curtain. god is dead. #2. politics is power. power is a battle between good and evil. eliminate power. power is dead.

[@margarita8416]

the problem is that art is an industry now with a lot of mass production of relatively poor quality. can of soup is just that. art died the moment we subsidised it. we were attracted to struggle with or without resolution, whereas it's a bunch of overpaid overpriced vulgar entitled "artists" now. yes it sells, but majority of it has no value.

[@Ron_Robertson]

I don't think subsidising art, per se, kills art. Many great art in the past was paid for by kings, queens, popes, etc. Much was paid for by the State way back when. It's not who pays for it (or how it's paid) that makes it great or not.

[@stevenhanson6057]

No sooner than it became ugly, art became Garfunkel.

[@TheWhitehiker]

Wall Street, the film--the Geco character buys the harsh, crappy art for his house knowing that it's an investment.

[@jrsloan]

The most creative artists and writers have moved into video games where they have the greatest freedom to create.

[@dannistor7294]

"they have the greatest freedom with video games" needs a few paragraphs of explanation... I happen to have near me a small blank canvas and some paint... and I feel I have unlimited freedom... too much of it...

[@AncientRylanor69]

bellado

[@evolgenius1150]

Something about moving away from the truth...

[@dachurchofeppie850]

Q @ 1:19:00 - did Shakespeare shit in a box?

[@robleahy5759]

At least once, but he never signed it and passed it round his crew for approbation.

[@dachurchofeppie850]

@@robleahy5759 - right? Seems to me a different angle on “ugly”. A buddy of mine got me the “Bible of Modern Art” for reference in AI promting. I’m not really an art critic, but it was full of shit work. It is sad to see people standing up for human expression on principle when the expressions are so clearly anti-humanity. Empathy and open-mindedness has been weaponized for 100+ years. Kind of frightening.

[@CarliMichelle]

“She’s going to bite the flesh off your body” 57:58 😂😂

[@73elephants]

Hilton Kramer's assertion that "realism lacks a persuasive theory" is imbecilic. Without a theory of realism, we could neither deliberately _make_ realistic images nor _recognize_ them as such. First, the deliberate act of _making_ realistic images requires a _theory of making,_ and, second, _recognizing_ an image as realistic requires a theory of _comparison_between _image_ and _reality._ Hilton Kramer is doing nothing more than making a vaguely authoritative-sounding (but nonsensical) pronouncement to show that he is "on board with the program" of nihilistic abstractionism. He is telling us that he is up to date with the "current thing" if the moment. Only someone living deeply within, and committed to, the modernist paradigm will fail to see this obvious problem.

[@plekkchand]

I'm persuaded by your italics. They indicate you must be a great authority and heroic debunker of the false prophets of the age.

[@73elephants]

@@plekkchand Quite, quite.

[@Eyesayah]

It seems to me that the ideal for art would be truth. The urinal piece seems to me an opinion, not the truth. If religion attempts to justify God's way to man, perhaps art might put truth before us in such a way that we can recognize and accept it, in all its bitter and sweet. Possibly, nihilistic art nourishes mainly those whose life is all gravy.

[@piplee1439]

Marxism…. End of

[@Vitlaus]

Skill and Competence are Fascist . . . according to Commie finger painters.

[@dalecaldwell]

I have been watching several of Hicks' lectures, and although they are interesting, I think they are very selective in the way he looks at the world. He leaves Dilsey out of The Sound and the Fury, and he ignores advertising, which I think was correctly described by Marshall McLuhan as the only real art form of the 20th century.

[@donaldclifford5763]

For Hicks aesthetics is emblematic of the big picture in Post Modernist philosophy. More to the point, modern aesthetics mirrors this degenerative attempt to overturn Aristotelian philosophy, and by extension, the whole Age of Reason Enlightenment. As Hicks goes to great lengths to illustrate, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the progenitor of the progressive decline into this prevalent Post Modernism we experience today.

[@timberrr1126]

What does “real art” mean?

[@dalecaldwell]

@timberrr1126 the 'of the 20th century' is central to McLuhan's typical over-the-top statement.

[@timberrr1126]

@@dalecaldwell I think he is talking about the physical side of art-the media-rather than styles. I like Art Deco and Rock and Roll. These were invented in the 20th century. Mc Luan is famous for saying: “The medium is the message.” So he is speaking about the physical side, and also that the viewer cannot reply to the brainwashing). Commercial Art is not considered “ART” because the makers are prostituting themselves making it. Also, the makers never own the art. Karl Marx calls this “Alienation.” They are on the payroll, and they walk away from their creations--alienating themselves from it. And when they take money for it, the art is “converted” into paper money--yet another step of alienation. I believe McLuan understands this alienation. He also considered that TV creates “communities” of people who cannot respond. If art is type of response, the TV is a peculiar type of art. TV became a new medium of art in the 20th Century.

[@cherylnagy126]

Ayn Rand Center in Latin America

[@thereignofthezero225]

Crazy that now AI is about to render artists of all kinds obsolete.

[@margarita8416]

real art will survive, but all the mass production will be replaced

[@edfederoff2679]

Federoff's Rule (or Law, if you prefer) of Shit is as follows: Everything in the Universe has either been, is, or at some time in the future will be - Shit.

[@alhazed]

But what is it in between? Shit has unlimited potential in it's next evocation, and all of times history when it was many other things

[@srglepore]

Art branched out to include cinema, so this type of art talked about here had become an isolated event. Originally the avant-garde was genuine with Manet leading the way. Cut to Abstract Expressionism which moved the art center for the West from Europe to the States was strongly influenced by the United States government CIA to demonstrate how Capitalism is superior to Socialism and Communism by pushing the cultural envelope. Little did they know how their exploitation of mindaltering drugs as we entered the 60's on a population would backfire. One two three four we don't want your f-ing war being the universal cry against America's most publicsized first bad war was the last straw and so the government had to make the economy more like a Darwinian nightmare of the survival of the fittest and by the 1980's we saw how the citizenry became culled idiots distracted by things, entertainment, aka bread and circus, and a lowering of their living standards. By now you just are trying to survive while scrolling on your smartphone. Who has time to contemplate art and philosophy both serving as integral for critical thought. I don't think it's purely by design but things sort of went this way to the benefit of the elites who invest in the economy and such.

[@4kassis]

why does he feel the need to explain the english words he is using? Is he addressing a class of middle school kids?

[@kynaatawan5967]

True art cannot exist unless there is a higher ideal such as the divine underpinning it. That is because art is meant to take someone outside themselves to admire that which is greater than humanity. Unless we bring back God we cannot have real art.

[@frankdeville515]

" God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." Nietzsche

[@kynaatawan5967]

He is alive otherwise we would not have love or natural beauty

[@Ron_Robertson]

Nonsense. Great art comes from great concepts. Not divine inspiration.

[@kingclover1395]

I have a theory that Communism is to blame for modern art.

[@werefeat0245]

And who invented communism?

[@timberrr1126]

The Communists would reject modern art. They prefer realistic art that has a propaganda message. Nice try.

[@timberrr1126]

The Communists would reject modern art. They prefer realistic art that has a propaganda message. Nice try.

[@timberrr1126]

Neo Marxism, 1933, Cultural Marxism started the “Criticize Everything” movement from Frankfurt Germany. This was a political influence, but associated to Eric Fromm, psychologist and Freud. This was not the beginning point of nihilist art, but it would be an energizer to influence more “negative concept art.” Artists like to be known for originality. And their personal bad feelings motivate them to “work out” their unhappy, bad feelings. The result is a new combination of symbols. Francis Ford Coppala said that art is like a oyster. There is an irritating struggle with one piece of sand in its shell. The result of this inner irritation is a beautiful pearl. This is what many artists are doing. They are using their inner ugly frustrations to create beauty. But for the nihilists, they struggle and end up with shiitt !

[@werefeat0245]

@@timberrr1126 There is a book The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe that links modern "art" to Jews.

[@villevanttinen908]

How ugly is Stephen Hicks without art? People are not pretty, most of us ´, we need art , also "postmodernist" art. Picassos art is supposed to reveal how many perspectives is there in life in general ,and in human too, is that a bad thing? Now people want go back to God, which means Only one "truth", I don´t get this at all. "God is dead, and God Remains dead". - Nietzsche

[@Benbenforever]

It's about The Kings New Clothes. Duchamp peas a con man and you've been duped.

[@rosswatson9144]

Sweeping generalizations… interesting to contemplate how a quick summarizing of events and influences necessitates a line of reasoning seeking the way of least resistance… One could say the opposite and gather sufficient evidence to make your point..He, to me, for many of these artists, is absurdly off the mark.

[@gravytopic]

why can’t guys like Stephen Hicks and Jordan Peterson ever get their facts right? Google the survey that Hicks talks about where the artists pick Marcel Duchamp, and he has it wrong in every detail. It wasn’t 1000 artists. It was 500 artists, critics, dealers, etc. The question wasn’t who influenced each artist most. The question was who was the most influential modern artist. Two different questions I could go on, but read it yourself. Why can’t these guys ever cite their sources accurately? Because it’s motivated reasoning.

[@thepissedofflandlord]

There is no art! There is now only fake art (fart if you like). No originality and no craftsmanship. Just laziness and fake concepts. Minimalist art is fart, most pop art is fart. Yoko ono is the queen of fart. Banksy is half decent. When a vandal is the most talented and original artist, we are in a world of fart.

[@allenmoses110]

Jackson Pollack made the most beautiful paintings ever!

[@rsotis]

He was a talentless hack. When he actually tried to produce something that required effort and skill... even he realized that he was incompetent.

[@gravytopic]

Don’t worry. It’s not true. It’s not even remotely true.

[@siggyincr7447]

Overall great lecture, but mentioning Peterson as one of the great philosophers of our time is disheartening if true.

[@johngalt3434]

Why's that?

[@robleahy5759]

You either think it's TRUE or don't. I don't hear much about you when I pull the wax outta my lugs.

[@thereignofthezero225]

Ignorance is bliss 👍 Enjoy.

[@stunns2003]

Prof. Hicks’s point is that several influential figures have joined the battle using Prof. Peterson as an example. In light of the above, Prof. Hicks is right to reference Prof. Peterson as an influential figure and that he has joined the fight against extreme progressivism. Whether or not Peterson’s message will stand the test of time remains to be seen.

[@Tehrawrzorz]

I never hear anyone actually state why they dislike Peterson without relying on group opinion or leaps of judgment.

[@Vitusvonatzinger]

Beauty is for posers.

[@Ron_Robertson]

Nonsense.

[@lospopularos]

I can't understand how Hicks - who is a philosopher - can doubt the "exploitation and alienation" (from a quotation of Marx) under American capitalism lol.

[@offshoretomorrow3346]

The Marxist view is that that is ALL the capitalist system is. Which is false.

[@Ron_Robertson]

You need to get a clearer definition of what actually IS capitalism, and what is not. Capitalism is the only system that lives only on consent. Anything non-consensual is not capitalistic. Exploitation (in the sense of initiating coercion) is not capitalism.