Buffalo is an American architecture enthusiast's paradise. I would like to visit there some day.

-- Edited by Jason at 21:59, 2008-11-21

I can't imagine ever taking Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings for granted.

Wow... I'm looking at an "Objectivist Art" site, and they're explaining exactly why Nick Gaetano's work is not good:

 

...Ayn Rand states reasons why an Objectivist Standard of art leads to better art, and yet, this work is of poor quality despite meeting the obvious criteria for Objectivist Art. What went wrong? A more in depth examination of the work is required to find the problems. Ultimately, the problem can be explained as bad premises.

1.) Poor realism

The bad premise at work here is that realism must be or can be compromised for expression or for effect. A common flaw in his work is inaccurately depicted anatomy, for instance, the abdomen muscles on the figure from the cover of The Romantic Manifesto. This is either a failure to learn anatomy, or worse, disregarding the knowledge in lieu of incorrectness with the belief that incorrectness is somehow better than correctness.

flat and unreal

Realism is important to the extent that it is the means of fully concretizing abstractions. 

adhere to the realism necessary to fully concretize abstractions) may have been a belief in the relative unimportance of realism in contrast to stylization for the purpose of expression. 

2.) Lack of Color variety - incomplete abstraction
4.) Meaningless Composition - Ill-considered abstraction

Objectivists are mostly dicks, mostly.

I think it should. I don't like art that represents terrible things, unless it's mocking it.

Things that portray the universe as inherently malevolent or random, and stuff like that I just don't like. Art should be a recreation of someone's abstract values into concretized form.

We tend to see visual art differently than a book. I think fewer people would tolerate a book that is random, not following a specific theme or was extremely anti-human. Visual arts are viewed differently.

Anyway, I like this.

Really? I'm not a fan of the cooling tower painting. Cordair has tons of great stuff though.

I think art is about expressing the human experience in some way. I think you're right that the rules are different for literature from, say, painting. But I think that attests to the different strengths of the media. I don't think any art is truly random, but there is art that portrays the world as inherently malevolent. I don't like that art. I can appreciate art that portrays despair or sadness (they're legitimate aspects of anyone's life), but I don't enjoy nihilism in any of its forms or any art that fails to recognize the value of life.

Wow what great colors.

I think aesthetics is a chauvinistic philosophical endeavor. I don't think there is an objective normative preference that can be recognized by rational beings; the discipline is a relic of Greek philosophers, who thought that the Greek standard of beauty was THE standard of beauty and tried to rationalize their preferences.

San Fran's is too Old World for my tastes.

SlashXLA wrote:

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Jason wrote:

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No painting is "real"; no artist, not even realists, can actually reproduce reality in their work. The best they can do is frame an image that exists in reality, and even the very placement of a frame is a statement, an artificializing of the natural. 

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 Thank you, Aristotle.

 

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 which is why we have science to describe nature.  artists are poseur scientists