To quote an incident which in turn was quoted by Stephen Fry; Oscar Wilde, when asked as to why he thought America was such a violent country, replied: "I know perfectly well why America is such a violent country. It's because her wallpapers are so hideous."
It's extremely easy to think of the answer as just a camp remark from a dandy Oxfordian who both excelled and reveled at making comments whose worthiness vested not in their content but in their dazzling form. But as Fry pointed out, it does have immense meaning in the Wildesque concept of rationality. And obviously, no religion, and few humans have come even close to matching the incisive perfection of that intellect that rested on those shoulders clothed in those silk and velvet raiment. In many senses, he was the Albert Einstein of the art world. His stature continues to grow as time passes whilst his contemporaries are reduced to midgets in our memories. He was the irreverent rebel who refused to weigh the world in the balance of conventional rationality. Instead, he chose to invent his own. And how beautiful it all is and how indebted our sensibilities to him.
Anyways, what he meant by his remark was this (again paraphrasing Fry slightly): Nature is absolutely and unreservedly beautiful. It's beautiful in the aridity of the dune riddled deserts and it's beautiful in the frigidity of the arctic wastes. It's beautiful in the vast expanse of the humbling oceans and it's beautiful in the delicate balance of African wilderness. It's beautiful everywhere. Except of course in places where it has come across humans. Humans have done exceedingly well in despoiling this beauty not by being trespassive but by being unimaginative. We have ravaged this elegance by employing mediocre architecture, building ugly factories, creating horrible music and, in general, succumbing to the whims and fancies of the lowest common denominator. I suppose another reason for this remark was the fact that the period was late 19th century and New York still had to wait for another 5 decades to lay it's claim as the center of world art and truly revolutionary music and science were yet to be born in this country. In any case, it was a time when the citizens were surrounded by dull ideas and their duller manifestations and naturally they saw themselves as belonging to a specie that could only uglify that which is completely beautiful. It instilled a sense of guilt and as Freud suggested, this guilt led to a violent disposition. This is what Wilde meant then and my god how very true is it today.
And we see the wheel turning all over again in the form of religious intolerance. The fact that religion today is incapable of delivering artists who could paint another Sistine Chapel with the elegance of Michelangelo or compose another 'Payoji maine' with the aesthetic sensibilities of Mirabai or pen another Odyssey with the grand artistic vision of Homer just goes on to show that God, if at all real, has at least lost all taste. Since morality is hardly a prerogative of religion, in the absence of beauty, all that religion exclusively teaches is divisiveness. And in the absence of contemporary examples of grace and elegance, all that it has to offer is rhetoric in the self-righteous ramblings of cocksure leaders who are the mediocre doyens of the unsure and the unimaginative. And it is these people, who obviously have a screwed up if not completely absent concept of beauty, who have either the time or the inclination or the desperation to strap up an IED and blow themselves up for a notion of paradise that's, to put it mildly, completely fucked up. I understand the need for religion but I cannot grasp it's unreserved, unquestioned acceptance. It will take me the rest of the week to elucidate the number of things I find wrong with it so I would rather pass.
The point is, good art is not a luxury that we can dispense with. We need assurances that we are capable of creating beauty in order of maintaining our sanity and science and art are the two avenues which help us realize that. Religion used to be in the form of a willing and able patron but, I'm afraid, it no longer is.
P.S: Here is Kowsik's reply.
It's extremely easy to think of the answer as just a camp remark from a dandy Oxfordian who both excelled and reveled at making comments whose worthiness vested not in their content but in their dazzling form. But as Fry pointed out, it does have immense meaning in the Wildesque concept of rationality. And obviously, no religion, and few humans have come even close to matching the incisive perfection of that intellect that rested on those shoulders clothed in those silk and velvet raiment. In many senses, he was the Albert Einstein of the art world. His stature continues to grow as time passes whilst his contemporaries are reduced to midgets in our memories. He was the irreverent rebel who refused to weigh the world in the balance of conventional rationality. Instead, he chose to invent his own. And how beautiful it all is and how indebted our sensibilities to him.
Anyways, what he meant by his remark was this (again paraphrasing Fry slightly): Nature is absolutely and unreservedly beautiful. It's beautiful in the aridity of the dune riddled deserts and it's beautiful in the frigidity of the arctic wastes. It's beautiful in the vast expanse of the humbling oceans and it's beautiful in the delicate balance of African wilderness. It's beautiful everywhere. Except of course in places where it has come across humans. Humans have done exceedingly well in despoiling this beauty not by being trespassive but by being unimaginative. We have ravaged this elegance by employing mediocre architecture, building ugly factories, creating horrible music and, in general, succumbing to the whims and fancies of the lowest common denominator. I suppose another reason for this remark was the fact that the period was late 19th century and New York still had to wait for another 5 decades to lay it's claim as the center of world art and truly revolutionary music and science were yet to be born in this country. In any case, it was a time when the citizens were surrounded by dull ideas and their duller manifestations and naturally they saw themselves as belonging to a specie that could only uglify that which is completely beautiful. It instilled a sense of guilt and as Freud suggested, this guilt led to a violent disposition. This is what Wilde meant then and my god how very true is it today.
And we see the wheel turning all over again in the form of religious intolerance. The fact that religion today is incapable of delivering artists who could paint another Sistine Chapel with the elegance of Michelangelo or compose another 'Payoji maine' with the aesthetic sensibilities of Mirabai or pen another Odyssey with the grand artistic vision of Homer just goes on to show that God, if at all real, has at least lost all taste. Since morality is hardly a prerogative of religion, in the absence of beauty, all that religion exclusively teaches is divisiveness. And in the absence of contemporary examples of grace and elegance, all that it has to offer is rhetoric in the self-righteous ramblings of cocksure leaders who are the mediocre doyens of the unsure and the unimaginative. And it is these people, who obviously have a screwed up if not completely absent concept of beauty, who have either the time or the inclination or the desperation to strap up an IED and blow themselves up for a notion of paradise that's, to put it mildly, completely fucked up. I understand the need for religion but I cannot grasp it's unreserved, unquestioned acceptance. It will take me the rest of the week to elucidate the number of things I find wrong with it so I would rather pass.
The point is, good art is not a luxury that we can dispense with. We need assurances that we are capable of creating beauty in order of maintaining our sanity and science and art are the two avenues which help us realize that. Religion used to be in the form of a willing and able patron but, I'm afraid, it no longer is.
P.S: Here is Kowsik's reply.
7 comments:
Could it be that the beauty is there but humans have little tolerance for it? Its true everywhere: judgements are instantaneous and harsh
What use is that beauty which cannot or does not inspire :) ?
You are as wrong as you can every be... yes my judgment here has been harsh and semi-instantaneous. As an aside, Wilde was just being a smart-ass. If you were a gay in the Victorian/Edwardian-era that might be your modus-operandi too, should we read wisdom into it?
My response to your post.
It's extremely sad that you read what you wanted to read and then lambasted me for points I wasn't even making. While I can try, I'm afraid there can be no arguments against anger. I agree with most of your post (as you should know by our zillion conversations) but your judgments on me are, for once, plainly stupid.
And yes, rather than ascribing some views which you do not agree with to one's possible frustrations at being gay in the Victorian era, do consider the possibility that there might in fact be logic behind them. Especially when you are talking about someone who, as you would agree, deserves at least our critical analysis. You just sounded so small making such a dense argument.
I might very well be wrong but certainly not for the reasons you gave.
I didn't mean to offend you with my post. Sorry for that. My intent was to point out that Fry's explanation, as endorsed by you, need not be correct. Smart people are occasionally wrong, I believe this is one such instance.
To rephrase my pun (smart-ass & gay) on Wilde, my comment on him, as I intended it to be, was this: 'his wise-cracks constitute passing-off correlations for causality.' There was no homophobia involved, the attempt was to laugh-it-off rather than to ridicule, to try being a smart-ass. I had read about the humiliation that he had to endure in the latter part of his life on this account. I am not that cruel.
We all have our holy cows. Given a text, we all read and react accordingly. The same comments, for different poeple, read differently. I don't consider myself above this. If the post was to highlight Wilde's literary genius and wit, I would agree too. My complaint is about ascribing more to it.
As for my judging you (hopefully this has nothing to do with my paraphrasing the first comment [parth] in my earlier comment) I've accused you of taking a side that, while noble and appealing, is often misused by others. A side that appeals to many activists just because of its sheer imagery. I have pointed out the opposite side and conceded as much in my own post.
My apologies for being cross.
It seems to me that you have come to the right conclusions for all the wrong reasons. Beauty is very subjective and indeed lies in the eye of the beholder. What is the worth of a rose in the eye of a whale? Besides the concept of beauty changes from time to time and from place to place, culture to culture and even person to person. what may be beautiful and perfect for you may not be the same for everyone else. Art becomes more and more famous as it gets older and older and the same goes for music as well. Maybe we don't yet know the worth of the art created in last one century!
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