Why Beauty Mattters - documentary by Roger Scruton

A few months ago we were visiting the Wellcome Collection in London, to see the exhibition entitled "Death, a self-portrait", largely collected by Richard Harris. Whilst there I enriched myself with a very small book about Beauty. I am currently reading this short philosophical introduction to the subject of beauty, written by Roger Scruton.

Beauty, Truth and Goodness, the big trinity of Plato and Plotinus. Maybe not necessarily in that sequence. Probably Truth, Goodness and Beauty is a more suitable order.

I am a kind of very idealistic pessimist, or maybe a pessimistic idealist! Even if I gave up my idealistic view about human kind I didn't give up on truth, goodness and beauty.

A long time ago I studied Socrates and Plato. I loved Plato's Dialogues. Beautifully written literature and full of wisdom. Plato argued powerfully for objectivity. Plato opposed relativism. He criticized the views of the sophist Protagoras in his dialogue Thaetetus. In a paraphrased dialogue, the philosopher Socrates argued that relativism is self-defeating as follows:

"My opinion is: Truth must be absolute and that you Mr. Protagoras, are absolutely in error. Since this is indeed my opinion, then you must concede that it is true according to your philosophy." 

We are living in a time in which we question everything, everything is relative, everything is impossible and everything is possible.

In Ancient Greece Plato opposed relativism, and he criticized the views of the sophist Protagoras.

Today Einstein would be astonished if he suddenly arose from the underworld and discovered the impact his Theory of Relativity has had upon artists, musicians, writers, in fact the whole art world in the XX century.

Maybe I should blame Einstein and not Duchamp for the destruction and death of the quality, the beauty and the mastery in ART?

Yesterday I discovered a documentary "Why Beauty Matters" by Roger Scruton, the author of my little book. I want to share with you this fascinating and thought-provoking documentary.

But beauty still matters even for the contemporary artists. Gottfried Helnwein's paintings are an excellent exemplar of that. Super-realistic with a touch of magic. Maybe the most talented master of today!

Gottfired Helnwein  - The Murmur of the Innocents 6  2009

 

Animation -"Much Ado About How To Become A Famous Artist"

This post is an exception. It is not about surreal art but it is about the contemporary art scene that has become surreal.

I find (and I think) most of the art work currently presented in contemporary art galleries, art shows and modern art museums very much alienated, exhausted, recessive and fake.

I still think that mastery, technique and talent are more important than the contemporary concept that “expressing yourself” is all that counts. Everybody can express their own feelings in their own particular way. You don’t have to be “fine artist”, you don’t have to have any “technique”. Following that principle everyone is an artist as long as they “express themselves”. But is that ART? I don’t want art to be elitist, but art should be about the truth, the good and the beautiful. And yes, there are some objective criteria for these categories.

This animation movie (my first)is a humorous view of the modern contemporary art scene in the XXI century. It is based on my experiences as a female fine artist, a painter who loves quality and mastery, and above all the Truth and the Beautiful.

I wrote the whole script for the movie and produced the animation together with Nikolaus Cieslinski. The movie was made in cooperation with the VisionLore Group, a Polish animation company. They designed the visual characters.