How Art Became Ugly | Stephen Hicks at Eseade | 2019

[@JRInnes]

I appreciate this lecture. The narrative I grew up with was this. WWI showed that human life and dignity were meaningless and empty. (Forgive me for oversimplifying a World War and what humanity learned from it.) Collectively, artists had two major options: 1) beckon society back towards meaning and human dignity or 2) accelerate and amplify society's descent into meaningless and cynicism. As an art student in the middle of the 2000s, human dignity was mocked as being naive nonsense. Did we have a choice? We ALWAYS have a choice.

[@tommcfadden5232]

I have been blessed to see some of the world’s most beautiful art. I have gazed upon the works of da Vinci, Vermeer, Botticelli, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Rembrandt, Constable, Gauguin, Rodin, Michelangelo…When I saw their paintings and sculptures, I was moved by their beauty and I needed no one to explain them, or what they meant, in order for me to appreciate them and the genius of those who produced them. Such was not the case with much of modern and post modern art. The more art has to be explained in order for me to understand and appreciate it, the less I believe it is art.

[@longandshort6639]

The “art” with modern art is to fool the gullible into believing what is objectively rubbish is somehow amazing.

[@evetsnitram8866]

Not all modern art is bleak. The camera caused painters to find new interpretations in painting. Impressionism was hated at first.

[@bernardofitzpatrick5403]

The iconic Vitruvian man, by Leonardo, is replete with abstract concepts, may need explicating to some who are unfamiliar with math, philosophy etc etc. What to make of La Gioconda’s enigmatic smile?

[@offshoretomorrow3346]

@@tommcfadden5232 Exactly. The object is no longer the work - the spoken/ written thesis behind it is. One rare exception is Banksy - but it's just not very good.

[@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.

[@michaelnice93]

At 30:00 Kramer says realism lacks a persuasive theory. I believe it has one: The artist learns to see in a new way and appreciate the world in a way most cannot. The public can then see the world differently through the eyes of the artist and this enhances our ability to appreciate the life we are living.

[@michaelnice93]

Of course the post modern art movement despises material reality and holds themselves above it all. Their aim is diminish the life we live not enhance it.

[@Pratiquement-Durable]

That is not a complete theory about reality, it is just a procedure!

[@73elephants]

@@Pratiquement-Durable It's the _outline_ of a procedure. The procedure itself is long and complex, and requires talent and dedication.

[@dustyrustymusty3577]

@@73elephants "Talent does what it can, genius does what it must."

[@freetibet1000]

I don’t view the artist as a bare commentator on the world around him. The best kind of artist, or philosopher, needs to be a bearer and bringer of a message of resolve. It is relatively easy to deconstruct or smash something to dust, but such act cannot be done without consequences. In all consequence the mental health of Nietzsche did deteriorate rapidly towards the end of his life, didn’t it! Although in all genuine spiritual practice deconstruction of primitive beliefs must precede mental progress, a meaningless emptiness without a resolving transcendence will end in disaster. Both modernism and post-modernism lack the most important part, the power of transcendence.

[@stringfellowbalk2654]

Good point.

[@JT-vt5kk]

Such a key point, completely invisible to philosophy professors. Hicks engages in exactly the elitism he is trying to project onto others! I was hoping you would clarify what you meant by the sentence stating that spiritual practice involving the deconstruction of primitive beliefs must occur before mental progress is made. What were you referring to by primitive beliefs and mental progress? I just posted a response which I think resonates with what you are saying.

[@freetibet1000]

@@JT-vt5kk Thank you for your comment and question. ❤ My comment on the deconstruction of primitive beliefs was a reference to those traditions of spiritual practice that recognise the possibility of transcending our ignorance into the inherent wisdom and enlightenment that the human form possess. These traditions recognise the inherently divine nature of the human heart as our ultimate nature. They recognise our obsession with conceptual thinking and idealism as our main obstacles and thus aim at cutting through all erroneous views that the practitioner hold onto. In order to rise to our divine potential we need to learn to take control of our own mind and find ways how to let go and dissolve our ignorant beliefs about ourselves and the reality we experience. There’s definitely a path towards transcendence and enlightenment through the utilisation of our inborn capacity for creativity and artistry. It is about the investigations and experimentations with our experiences with ourselves and the world around us. If we choose to use our capacities for creativity and artistry as a learning process rather than as a process of production we can take our insights into new heights that know no boundaries. But it requires dedication, perseverance and utter honesty. A life as an artist can be a life as a sage or spiritual practitioner.

[@JT-vt5kk]

@@freetibet1000 beautifully said. An artist can express that transcendence or be stuck in conceptual thought… Just like anyone else!

[@freetibet1000]

@@JT-vt5kk 🙏🙏🙏

[@frankhainke7442]

I remember a wall in the early seventies in Germany on wich someone wrote "Nietzsche: God is dead." And someone else put underneath it "God: Nietzsche is dead."

[@rheinhartsilvento2576]

😁😂

[@endoalley680]

"God and Nietzsche are both dead."

[@dustyrustymusty3577]

@@endoalley680 Guess we'll find out, won't we?

[@endoalley680]

@@dustyrustymusty3577 if false we might know. If true then unlikely.

[@ultrasignificantfootnote3378]

Death is dead 🤣

[@richardzellers]

Another great lecture

[@winninymeanssweet1920]

not really. great propaganda though

[@ianyoung6706]

One of the worst oversights of modern thinkers who try and reinterpret old writings is that they dismiss that the original authors actually intended to communicate specific thoughts. You can’t honestly ignore that and claim to be extracting alternate meaning from texts or images.

[@dustyrustymusty3577]

The worst thing that ever happened to literature is when the critics declared everything was a matter of symbolism. Ugh.

[@dr.carlpatrasso3847]

Interesting lecture and worthwhile.

[@dalejames486]

Great lecture. Very interesting.

[@AP-sd1fl]

I hope I misunderstood Hicks' lecture. I got the impression that he first presents "postmodernist" decadent art (Entartete Kunst) and then what he thinks is good art (which is very similar to the art made in Germany during the Second World War).

[@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.

[@selwynr]

Peterson and Pinker are shitlibs. They are extremely shallow, non-critical thinkers.

[@frusia123]

Epic lecture indeed. But please don't learn spirituality from Peterson, he's like a blind leading the blind.

[@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.

[@peterstephenson9538]

Nothing remains the same like the avant garde, said Evelyn Waugh.

[@alhazed]

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

[@freetibet1000]

Yes, no-one can survive without oxygen.

[@dustyrustymusty3577]

I thought Duchamp already did that?

[@alhazed]

@@dustyrustymusty3577 Duchamp was the first, and he cast out the critic. Although much like most post modernism I've seen, I think he's very overrated.

[@dustyrustymusty3577]

@@alhazed His greatest art statement wasn't anything he ever creatd but when he announced that art really had no meaning and he gave it up and played chess the rest of his life.

[@alhazed]

@@dustyrustymusty3577 "His greatest art statement wasn't anything he ever created". Sorry, but it's backwards statements like this that I think cause more mental health issues, and less creativity. Breaking words down to nothing, means nothing. "When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold; And the first rude sketch that the world has seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "it's pretty, but is it Art?"

[@ryam4632]

This is truly an excellent presentation. Thank you!

[@rickyfargason8859]

I realize now why I gravitate toward the art of the Renaissance all the way up to Impressionism. The majority of art afterwards doesn't inspire me as an artist. It's obvious to me modern art is inspirational and post modern art is depressing and destructive. I understand we are moving into a new era of meta modernism. I hope you can discuss and explain this new era.

[@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.

[@grouchomarxist666]

I'd say you've got big problems if, in the 21st century, you're still worshiping a bronze-age sky god of the southwest Asian desert.

[@sparkomatic]

@@grouchomarxist666 21st century, you say?

[@lestermason2687]

Solomon 's temple was decorated with many natural images. The view of images was far more complex than indicated here. Even the tabernacle was decorated with cherubim.

[@secretshaman189]

Wonderful presentation, thank-you. You didn't mention Carl Jung who influenced psychology and philosophy deeply. Archetypes are a "visual language" that unify the human experience positively and help pull us out of the chaos of material negativity, suffering, and the "law of the jungle,"

[@hifijohn]

This is why I gave up on going to art shows a long time ago.

[@zenonbenon]

Very interesting synthesis of trends. Give a ground to thinking about the current state of culture, especially on the so called West

[@TracyPicabia]

@1:22:05. Nihilistic/negative art can be beautiful eg. Titian's Flaying of Marsyas, Goya, Muerk, limitless examples. In fact the most beautiful art is often 'ugly' in Hick's terms (not positive, dreadful) and its beauty paradoxically often redeems its existemtial dread.

[@mikebott6940]

Definitely. And we have wrathful & frightening depictions of deities from the majority of world religions that allow depictions of their gods.

[@imperfekt7905]

Yeah, but is it art? Such a huge range of judgements exist. It seems to me that I should be immediately affected by a work of art. But in what way? Wonder, awe, amusement, bemusement, curiosity, shock, fascination, fear, sadness, joy, adoration... As others have commented, my opinion is that if someone has to explain why a painting, sculpture, etc is good art, then it isn't. The Emperor's New Clothes metaphor seems highly revealing. That said, I am intrigued by some modern art although most of it seems trivial or repellent. It might be interesting to learn why an artist changed his subject matter over time from something that is recognizably related to our experience to something abstract and apparently disconnected from life, but that shifts attention from art to artist, from immediate emotional experience to psychological commentary. I would much rather spend my limited time marveling at images that are too powerful or mysterious to be reduced to explanation.

[@Kurtlane]

Why did an artist change from something fairly recognizable to something much less recognizable? Because he was dissatisfied with his art and worked on it until he created something that he found satisfactory. This is, of course, a huge generalization. But in a whole lot of cases it's really true. Just as a scientist works on his science until he discovers something, so does an artist.

[@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

[@KL0098]

Yeah, good summation of his beliefs; you just forgot to mention all of it is wrong.

[@donaldclifford5763]

@@KL0098 You forgot to name one thing wrong.

[@KL0098]

@donaldclifford5763 What we call postmodernist is essentially a sceptical mindset. Scepticism is as old as the Ancient Greeks. At that time, there was one school of though, the Academic Skeptics, who posited that nothing could be known by humans; this was in contradistinction to the Dogmatists, who posited that humans could know things. Out of this debate emerged a third way called Pyrrhonism. Pyrrhus and his followers argued that since humans lack the capacity to know objectively whether something is true or false we should adopt “ataraxia”, that is, a suspension from making judgements at all, living according to the customs and ideas of their time and age, without seeking to change society. The most popular sceptic is Sextus Empiricus, whose books survived. Pyrrhonism was mostly unknown throughout the Middle Ages, except through some texts by Cicero and St. Augustine. But then in the late 15th Sextus’ books were rediscovered in monastic libraries. The first man to order them translated from Greek to Latin was a monk called Savonarola. At the time Christianity was rife with philosophers who were trying to find rational bases for their knowledge of God. Savonarola opposed the idea that God could be rationally known, he was strictly fideistic, that is, someone who believes that knowledge of God can only come through faith. Savonarola’s follower and first biographer, Gianfrancesco Pico, reports that his master, shortly before his death, ordered that Sextus be translated from Greek into Latin, “since he loathed the ignorance of many people who boasted that they knew something.” (This is from Gianfrancesco Pico’s Life of Savonarola). The problem with this is that Savonarola never predicted the power that Pyrrhonism can have once it’s unleashed. Not long after Sextus was used by Martin Luther to wrest power away from the Pope. You’ll recall that Luther’s original move was to deny that the Pope was the interpreter of doctrine; instead, argued Luther, Scripture alone contained doctrine and to know it was a matter of interpreting Scripture correctly. To argue his point, Luther resorted to Sextus. Thus began the Reformation and one of the major crises to ever rock Christianity from within. Needless to say, the Catholics didn’t stay put and quickly used Sextus themselves to undermine the pretensions of the many Protestant sects. Soon Europe was engulfed in a Sceptical War of continental proportions. By the mid-1600s Sextus was being used to undermine the veracity of the Bible itself as God’s Word; analysis of the many variants and internal inconsistencies led such thinkers as Hobbes, La Peyrére and Spinoza to argue that the Bible was but a man-made document and not God’s revelation; with that was born what we now call “Biblical criticism”, a respectable branch of theological studies. Pyrrhonism next provided the arsenal to doubt the existence of God itself. But after it got rid of God, Pyrrhonism turned against reason and science themselves. That’s because Pyrrhonism is a neutral tool; it can be used for anything. Pyrrhonism can be used to undermine reason too. As the super-sceptic Pierre Bayle summed up in the late 1600s: “It [reason] is a guide that lads one astray; and philosophy can be compared to some powders that are so corrosive that, after they have eaten away the infected flesh of the wound, they then devour the living flesh, rot the bones, and penetrate to the very marrow. Philosophy at first refutes errors. But if it is not stopped at this point, it goes on to attack truths. And when it is left on its own, it goes so far that it no longer knows where it is and can find no stopping place.” You’ll realize that Bayle’s words resemble quite a lot the popular idea of postmodernist: reason used against itself to arrive at the conclusion that there are no truths, all is subjective. That’s because postmodernist isn’t postmodernist at all. Postmodernist is as old as the Ancient Greeks and as natural to the West as Latin. What Hicks demonizes as a nefarious Marxist perversion thought is just a kind of intellectual activity going on for the past 2500 years. It’s true that it ceased during the Middle Ages, but when it was rediscovered in the Renaissance it soon became one of the most popular ways of interpreting ideas. Pyrrhonism has been used by such figures as Martin Luther, Montaigne, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Bayle, Voltaire, Holbach. These thinkers we’re all thought to revere spent their lives undermining received wisdom and deeply-beloved “truths”. They were all “postmodernists” in their own sense, they all overturned “Aristotelian philosophy”, they all posed threats to the “Age of Reason Enlightenment”, though we could argue, as historians do, that what they did was create the Age of Reason by enshrining scepticism. Perhaps the problem isn’t postmodernist, but your erroneous perception of the “Enlightenment” as an age dedicated to Reason exclusively and not as a complex period that had as many proponents of rationality as it had skeptics of our capacity to be rational at all. Summing up, Hicks’ version if simplistic and incorrect; it’s deeply biased and politicized. A deeper immersion in the history of ideas will show that “postmodernist” has been going on in the West for centuries now.

[@reiniergamboa]

​@@KL0098thank you for sharing that!

[@mcrumph]

@@KL0098 Well said! Deconstruction left to its own devices gets to the point where everything means nothing. You have given me some things to investigate. Thank you for that.

[@wet-g452]

@1:04:40 What's the painting inside the painting in "The Model's Reaction"? TinEye could not find it.

[@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.

[@galaxytrio]

Brilliant lecture.

[@hazchemel]

Much appreciation Dr, for lightening my gloom. My brows almost achieved singularity on my nose because I was unaware of the signs of hope towards the end of your balm like video. The same kind of hell realm has been the air and water of literature for a similar period. Tthey have foreseen for a hundred years that our future is inhuman, that we have left the tracks, the abdestination, the planet, the dimension.

[@James-ll3jb]

😅

[@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.

[@JT-vt5kk]

Loved this talk! Wish I’d seen it when it came out five years ago. Hicks is saying what we were all thinking…for the most part. Much appreciated! His main point seems to be that the “unrelieved negativity” of the past almost 150 years of Western philosophy has caused a dead end repetitiveness in the arts. At least in terms of the level of the elites-museums and art critics-this seems valid and important. But when Nietzsche said God is dead, of course, he was referring to Christianity, not religion as a whole; this was glossed over in this talk, as academic philosophers almost always do. During this historical period, many great sages in Asia, particularly India, were emerging and even bringing their messages to the West. I guess philosophy professors like to protect their jobs in the same way that Hicks is projecting onto museum curators, by ignoring things outside of their current paradigm. The worldwide spiritual revolution since the 1960s due to Eastern philosophies and religions through meditation, yoga, mindfulness, etc., as well as other spiritual traditions and modern revelations, has had a profound influence on many peoples’ lives. As an artist, when I talk to other artists informally, many of them have a rich spiritual life that is influenced by this cultural development. Clearly this hasn’t reached enough people to dislodge the stale negativity of the art elites, but there is a path out of this supposed philosophical impasse. The path goes toward the heart and intuition, it seems to me, not to more angst-filled thinking about the meaninglessness of thinking and life. Another point I would disagree with is how he denigrates abstract art as somehow intentionally distancing ourselves from reality or beauty. His examples of modern art, e.g. deKooning’s women paintings, seem calculated to make that point. Indeed, if those were my only points of reference, I might agree with him, as I agree that the tendency towards art being aimed at shock value isn’t appealing, although it can be thought-provoking. However, many of us art fans find at least some of the works by Pollock, Picasso, Kandinsky, deKooning Duchamp, O’Keefe, and many others beautiful and inspiring. I don’t think one person or group of people gets to decide what is “ugly”; it just seems a rather old and tired judgment from someone who doesn’t have a deep insight into abstraction and how it might relate to modern science (e.g. quantum physics and astrophysics), or a contemplative approach to art viewing. I enjoyed his discussion of contemporary artists creating beautiful and thoughtful work, and how that can be inspired by science as well as old and new cultural insights. Again, the exclusion of anything but realism from his approved group of artists says more about him than any deeper concept of beauty. I thought the comment about the many subcultures in contemporary art was especially valid, and to me this is a wonderful change. Just go to an art festival and talk to people whose art attracts you; it’s an uplifting way of experiencing fruitful developments in real, lived philosophy. The contemporary understanding that each person has the capacity (and right) to develop and express their unique creativity- which is infinite- is a philosophy that can’t be made into an academic tradition, but it is what makes life, and art, worthwhile. And that is a thing of beauty.

[@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.

[@stuartwray6175]

Soviet architecture? What defines, designates it as being specifically Soviet? - what about Le Corbusier, Adolf Loos, Bauhaus, Brutalism? What about Stalinist, Socialist Classicism?

[@AP-sd1fl]

The Nazis classified Cubism as decadent art.

[@Burnedcoffee0]

@@stuartwray6175 Yeah dude they are talking just making random-ish connections based on vague superficial elements, you are not going to get anything out of them.

[@TracyPicabia]

@59:06. That is NOT the message. De Kooning gave those drawings to Rauchenburg - "OK here's one thats really hard to erase" - perhaps because Titian had painted The Flaying of Marsyas or Rembrandt had painted all those terrifying late self-portraits

[@BrennanYoung]

one of many art-historical errors I spotted in this lecture

[@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

[@craigrobinson99]

Art used to be a visual medium that was a bridge between the tangible and the ethereal. It is now illustration of ideology.

[@johnnyroycerichardsoniii3273]

Excellent lecture!!!

[@AndyJarman]

27:19 "facile" does not mean juvenile. Facile means something done without difficulty, something which is superficial and not presenting an idea or experience about reality. Something that is not, or even something which is "anti" art because it occupies the place reserved for real art as though it were art.

[@ianyoung6706]

I see your criticism, but this word can be used to mean without depth of effort so that the result is “juvenile” in quality and in the quote it seems that’s what was originally intended.

[@plumbthumbs9584]

This was a fantastic lecture, thank you!

[@puffin51]

Me, I put it down to feedback. Art used to be valued by its clients, who were not artists or critics themselves, and they simply bought what they liked because they liked it. In fact they usually specified exactly what they wanted, and they consulted only their own tastes. But nowadays art is assessed by critics and by the artists themselves, and they assess it in relation to other art. That is, they reinforce the qualities they select from the same system. This is feedback. Feedback destroys the system that it applies to. Unless feedback is controlled, sound systems blow out their own speakers, and steam engines tear themselves to pieces. And that explains why art today is what it is.

[@hanswissmeyer9950]

Feedback: Art is what people think that art is. If an artist wants to have success he does what people expect. This is a feedback loop, that changes with time & ideas of the time, but never caused any problems to the market. Famous art was always seen as a way to show the status of wealth of the buyer. In the days before photography the value of fine arts was defined by how clever artists could interprete the world around us in their own perception. This changed to inner worlds when photography occupied depiction of the outer world & could be produced much faster. With the industrialisation, time became money, so the paintings had to be produced faster. Nowadays money is everything & the fine art scene became a kind of stockmarket, where the name of the producer is everything. He becomes a brand that guarantees the value, the product does not matter much & has to be produced fast to have an impact on the constantly faster accelerating market. This is the fatal feedback that killed art produced by humans. No problem, we can continue with AI art & since humans become more & more robotic it will be fine for them.

[@BrennanYoung]

​@@hanswissmeyer9950 This comment thread -focusing on feedback loops- is the only one the really addresses the *socio-economic context* of art properly (and I agree with you both). The Sistine Chapel frescos were not produced for a mass audience, or for sale on the open market, they were *commissioned* as pure propaganda for the Medici family and the Vatican (and as an aside, I will mention that they include a gruesome scene of the apocalypse). IMO the reason for so much of the "ugliness" in 20th century culture was that modernism was constrained by (and often took as its subject) the new social relations of industrial capitalism, and yet Hicks somehow fails to mention that context even once. With cameras being mass-produced, painters were somehow *obliged* to do something other than natural representation. Who can make a living as a portrait or landscape painter when everyone has a Kodak Brownie? And how can one even begin to understand (say) Charlie Chaplin or Andy Warhol without understanding industrialisation - the factory, the motorised printing press, the movie camera, even the cinemas where their films were shown to *paying* audiences. All this industrial and economic context is completely omitted from Hicks' analysis. Picasso was *not* trying to break things up and make them ugly. He had already proved himself as a more than capable naturalist painter before the cubist period, and (crucially) he already had a paying audience (feedback). He was inspired to "do cubism" by what he saw as the *beauty* of African art, not to smash up the idea of representation. I do not know of a single Picasso work which is inelegant or ungraceful. Nor are there any that are completely abstract. The only one which directly addresses ugliness and horror and despair is Guernica, but for the most part, Picasso and his paying audience were motivated by beauty. A great deal of American Abstract Expressionism is restful, calm, meditative (especially Rothko, Barnett-Newman, Stella). But Hicks singles out DeKooning instead. Plenty of 20th century artists have been successful in the art market without wallowing in negativity or despair or producing works of ugliness. It is not difficult to find examples. Those big corporate boardrooms needed some nice, unprovocative colour-field paintings to go with the drapes, and art investments could be written off in tax. More feedback. CIA saw American Abstract Expressionism as a propaganda weapon against the Eastern Bloc and invested heavily. (BTW "Socialist Realism" is very rarely "ugly", usually very life-affirming pictures of happy farmworkers, or Stalin patting kids on the head. Always "naturalistic", but Hicks studiously ignores the entire genre.). More feedback loops. We must consider also that *mass produced visual art* also became a thing in the postwar period - affordable, good-quality colour reproductions of paintings by Vermeer or Raphael adorned thousands of homes, and popular commercial artists like Margaret Keane or Vladimir Tretchikoff sold like hot cakes. (These latter two artists were ignored by the art world, but they are certainly a major part of the 'visual culture' of the 20th century). Hicks omits to mention Walter Benjamin. According to Hicks' analysis, mechanical reproduction had no impact on the aesthetic choices of the 20th century. That's like discussing the Beaker People without talking about ceramics. I simply don't buy Hicks' idea that the art of the last 100 years consists only or mostly of ugliness. He has cherry picked particular examples to make his point. Some (like Picasso) actually represent a counter-argument, and if you know a little more about art in the 20th century than he decides to show, his argument completely collapses. To ask whether I would want to *kiss* the Picasso painting of a woman shows a serious shortcoming in Hicks' ability to understand the artistic imagination. If I want erotic images, there is porn. If I want beautiful lines, there is Picasso. Art that has an audience endures. That's feedback. Rather than moaning about the intellectuals, Hicks might consider why there is a paying audience for what he calls "ugliness" in the first place.

[@hanswissmeyer9950]

@@BrennanYoung Thank you very much for this detailed answer! It is the longest response I ever got & it took me a while to digest. I am only a random painter in phantastic realism & little to nothing I know about American Abstract Expressionism, however I think I entirely agree with your point. In my eyes ugliness apears when somebody breaks with the common concepts of balance & beauty without any deeper purpose or reason for it, just out of ignorance. This might be a naive way to see it but it worked fine for me. Anyway, what does a cow know about milk produkts & what do I know about art. What I wrote was just a spontaneous rant about the strange ways the market goes & that there is no valuable feedback when there is no broad public interrest besides an intrensic scene of nerds, talking & acting like dusty stamp collectors. This is especially true for Europe & may well be not so extreme in the US.

[@karenness5588]

Decades ago I came to the conclusion that the 20th was the ugly century, with it's wars, genocides, politics. I was born in a sea of tempestuous ugliness. Beauty, truth, all of it, not just one aspect of it, and God's unfailing love were my life saver, raft, and island to make a life on. Can't get completely away from the ugliness, but you can do your best to banish it from your immediate surroundings and resist it's downward pull into hell. I always refused to wallow in it; it's a death sentence, even if your body happens to hang around. It's a trap, like quicksand.

[@JRInnes]

I appreciate this lecture. The narrative I grew up with was this. WWI showed that human life and dignity were meaningless and empty. (Forgive me for oversimplifying a World War and what humanity learned from it.) Collectively, artists had two major options: 1) beckon society back towards meaning and human dignity or 2) accelerate and amplify society's descent into meaningless and cynicism. I entered art college only 60 years after WWI ended. Sadly, the faculty was prejudiced against any celebration of human dignity. Any representational art was mocked as being naive nonsense. They acted as if we had no choice but to agree with their dark stance. Did we have a choice? We ALWAYS have a choice.

[@karenness5588]

@@JRInnes We always have a choice.

[@DSTH323]

Would love to see this redone in high definition or at least better video.

[@crghyz]

I find the idea that artists should be instructed to produce art with a proscribed balance of positivity-negativity or whatever good versus bad categorization off-putting. Who does Hicks think provide this instruction? Ive always thought art reflected aspects of our current reality not that it provide a postively biased sort of entertainment or comforting reassurance.

[@BrennanYoung]

I found the whole lecture unconvincing, and lacking in rigour. He made no effort to find counter-examples to challenge his own position, even when counter-examples abound. Just a load of hot air and whining.

[@mikeb5372]

Wow! You really didn't get it at all

[@crghyz]

@@mikeb5372 Good to see I'm not alone 😉

[@tobiasbogner4147]

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

[@werefeat0245]

Johannes Vermeer The Girl With a Pearl Earring.

[@sanniepstein4835]

Commercially, it is important to make one's product at least appear rare , and to control access. The way for the 20th century art business to control access was to make the standards as arbitrary, unpredictable, and capricious as hemlines. This required the public to go along with the game, and the investors did, because it paid.

[@Kurtlane]

I was born and grew up in the Soviet Union. Over there works of art, especially foreign ones, did not have much explanation to them. One had the author, the title of the work, the year it was made, and the museum where it was displayed. Similarly, musical works had the name of the composer, the title of the piece, the orchestra, conductor and performers. That was it. No explanations. On one hand, it was not too good. I listened to J.S. Bach "St Matthew Passions" and "St John Passions" in German without any idea what they were singing about. On the other hand, I now realize that there was good in it. One saw or listened to the work, not critical reviews or explanations. I remember at least two books edited in the Soviet Union and dedicated to modern art. The books started with critical articles, lambasting the art (only Socialist Realism was allowed and proper). We didn't bother reading all that. But after that were pages with the art itself. De Chirico, Picasso, Leger. What in the world was all that? It was mysterious and exciting. A critic (if that's the right name) can suggest how to approach a piece, he can help one understand it. Otherwise, who cares about the critics.

[@joansola02]

I loved this. Thank you!

[@charlesiragui2473]

I feel sympathy for what Dr Hicks is saying and have since I was a child some 50 years ago: so much negativity. However, if anything, I have grown to appreciate artists of the last 125 years (roughly) whom he is implicitly criticizing. Picasso, Matisse, Rothko, Sol LeWitt for example (go to Beacon Dia outside of New York). I visited the Musee Picasso in Paris in 2023 and the exhibit was about Picasso's family relations and his art. Interesting and made me see his art even more favorably (and of course his personal life was not particularly admirable). Broadly, positivism itself can be a mistake. Darkness and light exist and denying the darkness can diminish artist efforts. My faith makes me accept the darkness, in ourselves, and seek the light. One topic Hicks doesn't touch on is the art object as sacred. Certainly, in Orthodox Christianity, we believe that the Word made Flesh gives new purpose to the image, with the icon being wood and paint but also holiness, in our world.

[@opposingshore9322]

Totally agree. Seeing Rothko paintings and a Sol Lewitt cube in person were deeply revelatory, contemplative experiences that richened the meaning in my life and elevated my understanding of beauty.

[@dianawitty9628]

I was fascinated by Freud when I was younger…as I’ve aged I believe that he studied deeply pathologic ppl and then extrapolated there pathology on to the rest of us…it is “in our jargon and how we now relate to each other… . I think there are deeply healthy ppl with there more ways, out of fashion, but maybe better depicted by Carl Jung…a man who split with Freud. His doctrine is spiritual with a much healthier lens… Beauty Love Commitment Generosity Wisdom Logic Heroism A listening Ear Health and Wellbeing Calming and soothing nature These are but a few Characteristics of healthy ppl That populated the world around you and the animals that live in a lot more harmony than we really are brought to imagine Peace be with you all Your peace is my peace Desiderata

[@tommcfadden5232]

Thank you for your comment. I found it thought provoking. And, hopeful. 😊

[@dianawitty9628]

@@tommcfadden5232 love that it spoke to you…

[@dianawitty9628]

@@tommcfadden5232 are you familiar with The Poem, Desiderata? I love it so much…take care of yourself

[@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.

[@dirkvanschalkwyk1919]

Yes, but not in the Abrahamic religions, as quoted. Islam is the best example of this

[@josiahgibbs5697]

A graven image is an idol. It is not just any art.

[@stevenhanson6057]

No title for the piece. The artist is unknown. And it’s not for sale.

[@TheGreatness-gg1jx]

The Visual Arts- painting and sculpture in particular- were killed by the Great Depression and the post-war hyper consumerism boom. The Art Deco movement in the 20s and early 30s was wonderful but brief. Fortunately, no one noticed the loss because we had Ferrari. From the longer view, when painting became the prime art instead of sculpture, and the human form or natural forms were replaced by "abstractions", aka "art for art's sake", ugliness and chaos became trendy and clueless people with money started speculating.

[@Kurtlane]

There is something in this lecture that repels me. It's like someone holding a gun at my back, telling me, "You must be beautiful! You must be optimistic!" Some questions at the end expressed similar concerns. I am not alone. Some major errors were made. Here are just a few: There is no emotion that has not been expressed in some major work. Including feeling small and miserable. Gogol's "Overcoat" comes to mind. And Dostoevsky. The Second Commandment (prohibition to create representations) is there because that's considered likening oneself to God. It was during the Renaissance that the word "create" began to be applied to artists. Before that only God could create, and becoming almost God-like was blasphemy. This physical world was seen as the work of God. It was not seen as disgusting by anyone except a few small sects. But there was a place and time to turn away from the creation and contemplate the Creator. Some see human beings as weak, sinful, hypocritical, disgusting. So that they should feel ashamed of themselves and guilty, fall on their knees and ask for forgiveness. What kind of art will it produce? It will produce Hieronymus Bosch. And some works of Peter Bruegel. Not modern art. Huge difference. Great art was never just beautiful. Donatello's "Penitent Magdalene" is outwardly ugly. Rembrandt's last self-portraits and portraits of his wife. So many Goya's paintings are deliberately ugly. And then there is Bosch. I don't know what to do with all those whining critics and their pessimistic descriptions of modern art and literature. Do they really matter? The works themselves are not uniformly bleak or desperate. In general, "Take all of author's works and reduce them to three words" is a crime that should never be done. Philosophy has its own dangers. Turning into a journalist is the big one. People who dislike modern art range from those who see Impressionists as too modern to those like me, to whom the limit comes with Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning. Maybe even beyond. That's fine. It is good that everyone can choose for themselves. My absolute favorite two painting are Peter Bruegel's "The Hunters in the Snow" and Jean Metzinger's "Dancer in a Cafe" (I saw both in original). Metzinger's Dancer is modern art. Today art is either a business or a political tool. Art is dead.

[@skipyoung12]

Your description of the changes from 1917 to the 1960s would have been better demonstrated by showing some of the art works during that period.

[@James-ll3jb]

You mean he doesn't?

[@artlessons1]

Interesting. As an artist and retired art teacher. I have no doubt experienced many paradigm shifts in the art world and in philosophy. Mr Hicks being a philosopher, has the usual ego-inflated perspective on Religion as well as critically viewing the concepts of other philosophers. Let's get back to the Philosopher King himself, Plato, in philosophical terms, he let art out of his Republic because it was a copy of copy of the natural form . Just as in Exodus where. "They shall not use the graven image, or in Kant " thing in itself can't be known. Mr Hicks clearly speaks against the Deconstructive method used by the post-modernists, where the content is not important , or the artist or author's intentions but rather the viewers . He does not need to interpret the biblical writings in his biased interpretation that suggests a hostile power, much after Nietzche, rather than letting the words breathe in their own context. Art best illustrated in its actual metaphysical form is Hyperrealism. Even though an artist and teacher. I agree with Plato, as a portrait of a person is not the actual person, just as the person is not the natural form of the good ( In religion, God )

[@stuartwray6175]

1917 (industry and alienation) Pseudo-history - No mention of the mechanised brutality of WWI, or Constructivism, Bauhaus, Art Deco.

[@leerass]

Imagine the hubris you need to do a lecture on art and come with such a superficial interpretation of why we are still drawn to the ‘girl with the pearl’ as: “it is a representation of femininity”…..ok. Of course when you only look at art with a superficial view it bothers you if it is beautiful or not. But hey, some people just want art to be pretty and make them feel good.

[@alexandermartirosyan3406]

Not very persuasive. Life in time of Renaissance was much much grimmer: endless wars that could be called world wars, small feuds between cities and lords, epidemics, inquisition. Life was short and very hard for everyone, full of disappointments including philosophical ones. And yet. . . . .

[@AdamRiddle-c3l]

Your view on history seems to come from lefty comedians

[@alexandermartirosyan3406]

@@AdamRiddle-c3l what has it got to do with leftism? ok, tell me the real and correct version of history. Life was easy and long, no wars, no feuds, no epidemics, right? Or the art of that time was as ugly as now? You cant have it both ways.

[@deirdre108]

You are correct. For example Renaissance Florence was far more violent than any developed city today.

[@mrdermody1984]

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

[@dirkvanschalkwyk1919]

He said, probably. How is it relevant?

[@TheArtistUnion]

Because the entire talk is based on speculations like this. That’s why it is relevant: the lecturer says that Vermeer cared about her, painted her lovingly. “A hired model” wouldn’t be much use for his thesis

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

@@TheArtistUnion- Perhaps he cared for the hired model? What’s the difference? The important part is that he cared and painted her lovingly and as a thing of natural beauty.

[@Paradisusinfernalis6815]

Why bother to educate some, they will never listen and understand. He said that it is believed that she was his daughter … that is not the point here at all - the point is even not knowing the story behind this painting- who is she , why he painted her - we still value it as art and it is beautiful for everyone who sees it . While in contemporary art you need a guidebook with pages that will explain you why 17:58 toilet is called art and we put it in a museum and sell it . That is what you missed from this great lecture! If philosophy teaches today that all is relative and the world is shit - you see shit in the museum

[@IsraelShekelberg]

JRR Tolkien, author of the quintessential anti-modern novel, wrote somewhere that 'escape' implies the metaphor of a prison to escape from, and is a noble enterprise.

[@AndyJarman]

25:45 "Ritual" is NOT repetition, ritual is the ceremonial manefestation of an action intended to evoke the meaning of the original action it is recreating. So religious rites are heavily ritual because there is a desire to reincarnate the events they are inspired by. If you agree with my statement, then you will realise art cannot be anything but ritualistic. If it does not strive to recreate a meaning, a moment, a questioning, by probing people for a response then it is not art. It is a random act.

[@ultrasignificantfootnote3378]

What we have to try to realise is that the things in themselves , go beyond themselves, and that is what makes good art 🤣

[@deadaccount5290]

Where is Levinas, Jaspers, Jung, - its not about XX century philisophers, but about artists and their intelectual choices

[@richardouvrier3078]

«nature red in tooth and claw » I think, comes from Tennyson, the poet, Dr Hicks.

[@dirkvanschalkwyk1919]

Thanks. He said that it wasn't Darwin's.

[@Arthuriantimes]

Excellent presentation. As someone who has been an active artist for most of my life, I finally lost faith in art (painting) about 3 years ago and have given up creating art altogether. I now consider myself as a failed artist. The meaning of art that I was taught at art school just doesn't exist anymore and thus the reason to create doesn't exist either. I shut down my website as I won't have it stolen by Ai and I refuse to let anyone photograph my work either as I feel it dilutes the image experience. I have stopped entering competitions and I have stopped contacting galleries. For the past 2 years I have contemplated on where art might be heading - if it will survive at all, and what I will do with the paintings that I still own and refuse to sell. I did consider burning them but just recently I found answer of where art can fit into modern times and have a positive impact. I intend to explore this on my new youtube channel to test my theory out.

[@mcrumph]

What sort of works did you create?

[@JohnBurman-l2l]

I agree with you. For those sensitive to art, I suggest that like prayer art has a value, that can only be valued by our inner self. The commercial art world has been corrupted at the high end....much like the nobel prize. We are obviously near the end of a decadent society, it has to run it's course.

[@Arthuriantimes]

@@JohnBurman-l2l Totally agree.

[@crockmans1386]

Art is a show is a religion is what you did. You create, you show it, you believe in it, you do it again. Art is not pretty, is not intelligent, is not wise, is not anything. If art works for you fine. If art touches your soul fine. If some critics discuss the ugliness of modern art for hours..... well done. Nothing touches true art. It can only be seen n heard. But studying the world a lot, travelling to countries, and researching new and old art... helps you find more fascinating art. Whow, look at this big ugly picture. Yeah, perfect, i ll buy it.

[@jimcrabbe3373]

When he asks: "Marcel Duchamp's toilet...what do we do with it?? We piss on it". The one guy at 52:42 actually goes "I would sit down". He's gonna take a dump on it?

[@brentsrx7]

Avant-garde gemanic artists have been the same for nearly 2000 years. They can tear down the great temples and artistry of antiquity, but they have nothing to replace it with. Just cold metalic Bauhause glass boxes of sinicism, black leather, and compassionless destruction.

[@zaniwoob]

Your comment is a shrill display of idiotic hubris and lack of knowledge. Be silent.

[@longandshort6639]

Exodus 20:4 is referring to making images and worshiping them - like a golden calf for example. Don’t take a text out of context.

[@StephenHicksPhilosopher]

The context is the entire several millennia of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian (until 1100 CE or so) interpretation of that passage for art. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." There's a reason those traditions have eschewed and/or destroyed imagistic art.

[@longandshort6639]

@@StephenHicksPhilosopher you still don’t understand the point of the command.

[@StephenHicksPhilosopher]

@@longandshort6639 Sigh. Please think about doing some history and not just proselytizing your preferred interpretation.

[@MaryDeanDotCom]

The internet has destroyed the power of gatekeepers and boundaries. Just as in music, young people can pick and choose between all the artistic eras and genres, and they can “live” in that space for as long as they choose. This is only a prelude. Soon the boundaries of nation-states will dissolve. We need “Philosophy” to catch up.

[@MichaelPHays]

@MaryDeanDotCom and as the boundaries of the nation-states dissolves, so does civilization. In the end, All That Remains is chaos. But that is not the fate of the world, God has a different outcome.

[@AndyJarman]

27:30 Farce "A light dramatic work in which highly improbable plot situations, exaggerated characters, and often slapstick elements are used for humorous effect." A disingenuous joke in the form of a pantomime for amusement with little profundity .

[@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.

[@KL0098]

Really? I could swear most film scores maintain "Western tonality". Ever heard of Ennio Morricone? John Williams?

[@kevmoonhare]

Indeed, for how can the divine cosmos be ugly & schizophrenic, clearly its the proscribed culture & philosophy that is distorted & deranged. I hold that a true artist or true artwork is never modern or ancient, only ever new, for it emerges wrought by the artist from the essence of being & non being chiming with divinity. Both the theatre of the gods of olympus & the entropic atomism of science are grossly misleading yet make fine jumping off points, while the the true essence of reality & metaphysics are available to all that care to engage it, from which all true art comes.

[@swedishguyonyoutube4684]

40:48 most important part

[@kdub6593]

Great talk. TU

[@morganmayfair4755]

What people in the cities, towns and suburbs are missing is nature. They discount it as irrelevant. They miss its deep mystery and that it is an expression of life. No wonder they can only value negativity. They are like silver weed the rabbit, only able to express the horror they experience. For them naturalistic Art should be a messenger of enlightenment. This is what you are missing. Leave the cities and even if you have to live in a shack in the countryside you will be immersed in life, beauty and find meaning again.

[@AndyJarman]

26:40 artists working in the early 1990s were engaged is disolving everything. Is that art or is it a statement about how ideas are confected from building blocks. Such actions are not art are they? They convey an idea, but they convey cynicism about the value of meaning itself. This is NOT art because it is not a reincarnation of an idea, mearly the dismantling of an idea.

[@johnkubek4246]

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

[@KL0098]

Well, if a Roman said so 2000 years ago then it must be true and inalterable!

[@johnkubek4246]

@@KL0098 , No, if a Roman said it 2,000 years ago and it continues to be repeated 2,000 years later there maybe some truth to it.

[@bhhbcc4573]

I now understand an additional level of the new antisemitism . The rebirth of the Jewish state, its marvelous success and the amazing optimism underpinning its establishment is construed as a rebellion against the depressing decay of western ideals depicted here. That is sure to foster resentment among the disillusioned who feel trapped in eternal misery and self loathing.

[@SophieHamilton-d3e]

Jews are as entitled as anyone else to be outraged at the atrocities inflicted against the Palestinians. Zionists and their supporters have been led down a dark idealogical alleyway and the cost has been high. The most dangerous place in the world to be a Jew is Israel - that’s hardly a ‘marvellous success’!

[@petermitchelldayton]

Reactionaries have been lecturing everyone like, forever. Now we can do whatever we want… because Duchamp nailed it.

[@grouchomarxist666]

Hear, hear. Who could forget the NSDAP's reaction to "degenerate" art: it's promotion of proper Aryan values.

[@Joekonda11]

"I'm a philosopher by trade". Ah ah ah!

[@eloiseripley]

🤠

[@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.

[@cherylnagy126]

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

[@KL0098]

Can't wait until Hicks picks up a history book and discovers that the "beautiful" Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages were considered ugly by the rational, educated elite of the 1700s. A Frenchman, René Rapin, writing in the 17th century, said that the "Goths" (architects in the Gothic manner) “suffered their Wits to ramble in the Romantic way.” This was not praise. "Romantic" at this time meant capricious, foolhardy, untruthful, incoherent, disproportionate. For Rapin, "“Art is good Sense reduc’d to Method”. The "good Sense" and the "Method" were, of course, wholly subjective and changeable with time and class, and the way the Enlightenment saw it, Gothic art failed at both. Nowadays, this is a preposterous claim. The Gothic cathedrals are among the monuments most beloved by ordinary people: millions of tourists go to France to admire them. But it took the critics and artists of the 19th century to reevaluate the worth of the Gothic style we all admire nowadays. "Intelligent" people with "good taste" had to be trained to appreciate it. What's infuriating about people like Hicks, who have no historical training in the subjects they prat about, is that they assume the whole of the past shared a uniform idea of what the "beautiful" was. For him and his ilk it's unthinkable, unconceivable, that in 2000 years of European art there were changes in taste and that art styles we now admire may have been despised by spurious reasons. This is all to say modern art is fine, it's not ugly; it's merely different from certain, rigid standards of taste. What's now jarring and grating may in time become normal. It's awkward that Hicks' taste stagnated in the 1700s. That's hardly an "expert" I'd want to give me lessons about the arts.

[@LesterRapaport]

This lecture seemed biased and defamatory and extraordinarily simplistic. One example….Picasso’s dove Picasso’s hand holding flowers Picasso’s neoclassical period ….could go on. Oh and For Whom the Bell Tolls has at its center the piercing romance of Roberto and Maria. And please don’t talk the emperor’s new clothes- ant artist spending a lifetime is nit in business she/he is of necessity keeping hers/his internal fire going….it is an imperative.

[@dirkvanschalkwyk1919]

Well of course. Nobody expects everyone to agree with everything, such as architecture, as it happens. More than a hundred years later, we may accept the message of the urinal called Fountain, but its replication requires no effort whatsoever, so why revere it?

[@TheArtistUnion]

@@LesterRapaportThank you for the words of wisdom. The lecture is unbelievable in its ignorance

[@LesterRapaport]

@@TheArtistUnion I see it as philosophical malpractice

[@StuartTheunissen]

Hick's was talking in very broad strokes, and broadly speaking he is correct in his analysis of the last century. But I guess he touched a nerve so you went nitpicking.

[@mcrumph]

A few things here: A-This part of the comment has been removed due to my short-sightedness. 2-The Theory of Realism: To depict the human condition, experience (in all its beauty, ugliness, struggles [whether victorious or not], suffering, joy, &c.), culture, & philosophies in a hope to communicate with the viewer, giving them something of a basis for the start of a conversation. #-I don't think that people buy the modern/postmodern works because they think they are thought provoking or any such thing; rather, it is a simple investment that they know will do nothing but appreciate. (Conversations such as this should address the vast difference between Art as creation & the art world/market, which is only concerned about profit [& in many cases money laundering].) D-Anyone who feels that they can only use abstractions to convey something has neither thought about it enough nor are they creative enough to bring it to fruition.

[@TheArtistUnion]

Good comment, refreshing among the choir of clueless. The problem is the lecturer himself is clueless in art.

[@jacekkalinowski694]

As not native english speaker, I have appreciated some explaining on the way. But , of course , real world is only the anglosphere and one should direct communication only to them, even if speaking abroad... pathetic.

[@mcrumph]

@@jacekkalinowski694 You are correct. It was short-sighted of me to say such a thing. I try to be a person who learns from my mistakes & so have edited that part out of my comment. Thank you for bringing my attention to it. I wish you well.

[@anthonykenny1320]

The mere fact you have to explain nihilism and facile deconstructs the entire edifice of meaning

[@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.

[@crockmans1386]

There is a lot missing in his historic approach : 1,impressionism, how to make a garden look like a cloud, 2,expressionism, when a cube becomes a wheel, 3,pointilism and hyper realism, 4,comic art, 5,fantasy art, 6,big murals, 7,live performance art, 8,the russian black on black, 9,LP cover art, the white album, 10,primitive art, 11,trompe l,oeil art, 12,huge color wallpapers ..... etc Its all great art. Nothing ugly there, just amazing art. ........just imagine a world of art, and people dont talk about it, they just go to exhibitions in silence and feel the art.

[@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.

[@BrennanYoung]

Who paid for the Sistine Chapel frescoes?

[@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. 🤔

[@CarliMichelle]

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

[@AP-sd1fl]

Only if you make the mistake of kissing her...

[@MrChadwooters]

The meaning in visual art does not manifest is words. Those attempting to reduce an image to some verbal message are looking in the wrong place. Hicks even starts his discussion of the arts with story characters from a play...the visual arts are not like that. Meaning does not come from the depiction, the depictions come out of meaning. Also, his art history excluded the positive contribution of modernism to abstract physical reality into visual languages. Modern art is at its best, not when "making a statement", but rather when it evokes the sublime by attending to non-verbal universals. To me, contemporary realism is as uninteresting as post-modern or folk art. As such, I do not consider the modern tradition over or irrelevant. It has yet to mature with our understanding of reality.

[@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.

[@BrennanYoung]

I can't take him at all seriously. Far too much cherry picking, and completely ignores addressing any/all counter-examples, as any good academic ought to do. It has a veneer of serious scholarship, but scratch the surface, and the rigor is lacking, rather like Jordan Peterson, whom he name-checks in this lecture. I should have heard alarm bells ringing when he brought in Ayn Rand as some kind of representative voice of 20th century culture.

[@frusia123]

There are only few real artists today, one of them is Banksy, and he has been a living negation of the art world. The art world today is pitiful, and that's because our narcissistic society has become pitiful.

[@AP-sd1fl]

Some facts about Rauschenberg´s Erased de Kooning: "With great respect and trepidation, Rauschenberg approached de Kooning to ask for a drawing to erase; with some reluctance and consternation, de Kooning consented. According to Rauschenberg, de Kooning agreed to participate because he understood the concept behind the request and did not want to impede another artist’s work." (Sarah Roberts: Erased de Kooning)

[@AP-sd1fl]

And it´s not a painting (as Hicks claims) but a drawing.

[@TheWhitehiker]

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

[@byronbuchanan3066]

Exodus 20:4 "Thous shalt not make unto thee any graven image." is not talking about making art i.e. painting a flower.... it is a commandment to not make images of false gods to worship or make an image of the One true God. God does not forbid painting or sculpting in the Bible outside of idols.

[@BrennanYoung]

the first of many howlers and falsehoods in this lecture

[@hotdogdog4740]

Art isnt ugly

[@akashakash-351]

The lectures title already says everything…..about the lecture’s limited „art“ concept…it is as meaningless as „art is beautiful“.

[@colly7963]

A few years ago, my sister and I were in London and decided to go to the Tate Museum. We accidentally went to the Tate Modern. After 20 minutes we walked out. Even though there were famous "sculptures" by Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, the exhibits were underwhelming and looked cheap and tacky. Modern art is a joke.

[@davidhunternyc1]

_"After the Holocaust, how can I paint pretty pictures?"_ - Picasso

[@wexwuthor1776]

That's when pretty pictures are needed the most.

[@StephenS-2025]

To censor art is to enforce said censorship. That entails physicality. So...." they" say I can't sculpt Hitler eating a puppy. I do it anyway. People smash it and celebrate. Now the " art" has become more meaningful. It changes.

[@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.

[@evolgenius1150]

Something about moving away from the truth...

[@awedbyhiswonder]

The professor obviously is a very astute and probably well read instructor. Nevertheless he is not free of bias and demonstrates his bias against "some" religion's prohibitions about portraying the divine with carved images. The reason for the prohibition, he has to be very well aware of was to set apart the adherents of that religion from the people around them who had a very different approach to the spiritual Their gods were ascribed power that could endow the possessors of their images with power over the images made by them. belief In Them included the idea that having the image of their gods in possession could be manipulated by them to grant requests. It was a way to take "control" of the gods they worshipped And the worship of them very often In- corporated temple prostitution as an offering to the gods and a way of making a bond with their gods. The worship even included human and child sacrifice, another reason why there needed to be a complete separation from the idolatry that required those practices. I'm sure this professor is aware of these facts. If not he needs to do some more research before he attempts to be someone who enlightens his pupils Additionally there. Are other sorts of art beside the visual