The Depths

[luka]

I know you're being deliberately hyperbolic for effect but even so the idea that white on white negates or supersedes the mystery and perfect calm of Piero della Frecesco, the fresh, spring light of Bottecelli, the multiple vantages and fractured space of Cezanne, Picasso, Braque, the interior silence and stopped time of Vermeer, the sensitivity and compassion of Rembrant, the electric atmospheres of Giorgione, the mocking symbolism of Poussin, the startling aliveness of Daumier, the gravitas and scope of Titian, the grace and ease of Degas is absolutely fucking mental mate!

 

[luka]

This is deep. It's geological. It's tectonic. It's continental plates colliding and shearing apart.

 

[pattycakes_]

at the risk of being naive

Vim posted the Friedrich partly to poke fun at the pomposity and bathos of the deep and partly to point to its roots in German Sturm und Drang.

which is funny, but also a shame that this word is loaded in that way and provokes that instant reaction. who are we trying to appease? i feel like this ties into the DFW post modern ironic distance self defense shit too well. how did we become post-deep? as we became more and more rational, scientific, modern? but people still like to read dostoyevsky, listen to john coltrane, no? are we not recieving the same pleasure and awe as people who lived in less jaded times did when they read and listened to those works? is it not the depth that makes those creators the greats that they are? what's the deal?

i want to learn.

 

[pattycakes_]

you and I will die and our bones will wither to dust, and that echoing 808/909 percussion will go clattering on, perpetual motion machine

padraig for thread mvp.

 

[luka]

which is funny, but also a shame that this word is loaded in that way and provokes that instant reaction. who are we trying to appease? i feel like this ties into the DFW post modern ironic distance self defense shit too well. how did we become post-deep? as we became more and more rational, scientific, modern? but people still like to read dostoyevsky, listen to john coltrane, no? are we not recieving the same pleasure and awe as people who lived in less jaded times did when they read and listened to those works? is it not the depth that makes those creators the greats that they are?what's the deal?

Who are we trying to appease is a good question. Mark k Punk used to invoke the Big Other a great deal. Policing of the self in the name of something which doesn't in fact exist. Not at all easy to undo, or even to recognise the full scope of its actions and effects..

Post-deep is I guess partly the infantilisation process we'Ve discussed a little bit before. Partly the recognition of human frailty and human evil in the wake of two world wars, two atom bombs and the holocaust. Even, on a smaller scale, the kind of abuses commonplace in the psychedelic sixties (as documented, for example, in Adam Curtis' 'The Century of the Self') Puppy brought back to its own vomit, time and time again.

A sense of childhood as sanctuary. This far and no further.

 

[luka]

You also have the influence of Nietzchean/Freudian 'unmasking' to factor in.

 

[luka]

The recognition that the lofty and high flown, the profound and the weighty are
just the basest drives in fancy dress.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Vim posted the Friedrich partly to poke fun at the pomposity and bathos of the deep and partly to point to its roots in German Sturm und Drang.

yes, I mean I had understood that

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog has been a meme since days. it was a meme before memes existed, functional shorthand for pompous solipsism.

I mean look at this fucking guy


but also like cakes said, who are/would we be trying to impress with our cool, winking detachment?

I'm not even saying it's wrong, that it's not pompous solipsism

but also, what do you want? it's the risk of trying to engage here - exactly what I made a point of acknowledging on the very last page of this thread

idk man it's the easiest thing to smirk at sincerity "me being deep lol" (not saying that's what vimothy was doing)

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

right I didn't see your post addressing same

but also you keep asking me to explain what I mean by deep and I keep making an honest attempt at it

not that I - or Friedrich or whatever - am above ridicule

just saying you can't have it both ways

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

and while I'm not quite with cakes - asking did rational, post-modern or whatever, ruin doestoevksy or whatever

I also don't agree with you all about the Romantic element, or that this is particularly a Romantic interpretation

I think you've been led astray by all the misty German forests talk

which is partly my fault for not being clearer that they're a particular (and particularly obvious) iteration of deepness, rather than synonymous with deepness

it's more about the tension between known/unknowable (mystery) that exists in some form in all things

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

as I noted above in a few examples concerning Classicism and the classical world

but could be done for (probably) anything

 

[luka]

right I didn't see your post addressing same

but also you keep asking me to explain what I mean by deep and I keep making an honest attempt at it

not that I - or Friedrich or whatever - am above ridicule

just saying you can't have it both ways

I literally spend my days writing poetry by a river and when I'm not doing that I'm on here fomenting a psychedelic revolution and hastening a new religious revelation. I'm not anti sincerity.

 

[luka]

I appreciate your efforts to fathom the depths. Perhaps we could sum up what we've got so far?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I know you're being deliberately hyperbolic for effect

am I?

flippant maybe, but that's different from hyperbolic - I believe what I said, in the way I said it

I didn't say negates, I said makes redundant and only in the sense of deepness, not in any other other sense of aesthetics, or meaning

and when I say redundant, I mean it's the ultimate expression of that avenue of exploration

even more than 4'33" because while it still has incidental elements it's closer to a purity of form

which is not to negate the power of Chagall, or drifting further afield any of the painters you named

it's just such a weird argument to me - what does any of that, those other painters, have to do what what I said about Malevich, at all?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I'm not anti sincerity.

I'm certainly not trying to say you are

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I just think this isn't one of your preferred avenues of exploration - I mean you've (admirably) admitted as much

which is good actually - we all have different strengths - I'm not as adept at some of the other games around here but this is fully my wheelhouse

 

[luka]

am I?

flippant maybe, but that's different from hyperbolic - I believe what I said, in the way I said it

I didn't say negates, I said makes redundant and only in the sense of deepness, not in any other other sense of aesthetics, or meaning

and when I say redundant, I mean it's the ultimate expression of that avenue of exploration

even more than 4'33" because while it still has incidental elements it's closer to a purity of form

which is not to negate the power of Chagall, or drifting further afield any of the painters you named

it's just such a weird argument to me - what does any of that, those other painters, have to do what what I said about Malevich, at all?

You said White on white was the only deep painting. I disagreed. I gave examples of other painters I consider deep, and thumbnail sketches of where (partially) their various deepnesses are located! I think all of those painters painted wonderfully, unplummably deep paintings. I suppose you could define deep in such a limited and jealous way that it excludes everything but white on white but what would be the point of that?

Anyway, I'm not in an argumentative mood. I'm feeling very gentle, almost sensitive, I just couldn't let that comment pass without a splutter or two

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

such a limited and jealous way

there's nothing limited or jealous about it

it's the ultimate expression of a thing, no more and no less

this is so fundamental that idk it's hard for me to imagine you're not being willfully obtuse and/or provocative

your argument is like saying Pandit Pran Nath (or whatever) isn't deep because what about John Coltrane or whatever

but whatever man I'm not gonna rise to it - it's fine

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

you do keep surprising me with your extremely traditional aesthetic tastes but I should probably stop being surprised

after all you have always been very clear about liking "normal art for normal geezers", which is as perfectly laudable a taste as any

I assume poetry and literature is where all the weird esoteric etc is evident

I don't mean any of that in a backhanded way at all tbc

as a theme here I'm not advocating for "deep" as superior in any way - that that which isn't deep must therefore be shallow, and thus less meaningful

just deep as deep

 

[luka]

Like I say I'm not in an argumentative mood. More misty mellow and fruitful. Very gentle and tolerant, but flinching from contact.