Nice article Daniel, Thank you for sharing. As a long time, artist and art lover I feel the need to make a distinction between Manet and Tilman that you left out. But then this distinction is almost always left out. Your political and cultural comparisons are apt but in this case Manet (a painter whose primary considerations were aesthetic) and Tilmans (a photographer who is perhaps 'post-aesthetic') is like comparing apples and oranges.
Yes, Manet caused quite a stir, and some say he was the original Modern artist, steeped in the European painting tradition and in some ways an heir to Goya. As a painter the 'touch' of his brush on the canvas automatically connected his heart to everything he put down and that is why he lives on as a giant. His intellectual and political concerns were secondary to his engagement with form, color, surface and mystery.
Yes, he was cool (as opposed to warm) in feeling and perhaps that made him a prophet as a painter, i.e. Warhol, the ultimate society painter. The point for me is that in an important sense I can see more of a relationship between a basket weaver from a tribal village or a potter to Manet than I see to Tilmans. It's the hand heart connection that get's ignored in discussions like this but feels to me like the elephant in the room. That's not to deny the astute comparisons you made and I'm not saying that photography is without aesthetics either.
There are some paradoxes inherent here. Granted Tilmins' is a poet of his time, as was Manet. But I wonder what sort of poetry we need to root us again in the earth, the heart and the infinite.
As far as I know Wendell Berry still uses a pencil to write with. He likes tools that come from seeds, that rise up with rain and sunlight. Do our tools matter? Does beauty matter?
“…the necessity of defining a new sacred dimension, not as a regression into old modes of religion or an embrace of an exotic mysticism, but as a step forward into a different structure of consciousness, requiring new kinds of aesthetic and cultural practice…” is spot on. Really appreciate your thinking. Keep up the good work.
Nice article Daniel, Thank you for sharing. As a long time, artist and art lover I feel the need to make a distinction between Manet and Tilman that you left out. But then this distinction is almost always left out. Your political and cultural comparisons are apt but in this case Manet (a painter whose primary considerations were aesthetic) and Tilmans (a photographer who is perhaps 'post-aesthetic') is like comparing apples and oranges.
Yes, Manet caused quite a stir, and some say he was the original Modern artist, steeped in the European painting tradition and in some ways an heir to Goya. As a painter the 'touch' of his brush on the canvas automatically connected his heart to everything he put down and that is why he lives on as a giant. His intellectual and political concerns were secondary to his engagement with form, color, surface and mystery.
Yes, he was cool (as opposed to warm) in feeling and perhaps that made him a prophet as a painter, i.e. Warhol, the ultimate society painter. The point for me is that in an important sense I can see more of a relationship between a basket weaver from a tribal village or a potter to Manet than I see to Tilmans. It's the hand heart connection that get's ignored in discussions like this but feels to me like the elephant in the room. That's not to deny the astute comparisons you made and I'm not saying that photography is without aesthetics either.
There are some paradoxes inherent here. Granted Tilmins' is a poet of his time, as was Manet. But I wonder what sort of poetry we need to root us again in the earth, the heart and the infinite.
As far as I know Wendell Berry still uses a pencil to write with. He likes tools that come from seeds, that rise up with rain and sunlight. Do our tools matter? Does beauty matter?
I suppose it's always in the eye of the beholder.
So enjoyable, thank you. (I went to the Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and Design to do film - best time ever - and didn't know he went)!
“…the necessity of defining a new sacred dimension, not as a regression into old modes of religion or an embrace of an exotic mysticism, but as a step forward into a different structure of consciousness, requiring new kinds of aesthetic and cultural practice…” is spot on. Really appreciate your thinking. Keep up the good work.
“…the fragility of a civilization that believed itself…immune to collapsing under its own weightlessness.” Brilliant. Great stuff, thanks, D!