Big Mood: Peli's theory of vibe

[Benny Bunter]

I think in certain ways the term 'atmosphere" may apply instead, if we're talking about cultural/subcultural milieus and the aggregate impressions made by their aesthetics/values/tastes.

Or maybe even better than atmosphere, 'aura'. To quote from a dictionary

"the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place. "The ceremony retains an aura of mystery."

 

[Benny Bunter]

I don't think you can account for genius culturally or historically, it's just a weird thing that happens and then later everyone else tries to catch up

 

[Clinamenic]

You're right, aura is better than atmosphere here.

 

[Clinamenic]

I don't think you can account for genius culturally or historically, it's just a weird thing that happens and then later everyone else tries to catch up

There was a good Schopenhauer quote I believe, to the effect of "Talent is hitting the marks nobody else can hit. Genius is hitting the marks nobody else can see."

 

[Benny Bunter]

I think 'thread' is referring to something that bores down into the root, a line of thinking, and also circular and revolving, so I think it's a good image for describing the poetic/artistic mind.

 

[Benny Bunter]

You're right, aura is better than atmosphere here.

After all artistic genius is an individual thing not culturally determined, you could have a genius in any culture.

 

[version]

I think grand systematic theory is always going to struggle to explain individual artistic genius, cos they're always one step ahead

Le Guin talks about this in her author's note for The Word for World is Forest. She pulls up a quote of Freud's about artists being motivated by the desire for " ... honour, power, riches, fame and the love of women," sticks it next to a couple of Emily Bronte verses from back when she was young enough to not really have any of those things and says Freud had a theory, Bronte had authority.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Well, there you go (I'd like to see that le guin quote if you can find it). Freud might have been a genius himself in some ways, but you simply can't account for artistic genius just culturally and historically. She had it in spades from when she was a young girl I'm sure, so how do you explain that other than she was born with it? (And on a secondary level she was lucky enough to have had the upbringing to nurture her talent)

The theorists play catch up to the artists, always.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I don't think geniuses are just a product of their times and circumstances, rather they emerge mysteriously and they set the trend for what's to come, they change the course of history if they become well known. I don't really know that much about Freud but I think be was full of shit tbh

 

[version]

Well, there you go (I'd like to see that le guin quote if you can find it). Freud might have been a genius himself in some ways, but you simply can't account for artistic genius just culturally and historically. She had it in spades from when she was a young girl I'm sure, so how do you explain that other than she was born with it? (And on a secondary level she was lucky enough to have had the upbringing to nurture her talent)

The theorists play catch up to the artists, always.

Here's that particular bit,

There is nothing in all Freud’s writings that I like better than his assertion that artists’ work is motivated by the desire “to achieve honour, power, riches, fame, and the love of women.” It is such a comforting, such a complete statement; it explains everything about the artist. There have even been artists who agreed with it; Ernest Hemingway, for instance; at least, he said he wrote for money, and since he was an honored, powerful, rich, famous artist beloved by women, he ought to know.

There is another statement about the artist’s desires that is, to me, less obscure; the first two stanzas of it read,

Riches I hold in light esteem
And Love I laugh to scorn
And lust of Fame was but a dream
That vanished with the morn—

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is—“Leave the heart that now I bear
And give me liberty.”

Emily Bronte wrote those lines when she was twenty-two. She was a young and inexperienced woman, not honored, not rich, not powerful, not famous, and you see that she was positively rude about love (“of women” or otherwise). I believe, however, that she was rather better qualified than Freud to talk about what motivates the artist. He had a theory. But she had authority.

It may well be useless, if not pernicious, to seek a single motive for a pursuit so complex, long-pursued, and various as art; I imagine that Bronte got as close to it as anyone needs to get, with her word “liberty.”

It goes on after that, but it's a bit long to stick in here so here's the link.

The Word for World Is Forest

Ursula K. Le Guin The Word for World Is Forest 1972

theanarchistlibrary.org

 

[Benny Bunter]

Emily Dickinson's another one a bit like that, almost totally unrecognised during her life, now pretty much universally acknowledged as a poetic genius. She kept on writing and writing all through her life, didn't even really try to get published

 

[Benny Bunter]

Not to say that Hemingway, for example, wasn't a genius and wasn't helped and motivated by his drives cos I think he genuinely was, but it can't explain everything, le guin is right