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Old 07-09-2008, 01:18 PM   #6
Peter Dransfield Peter Dransfield is offline
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Joined: Jun 2008
Location: Malaga, Spain
Posts: 91
I certainly cannot deny you the right to find a B beautiful. Personally I cannot imagine having a B hanging in my home whereas I don't have enough wall space for Cezanne, Giacometti or Klimt. - personal taste.

As for whether beauty is enough or even necessary for it be Art with a capital A - it is a complicated relationship. Definitions of beauty vary to a preposterous degree but also much great art self evidently does not pursue beauty. I think beauty can be a sufficient objective for art but for Art I am not so sure.

As for should Art be relevant - when has what we identify as great Art not been? Art has always been about transmitting messages and there is no point in transmitting an irrelevant message. The argument therefore turns on whether a particular message at a particular time and place is relevant or not. I would argue that compared to the messages being transmitted by Corot, Daumier, Courbet, Millet, Manet, Degas, Monet, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Cezanne the message of B was irrelevant. Time and place i.e. context and the living world rather than formula and convention.
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