I Know When I Don’t See It

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

What is art, a man said and washed his hands….

Okay, fine, he said “what is the truth” or at least that’s an interpretation. What actually happened was a guy was asked “What is art” and said “I’ll be d*mned if I can tell you, but I know it when I see it.”

This has been made fun of by Academics, Intellectuals and other people who are formally wedded to just so stories and theory, but in the end it is the only way to identify art. Humans know art when they see it. Or hear it. Or read it. Perhaps “know it when they experience it.”

More importantly, though I — and most people — know it when we don’t see it.

First let’s start with Sarah’s beg #1: I don’t know if “art” exists anymore than I know if “talent” exists (beg #2.)

I know craft exists and I know work exists. Whether some works move me to tears because the artist was exceptionally talented and was creating art, or because the artist spent enough years practicing that he had sublime ability to craft the piece in just such a way is not only above my pay grade. It’s so far above my pay grade it’s left Earth’s near-orbit and is floating in space.

Whether it’s close-to-perfect craft or the kiss of the gods, though, I do know art when I experience it. See that “moved to tears” thing. Now, it’s not always tears, of course.

I would classify art as “remotely causing people to experience emotions by use of symbols.” Some is better than other, but all art causes an emotional response in the person experiencing it. The emotional response can be anything, but it is an emotional response. Note, the emotional response has to be what the artist intended, because a lot of “non art” in my experience causes disgust or horror or a desire to hit the person who created it with a really large shoe.

(There is a spicy and largely mentally handicapped argument that writers who use AI to do covers will also use it for their novels on Twitter. We’ll get to that another day next week. Let’s just say it makes as much sense as “artists who use AI to generate descriptions are also using it to paint for them.” — which is to say none whatsoever. Though the second is more possible in certain sub-fields. Abide in patience. It’s a side spur, and I’ll go trundling down it next week.)

An I know art when I don’t see it. Take for instance Big Tish:

The only emotions I can manage for that absurdly banal display is “Why is it taking up space?” and “Did my tax dollars finance that?” And also “Good Lord, couldn’t she have put on a dress, if she was going to be on display?”

Look, that ridiculous nonsense has set off an argument where some artists somehow have come up with the absurd conclusion the decline of art is because we don’t pay artists enough.

This is absurd, because no one is obligated to pay for anything. And people pay, willingly enough, for things they like.

That these things — Thomas Kincaid comes to mind — immediately get declared “non art” is not anyone’s fault but the critics establishment.

That some people choose to consider art only what the critics establishment says it is is I think an effect of schooling. “What is art?” “What teach says it is!”

The problem is that “teach” aka critics and professors for the last 100 years have been at war with popular taste and trying to distinguish themselves from it as a primary mission.

This has led to the uglification of public spaces and the creation of either incomprehensible or horrific “art” that evoke ONLY a sense of disgust and annoyance from the public… who of course refuse to pay for it.

This in turn lead the government to step in, with further enshitification of what is considered art.

In literature they now do Marxist Theory to prove that things no sane person would buy for sheer enjoyment or love are important and must be read and inflicted on school children, while beloved books that make their author rich must be “trash.”

This is all insanity. The tax-financed and NGO financed horrors aren’t art. They’re very expensive White Elephants that our inheritors will try to hide or turn to rubble, because this illusion of importance can only be supported by massive infusions of money coming from a large, all pervasive and out of control state. (Which no one can afford.)

Art? Art is fine and will continue being paid for. Because it evokes strong feelings. Be they joy or fear, or even just “It makes me feel funny, and I like it.”

Art is ludic enjoyment. And the public will always pinch money from their six packs to pay for what they enjoy.

And that’s what will survive.

112 thoughts on “I Know When I Don’t See It”

  1. My daughter commented that “Big Tish” looks for all the world like she is about to throw a chair at a Waffle House, and kick off the sort of brawl that gets a lot of looks on “X”.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. That is EXACTLY the vibe. A loudmouthed, entitled dumbass that’s about 3 seconds from throwing a chair at somebody over a cheap chicken sandwich.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. “Big Tish”? By looking at the thing, I thought the title of the piece should be “Entitlement.” As in, a person who thinks they “deserve” things, most often the result of other people’s labor, by virtue of simply existing.

      I think it’s curious. As in, haven’t we heard that somewhere before? I a poem perhaps?

      Like

    3. Oh, no, it is telling the truth, truth to power and all that, that is the ideal liberal woman, entitled, fat, ugly, not in looks but temperament, the kind of ugly that goes all the way through. Hollow and shallow, angry that she’s not Barbie and everyone told her life wasn’t fair because she’s a person of color and they owe you. The narcissist liberal who has never missed a meal while complaining of the starving minorities. That’s the picture they want out there, not because it is true, but because they want everyone to believe that and they want more idiots to act that way. Because they are more hideous than the person they portray.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. What actually happened was a guy was asked “What is art” and said “I’ll be d*mned if I can tell you, but I know it when I see it.”

    Sarah, we know who was doing the asking….

    When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden’s green and gold,
    Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
    And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
    Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It’s pretty, but is it Art?”

    ******

    When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the Club-room’s green and gold,
    The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould–
    They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start,
    For the Devil mutters behind the leaves: “It’s pretty, but is it Art?”
    8
    Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow,
    And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,
    And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through,
    By the favour of God we might know as much–as our father Adam knew!

    https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_conundrum.htm

    Liked by 2 people

  4. Somewhere I read about the craftsmen that created beautiful/amazing “decorations” for things like furniture, sword/knife hilts, pistols, etc.

    Many of those “decorations” are more “art” than the “experts” call “art” but from what I heard those craftsmen wouldn’t have called themselves artists.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Indeed, they would not. I am acquainted with a fair few such craftsmen. Little touches, here and there, while they may be artistic in a sense, are just a part of the piece itself. A well crafted stock of rich walnut wood attached to a steel receiver, engraved with a certain filigree or depiction of a hunting scene or whatnot may well be indeed beautiful, and invoke in the viewer some feelings of appreciation.

      But the craftsman intends to create such things to enhance an already functional piece. A gilded chair, no matter how pretty, ought to be for sitting. If the thing can’t be used at all, well, then maybe it’s just art. But a craftsman makes things to be used. A well loved tool or piece of furniture may indeed be beautiful. But it must still be useful.

      Liked by 2 people

  5. Knowing what art is, is different from illuminating what art is. It wasn’t until I took a flaky sounding college class on The Poetry of Rock Lyrics that I understood what a waste of time it was when my high school teachers tried to teach me what a poem “means” as if it were an algebra problem to be solved. I learned I could illuminate art rather than critique it, and I try to do that in my occasional reviews on my website.

    The “Enlightenment” and subsequent obsession with scientific materialism has blinded many to what is obvious. When an anthropologist looks at the Lascaux cave art, he can’t understand why anyone would do such a thing, so he attributes it to religion, believing not only is religion is irrational, but that it encompasses everything that is irrational. He looks and looks and refuses to see the undeniably obvious–it’s art!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Side note, but the whole tendency of archaeologists to declare anything and everything “for religious purposes” was so thoroughly skewered by Motel of the Mysteries back in 1979 that I’d sort of assumed they would have given that up in embarrassment. I have a hard time not bursting into laughter whenever I run into a modern archaeologist using that same trope in all seriousness.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. LOL! I missed that one, but I’m sure archaeologists and anthropologists are beyond embarrassment. Kind of like how geologists made fun of that conspiracy nut Wegener and his theory of Continental Drift until they found irrefutable proof of it 50 years later, so they relabeled it Plate Tectonics to hide their mistake, er, to be more accurate of course.

        Like

        1. Oh, oh, oh– you must go chase it down, it is absolutely worth it.

          I laughed hard enough to hurt myself when I read it as a little kid, 35 years later got it for my kids, and laughed too hard to read it for htem.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. OK, added it to my list. Of course I have 3 books already ahead of it, and one is August 1914, a 900 page tome by Solzhenitsyn although it sounds like I may have to put that one off to read Motel of Mysteries first. Just looking at the blurb referencing the DO NOT DISTURB sign as the motel’s warning about the mummy’s curse is enough to let me know I’ll thoroughly enjoy it. :) Thanks!

            Like

          2. My junior high school Ancient and Medieval History teacher did not actually assign Motel of the Mysteries, but he did talk about and recommend it. I finally tracked it down about fifteen years ago, and it is as good as advertised.

            Too bad nobody can do a modern update, since much of our current culture is located on smartphones, and good luck to those remaining functional in two thousand years.

            Like

  6. If people have to be forced to buy it, even by proxy, it ain’t art. See that British wanker given a 10,000 pound grant to write a novel. Still hasn’t published a word, 15 years later.

    I suspect they did us a favor, paying him not to write. :-P

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Is it attractive? If also functional, does it work well and make the task easier? Then it is a form of art.

    Does the music inspire/entertain/amuse/uplift me? Ditto the visual art? Then it’s art. Does it move my spirit to a place closer to the divine? Does the piece touch Beauty, the Beauty which all beauty reflects fragments of? If so, it is very much art.

    Unlike that statue, and a lot of “public art.” Although I really like the statue of the giant balloon dog, because it makes me smile and laugh, and doesn’t try to send a message other than whimsy and fun.

    Like

  8. What happens when you give small children crayons and paper? They start scribbling. They don’t know what Art is, but they’re trying to make some.

    Takes the cri-ticks years to beat that impulse out of them.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Poor people will continue to buy art.

    A smidgen over 40 years ago I bought a nicely framed Albert Bierstadt print for my dear husband on the occasion of our 5th anniversary. He had been admiring it at a local store for some time but it commanded the princely sum of 40$, which we did NOT have for something so unnecessary as art.

    I literally saved every grocery penny I could for months to get it for him. All the while in agony that someone would buy before I could.

    He was quite stunned at the gift.

    We still have it, and each other.

    😀

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I used to work with an engineer named Arthur. “Wow, everything you do is a work of Art!” :-D

      He was stationed in Antarctica for a couple of years and had some interesting tales about it.

      Like

  11. I recognize the category of “bad art,” rejecting the idea that all art is “good” by definition and therefore that bad, ugly, or malicious works are necessarily not-art.

    Therefore I class “Big Tish” as bad art, rather than “isn’t art.”

    (Also, works like “Big Tish” do bring a certain sort of pleasure to the usual suspects: “It feels wonderful to see this and think about the insult and emotional hurt it inflicts on those stupid evil hate-filled subhuman-mutant MAGA deplorables! Épater le bourgeois for the win!”)

    Liked by 1 person

    1. How about when something you wouldn’t have otherwise noticed pisses you off only because the Leftroids loudly proclaim it to be Great Art!! Like a banana duct taped to the wall.

      How long did they leave that thing there, anyway? Was it still Art when it turned brown and mooshy, swarming with fruit flies and dribbling rotten juice?

      Liked by 1 person

        1. I wanted to hate the guy who “made” it, but ended up closer to Strange New Respect territory. He wanted to do something totally absurd and succeeded. Plus, if you can get somebody to pay $6.2 million for THAT, my hat’s off to you. I only wish I could pull off that kind of heist.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. The same way Calvin Morrison respected Styphon’s House; a grudging respect for a really clever con artist.

              Like

  12. My defense of art is such, if I understand it’s beauty, then it’s art, the rest is understudy, the same goes for you.

    Like

  13. “…because a lot of “non art” in my experience causes disgust or horror or a desire to hit the person who created it with a really large shoe…”

    You mean like every single Hollywood movie that’s come out since 2019? And ALL of television these last 10 years or so? Like they turned Star Wars from an amazing cultural phenomenon into the film version of Big Tish? Like modern comic books and dead-tree SF/F books are the print media version of a banana stuck to a wall with duct tape?

    You shouldn’t wind me up like this, Sarah. I’m liable to do myself an injury, what with all the swearing and the frothing at the mouth. ~:D

    It seems to me, a non-artist (or not visual art anyway) that ALL of this balderdash can be traced directly back to the Communists. All this “Modern Art” bullroar sprang out fully formed as if from the brow of Zeus after 1917. And we all know what happened in 1917, the fruitbat commies acquired the resources of an entire nation for their very own.

    It’s probably no accident that the Chicoms claimed Science Fiction for their own the last few years, it’s been a hold-out for a long time. Going so far as to buy WorldCon, in an effort to make all of us crazy nerds follow the Party line.

    This is what makes Communists always lose eventually. They do NOT understand that if they take science fiction away from the nerds and make it into intolerable propaganda, some bunch of freaking nerds will go write our own stories our own selves.

    That’s what I do. I don’t care if it sells (in fact I assume it will not sell, I post it mainly as an extended middle finger to the establishment and for the edification of my fellow nerds), and I don’t care if it isn’t “Art,” capital “A” as proclaimed by whatever bunch of busybodies proclaims such things. The story is about the people I wanted to meet, and it goes the way I wanted, because if nobody else is going to do it, or even be allowed to do it, I’ll damn well do it myself.

    Currently listening to “Here Comes Your Man” by the Pixies, which is Art, Capital freakin’ A, and I don’t care who says otherwise.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. I think you’re painting with too broad a brush.

    Waaay back in high school, I had to take Art. The teacher insisted that anything which provoked an emotional reaction, was art. Then assigned us to make art with no instruction on craftsmanship at all. I got kicked out when I turned in that first assignment. From his reaction, I achieved perfection in my first attempt, and gracefully retired. (Also, from the principal. Who couldn’t stop laughing when I visited him.)

    No, I’m not an artist. And never have been. But I can troll a MF who asks for it like a champ.

    Like

      1. I broke out my drafting board, and drew three traffic signs in an inverted isosceles triangle. Two “bump”, one “yield”. Titled it “The Essence of Aphrodite”.

        Some thirty years later, I have to wonder how a grown adult let themselves be baited by something so (literally) sophomoric.

        Liked by 1 person

        3. That’s hilarious. Replicate it at some point in digital format and create it as a meme.

          (Also, what a butthead. Students are literally there to learn, and technique is what allows creative expression. No instructions = lazy teacher.)

          Like

    1. We had a Norman Rockwell show come through our local art museum.

      Holy crud, that guy could paint! Like nobody’s business!

      Even the stuff I’d seen pictures of, looked a ton better in person, at original size. And there was so much to look at.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. People also forget his social commentary artwork. He did some paintings that would have made some people very angry, like Murder in Mississippi.

      But oh no, he did COVERS of magazines! He illustrated HAPPY FAMILIES! He must be a mere illustrator!

      B.S. (and I don’t mean Boy Scouts.)

      Liked by 1 person

  17. Simple filter – These days if it’s paid for or subsidized by .gov/taxpayer funding, it ain’t art. It might be propaganda, but it ain’t art.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. It might take a high degree of skill and there’s a small chance that it could actually resemble good art (nothing is impossible), but no matter how close it may get to being art, it’ll always be propaganda.

      Like

      1. But was it propaganda for early modern age artists to paint religious art that included images of the rulers of the area that he lived in?

        Like

        1. More like “art to order”. If Sarah paid me to draw a cover and wanted a cameo, I’d oblige, and make it work with the overall design. The local rulers were the customers, usually.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. I think a religious commission by a medieval or renaissance monarch or other wealthy patron is different from government art. Yes, the monarch or noble (or church official) was part of the government, but the goal was not the same as what we see with the modern state funding art.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. Yes, but in those days, the patrons knew it when they saw it. And you did not want to fall on their bad sides.

          Like

    3. There was a day, up until perhaps as late as the Kennedy POTUS-ship, where the US Army managed to double-task for that. Sure, those posters were all propaganda, even big-P Propaganda some of them like Jacques Ellul denounces, but danged if they weren’t propaganda Art!

      Like

      1. There used to be a huge store of Nazi propaganda paintings in storage at Pueblo Army Depot. They would rotate them in the storage area to keep them in good condition. I remember viewing the ones pulled out in the warehouse (it may have been my very first TDY as an intern; it wasn’t part of the job, it was a special privilege). What struck me was my “guide” pointing out where the artists had put little bits of anti-Nazi propaganda into their work.

        Were these huge paintings art? Doubt it, but boy, were they gaudy.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I’m in a Military History unit in the Reserves, and on a couple of occasions had a chance to tour the Army museum archives and see some of the original paintings for War Bond posters and the like. This was a generation of men who studied and honed their crafts and put beauty into excellent use for the causes they were commissioned for.

          Like

  19. I don’t think it’s necessary to invoke Marxist categories to have this phenomenon. I’m thinking of ancient Roman banquets where expensive slave chefs made dishes out of bizarre raw materials and then their owner’s clients exclaimed over how marvelous they were, to show that they deserved seats at their patron’s table. If the food was something anyone could enjoy it wouldn’t have been a useful test of loyalty to the elite.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. The ONLY way I can see that working is if the net was the first thing carved, while it was still supported by the rest of the block. Every rope, every knot would have to be completely finished before carving further into the block. Working skinny little chisels through the holes to carve the guy inside must have been terrifying. One little slipup… :-o

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Allegedly the burnishers (I didn’t even know marble statues needed to be burnished, I know practically nothing about the details of the craft) refused to touch it, being too afraid they would break off pieces of the net in the process. So the sculptor had to burnish the net parts of the statue himself.

        Liked by 1 person

  22. Art is indeed in the eye of the beholder. Long years back, Jan (an art graduate student in the same dorm) had a display (and sale) of her ceramic works. There was only one that sparked my interest enough to entice me to eagerly buy it. She had been disappointed in how it turned out, and expected no one would ever want it. A heavy tall, tapering cylindrical drinking vessel black on the outside with concentric rings and rough finish, smooth and mellow brown on the inside. To my mind it conjured up the image of it resting on the table of a medieval tavern as I quaffed my ale. Beautiful and practical.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I took ceramics in college (from a professor who deeply resented people trying to take the first class as an easy A, so he made sure you had to learn the chemistry and art history of the subject to do well.) As you might expect, that meant I had a whole bunch of pieces of work to deal with. So I offered them to various friends.

      The one I thought of as irredeemably ugly (lopsided coil pot in orange glazes) was seized upon fairly early. Uh, sure. Glad you like it.

      Like

  24. As Himself wrote in an address to the cadets at Annapolis:

    “I think of it as competing for beer money; this keeps me steady on course. My purpose is to make what I write entertaining enough to compete with beer. Not to be as great as Shakespeare or as immortal as Homer but simply to write well enough to persuade the cash customer to spend money on one of my paperback reprints when he could spend it on beer.

    I ask myself: Does this entertain me? Does it amuse me enough that, if I found it on a newsstand, I would be willing to pay cash to read it?

    Or does it bore me?

    If it bores me, I don’t write it.”

    Thus speaks a true creator of written art.

    Liked by 1 person

  25. Art dedicated to Teton Queen Grizzly 399. Not governmental stipend to make. But a work of love, dedication, and crowd funding private donations.

    Do not know where it will be placed. Know where sentiment wants it placed (area where 399 den is located and gave birth to her many cubs). But that is designated wilderness, thus inappropriate location.

    Some of the photographers work after she died has been inspiring too.

    Fully expect quilt patterns to start showing up.

    Like

      1. On that note, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West museum in Cody has a practice new to me, where they have a brief plaque outlining where their taxidermied animals came from. One of them was a bear killed by a car—which may have been one of 399’s. (There was some reason this bear was considered famous, and that may have been it.)

        Like

        1. “bear killed by a car—which may have been one of 399’s.“

          ………….

          Don’t think so. A previous grizzly queen of the Tetons. Too soon but I think they’ll be hailing “Princess 610” as the grizzly queen in a few years. 610 is 19 years old.

          399 got the designation because of the number of cubs she had, high (75%) percentage of raising them to sub adulthood release, how old she continued to have cubs, and because she raises them along park *roads. Including the 4 she had 2020. Another record she broke before her death was emerging with her last cub in 2023, at age 28, who was with her fall 2024 when she was hit and killed. The yearling (by all reports) a large almost 2 year old (would have been released spring 2025. Local wildlife photographers and rangers have spotted a sub adult grizzly they “think” looks like that last cub. Definitely could have survived.) While quads are not unknown in grizzlies, it is unusual for a grizzly to get all 4 through their COY, let alone live to be released. Unfortunately despite successfully raising to release, does not mean all her cubs have lived to reproduce. Just lost second of the quads this spring (vehicle). But she does has daughters reproducing, 610 is one, and 964 (now in Yellowstone) are having cubs. Even some of her granddaughters are producing cubs.

          610 has had 10 cubs. Expected to emerge this year with COY but none were seen with her this spring (was hit by a car when her current 3 were yearlings. Survived, emerged in 2024 and released the 2 1/2 year olds. Either her 2025 COY didn’t survive in the den or the trauma from being hit prevented cubs this year.

          926, one of 619’s cubs, emerged in 2021 with twins.

          964 emerged with her first COY, triplets, in 2023.

          962 emerged with COY in 2021, but it was lost to a boar, then she was killed.

          (*) Early on 399 lost COY’s to death by boar. But most the cubs lost have been due to either vehicle VS bear (bears usually lose) or because to comfortable around people food sources (which I blame Wyoming **game). Both directly related to 399 raising her cubs close to roads and people. Roads and people are what the boars avoid. Not always. 1063 lost two of her yearling triplets just this spring to a boar not too far away from park main road and the lake.

          (**) Grizzlies are a huge draw. Wyoming needs to do better. (Yes. Relocating excess carry populations to: North Cascades (happening), Olympia, Rainer, Crater Lake, Cascade wilderness areas, Steens, Willawas, Shasta, Coast Range, etc., are all acceptable options.)

          Note. There is already one statue of 399 in Cody, I think. Don’t know where they will place the current one. Pilgrim Creek, where she was first spotted as a COY, where she denned, birthed and raised her own cubs, is where public wants it. That won’t happen.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. This one was a young male, but you’re right, I don’t remember whose cub it was. Too habituated to the road.

            I’ve never been to the Tetons (it’s astonishing that I’ve had a day at Yellowstone and one in Cody), so maybe if there’s a visitor center there that could have the display, that would be appropriate.

            Like

            1. In general the sub adult released cubs start avoiding the road and people areas once they are on their own. Seen as they move across territories. Does not keep them from getting hit as they cross roads. Especially males start staying in the back country wilderness. Females start haunting the roads as they have cubs, if they can get the cubs from the den in the back country to front country, past boars, *safely. Even 399 was known to bring out her sub adult cubs on release year, release them, then disappear with her beau of the season to be rarely seen until next spring with the new COY. One exception has been the bear called Jam in Yellowstone. She has spent not only her first 3 1/2 years in front of the public, but her current romance as a 5 year old is playing out in public currently. Jam is the second cub her mother, Raspberry, kept 3 seasons, not the normal 2. Some speculation on whether Raspberry will keep her current 2 1/2 year old sub adult triplets another year, or kick them, won’t know for some weeks, yet. First two she kept 3 1/2 years were singleton cubs.

              (*) Not unique to Yellowstone or Tetons or even to grizzlies. Black bears are doing this too. Canada reports this happening in Banff, Jasper, and other national parks, both black bears and grizzlies. Another strategy we saw were black bears having their cubs napping up in trees, then mom napping further down the tree, or at the base. Protection for the cubs against boars and grizzlies.

              Liked by 1 person

  26. I’m thinking of what “art” really means… to me it’s more expansive than just stuff you watch, see, read etc. I think of that little clinic our family went to when I was a kid and it was in a building called “The Medical Arts Building”. To me all the ‘doctor’ stuff was science and technology but there was/is a lot of ‘art’ in there too.

    There was a curriculum back in the day called art appreciation where the lucky freshman types got a semester of looking at and discussing all sorts of paintings from western civilization, the near and far east as well as ‘modern’ and the ‘traditional’ schools. It may well be that “art” never was simple and it truly is in the eye of the beholder.

    For me, I know what I like (such as the wood duck painting over my desk) and appreciate it. The rest is just fine but I’ll stick to what I enjoy and pass the rest by.

    Like

    1. While I deplore the decision from a personal viewpoint, it can’t be called a “mistake”. The Court applied the law as it existed at the time and ruled in accordance with that law in accordance with the Constitution. The alternative would have been as wrong as the decision in Roe vs, Wade, in which the Court effectively usurped the powers of Congress and created legislation. The issue in Dred Scott was fixed by Amendments 13-15, as the current Court fixed the actual mistake from Roe vs. Wade.

      Like

      1. Wags Paw. Yes and no. Justice Taney rewrote part of history in order to justify a portion of the decision. He claimed that blacks had never been citizens and had never had rights, which was incorrect. Free people of color had full legal status in every colony, even if the number of those people had been small. Over time, they’d lost certain rights in many colonies, northern and southern, but there had been free citizens of color. Taney stretched a few other things as well, but that’s the most egregious error. (I got hammered with that during Constitutional History class in grad school. Taney could have used other evidence rather than fudging things.)

        Liked by 1 person

        1. OK, I remembered it as a statement that black slaves had never been citizens; your recollection (and what I’ve read since your reply) says that he did indeed stretch the truth, although I’d argue that he didn’t outright lie about the legalities of the matter, only about the history. And as a citizen of a slave state he would be oriented toward the most restrictive interpretations of anything to do with blacks. Not “right”, but fairly common; cultural blindness is an unfortunate fact of life.

          That black citizens existed in many (or as you say, all) of the colonies was fairly well-known, although probably memory-holed in slave states; several of the early (and later, into the 19th century) slaveholders were black or mixed-race, and many were apparently quite well-to-do. While Wiki sometimes isn’t a reliable reference, there’s quite a bit of info here, with cites:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_slave_owners

          Anyway, thanks for the clarification.

          Like

          1. You’re welcome. My prof frothed at the mouth about lazy judges, and judges who fudged details in their decisions in order to push through rulings. She was a wee bit adamant about why it should not be done.

            She was also editing a volume of legal historical writings, which might have had something to do with her unusual vehemence. Unusual according to older grad students who had already had that class.

            Like

            1. Things like that tend to enrage those who know how the system is supposed to work.

              Hmmm…. I wonder how she would view the current epidemic of overreach by District judges?

              Like

              1. It violated one of the founding principles of this nation, that all men are created equal. Allowing slaves was a politically immoral compromise. The reason that someone smarter than I had put that slaves were three quarters beings for census purposes was so that no matter what happened the slave states would always be losing in representation in the House. It was designed to make the slave states fail. Dred Scott destroyed the moral ground of the nation and led directly to the civil war. Primarily through the creation of the abolition movement gaining ground to right what they perceived and was an injustice. The Supreme Court is also supposed to be a moral as well as Legal pulpit. Because all places of power are Pulpits from which to speak to those who choose to live under them. Note the people of this nation are the final check and balance against the Government and Judiciary. As always my opinion, take it or leave it. Love that it got people talking.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. Oh yes the slaves were used in the Census, which was so hypocritical it’s obvious where that trait of the Democrat Party came from. Maybe it was ironic as well, you have no rights, but we are going to count you as a human being, well almost. Boggles the mind.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. Minor nit.

                    The 3/5 human thing came long after the War of Independence.

                    The Constitution was needed because the Articles of Confederation weren’t strong enough to keep the States together as one nation.

                    Without the 3/5 thing, the non-slave owning states likely would have been one nation with the slave-owning states being a nation (or nations) separate from the Free States.

                    Among other things, the supporters of the Constitution were concerned about European nations “meddling” in North America.

                    The States being one Nation could prevent that “meddling”, two or more nations in North America could not prevent that “meddling” with the addition that the “meddling” could involve European nations “playing some American nations against other American nations”.

                    We have to remember that the early US was a “third-world nation” compared to nations like Great Britian, France and Spain.

                    Like

                    1. Probably not even as high as “third world”; more like 4th. Of course, that changed pretty rapidly. By the time the slavery issue was decided permanently, the US was definitely first-world, at least militarily, and arguably could have defeated just about any nation in Europe, probably including the British Navy. Four years of war and the technological advances it brought, from the use of railroads to shell guns on ironclad warships, were significant force multipliers, and the Europeans took several years to catch up.

                      Like

                  2. Not the Revolution; it was over. But the slave states would not have ratified the Constitution if slavery were abolished as many of the Founders wanted, even those who owned slaves. It was a hold-your-nose bargain, but they could think of no other way to unify the states into a (proto)-nation.

                    Liked by 1 person

  29. “This is art, that is not” does not work for me, because I have too often seen it used to dismiss great work simply because the individual dismissing it does not like it. What they sometimes mean is “that’s bad art”, but more usually it’s just “I don’t like it, therefore I am trying to invalidate it in the minds of others”. As a general rule, I try to stick with Scott McCloud’s definition of art: anything that humans do that is not directly related to survival or reproduction. This has the clarifying effect of taking “that’s not art” off the table, and the discussion can move on to standards of quality.

    And let me take the opportunity to recommend to anyone who might be interested Orson Welles’s last completed film F for Fake, which uses an infamous art forger as a starting point for an extended meditation on what art is.

    Like

  31. First point, Tubby Tish. A political commentator, probably Redstate but I would have to do the research said that Tubby Tish was actually making the point “this is your overlord”.

    Second point. I was at a science fiction convention buying a cute unicorn print from a lady whose work I recognized from the front of a notebook I had bought years before and kept because I loved it. She’d been turned by Bradford Exchange (home of Elvis collector plates) because she wasn’t enough of an artiste. I kept her notebook and bought more of her stuff. I have no Elvis collector plates.

    Liked by 2 people

        1. I’ve never heard the Greeks, Romans or Norse described as matriarchies, and yet: Hera/Juno, Athena/Diana, Aphrodite/Venus, Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos, Minerva, Vesta, Ceres, Frigga, Freyja, Lofn, Urdr, Verdandi, Skuld, the Valkyries… I could go on, and on, list a hundred or more goddesses from Teh Patriarchies.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. The believers in “Ancient Matriarchies” believe that those Matriarchies existed before recorded history.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. And they never left any trace of their existence because…?

              Making shit up without any evidence is called writing fiction. Nothing wrong with that; I do it myself all the time. So do a few other people hereabouts. Pretending the made-up fiction is true, now, that’s called lying. That is all sorts of wrong.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. The Idiots appear to believe that nonsense and won’t “hear” arguments that justly cast doubt on their idiocy.

                Liked by 1 person

              1. A few years ago (back when the “survival” TV shows were popular), some European had this great idea to have two groups, one all male & the other all female, on different islands.

                From what I heard, the all male group were able to work together to survive, but the all female group had plenty of in-fighting so weren’t able to work together.

                So I’m wondering if that’s why the “Ancient Matriarchies” failed.

                There was so much in-fighting among the women that the men said “to heck with this” and just took over the societies/tribes. [Very Very Crazy Grin]

                Liked by 1 person

                2. “Season six, Survivor: The Amazon, was the first occurrence where tribes were split based on the theme. The men vs. women theme proved to be so successful that production brought it back three seasons later in Vanuatu, similar to how Blood vs. Water returned so soon. While Vanuatu could not match the success of The Amazon, it is still regarded as a very solid season which is why it is surprising that the men vs. women theme was not brought back until fifteen seasons later for One World.”

                  Like

  32. One of my favorite living artists is Tim Cox. He gets the skies right. When I was in college the first time, and close to broke, I found a set of four miniature prints of his work. I managed to buy it, and it made me feel better about the world during many years of roaming.

    https://www.timcox.com/

    Liked by 1 person

  33. Ahhh! Late to thread – comforting, somehow. When I was a boy I would, when I had free time, accompany my maternal grandmother, a regional artist of some repute back in the day, now largely forgotten, to her shows. One time, when I was a young teen, she was co-exhibiting with another artist. This was usually set up by the gallery and was not so much a collaboration as sharing space. After I had looked at her paintings which didn’t take too long as I had seen her painting most of them in her studio, I went to look at the other artist’s works. I was impressed. I was impressed with how puerile, how bad they were. My grandmother noticed my interest, and she took me about his side of the gallery and pointed out why various aspects of his painting failed, as part of my art education, I suppose. They really were bad. Mostly lazy and con the rube sort of things. Waffle House Tish seems to fall in that category.

    Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.