EJ, DIE SCHERE #66: Note An idealistic or Platonic theory of art in a nutshell. Art is not merely the skilful metamorphosis of materials, objects, words into something decorative or of new interest. Rather, the artist shows what he has envisioned in the Platonic beyond. There is the formative source to be found from which springs all reality of nature and history. So even abstract art can be no no mere invention or play with materials but has a profound relation to our reality. The second paragraph seems to claim more than just what Walter Benjamin told us about the loss of aura that any work of art suffers when reproduced by technological means. The mere presence of the latter is in a deeper sense pernicious, analogous to the deadening effect electric light has, as EJ says elsewhere, on the presence of the sacred in a cathedral. The next sentence, however, lapses into Kulturkritik of a conservative having witnessed his fellow men zapping among dozens of TV channels or using their automobiles as long-distance effective boosters of techno noise at the pain level. Art, on the contrary, is, in spite of its sacred origin, something light, even playful. It satisfies easily the heart of a child using its fantasy to make just some lines and colours come alive. Such need not appear on a monitor screen--if they do they are already stunted. Or so tells us EJ.
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