As Ayn Rand pointed out in one of her essays, politics is the last branch of philosophy to be concerned with in getting correct... why? because it deals with the social, and one properly first must grasp the application of ethics to the individual... aesthetics is that, applying ethics, the science of values, to the rational individual from a psychological standpoint, as a way of life to the integrated person... once one understands aesthetics as a way of life for the individual, then one can understand how aggregates of individuals can properly be in a social situation...
This idea, tho a properly integrated viewing of it within an objective philosophy, is not how it has been considered over the millenia,.. consider theming - most consider theming with regards to literature, in large part because that is the most conceptually developed of the fine art branches, and as such the most easily seen in advancing the showing aspect of art... but while this theming is, by its nature embodied in a painting, what is usually considered as 'art', its importance has suffered over its history because painting has had a number of other guises -- propaganda for religions, propaganda for secular leaders, political propaganda of one kind or another, and even removed of that, as a recorder of lands, places, persons... indeed, it was not until the invention of photography that painting finally was freed of all such restraints and had the potential to actualize its fundamental purpose - to show - even as artists then did not see that or had any idea of this, in part because art had, tho created by individuals, been considered as a 'social' means to a social end... the personal contemplative nature of a painting was considered as a side issue, a consequence, not the aim - until Ayn pointed it out, backed by, as seen in the notes, a firm grounding in the basis for its existence and it psychological importance to the well-being of individuals...
This, then, is my task, why I paint what I paint the way I paint... why I am a 'themescapist', one who takes abstract ideas and visualize them... in consequence, I do not suffer from any such thing as an 'artist block' - quite the contrary, as have more ideas in my journal than could ever begin to get done, to say nothing of continually discovering variations on given themes...
In case one has a problem in grasping what an aesthetical ethical living comprises ( and for me is a work in progress), take a look at the movie The Last Samurai, at Algren's observing living in the village - "they are an intriguing people... from the moment they awake, they devote themselves to the perfection of whatever they pursue... I have never seen such discipline..." while their culture is in many ways at odds with rational living, they still have an aesthetic way of living which ethically aids in flourishing them as persons...
I should add one more thing - while 'selective re-presentation of what an artist considers of great importance' , a looser version of her definition of art, allows metaphoric use for other than world-shaking ideas, provided is a positive view of existence, and aids, even in the minutae the flourishing of the individual, and have done a number of these, my focus in the future will be geared more to those 'grand landscapes' of world changing ideas... why this shift? because it has taken until now to be able to see them more completely than had, and they always were what most delighted in doing...
but not to worry - if another cherry idea comes to mind, or marble, I may take a break and render them as well...
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