[MD] Defining Art (was Churning Point)

[Platt Holden]

SA -

Your post about making coffee as art shows an aspect of performing that 
has been touched on but not emphasized enough, namely, pursuing the 
ideal of perfection. The Santayana quotes I offered mentioned this 
essential part of the artist's motivation, and you description of 
making coffee exemplifies it nicely. It also fits Pirsig's definition 
of art as any "high quality endeavor," leaving it up to each individual 
to determine the meaning of "high quality." Another aspect of art that 
I think we all more or less agree on is the ability of quality works of 
art to "shatter static patterns." Certainly I have found that to be 
true when viewing Brancusi's statue of "Flight" in the NY Museum of 
Modern Art and Michelangelo's "David" in Florence. Thirdly, and this 
may be part of the shattering of patterns experience, great art is, as 
Ken Wilber put it,  direct aesthetic experience of "the Universal,." or 
in Pirsig's terms, "the Godhead."  My favorite quote on this entire 
subject is Alan Poe's description of art which I think encompasses all 
the aspects you, I and others have touched on:

"Te artist struggles to create supernal beauty, to make one see or hear 
with shivering delight a sight or sound which cannot have been 
unfamiliar to angels."

May your morning coffee always pass the angel test. :-)

Platt

>I am in agreement with you that art is
> undefinable, and therefore what is art by one may not
> be art by another, therefore, opening the door to a
> certain taste of what is good or not so good art. 
> Yet, I will have to say that making coffee is an art
> in a certain sense.  Only because I believe each time
> I make coffee could be just as the very first time
> coffee was ever made by humankind (which at that time
> and presently if used in this sense of mine,
> gave/gives it a more dynamic quality I guess).  Thus,
> if I try to make coffee each morning better and better
> with a whole-hearted attention to the beautiful
> outcome and quality in taste it may bring upon each
> try, then I see an art.  Trying to make the perfect
> cup of coffee.  Yet, that is the quality of art, you
> might not think making a cup of coffee has artistic
> value, and I am on your side in the sense that what we
> might focus on as art probably has to have value.  If
> I where to make a cup of coffee without any notion of
> value and perfection, then the art of it originating
> in the very roots that began when humankind first made
> that cup in a time that had no cups of coffee (a
> static culture when it came to cups of coffee versus
> no cups of coffee - remember I am not measuring what
> makes something an art compared with thoughts of what
> makes even better art) that kind of absent of value
> notion would probably leave out the artistic quality
> in making a cup of coffee.
> 
> SA
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
> http://mail.yahoo.com 
> moq_discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/