/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

I'm pretty sure God loves beauty and made women beautiful for man to admire (but not worship.) If they complain tell them that. If there is anyone else displaying nude art then point out the hypocrisy. If it's meant to be a family friendly event with children around then you probably shouldn't do it though.

If you're actually memeing and your picture is tasteless and exists to stir controversy then you definitely shouldn't do it.

I mean I'm not getting the benefits of doing this.

Most people in your class probably love liberal stuff and won't care about the evil right winger opinions, there is no point in fighting here.

Don't get me wrong. I really think should try to sabotage evil if possible. For example, I saw people doing a advertising project one time. I saw one of the ads they picked was form Playboy, so I tried to convince them to pick something else for that spot. I failed, but that's besides the point.

What I'm trying to say is that you have to discover, intelligently, if your actions will be efficient to spreading Christianity. People at your class probably don't care or already support you, why not save your breath for people that are unsure?

Matthew 10:16-17 Look, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. But beware of men; for they will hand you over to their councils and flog you in their synagogues

No.

>In an age of "Piss Christ"

Piss Christ is from 1987.

>>718397

He would be standing up for a serious issue and not bend to the absurd metoo nonsense. Letting people push their will on others who do nothing wrong is not okay, and is irresponsible in itself. You have to stand up for things you believe in or they will eventually be taken away.

>>718399

>Piss Christ is from 1987.

Modern Art has been degenerating for a long time, and it's still an effective short hand for degenerate Modern Art in general.

>>718389

You should not be showing immodest art of women. Also respect your prof's decision he has authority over you. Never use emotion to dictate your will.

Draw religious iconography, we have enough porn in the world

>>718559

Drawings of naked women aren't even emotional.

I dropped out of university (law) because I just couldn't bring myself to write essays parroting the marxist ideology the professors wanted the law to be rather than what the law was.

While I'm no doubt poorer than I would've been I don't regret staying true to myself.

>>718523

>>718572

With all due respect, you talk like an expert on the subject, but a few key things give you away as being a dilettante, at best, if not ignorant, at worst, on the subject; more than likely only familiar with the various authors you've listed in your post.

For example, this:

>It has always been, even back in the classical ages the academia still couldn't realize what makes an art piece worth displaying.

This is completely wrong. Academic and classical training systems and standards were in place for hundreds of years. Becoming even more solidly entrenched during the 18th century Neoclassical and Romanticist movements Modern art as we know it, was a very specific rebellion and attack on such systems. It started in a trickle with the Impressionists, who innovated but still had strong roots in solid academic technique and theory, and then became a flood in the aftermath of World War I with the likes of Dadaism.

Liberals/radicals etc. seized upon the perfect storm that was the people's disenchantment with and outright blaming of traditional society for the so-called "War to End All Wars" to begin to ridicule and try to tear down said civilizational standards, along with new techniques and art creation methods that made birthing massive amounts of works in quick succession easy. Thus giving birth to the gallery system (i.e. Christie's, etc) as we know it today. In other words, it became expedient for the fine art market to demonize the likes of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, etc. because it was much more profitable to market a Constructivst artist who could turn around such things as solid black squares with convoluted deep meanings attached to them in a matter of weeks or days, than to support classical academic style oil paintings that could literally take years to finish. Not to mention that Modern Art movements were shrewd enough to take advantage of the "oppressed victim" card handed to them on a silver platter by Hitler's persecution of them during World War II.

>The reason why these "liberals" could easily take over the art academies is because our academia has weak logical supports for the standardization of arts.

You're half right. As I've demonstrated prior, the weak logical supports for the standardization of the arts were the product of the Liberal takeover of the arts, not the the chink in the armor that allowed them in. What you describe is an incredibly recent phenomenon, probably going no further back than the 1950s. I wish I could find it again, but there was a graphic on one of the formerly active art sites on this board that demonstrated my point beautifully. It showed pieces from a Senior show at a prestigious (multi-thousand dollar cost for an education there) art school in London, presented at the Tate in London. The pieces look like they were executed by a five year old. This is juxtaposed with the account of a traditionally trained guest artist who gave a lecture and workshop there. He was reduced to tears as the students and even faculty begged him to stay, due to him realizing that none of them knew how to make art properly.

If you are inclined, please see the Charles Bargue Drawing Course book for an example of a systematized guide to artistic beauty standards before the advent of Modern Art:

https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Bargue-Drawing-Gerald-Ackerman/dp/2867702038/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540385994&sr=1-1&keywords=charles+bargue

And poke around here to educate yourself more on the Classical Art vs Modern Art issue, as well as the revival of the Ateliers that were the standard of art education for hundreds of years: https://www.artrenewal.org

>>718652

(cont'd):

>art can't exist for it's own sake. Beauty without a pragmatic value is nothing more than entertainment, nudity for the sake of nudity has less value than even porn, which still has a pragmatic value. If you could make a logical reason why your art should be displayed, you could've defended your position. Tarkovsky and Tolstoy had a good reason why art is needed by the society and you better look it up now. Art is meant to communicate your emotions that you feel from experiencing life in this world, and make people empathize with them. A simple display of nudity is not a good art.

I wish I could link you to the BBC documentary "Why Beauty Matters." It is phenomenal and demonstrates my upcoming points perfectly. Unfortunately the BBC is not streaming nor offering it in any legal capacity, and any streams out there are obvious pirate streams.

The irony of what you state is that many Modern Art movements (the Bauhaus, in particular) completely agree with your point: that art and architecture need to be pragmatic. That flourishes and traditional beauty were vain, pretentious and even degenerate. That raw material like bricks, granite, concrete, etc. should show through without any embellishment whatsoever. What they ended up producing is the dystopian, soul-crushing, samish modern architecture, apartment, projects, school and government buildings that we have today. You see, the paradox is that Beauty for Beauty's sake is pragmatic. The aforementioned documentary contrasts a dreary decaying modern apartment complex with the organic, liveliness of an traditional style European village. Beauty has the power to elevate the spirit and the morale of people; to create an environment of hope; to remind people of what they are working and or fighting for; a reflection of the Kingdom of God to come. The beauty of classical cathedrals are specifically designed to evoke this, and also benefit their communities by inspiring confidence in the surrounding community to attend and give alms. Beauty also has the power to redeem tragedy, in the form of beautiful melancholic music crying out to the Theotokos for help:

https://youtu.be/nrGeK1rNbBY

Or art that displays the moral ugliness of situations. I.e. this painting of Cleopatra testing poisons on hapless servants:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5502fd61e4b0aba00140ed56/t/555a71f8e4b07e8edfa98617/1431990787071/

There is also a particularly powerful segment which contrasts old-timey 1910-20s era lewd pictures designed to evoke lust, which is described as "taking without giving, and dehumanizing", with a classical figure drawing class in which one is invited to become truly one on a spiritual level with another human being's form. I myself, struggled with pornography and lust for years, but do you want to know the one place where I was completely free from this malady? The one place where I could truly and fully appreciate the nude female form as a magnificent awe inspiring design of our Lord and creator? Nude figure drawing class.

You may be, and you >>718559 definitely are, suffering from a "Porno-Prudery" view of the human form. Read these articles and ponder them:

http://mychainsaregone.org/art-vs-porn/#sthash.56rjE40P.dpbs

http://mychainsaregone.org/disgusting-or-lovely/#sthash.flONF9nc.dpbs

http://mychainsaregone.org/snow-woman/?doing_wp_cron=1540389416.0744140148162841796875#sthash.vd4slPUt.dpbs

And honestly, if you really think this way:

>>718572

If this evokes no emotion in you whatsoever:..

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Alexandre_Cabanel_-_The_Birth_of_Venus_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg

This, combined with the fact that I have seen you fanatically champion the Tolstoy book in other threads before to an outlandish level, almost as if it's a definitive Bible of art, leads me to believe that you may honestly be on some spectrum of non-ironic, non-meme Autism, which I mean as no vulgar insult or mudslinging Ad hominiem but as a possible observable fact. That, or considering the ludicrousness of this statement:

>nudity for the sake of nudity has less value than even porn, which still has a pragmatic value.

May make you a troll.

>>718653

(cont'd):

As for Tolstoy, I find myself sympathetic to his view of art as being for the purpose of evoking appropriately positive or negative emotions, depending on the content, as well as inspiring unity, love and brotherhood with one's fellow man, which quite frankly, most classical and tasteful nudity accomplishes with aplomb in depicting God's glorious creation with the dignity and honor it deserves and deserved before the Fall.

However, some of his other observations come across as well-meaning but misguided at best, and a classic case of high IQ, low common sense at worse. His criticisms of borrowing and imitation appear to be the product of one who has never produced visual art in his entire life. It's one thing to just be lazily imitative, but all visual art, and indeed all professions outside of art, depend on a certain degree of borrowing and imitation in order to master and learn and grow. There's a reason why such idioms as "Don't reinvent the wheel" and "Standing on the shoulders of giants" exist. His critiques of Effectfulness and Diversion also have a needlessly pedantically puritanical air to them, if not outrigh empty theorizing. Contrasts evoke just nerves and not emotions? How does he even quantify this? A painting that inspires exploration and pondering is evil? Isn't contemplation, that can be enhanced by exploration and absorption, part of his point?

His critique of aesthetics gets outright confusing. He trashes beauty for being pleasurable…. without really offering up a solid aesthetic alternative. Removing imitation and borrowing, for the sake of learning, he leaves visual artists utterly rudderless in terms of how to go about creating art. By which aesthetic standards are we to transmit the emotions that he says define good art? He is clearly a writing based artist with no intimate or practical understanding of the visual art world.

As for his critique of artistic professionalism, the Church Fathers would strongly rebuke him:

From the teachings of Elder Nektary of Optina:

>"One may occupy oneself with art just as with any work, such as cabinet making or herding cows. But everything must be done before God's eyes."

There's is nothing wrong with art being of service to others as any other service profession. No wonder the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him. About the only other thing I agree with him is his stance against the Obscurity of art, and the pretentious and pseudo-intellectual Art Criticism that is the natural product of it.

As for Plato's theories, once again, a high IQ individual lacking common sense towards a profession he clearly has no first hand experience in. In many ways Tolstoy's diatribes against imitation and borrowing are just reheatings of Plato's denunciation of all visual art as vain imitation of true forms. While if you replaced all instances of "realistic representational art" with "television", his criticisms of distraction from reality and escapism are hundreds of years before their time. Nevertheless, applied to representational paintings, especially in this modern age, they come of as symptomatic of the "Clever Silly":

http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2009/11/clever-sillies-why-high-iq-lack-common.html

His critiques of idealism, if used to inflate lies, have some weight to them, but if taken to their logical and literal conclusion, there would literally be no visual art. Even the most photo-realistic artist idealizes or stylizes to some extent due to his/her personal touch and humanity.

Once again, with all due respect, I think I understand why you admire Tolstoy and Plato's theories of art so much: like them, you come across as, at best, understanding art on a purely abstract and theoretical level, but have not real practical experience or intimate knowledge of the visual art creation process itself. In other words, the visual artistic equivalent of an armchair quarterback.

I thank you for your post regardless. It has inspired me, but not in the way you intended. I feel far more impassioned about defending beauty for beauty's sake more than ever, and on a level that is more rational than emotional as it was before. For this, God Bless you.

>>718654

>While if you replaced all instances of "realistic representational art" with "television", his criticisms of distraction from reality and escapism are hundreds of years before their time. Nevertheless, applied to representational paintings, especially in this modern age, they come of as symptomatic of the "Clever Silly":

To elaborate on this: Can you honestly say with a straight face that you have ever "binge watched" a single painting for hours on end? Even a day spent at an art gallery, strolling through, pondering art works, and engaging in discussions with friends or other fellow observers, is much more healthy on a physical, mental, and emotional level than just camping on a couch for hours on end in front of a TV with Netflix enabled.

>>718523

I just realized something else:

>One thing I learned from art school

In art school, did you major in art history/theory, or did you actually make art? I ask this, because upon further pondering yours, Tolstoy's, and Plato's points:

-No imitation

-No borrowing

-No idealisation

-No representation

-No discernible beauty/aesthetic standard; simply "what evokes emotions.

-No professionalism

I realized something: if you take these points seriously and to their logical conclusions, it is literally impossible to make visual art. You can't learn by imitation or representation, such as drawing cubes, spheres, cylinders, the nude from life, nature studies, etc. You can't take inspiration from other artists in order to further the discovery of your own style, because you would be imitating and borrowing. You can't express your personal touch/vision, because that would be idealization. Without a discernible beauty/aesthetic standard, and if one tries to hold true to Plato's admonitions against representation, than you're basically stuck doing something like the Abstract Expressionism or Color field art of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. And even then, since they've already done this, you'd be right back to imitating and borrowing. And without professionalism, you can't make a living, and you can't get good from practice or grow from creative challenges offered by clients.

So tell me: how do you hold to Tolstoy and Plato's theories of visual art without being a literal iconoclast? Did you actually make visual art at one point and then just stop as soon as you read these theories?

>>718691

Perhaps you're right. I don't know. The more I ponder this, the more righteous my anger seems though. There's another student in my class who, to be quite blunt, specializes in shocking edgelord art. He made a series of liquor labels with graphically decapitated animals on them. The instructor loves them and they will more than likely be in the show. The fact that that garbage will be in the show without a fuss, while a tasteful nude creates scandal makes me want to reenact the final scene from Planet of the Apes. But maybe you're right. Maybe I am, metaphorically speaking, on a hopeless Planet of the Apes that I should just get off of as efficiently as possible.

As for your suggestion, honestly, I do not know how I could passive-aggressively critique the "men drawing/painting nude women is de facto sexual assault" culture of the campus, while staying within the confines of my show portfolio, which is that of a character designer/environmental concept artist.