Saturday, February 04, 2006

Sunday Question: Beauty in Art in the Modern World

This Sunday’s question comes from the world of art. Is there such a thing as beauty in the world of the modern? By that I mean all modern forms from design, visual art, music and to theatre, etcetera. I have seen “useful”, “practical”, and even “scary” all termed as beautiful because they are the extremes of their form, but is it true beauty? If part of art is about showing an ideal then what kind of ideal are we showing? What is perfection to the modern mind? What is beauty? If an artist could create an ideal modern art form what would it be?

2 comments:

Naomi said...

HI!

I know that my comment wont directly answer your questions, but I was struck by this as I read it last night!
"Now the industrious bee, unfolding her wing, and quitting the hive, shows her marvelous wisdom, flies over the meadows, rifles the flowers of their sweets, works with her thighs at constructing the cells of hexagonal shape opposite to each other, --straight lines and angles alternating-- a work at once of beauty and strength; she lays up the honey in her repositories, and thus provides for him who provides her with shelter a sweet refection for which he has not labored" (emphasis mine). (Basil of Caesarea, c. 330-79)~Tuesday, Epiphany 5-THE LORD WILL ANSWER.

I thought it intriguing that this was speaking of a functional beauty! Had to share!!
Naomi

Cara said...

here's an interesting quote that I found the other day: "Much art today has abandoned the ambition to please the viewer
aesthetically. Instead, it seeks to shock, discommode, repulse,
proselytize, or startle."
Roger Kimball; Art Without Beauty; The Public Interest (Washington, DC);
Apr 15, 1997.

food for thought