The Beautiful and the Sublime: How Important is Aesthetics in Life?

Use this forum to have philosophical discussions about aesthetics and art. What is art? What is beauty? What makes art good? You can also use this forum to discuss philosophy in the arts, namely to discuss the philosophical points in any particular movie, TV show, book or story.
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JackDaydream
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Re: The Beautiful and the Sublime: How Important is Aesthetics in Life?

Post by JackDaydream »

The Beast wrote: November 21st, 2022, 11:02 am Perceiving from the somatic basis is inferred from the totality of sensual perceptions where many of such reside in and around the threshold to the psychic area and are conscious, semi-conscious or unconscious at different levels and times. IMO the concept of the sublime is realized with the experience of the conscious motion not done by consciousness but by the wholeness of the subject. IMO the sublime can only be experienced when metaphysical forces are involved overcoming the will capable of modifying reflex or instinctual processes in the wholeness sublime moment. IMO a conscious sublime moment is not a wholeness sublime moment and so it is the material and the immaterial differentiation. The discovery of this difference is the early work of Kierkegaard’s concept of irony before his ‘unbearable lightness of being’ The perceiving is important in Kierkegaard’s opinion of the ironic Socrates.
Kierkergaard's concept of irony sounds important and it does seem likely that the sublime moment involves a moment of wholeness. What I am thinking about this is that such moments probably pre prefigure conscious ideas of beauty, pleasure and pain. I am partly connecting this to the ideas of Freud and how pleasure and pain are seen.

One of my own early experiences of making art at play school was how I did a painting all in black. I saw it as a statement of pain and horror. I remember my mum coming to pick me up from play school and her horror at my picture. I told her that it was burnt roast potatoes and began my journey into the safety of realism in art and never ventured much into abstract art at all, although I experimented in this during art therapy and the psychoanalytic context in the 'nameless dread', which may be the opposite to the sublime.
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JackDaydream
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Re: The Beautiful and the Sublime: How Important is Aesthetics in Life?

Post by JackDaydream »

The Beast wrote: November 21st, 2022, 11:02 am Perceiving from the somatic basis is inferred from the totality of sensual perceptions where many of such reside in and around the threshold to the psychic area and are conscious, semi-conscious or unconscious at different levels and times. IMO the concept of the sublime is realized with the experience of the conscious motion not done by consciousness but by the wholeness of the subject. IMO the sublime can only be experienced when metaphysical forces are involved overcoming the will capable of modifying reflex or instinctual processes in the wholeness sublime moment. IMO a conscious sublime moment is not a wholeness sublime moment and so it is the material and the immaterial differentiation. The discovery of this difference is the early work of Kierkegaard’s concept of irony before his ‘unbearable lightness of being’ The perceiving is important in Kierkegaard’s opinion of the ironic Socrates.
Kierkergaard's concept of irony sounds important and it does seem likely that the sublime moment involves a moment of wholeness. What I am thinking about this is that such moments probably pre prefigure conscious ideas of beauty, pleasure and pain. I am partly connecting this to the ideas of Freud and how pleasure and pain are seen.

One of my own early experiences of making art at play school was how I did a painting all in black. I saw it as a statement of pain and horror. I remember my mum coming to pick me up from play school and her horror at my picture. I told her that it was burnt roast potatoes and began my journey into the safety of realism in art and never ventured much into abstract art at all, although I experimented in this during art therapy and the psychoanalytic context in the 'nameless dread', which may be the opposite to the sublime.
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The Beast
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Re: The Beautiful and the Sublime: How Important is Aesthetics in Life?

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Jack. Previously I said that the sublime was a spherical spectrum of variables and that it may be an emotional rapture as well. In your case the realization of being a black sheep. Given the result and I am proposing sublime lightness and sublime dread that are congruent and defined in the possibilities of the wholeness.
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JackDaydream
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Re: The Beautiful and the Sublime: How Important is Aesthetics in Life?

Post by JackDaydream »

The Beast wrote: November 22nd, 2022, 10:23 am Jack. Previously I said that the sublime was a spherical spectrum of variables and that it may be an emotional rapture as well. In your case the realization of being a black sheep. Given the result and I am proposing sublime lightness and sublime dread that are congruent and defined in the possibilities of the wholeness.
Yes, the realisation of being the black sheep, or conscious awareness of the shadow is part of the sublime. Sometimes, when I listen to dark music it seems like a transmutation process. I read Marilyn Manson's autobiography and was interested to read how he was interested in Jung's integration of the shadow. He did wonder if he was the literal Antichrist at one stage, but viewed this symbolically later.

I discovered metal, especially nu metal when I was doing an art therapy course and it involved aesthetic darkness. However, I do wonder about how far one should go. I found Slipknot's 'When All Hope Is Gone" and the music of My Chemical Romance cathartic, but even though I do like Metallica, the one album which I found just too dark was 'Hardwired to Self -Destruct'. However, it is likely that personal judgments about how dark one should go are extremely subjective.
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The Beast
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Re: The Beautiful and the Sublime: How Important is Aesthetics in Life?

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Stanford Encyclopedia has an extensive article on ‘Neo-Daoism’. It is hard to reconcile with the Western doctrines. I find of interest the theory of ‘ziran’ “…in a world dominated by small-minded “gentlemen” where sincerity of feeling is judged a threat to the establishment, an ethics of naturalness inevitably finds itself engaged in a struggle for freedom”
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