Book Description
Does strolling through an art museum, admiring the old masters, improve us morally and spiritually? Would government subsidies of "high art" (such as big-city opera houses) be better spent on local community art projects? In What Good are the Arts? John Carey--one of Britain's most respected literary critics--offers a delightfully skeptical look at the nature of art. In particular, he cuts through the cant surrounding the fine arts, debunking claims that the arts make us better people or that judgements about art are anything more than personal opinion. Indeed, Carey argues that there are no absolute values in the arts and that we cannot call other people's aesthetic choices "mistaken" or "incorrect," however much we dislike them. Along the way, Carey reveals the flaws in the aesthetic theories of everyone from Emanuel Kant to Arthur C. Danto, and he skewers the claims of "high-art advocates" such as Jeannette Winterson. But Carey does argue strongly for the value of art as an activity and for the superiority of one art in particular: literature. Literature, he contends, is the only art capable of reasoning, and the only art that can criticize. Language is the medium that we use to convey ideas, and the usual ingredients of other arts--objects, noises, light effects--cannot replicate this function. Literature has the ability to inspire the mind and the heart towards practical ends far better than any work of conceptual art. Here then is a lively and stimulating invitation to debate the value of art, a provocative book that will pique the interest of anyone who loves painting, music, or literature.
Customer Reviews:
YAWN.......2006-07-09
This was expected. A fanatic relativist dismembers absolutist views into little irrelevant pieces. Our civilization has been jumping between absolutism/universalism and relativism ever since its decline, with only a few people realizing a third alternative. With this whole book based on a flawed definition, it is a pointless and utterly tedious read.
More Valuable Than Carey Writes.......2006-04-15
It's easy to see why John Carey gave up bartending to become a don and a critic; no one wants to pour his heart out in a taproom only to get wise guy answers he wasn't seeking.
While an enjoyable read, if only to store up bile for a rebuttal of this crafty bit of sophistry, What Good are the Arts isn't really a book; it is a collection of eight essays in search of a theme that is at once far too short and way too long. Carey could have said it all in one journal article or made his points in a much longer book, especially on the one subject he's serious about, literature.
His basic questions about the arts other than literature are not without merit. We really can't define specific works of sculpture, painting or music as art, and no amount of gibberish, scientific or otherwise, can make it so. Neither can we show that loving the works of Beethoven or Michelangelo would make us better human beings, present company excepted. Unfortunately, Carey beats on these points as on so many dead horses.
His observations on pop art as compared to high art also make lively reading - for a while, and, without naming names, I know people who find The Young and the Restless soap opera as interesting - if not as valuable as Shakespeare. Perhaps it would be well to drop this subject.
But Carey goes into overdrive and demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt how wrong we all are on such subjects as the immortality of art - and sport. Anyone who has thought about immortality recognizes that there are only three possible ways to achieve it, through reproduction, art, or religion. And those who have pondered the matter even a little more deeply understand the temporal nature of the first two, but they're not without they're moments.
Even the Bard knew that his words were destined to be forgotten:
As long as men can breath, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
So artists, composers and writers well know what they're up against as it relates to finitude. But they do compete with the masters, and Neil Simon at some level is trying to outdo Shakespeare; Schuman challenged Beethoven; and Hemingway was trying to overcome Dickens and Tolstoy. Denigrating them to a short self life for looking far into the future is silly; they knew about the futility of it all when they sat at their desks or pianos, but they did their very best to outdo the geniuses in their fields.
The chapters on literature are written in a far more serious vein. But here, the author skimps and spends a great amount of time on poetry and barely mentions novels and non-fiction prose as elements of the subject. I found his points in these chapters quite compelling but was left wanting more on the masters of the other genres.
After all is said - again and again, Carey, in a short afterword coughs up that you can't go wrong resorting to the canon; this after he knocks it all.
There, I bought, I read, and I complained. It's doubtful that Carey's book will last as long as men can breath or eyes can see, but he makes some entertaining and useful points.
Disappointing........2006-02-21
I felt that this book really failed to bring any substantive arguments to the table. It is replete with British cynicism that ironically reinforces the gap between "high" and "low" culture that it purports to condemn. The examples he uses to support his claims are frequently taken out of context and ultimately do little to further his arguments. Simply put, this work reflects poor rhetoric and therefore rides the coat-tails of scienece and cultural anthropology to furnish his points (cultural anthropology, by the way, he presents as science; i.e. - as objective truth. God knows a cultural scientist brings no subjectivity into the process. *note my sarcasm*). In the end, I just disagree with him, but should also add, his efforts (which seem to me to be quite derivative) do very little to even move me to consider his theses.
Self aware criticism.......2006-01-02
A fascinating book, I found remarkable insights that spurred my thinking, or brought me back to a line of thought that I had been working on years ago, half forgotten. A book that is balanced, fair, subjective in its attitude, and a product of careful self examination within our world of experience. I highly recommend it to people of all ages and interests.
No easy answers but an extremely good question.......2005-09-05
This little book has caused a bit of a stir in England. It's easy to see why. Carey mercilessly skewers the facile pieties of the art world and it's a good thing, too. Despite the title of the book, he doesn't offer any real answers to his question, except perhaps in the case of art programs in prisons. This fact doesn't bother me. What's important is that we get to the place where it is acceptable for people to ask the question at all. Unfortunately, too often the importance of the arts is taken for granted, all the better for the people who have no patience or skill in dealing with impertinent dimwits who even have to or dare to ask. The arts have their own version of the question, "If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it." If you have to ask what are the arts good for, well, you're just not the kind of person who will ever get it so we don't have to give you an answer. Unfortunately, the kinds of things art might actually be good for are probably not the kinds of things the arts community would want it to be good for. If art is just something that can make people feel good about themselves, it's difficult to see how it performs a function different from any number of other things that people do to feel useful and fulfilled. Carey demonstrates, as George Steiner has elsewhere, that art does not make us better people, or not necessarily so. It certainly doesn't make art producers better people, as an acquaintance with the biographies of many artists will show you unless you imagines that without art they would have been even worse. Put simply, one is left with the impression that art is either entertainment or something that can't be explained in sensible terms but which dwells on some higher plane beyond the petty demands of human comprehension.
When Carey gets around to making the case for literature the book becomes, in my opinion, slightly less interesting. It's remains a five-star book overall but I found the case for literature less compelling. If he wanted to present literature as good for something in itself then he seems to contradict the argument in the first section of the book. If he was simply comparing it to other art forms then I think he has more of a case. Literature works because it uses language, the tool we use to make intelligible arguments and understand the world. Literature can comment on itself and be understood to do so in ways that music and visual art cannot. Music and the visual arts, however enjoyable they may be, do not work the same way as language. When we try to understand and explain music and the visual arts we always do so in linguistic terms, as Carey points out. Literature works in the same medium as thought. No one discusses music by humming or art by drawing, but we can talk about literature in exactly the same way we read and write it. Less is lost in translation.
This book should be widely read whether one ends up loving it or hating it, and I suspect opinion will be so black-and-white. If you cannot bear the thought that the arts are less than untouchable, that they should not even be examined in this way, then you'll probably hate this book. If you think the arts are worth your while just because you enjoy them for something less than exalted or elitist reasons, then you might find this a more enjoyable read. (It is certainly very funny.) Either way, we should all dare to think about it.
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What Else Should I Read? Guiding Kids to Good Books, Vol. 2
Matt Berman
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philosophy hope in a jar daily moisturizer
ASIN: 1563084198 |
Book Description
In answer to the perennial question "What else should I read?" these innovative resources go beyond linear listings of suggestions to help students find books through a variety of directions, including subject, author, and genre. Each guide contains approximately 30 displayable bookwebs that can be used as posters, with reproducible bookmarks that list related titles and fit into pockets on the posters. Each web leads users to 8 to 14 related topics that have lists of relevant books with their authors and brief LC descriptions. Detailed author, title, and subject indexes make further exploration easy. Hundreds of the best fiction books for young readers, titles commonly found in school library collections, are covered in the webs. The visual, nonlinear features of these books make them unique and user-friendly tools for educators and students alike. Perfect for the bulletin board, the bookwebs are a great way to stimulate reading!
Customer Reviews:
Makes learning grammar fun!.......2000-04-21
Not just another dry grammar book, this book has fun activities that will have you hunting for parts of speech and grammatical errors. There is everything from art projects to scavenger hunts. In addition to the parts of speech, you will learn about common errors made in the English language. Great book!
Book Description
1898. Contents: The Qualities of Good Music: The Essentials of Form; Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony; Polyphonic Forms; Monophonic Forms; Romantic Forms; Fundamental Forms. Vocal Forms: Church Counterpoint; Simple Song Forms; Operatic Forms. The Content Of Music: The Sensuous; The Intellectual; The Emotional; Aesthetics of Music. The Performance of Music: The Orchestra; Chamber Music; The Piano; The Violin. Vocal Performance: The Works of a Chorus; Solo Singing.
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Am I Good in Bed?: The Book That Tells You What You Never Dared Ask
Alex Hope
Manufacturer: Andre Deutsch
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- Easy to read, makes you think.
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Art: What Is It Good For? (Debating Matters)
David Lee
Manufacturer: Hodder & Stoughton
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ASIN: 0340848375 |
Book Description
Art is changing, and a great deal of contemporary work does not fit into the categories of the past. Is "conceptual" work art at all? Should artists learn a traditional craft before their work is considered valuable? Can we learn to love art, or must we take it or leave it? These questions and more are discussed in six essays from people on different sides of the debate.
Customer Reviews:
Easy to read, makes you think........2007-04-12
This is a short book.
Essays are as follows;
1, What is art anyway ?, 2, Art: What's it all about then?, 3, Somebody's got to do it, 4, Serving a different god, 5, Art: agent or aesthetic?, 6, Reinventing the wheel.
This book is based on a great premise of making the 'what is art for?' debate simple and concise as possible. Although it's a pity it's not discussed by other critic's in the larger western world, etc (it's quite Brit-centric). For example the contemporary art market is unfortunately much smaller and more conservative in Australia. Although we have some very exciting artists here (often having to sell O/S to make a living).
Sadly to get more people to look or think about art we are going to have to make it a competitive sport where men can slug each other in tight shorts on TV.
Cheers Kirsty.
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Que es una buena pelicula?/What is a Good Movie? (Paidos Comunicacion Cine / Cinema Communication)
Laurent Jullier
Manufacturer: Ediciones Paidos Iberica
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ASIN: 8449318335 |
Book Description
THIS 44 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Self Investment, by Orison Swett Marden. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766153363.
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Art in Your Home Town
Elsa Marston
Manufacturer: Cambridge Book Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Pamphlet
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ASIN: 0842896163 |
Book Description
The Lichtenberg Figures, winner of the Hayden Carruth Award, is an unconventional sonnet sequence that interrogates the relationship between language and memory, violence and form. "Lichtenberg figures" are fern-like electrical patterns that can appear on (and quickly fade from) the bodies of people struck by lightning.
Throughout this playful and elegiac debut-with its flashes of autobiography, intellection, comedy, and critique-the vocabulary of academic theory collides with American slang and the idiom of the Old Testament meets the jargon of the Internet to display an eclectic sensibility.
Ben Lerner, the youngest poet ever published by Copper Canyon Press, is co-founder of No: a journal of the arts. He earned an MFA from Brown University and is currently a Fulbright scholar in Spain.
Customer Reviews:
Lerner is inspiring.......2005-04-19
Ben Lerner is fantastic at what he does and not only is his material fresh, but his approach at poetry is quite miraculous. Each time I sit down to write a poem, I think of his collection and how it inspired me to become more creative and flexible with my voice. This is a must-read. -->Ben Lerner
<-- is way cool...A true artist and genius in his gift.
most important book of poetry in a decade.......2004-11-04
In the 1998 Hal Hartley movie Henry Fool a perverted garbageman writes a poem that becomes the "best selling poem of all time," eventually earning him the Nobel Prize. Ben Lerner is not a garbageman, but he holds a degree in Political Theory from Brown University, which is close enough to the script that he ought to be in line for recognition by the Swedish Academy. Lichtenberg is a sonnet sequence chloroformed by the lies and swindles of the English language circa 2004. I adore this book. I adorate it.
Check out some of its lines:
What am I the antecedent of?
When I shave I feel like a Russian.
When I drink I'm the last Jew in Kansas.
I sit in my hammock and whittle my rebus.
I feel disease spread through me like a theaory.
I take a sip from Death's black daiquiri.
...
O slender spadix projecting from a narrow spathe,
you are thinner than spaghetti but not as thin as vermicelli.
You are the first and last indigenous Nintendo.
COMPLEXITIES IN A SIMPLE STYLE.......2004-10-24
Lerner's sonnets are authentic explorations in an old form. Jargons and cliches combine with the poet's plain observations to illuminate a far-ranging curiosity...and a modern assimilating heart.
Go Figure.......2004-10-07
While Lerner's work has much in common with L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing--an interest in the materiality of language, in postmodern theory, in visual art, and so on--it also has the discursive precision of a more traditional poet--Auden, for example. The Lichtenberg Figures is one of those rare books in which beautiful and playful linguistic surfaces coexist with moments of sincerity.
new direction for copper canyon.......2004-09-29
This book signals that Copper Canyon has turned an important corner. Formerly more concerned with publishing established poets than with discovering new ones, Copper Canyon has now produced the most impressive debut collection I've read in twenty years.
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Emerging Figure
Bruce Weber
Manufacturer: Norton Gallery & School of Art
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 068546900X |
Book Description
Who was the man known to us as Blueberry? This bizarre and unusual name belonged to a mysterious soldier of fortune whose trail can be followed through the history of the American West, a figure who appeared to have been involved in some of the most dramatic events in American history, but who always remained behind the scenes.
The West is rife with legends and tall tales of men such as Jesse James, Billy the Kid, the Dalton Brothers, Wild Bill Hitchcock, and even better known figures such as General George Armstrong Custer. But the casual researcher will be able to locate only a few, incomplete stories about the man named Blueberry. No pulps were written about him, no serials were made about his exploits and, until recently, his very existence had sunk into an obscurity that he would have most likely welcomed.
The definitive American reprints of the classic French western. This volume will contain a history of Blueberry by Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean-Marc Lofficier, reprints of Blueberry #'s (Epic) 1,2, and part of #3, and the first English language printing of "Three Black Birds", a Moebius written and illustrated Blueberry adventure. Introduction by Elmer Kelton.
Customer Reviews:
a bargain, yet a pity it's printed in b&w and.......2000-04-06
With a written essay to introduce the Blueberry Sage so far and a two-page bio of the writer and the artist respectively other than the additional 14-page story " three black stones", this paperback collection of Mr Moebius' masterpiece is a must-have for both new and die-hard fans alike. Yet the big drawback of this book is that it's considerably downsized to 7>
<9 inches and printed in B & W. So quite a lot of details are reduced to zero.
Books:
- Wolf Kahn Pastels
- Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation
- 500 Self-Portraits
- A Community of Writers: A Workshop Course in Writing
- A Critical Cinema 5: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers (Critical Cinema)
- A Worldly Art: The Dutch Republic, 1585-1718
- Alchemy & Mysticism: The Hermetic Museum (Klotz)
- Alice Neel
- All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat
- Alphabet Art: With A-Z Animal Art & Fingerplays (Williamson Little Hands Series)
Books Index
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The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939
What Is Art For?
Pure Pleasure: A Guide to the Twenieth Century's Most Enjoyable Books
The Accidental Masterpiece : On the Art of Life and Vice Versa
Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes from and Why
