Sometimes there is a deeper meaning in a manga but its not conveyed clearly.  Lots of times (especially with Shirow, the bastard) I've read something and not understood it, but later read some other piece of fiction or nonfiction and then realized that they were making a reference to it.  Bad form I'd say, but there actually was something there.

Wasn't it Sartre who said every word is a stain on the purity of silence and nothingness?








Yes, he actually verbally -said- it.

Just because one doesn't understand a piece of art, or the piece doesn't speak to them, doesn't mean it isn't art, or even good art.

It doesn't mean it isn't drivel, because that does exists, but I bet some of the art mentioned in here, or that some people might think of, actually has some serious study explaining why it actually is important.

Walt Whitman for instance, I cannot abide, but I accept he is probably a masterful artist.  Joyce, I cannot properly understand, yet he too....

The word usually used for those who rant about art merely because it isn't art how they like to consume their art is, I believe, philistine.   Getting angry about said art, on top of that, groups one with the neo-cons, the bible-thumper, and the censors.

On the other hand, sometimes things are obtuse, solely for the purpose of being obtuse, such as (in an almost ironic pomo-twist), Foucault, who had to write in the fashion of French academics of his day if he was to get anywhere.

Personally, I am often not a huge fan of tales that are too "artisitic" for me to follow, but then I'm a big plot guy.  That doesn't mean I don't think they might have artistic merit, nor does it mean I don't sometimes appreciate some of that artistry.  I generally don't assume that everyone else who appreciates it, if I don't, is either pretentious, deluded, or just going along with it, though, because that would be pretty arrogant, and would make me look pretty silly if later I read up on an analysis of a piece of work, and it's historical import and decide maybe it wasn't *all* a crock.

This post brought to you by too much sudafed and not being able to sleep.

I'm a phillistine because I don't see artistic merit in a giant polyester baby head? Okay then...

I'm going to name a true example of when cryptic is done right.

Silent Hill 2.

Not only does the main character go through a world of twisted dark elderitch supernatural energies, but a world that response to his guilt and the disillusions that he and anyone else who travels into it are under. Only through fighting to the core, taking seemingly meaningless puzzles and interactions and using that to delve deeper did he find the truth, a truth that shocks James and player alike.

If the truth was just placed at your feet, you would have never wanted to play. If it was easy to suss out, you would have felt cheated. The game needed to be dark, murky, and cryptic to be a work of art. And it did its job well.

BL: No, Andy Warhol, actually.   And it was more illustrative in general than personally meant.  But I'm sometimes an asshole like that.

Sinic: Not really back, but thanks, nice to see you too.

I agree that some people are pretentious, but art is already hated on in this country enough, without more people paralleling the prigs who have cut all the funding.

Postmodernist art is not obscure and meaningless, but rather simply meaningless, and that's the point - meaning as created in context and interaction, etc. etc.  While it may be that we can't get any meaning from direct analysis of the work, it's hardly "obscure" when there's nothing intended to disguise anything else.

Modernist art is largely obscure and meaningful.  Can you imagine Ulysses without the indirect (overdirect?) approach to its narrative?  Bloom wandering out to get lunch is not interesting.  The entire social and psychological complex that occurs as he goes to get lunch is.

The introduction of obscurity, all things considered, is what makes things start becoming art, and it is vital insofar as it allows increased complexity.

But then I suppose I'm STILL dealing with an inaccurate and unfairly weighted term ("obscurity") that isn't even accurate.  So let's break it down.

-An artist has a goal in creating a work.  This goal is definitely aesthetic and sometimes conceptual/ideological.*

-Any effect, construct, method of organization, content, reference, design, image, or what-have-you that furthers that goal is good.

-Any that does not is bad.

-If a work is obscure in ways that interfere with its aesthetic goal, it is bad - not because it is obscure, but because it is a bad work of art.

-If a work is obscure in fulfillment of its aesthetic goals and you have a problem with that, learn to read bigger books goddammit.

*Some artists have ideological goals that supersede aesthetic goals.  These artists suck.  Some artists have aesthetic goals without ideological awareness.  These artists often suck, or at least can easily become repugnant to the aware audience.