How do you argue against art being subjective...

>the same way eating human feces is OBJECTIVELY worse tasting than eating chocolate.

That too is subjective. Flys would rather eat shit then chocolate. Its not that you are right and the flys are wrong its that your taste buds have different opinions.

Not an argument against the purely subjective nature of art though.
You mention a unified biological language, and call it beauty.
However, there are cultures where pic related (ok, sans the kid's head through the lip, judging from the look in her eyes, that must have cost the photographer all of 2 USD) is considered beauty.
In many other cultures, there is nothing beautiful about a badly mutilated lip.
>Symmetry = objective
There's also a subjective dimension to symmetry, by your own interpretation of the facts even.
The perception of symmetry vs. asymmetry could not exist without it.

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/thread, basically.
Also checked.

>there are cultures where pic related is considered beauty.
Nope
ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/entertainment/Lifestyle-Why-the-Mursi-women-have-a-lip-plate-481284
>This form of disfigurement was begun centuries ago to discourage slave raiders,

>There's also a subjective dimension to symmetry
Nah, its measurable

To be clear, the part where the artist comes in is beyond the beauty-perception mechanism, the artist uses this objective mechanism to express higher things that don't have a physical counterpart and thus require to use the physical to reveal themselves

The question wasn't if people liked some things more than others (duh), but if art was subjective

>An example of this carried forward is using the human shape at its peak physical symmetry form to convey high spiritual/moral ideas
Those ideas themselves are not per se conveyed by a symmetrical depiction of peak human body, but are actually pre-existing in the culture and referred to by art.
i.e.:
A perfectly symmetrical edpiction of the Virgin Mary means one thing to the devout Christian, another thing to the atheist, and pretty much nothing (or at least something very different from the Christian AND the atheist) to the 15th century indio who saw it for the first time.
Therefore, the conveyence of the Idea behind the superb depiction of the Virgin is actually no more than a reference to pre-established cultural artifacts as held in the minds of those percieving the specific work of art.
A horrible irl example of this was when several years ago the Taliban (if memory serves) blew up with dynamite a very old beautiful stone carving of Buddah. They just couldn't help themselves, and surely they all slept very well that night.
They percieved that huge painstakingly carved Buddah as a heresy of sorts, and therefore it had to be destroyed.
Buddhists around the world saw that work of art (not to mention it's wanton destruction) very differently indeed, however even non-buddhists, atheists, and regular people almost certainly understood it's destruction as an act of medieval barbarism.
>This form of disfigurement was begun centuries ago to discourage slave raiders,
So why continue the practice?
If you're gonna stick your dick in that, there MUST be a subjective component of 'beauty' involved somehow.
Why continue such a horrific practice otherwise?
Why the scars on the fucking face of all places?
Beauty.
>Nah, its measurable
Yes it is, 100% correct.
But it is also perceivable, and was so for millenia before measuring was even a thing.
One thing does NOT cancel out the other.

art is objective, it has to look good. anything abstract is not art.

Quality art is either constructive or critical. The best art tells a story, and I personally enjoy art that refers to other cultural pieces.

Constructive art champions ideals. It's something a person or society can strive to achieve or be. This is usually the "beautiful" art. It feels good to look at.

Critical art pieces don't have to be beautiful, and in many cases intentionally don't. A well designed critical art piece should invoke feeling of unease; they are symbols of what to avoid.

Bad art does none of those things, but that's why artfags absolutely LOVE them. They can look at a piece devoid of meaning trying to find something. It gives them great joy and a feeling of accomplishment when they feel like they have deciphered the significance of the piece. They feel like they got more value from the piece that provided less significance because they had to put in more effort to reach the interpretation and conclusion that they did.

>So why continue the practice?
It says it right there, its a tradition signaling social status, if your family does its cause you don't descend from slaves

>no more than a reference to pre-established cultural artifacts
I disagree with this. First, the medieval Mary is like you say a symbolic reference, this is cause medieval art is symbolic in nature, it can be argued is little more than a pictographic language for referencing the bible. However, the later Mary, the rennaisance one, is a bit more than that, pic related. You don't need to know who Mary is to understand this image, you only have to be human, if you are human you share the aesthetic language to read what this sculpture is conveying, even though you might not understand its context. Id argue a similar thing happens with the buddha, where is not the face or clothes of the buddha what is the buddha, but its the pose and facial expression what makes it a buddha. The way he is seated and his facial expression are enough to understand what buddhism is: its using a universal aesthetic language.

>the Taliban (if memory serves) blew up with dynamite a very old beautiful stone carving of Buddah
They didn't do it as an artistic expression though, i don't see how it relates, that something is beautiful doesn't mean it shouldn't be destroyed. More on this in the next paragraph.

It might be better to think of this outside the visual realm and go to the sense of taste, although there's rustic, complex, and even exotic or "hard" tastes which my be better or worse for specific people, there's also foul tastes that serve as a signal of the body to tell the mind to not eat that shit. This can be overrided however, either by the person or by others outside it, and get to a point you *enjoy* the foul taste, however this doesn't mean the consumption of it will make you less sick.

Depends, abstract art can represent abstract stuff like light, shape, texture, graduation, etc.

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Taste buds can't have opinions, they simply signal whether something is good/bad which is objective just depending the organism

>It says it right there, its a tradition signaling social status, if your family does its cause you don't descend from slaves
Fine, but regardless, there is an inevitable aesthetic component to it, and that component specifically must carry beauty with it, or else it would have been phased out a generation or so after the end of slavery.
(It is reasonable to believe that it would not have been phased out immediately, because being hunted and captured in order to be disappeared to a faraway land must have realy done a number on their culture as a whole. But by the same token, it stands to reason that in the cause of excruciatingly painful facecutting was slavery, it would have
been abandoned after a few generations at most.)

Getting to the rest of your post shortly, bump.

Notice that in the Pieta there's also another thing going on, beyond the expression of piety, there's also a work done on everything from the human shape to the folds of the clothes that is probably the reason is considered "high" art, and is because it reflects on itself, the piece is also about its own technique, you find the obsession of the artist in achieving the "objective aesthetic language of beauty" not only in its conveying of the theme but also in the way it handles every little detail from the folds to the ribs.

This relates to good abstract art as well, where the very texture of the stroke holds a huge role of the pieces, sometimes becoming the theme itself in things like minimalism, which, again, reflects on itself by being minimalist to the very core and unifying theme/technique

They're all irrelevant as long as they're not exalting the nation.

Art is subjective, but I believe any craft should be judged upon the ability it takes to perform it.

Artists like leonardo and michelangelo had to extensively study human anatomy, light propagation and train immensely to create their masterpieces.
Cattelan can just tape a banana to a wall and call it art.

Look at the 1920s futuristic movement. Now, I dislike many of the paintings but they had a clear meaning: motion, strength, cold and impassable steel (picrel)
You can like modern "art" but that doesn't mean it's really art.

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>medieval Mary
Never referenced medieval Mary specifically. Not trying to pull a cheap ''gotcha'' on a technicality here, just saying so because medieval sacred art was indeed quite different from Renaissance art, that's all.
> First, the medieval Mary is like you say a symbolic reference, this is cause medieval art is symbolic in nature, it can be argued is little more than a pictographic language for referencing the bible. However, the later Mary, the rennaisance one, is a bit more than that, pic related.
Both are symbolic of Scripture.
While a symmetrical depiction of the Virgin may be more 'ecstatic' than a stick figure of the Virgin drawn by a child, both images refer to the same cultural artifact (Scripture, Bible, Church, whatever).
>You don't need to know who Mary is to understand this image
Yes, you do.
You don't need to be a Christian, but you have to at least be vaguely familiar with Christianity to understand it.
Again, an indio might see a mother and son, or a wife and husband, maybe even two women, or perhaps a formless and evil stone impossibility to be destroyed, just like the Taliban vs. Buddah. Heck, maybe even something to turn into a cargo cult.
>let that sink in
>The way he is seated and his facial expression are enough to understand what buddhism is: its using a universal aesthetic language.
No user, it doesn't.
You could just as easily interpret the Buddah -again, from the wild indio point of view- as a big fat despotic king who just ate a hearty carnivorous meal and is just chillin' with a very full belly.
Or, again, a stone abomination which eveil forcves made and must be destroyed.
Or a myriad of other unimaginable interpretations.
All of these would be wrong.

>They didn't do it as an artistic expression though, i don't see how it relates, that something is beautiful doesn't mean it shouldn't be destroyed. More on this in the next paragraph.
It only relates in the sense that beauty has it's foundation ultimately on cultural artifacts.
That Buddah was -aside from deeply meaningful in a religious sense- certainly beautiful to not only Buddhists, but also pretty much everyone else, as stated before.
>
It might be better to think of this outside the visual realm and go to the sense of taste, although there's rustic, complex, and even exotic or "hard" tastes which my be better or worse for specific people, there's also foul tastes that serve as a signal of the body to tell the mind to not eat that shit. This can be overrided however, either by the person or by others outside it, and get to a point you *enjoy* the foul taste, however this doesn't mean the consumption of it will make you less sick.
You make a bunch of very good points here, gonna have to think about them a bit more.
Fuck this goddamn board, it moves too fast for this kind of stuff.

>It only relates in the sense that beauty has it's foundation ultimately on cultural artifacts.
Which ultimately ''proves'' or it's subjective nature.
>Buddhists make stunningly beautiful carving into the side of a fucking mountain
>fast-forward 2000 years or so
>sandniggers blast it all to hell because ''muh Allah can never be depicted cuz muh green book sez so''
The cultural substrate -under the guise of truth/objectivity- from which all art is wrought ultimately determines the perception of art (a cultural artifact), in a purely subjective manner.
Maybe the esson here is that the perception itself is subjective, but the creation is not????
Just spitballin' here, haven't even thought this through really, but on the face of it it maks some sort of superficial sense.

>there is an inevitable aesthetic component to it
Well but thats where the point is, they decorate the fucking disk so they don't look so hideous and they use geometry and symmetry to make it look good

>Both are symbolic of Scripture.
Id say one is a symbol and the other is symbolic

>you have to at least be vaguely familiar with Christianity to understand it.
>an indio might see a mother and son, or a wife and husband, maybe even two women
But the piece is not about Mary and Christ, is about piety, it doesn't matter who you think they are or what connection you think they have: you see the clothed human figure in deep mourning of the death of the naked picture

>and is just chillin'
Thats exactly what the buddha figure expresses, the "chillin", which no matter what context you bring to the buddha, you still see it in the piece. Of course like not all marys hold the same emotional weight, neither do all the buddhas, its the artist's job to make the depth of the chilling enthralling enough to cause deeper impression and reflection. This is related to what this guy is saying in regards to the study of the masters to express intention through technique.

Your mistake is that you are taking the art to mean hidden things instead of the instantly apparent, which is just a vice of modern art that has to resort to indirection to hold the emotional weight its lack of technique can't express >While a symmetrical depiction of the Virgin may be more 'ecstatic' than a stick figure of the Virgin drawn by a child

Of course it is true that later, through context you can dig more and more meaning to the pieces, but my point is that in essence what both pieces do, is use a language that everybody possess (the reading of the human shape) to express a highly abstract thing like religious virtue (each their own).

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Yeah i agree with you in that the valuation is subjective, but i wouldn't say the value of the thing is subjective, i guess my point would be the question of it its better for the talibans to live near a buddha or to live near a destroyed piece of stone. Cause ultimately you could see the destroyed piece of stone as a sort of modern art, its a performance piece on herecy purging. Id guess most people who live there get reminded not to fuck with Islam every time they go by.

I think objectively good art is a matter of intelligence and meaning. It’s hard to say a Francis Bacon is better than a Monet which is better than a 5 year olds drawing.

Beauty is innate in everything and it is most easy to deem what is beautiful just from taste. It is really difficult to say a piece of shit is less beautiful that a diamond ring, only out culture and relationship to the object tells us that. Having good taste requires understanding and intelligence. Art that is able to pack the most amount of information in a concise way is objectively good art. That’s why I romanticist painting sits on the same pedestal and a pollock in the halls of history. It’s the weight of idea and the delivery mechanism. The delivery mechanism being lesser as everything can be beautiful.

As our intelligence increases we will be able to see beauty in more complex things and even uglier things. But what triumphs is intelligence. God or the universe encompasses all and thus knows all. As we increase our intelligence we will become one with the universe.

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that is your subjective taste. As much as it pains me to say, for those young listeners, Lil Uzi Vert sounds better to them than Opera. For them, that is objective.

yes, thats my point. For flies, the fact that poop tastes better than chocolate is objective for the vast majority of flies.

>Id say one is a symbol and the other is symbolic
Wat???
Honestly asking, what is te difference ultimately? Of course both words mean different things, ok, but the 'symbol' is 'symbolic', and the 'symbolic' ultimately refers to a 'symbol'....
Don't really see a clear-cut difference, especialy when referring to art of all things.
>But the piece is not about Mary and Christ, is about piety, it doesn't matter who you think they are or what connection you think they have: you see the clothed human figure in deep mourning of the death of the naked picture
Strongly disagree. Strongly.
Virgin + Christ is the epitome of Christian culture, so yes, it most definitely IS about Mary and Christ.
It can NEVER mean the same thing to the 15th century indio elder as it means to the 12th century European child.
And both of these individuals' interpretations are deeply rooted in their specific cultural substrate.
Sorry, but no way their differing interpretations are the same thing.
>Thats exactly what the buddha figure expresses, the "chillin", which no matter what context you bring to the buddha, you still see it in the piece.
Right.
However, ''chillin' '' because you found Enlightenment is -at least on the face of it- very different that, say, chillin' because you raped and pillaged a village, or hunted an animal, murdered it and ate it, etc.
Buddhists are well-known to be, at least in general, vegetarian and pacifists.
Where are those specific cultural artifacts displayed on Buddah's countenance?
Nowhere.
They are simply not there, to be percieved, without the cultural context of Buddhism.

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Again, you are posting a lot of stuff to chew on, (and that's a good thing!) will have to get to the rest of your post shortly.
And sorry about al the typos so far.

Out of topic, but which of the two would you say is degenerate art?

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