Comment by ransom_rs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ransom_rs | Hacker News Reader

If you enjoyed this you will probably enjoy Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag[0]. Great piece that discusses why and how art moves us and pushes back a bit against the idea that is presented in this post that real art is art you can ask questions about and get answers from. I think most people including the author can recognize impactful art is more than just being able to get your 'why' questions answered (some might claim modern art is about challenging these assumptions), but it is even more difficult to talk about that concept without sounding extremely snobby, and Sontag has the credentials / writing skills to discuss it well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Interpretation

> Sontag has the credentials / writing skills to discuss it well.

100%, and just to give an example, she finds good art is excreted (her words - perfectly chosen) rather than created, and I think her example was how the immaculate constructions of somebody like Flaubert lose a certain impact and potency, precisely because they betrays some sort of methodological process. And this cannot yield Truth.

To me, reading this now, that sort of analysis struck me rather as very much dated, and an example of that flippant iconoclasm of modern literary criticism, basically, of the hippies.

Because, really, who is she to throw Flaubert so casually under the bus? (im joking) Mme bovary is perfect, in a way a classical music composition is perfect, it is the oppressive knowledge that perfection can be willed into the world and it's the artist who has the task to will it in the world, no matter the devotion and commitment required. Causally dismissing this, is at its base adolescent posturing (like the hippies). But more importantly, and this is why I say "dated", is that we now, after 60-80 years very much have witnessed what sort of art we get when creating art should be more akin to some physiological evacuation. It's just no good, and it's being rejected more and more.

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