Why Beauty Matters

Why Beauty Matters

2009, Art and Artists  -   170 Comments
8.25
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Ratings: 8.25/10 from 326 users.

Why Beauty MattersPhilosopher Roger Scruton presents a provocative essay on the importance of beauty in the arts and in our lives.

In the 20th century, Scruton argues, art, architecture and music turned their backs on beauty, making a cult of ugliness and leading us into a spiritual desert.

Using the thoughts of philosophers from Plato to Kant, and by talking to artists Michael Craig-Martin and Alexander Stoddart, Scruton analyses where art went wrong and presents his own impassioned case for restoring beauty to its traditional position at the center of our civilization.

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MythicArtist
MythicArtist
2 years ago

Satanists believe their religion is spiritual ... I agree with the premise of this documentary. Ugliness, IMHO, is not healthy to mind, body or spirit.

Cassandra Lacey
Cassandra Lacey
3 years ago

Outstanding! Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, that is all you need to know.

Daniel Gennaro
Daniel Gennaro
3 years ago

Beauty in the forms of art and music and architecture have been a gateway to the higher realm of our lives- preserving the knowledge and inspiring our lives to find a deeper sense of meaning and albeit- love. Thats my take on this. Of course, I can easily be a critic and say something like 'Whatever you look for, you're bound to find,' hence, Sir Roger Scruton uses the most degredacious examples of modern art- most of which is bland, although even sickly, (p.s. don't watch this over a meal like I did lol) jk, however, there is certainly plenty of artists still making amazing works of art. I think the core of this movie is true tho- in our disconnected present reality, we're not making the space to find beauty or even appreciate the remnant of what's left. Very touching documentary, I enjoyed it, thought provoking, humbling, reflective...

Ronique Breaux Jordan
Ronique Breaux Jordan
3 years ago

Imtroduced to Sir Roger Scruton by a British friend living in Bath, UK. What a treat this is! #Travel #SeeWesternArt #BeautyintheSacred

John
John
3 years ago

the documentary is gone in Youtube. I'm glad it was saved in Vimeo and other medias. This was a treasure worth saving

Claudia
Claudia
3 years ago

Magnificent documentary! Don't let it die... Roger Scruton must be eternal. His speech on beauty will be missed! Today people don't think like that, unfortunately.

Peter Cohee
Peter Cohee
4 years ago

Wonderful. But I wish Sir Roger had expressed that necessary and all-important connection between our apprehension of beauty and its real effect: gratitude; for it is gratitude that truly redeems us. In the moment when we experience beauty we are thankful to be alive. We do not feel gratitude when we see a piece by Warhol or listen to Snoop Dogg; we feel discouraged, disappointed, and desperate. Are we glad to be alive or angry that we are? That might be the question beauty helps us answer.

Jocelyn
Jocelyn
4 years ago

The dangers of a classical education, is to think that nothing good came in culture after Queen Victoria died. Though Mr. Srunton is being quite progressive to include the impressionists. Symbolic art, non representational art, political art- these all have existed for as long as there has been civilization. Such a myopic and culturally limited view, and to present oneself as an authority on what is good is as dangerous to our culture as sahing art begins and ends with taping a banana on the wall.

Tanya
Tanya
4 years ago

There is so much that is true here. He is speaking of a trend that has only continued and deepened in the following years, expressed in literature, music and art. Children are surrounded by much that is banal and ugly. We expect them to deal with adult issues at very young ages, often unconsciously through the arts. We wonder why our young people find the world confusing and brutal. Children and adults alike cannot thrive when the ideals of truth, love and beauty are denigrated. Scruton is not denying suffering and trouble, but champions art's privilege of transcending it, redeeming it and making meaning of all of life's tribulations and joys.

Rushifa-san
Rushifa-san
4 years ago

Beauty and comfortability does not represent the totality of human experience. I can appreciate his viewpoint, but to discount the ugliness in our existence is to deny a freedom to express and exorcise it in a healthy way through art. The only alternative is suppression, and that only makes things worse.

Amay
Amay
5 years ago

I agree with Roger Scruton. We are surrounded by ugliness and simplicity is a nice word for it, but art and especially architecture usually quite plain and unattractive in modern times. I agree whole heartedly with everything he says and so glad I found this doc which best describes how I see the world. I feel much more inspired in less commercialized places like Florence Or Toulouse then I do say in Cleveland or St Louis. I love this doc and recommend it!

Teagan
Teagan
6 years ago

I heartily disagree with Roger Scruton. His definition of beauty is so focused on Western civilization that he is dismissing cultural experiences from all. He sets up a straw man argument in post modern art, ignoring the leagues of artists that focus on classical techniques. I find modern architecture beautiful. We have a beauty in nature, we do not need to simply recreate it. I find that the art that Roger Scruton hates so much to teach a new type of beauty. There is a beauty in simplicity, and Roger Scruton seems to dismiss it completely. Scruton desires art that screams it’s purpose, celebrating the human body by portraying it, rather than through a veil of art. I think beauty is anything that makes you feel. Those feelings can be positive or negative. Sylvia Plath wrote beautiful poetry that fills one with a sense of dread, and a concreteness that roots one in the reality of living. But it is still beautiful! Ugliness is completely subjective, and I think that assuming all negative emotions are ugly is a way to dismiss the beautiful duality of life. The beauty that Scruton holds in such high esteem is surface level and can only be viewed at a distance. It is a way of dismissing that we can be in touch with beauty, that we can communicate with God. The beauty of science is dismissed, and I think that that is my main disagreement with Roger Scruton. Just because he does not understand science does not mean that he should dismiss it as ugly. We held love in such a high esteem that the needs and rights of those beneath were ignored for so long. Sometimes the pain of the human condition must be acknowledged, and it must be ugly, but there is beauty in the ugliness. Scruton suffers from C.S. Lewis’ “Chronological Snobbery” in his belief that the old is inherently better than the new.

Joe Baderan
Joe Baderan
6 years ago

Sorry Folks, you have to face this:
The divine (you may call it god or the universe or whatever) is useless for us humans, because we cannot force the divine to do something that is useful to us, many have turned their back on the divine (aka god). After that they went away from the truth and now from beauty.
Of course we are still part of the divine and thus can consider us as useless if we dont understand that art is a means for communication.

Pete Lazonby
Pete Lazonby
6 years ago

I believe art is something only the artist could have made and it will require no explanation. I think it's great that Scruton is spelling out a similar idea here so simply that anyone can hear it. We've had frauds at the helm ever since Duchamp's joke was taken seriously. Now, in the years since this video was made, things are changing and even art critics are starting to realise that some people need real art for their well being. About time too. It's got nothing to do with class or privilege, even less accents, although you'd be forgiven for thinking that as what great art remains for the masses is never marketed to them thanks to short sighted oxbridge/public school promoters and management.

Pete Lazonby
Pete Lazonby
6 years ago

Leda Farrow, Thomas Tallis wrote a beautiful 40 part motet which Janet Cardiff stole and did not alter, develop or change in any way. In her fraudulent spiel she claimed her work was "based on" Spem in Alium. You just cast a vote for Roger despite your disdain.

M. Kittson
M. Kittson
6 years ago

I agree totally with Roger. Today's art and architecture is ugly and meaningless. Look around any city - it's so depressing but go to a "traditional" town anywhere and you can't help but be uplifted and happy. The skill of the art of old was immense!! They were talented.

Robert
Robert
6 years ago

The Author is right. Beauty is objective. Factually, light-skinned Western Europeans are the most beautiful humans. This causes problems for the Ugly. Salvation for the Ugly lies in appreciating absolute beauty in nature and relationships, don't whine. As Muddy Waters put it: "you can't spend what you haven't got, you can't lose what you never had".

lili
lili
6 years ago

he needs to replace each and every WE with I

Areej
Areej
6 years ago

60 min talking about why.
it would be cooler if he asked WHAT is beauty first then the hole film would change.

Tboz
Tboz
6 years ago

"Beauty has been central to our civilization for over 2000 years...." Right off the get go, Scruton's statement is entirely wrong...Yes, if you are so lucky to be born into a specific class of people who have the privilege and access to wealth and 'beauty' and all its attendant splendour. But for the vast majority of people who have passed through the travail of this earth in the last 2000 years, only fleeting glimpses of beauty could have ever been experienced by those common people while they suffered through the daily drudgery of feudalism, slavery, wage slavery, wars, conquests, disease and the like. After all, even the alleged 'Greeks, Byzantines (Romans) and others all had slave societies which necessarily completely cancels out in its entirety the whole concept of 'Beauty.' Consider: how could a 12 year old slave who was at the beckon call of his/her master for daily toiling and sexual exploitation ever give a good god damn about a 'beautiful' painting, sculpture or ceramic Urn while he/she is succumbing to there daily whipping and rape? The whole scene, 'beautiful painting' on a wall, while the rape of the innocent is carried out, would have to be analyzed by a philosopher such as Scruton in its entirety for him to come to any 'sensible' and 'rational' conclusion about whether even such a thing or category as 'beauty' could even possibly exist in the last 2000 years among the so-called 'advanced' and 'learned' societies that we apparently hold so dear to our hearts. Yes, the painting, sculpture or Urn could, in its absolute isolation, and thus only focusing on a human appreciation of the object separated from every other thing or phenomena connected to its creation, i.e., the master who owns and rapes the slaves, and who benefits from and gets free labour to make fabulous profits in order to be a patron to an artisan who creates said master's painting for the walls in his villa and his personal enjoyment, for example, such a painting could be considered 'beautiful,' but no one in their right mind would ever even think for one moment, upon entering the scene of the master exploiting his slave, painting in the backdrop, ever consider such a scene a 'beautiful' thing. And that is the problem here...ALL ART is created only ever at the expense of some one else's suffering. With very rare examples, like hunter gatherer societies that come to mind, and who have managed to create profound, sublime and beautiful objects, some having managed to do so without having to dominate and exploit other peoples around them. But again that example is an anomaly, for even hunter gatherer societies, there leaders did also commit great terrors upon their neighbours for 'ritualistic' reasons or 'religious' celebrations. Take for example the West Coast BC Haida who are, historically, a good example of incredible inhumanity in beauty.
The Haida, in their history, committed many raids upon their weaker neighbours for slaves and property. They also had the strange habit of putting a live and bound slave into a totem pole hole and erecting the multi-ton totem upon the poor slave thus crushing them alive. Yes, again, in my example, the totems are a testament to the high art and 'beauty' of the Haida peoples, but underneath that beauty, literally and figuratively, is an unbearable terror of some innocent person who was the sacrifice for that particular culture's'high' art and privilege of being able to leisurely appreciate there great 'totem' carvings . Scruton, as a highly paid and privileged tenured philosopher and scholar in the art of 'how to ask questions,' should at least be able to ask that basic question: 'for who suffered, and at what cost was paid for this 'beauty' before me to have come into existence?

JaneB
JaneB
7 years ago

I couldn't agree more; there is a dearth of beauty in modern society. Beauty is an international language recognized by everyone, not just black-clad pseudo-intellectuals drifting about.

People are awakening to this tyranny of the ugly. We're on to the elitists who interpret esoteric meaning in meaningless works by untalented, fatuous hacks hunting for grant money, or who foist clunky, Soviet-style architecture onto graceful historic towns to squat there belligerently amidst the beauty like dung in the Sistine Chapel.

Steve Ryan
Steve Ryan
7 years ago

Beauty, as with Art, will stand the test of time. When the noise of ugliness and talent-less, pretentious, self-serving shit subside, those great works of beauty will still be there to remind us that there is something more to art than causing materials to represent an idea. However interesting and innovative it may be.

trutherator
trutherator
7 years ago

Li'l Abner cartoonist Al Capp: "Abstract art is made by those who have no talent, sold by those who have no scruples, to those who have no taste."

Art gallery owner in New York about buyers tending toward realism: This is terrible!! Many of these artists can't draw!

Roger Rabbit
Roger Rabbit
7 years ago

Approximately 108 Billion people have live before us. It is logical to believe there were some "truths" learned. Biggest difference between the foolish and the wise is one is aware of the ego and the other is in love with it. Post Modernism is anti human in that for them, reality sucks and they hate anything that shines light on their intellectual and spiritually decomposed valueless lives. They eat, sleep with their own shit and no one dare tell them they stink, or their ugly little tyrant egos must grab their shit and say "see this is real art, don't tell me it aint". They are the anti matter to Dignity, Hope, Creativity, Love, Nobility, Majesty, and Redemption. The last statement "Through the Sacred and Beauty's Portal we find Home" is a valiant description of what we can ascribe to.

Maxx
Maxx
7 years ago

"Nothing is more useful than the useless.
Ornaments liberate us from the tyranny of the useful and satisfy our need for harmony - in a strange way it makes us feel like home. They remind us that we have more than practical needs - we are not just governed by animal appetites like eating and sleeping, we have special needs and if those needs go unsatisfied so do we."

Amazing words! ^^

Perseus
Perseus
7 years ago

For all those who are criticizing this video because "art cannot be defined". So a toilet with a signature IS art, and an unmade bed is also art. I have gone to galleries where they have a broom with an pail in a corner, the artists gives it a name and it is suddenly in a Museum...That is not art, that is someone who may have acquired a name in the art World making fun of art. The author of the urinal confessed to having made it to poke fun at the art World where everything has become art, even if its disgusting and not beautiful, or lacks any natural interpretation like the "Oak Tree" where if the "Artist" does not write the full explanation 100% of the people would see it at what it is, a glass of water on a shelf, someone may have thought that someone else left the water there by mistake when putting up the shelf.
I believe art should provide a message, but it has to be worked, anyone can provide an unmade bed, or a signed urinal, how hard is it to put a broom and a pail in a corner? How about the "Oak Tree"...bull!
It takes work to make great art, anything else is a mockery, I think he is correct, we are putting ugliness higher than it deserves, almost on a pedestal, and that is why our political system has also become ugly, with a great lack of understanding or knowledge, a World where "ignorance is bliss" seems to start prevailing, and when that happens we reach a very dangerous place.

Ganderson
Ganderson
8 years ago

Very interesting and brave documentary. Agree on most points but don't know if this is a western bias documentary, as some have suggested. I think he is simply talking about what he has seen, you cannot know everything ! As far as being a bourgeois view I would say that 'perception is intentional' and people should think more about what they are seeing/given.

Annemarie Doyle
Annemarie Doyle
8 years ago

While watching the video, I could not help but think that the movement from beauty as aim of art to originality as the aim, began around the time of the renaissance with humanization of art. The way I see it, the more we humanize and focus on how movement and all other artistic elements are seen by the artist, we move further away from God, or spirituality at all. We’ve gone from one end of the spectrum (Medieval times) to the other (postmodern, shock art). As evidence of this idea, is the quote, “…through the pursuit of beauty… we also come to understand our own nature as spiritual beings.” (Scruton, 3:00) Additionally, the video made me think of how much humans rely on structure and things that are larger and more important that ourselves. I believe it necessary to have some order and have something to be achieved – beauty. Without the pursuit of something higher than ourselves, we walk around without purpose making this meaningless art.

I really like how he said that modern life could not be redeemed, so it should be displayed. There is clearly a dumbing-down that has taken place, still takes place, in the realms of art, music and architecture. I enjoyed this video immensely, and how it made me think and the confirmation that what I am doing with interior design is what I want to be doing. That said, the video also made me feel some despair over the culture and time period I am in and worries me about the future of art and society as a whole.

Art is no longer sacred or something held higher, but rather it is meant to be interesting and say something obvious. Because of this, anything and everyone is art, thus skill and talent is useless. Art has no value. We have tried so hard to get away from objectivity that we have gone too far into subjectivity so that there is no universal. An artist that Scruton interviews in the video makes the assertion that art is not necessarily about beauty but that it is about “captivating the imagination”. I cannot help but be intrigued by this idea; I do not want to agree with this, but I do.

This video is making my brain explode with too many thoughts and ideas. I cannot help but think of the art therapy, and wonder if it really is helpful, or even moral. Scruton speaks of how in our democratic society it is intimidating to judge another’s art work or taste. I agree and would take it one step further in that it is discouraged to judge another’s work. Because if we did, we would have to admit to some objectivity and some rule, some universal that says something is right or wrong and that would collapse what our society and culture has rebuilt its foundation upon – a false subjectivity.

All my points up until now are not to say that I agree with Scruton on everything though. Indeed, he claims that Louis Sullivan, through his quote, “Form follows function” has facilitated the single largest crime against art and society yet – modern architecture. I have to disagree with this. I find beauty in modern architecture and completely agree with Sullivan’s quote and dislike the idea of someone who has not formally studied architecture or design critiquing a foundational idea, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Because thus person has not been formally trained, they do not know the purpose or arguments behind that quote or the reasoning for it. I do not think beauty is the goal of all things. Function is a goal that can be beautiful and functional, but in our modern society where money rules all, beauty is not always achievable and one must do what they can with what they have – and there is beauty in that. Scruton claims tnat things that aren’t beautiful but have function soon lose function because they are ugly. This is an interesting thought to me and I do not have a response to this. It is something that I must mull over and consider, it is incredibly interesting and I am sure I will watch this video many more times through my life. I can see this influencing my design ethic for the future.

Scruton beliesves that decay is all around us and is not beautiful. But since I was a small child, something I have love to do is go back-reading with my father and look at all the old Arkansas houses falling back into nature. Here are these large stone houses, beautiful for the time they were built, that are delapiated and falling back to jature and I have to say that there is a fundamental beauty in that decay.

In fact, Scrujton goes so far as to claim that something beautifuk will be useful forever. In my gut, I want to disagree with that hyperbolic statement, but I cannot argue against it. The Mona Lisa, David, Villa D’Este, are beautiful things and they have stood the test of time, no noe can argue against that. Indeed, they prove their usefulness in a monetary way as well! People spend thousands if not billinos of dollars each year just to see these beauties for a few moments, just to stand in their presence.

I am so glad you had us watch this video and I was really touched by it. Throughout the whole video I could not help but think of C.S. Lewis.

“We do not want merely to see beauty... we want something else which can hardly be put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses, and nymphs and elves.” – C.S. Lewis

Gabriel
Gabriel
9 years ago

What a surprise when the comment bellow a documentary is more interesting than the content!

Vincent
Vincent
9 years ago

I recommend the late, John O' Donahue's book, "Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace," to all who feel a need for lost beauty and as an accompaniment to the video. When beauty visits us, we experience transcendence, which, though brief, is profound. It is not objective, as others, around, would not have the same experience, at the time. Neither is it subjective, such as when we decide, through ego, that something is beautiful. No, when we experience true beauty we haven't chosen the moment it has chosen us. The aesthetic experience, for so it is called, can be stimulated by both art and nature. It has been said that work of arts are great simply because they have the potential to transcend and move many people. That does not always happen, but when it does you know about it. I was once so absorbed during a performance of, "The Merchant of Venice and Juliet" that I forgot where and who I was, till I came back to earth. Yet another performance, of the same play, just let me cold. That one was done with a nod to PC and sacrificed heart to head. One could understand the intellectual appeal, but it had lost something. The something that made it art. I certainly got the point of the video, though instead of showing a pile of ugly old books, Scruton could have picked short passages, from them, to better illustrate his argument.

One more word, on the potential effect of art, which justifies the name: I once was talking to a man, who, by his own admission, had no intellectual interest in art. He told me that he visited an art gallery. It was OK, from an everyday POV, there were attractive pictures. However, when he went through an alcove to another room, the picture, in front of him, suddenly, in his own words, "Hit me," (I don't mean physically). That moment chose him.

It would be interesting to hear if anyone has had a transcendent experience through modern art. A twentieth century great work of literature is, of course, "Lord of the Rings." I, and, no doubt, many others have been transcended by passages and poems in it. We tend to go back and back to works that have that effect on us, they are art, to us, via first hand experience. If we simply accept something is art, because it is defined as such, then we are taking opinions at second hand. An aesthetic professor introduced a lecture, I was at, by saying, "Take your own impression first and don't let anyone bamboozle you." Art become more meaningful from that starting point and there is no shame in being honest and admitting that you don't see anything artistic about a work. Another time you might, but that's another time.

Kravi
Kravi
10 years ago

Very good point of view, and rare example of good western thoughts.

truk
truk
10 years ago

Scary conservative, unimaginative documentary on the art viewing and making experience. He didn't deal with the fact that artists are trained to respond to, deconstruct, and dismantle the work of their predecessors i.e. Duchamp.... So Scruton, in his bizarre, limited, anachronistic bubble of beauty, fails to acknowledge that the history of beauty evolves, as sure as the after-market prices for great masters works will increase....

Peter
Peter
11 years ago

I absolutely agree with him. I am fed up with someone teling me this is art when i see only buls*it. I stop going to the exhibitions of modern art because i was so often disapointed that i just stop. But it make me feel sorry and sad. I dont understand where it go so wrong that when i look at something which should be art i dont feel like it. But thanks for old masters which where real, nor should they must do self affirmation like modern artists. Very sorry for my english.

Keekee Dee
Keekee Dee
11 years ago

this video is no longer available :(

what_the_shit
what_the_shit
11 years ago

i see beauty in the ugly. its the same thing. this guy see it differently but shouldn't speak for everyone

Liana Moth
Liana Moth
11 years ago

I find this documentary biased because beauty is completely subjective.

goxel dogan
goxel dogan
11 years ago

beauty doesn t matter but art matters

Ramon Martensen
Ramon Martensen
11 years ago

I must say that I agree with the man. To be surrounded by beauty and coherence in the shape it is presented in is for me a fundamental need. I feel in a way connected with my surroundings and my human nature. I know this sounds pretentious, but I can not explain it other words.

What I am only wondering about is the art that presents the beauty through uglyness. I truly think there is beauty in Bukowski's work. Through the harshness he shows me a vulnerability that I perceive as the beauty of being human. That's why I'm questioning if the first appereance of art should necessarily be polished beauty.

Hawkeyes
Hawkeyes
11 years ago

I really liked this one. I have never liked most modern "what they call art". I like the classics, the beautiful things like Caspar David Friedrich whose paintings of longing are unsurpassed and Bernini who I think was the best in sculpture I've ever seen. This was a nice documentary.

goran
goran
11 years ago

I think what he wants is more Humanism and beauty is the result of it. Modernists have ruined it all. We need a school of classical architecture in Europe immediately!

nianthris
nianthris
11 years ago

because they cannot handle to truth.

nianthris
nianthris
11 years ago

people, they cannot handle to truth.

Lovro Šari? Kora?evi?
Lovro Šari? Kora?evi?
12 years ago

all the complaints below sadly prove how pointless can it be to speak the truth to those who live from a lie. Mentioning the eras of art, definition of the term beauty, even Hitler... Really? Don't we all live surrounded by hideous malls, highways, kitsch? What more evidence do you need? Accusing him for saying that art is an aristocratic value of some kind, while you are the ones perceiving art as something restricted for galleries-because otherwise you wouldn't even recognize it, as mentioned. Think about it; why does everyone travel to Paris? To see the "historic center" right? You don't get a lot of suburbia on your postcards do you? So forget about the galleries and conceptual art, forget about Scruton if you wish it's all unimportant, the important thing is that everything is u-g-l-y. Pretending to be modern, pretending to be new... Have you ever seen a modern building which looks good with an aged facade? Neither have I. Art has always been a direct image of it's society. In this era, It's all a big lie. Nothing more than a lie.

Declan_Walsh
Declan_Walsh
12 years ago

Hitlers idea of beauty regarding art was consistently the concept of the "The Brave Soldier". His attempt was mixing art and propaganda. not an attempt at rewriting classicism. He would have I'm sure if he dominated.

CHRISTYceh258
CHRISTYceh258
12 years ago

Hilter Also was focused on Beauty but what form is beauty and what form is ugly? what part of art is life and beautiful and what part of it is philosophy? is he not rewriting classism? is he not raising himself up as a false god? what part of art is cultism? how is art deco ugly? how are the rebels of the third riech not artists? how is the rebellion of creative restraints of genocide not art? this man is doing what has been done before. he is demonizing what he doenst understand. he is raising up himself just as hitler did. hilter doesnt deserve his name to be remembered but remeber that that monsoter did infact try to control art and artistic expression and we as a world were appalled of his demonizing the value of beauty and art and the form and the destruction of many pieces of world history art culure as hitler worked to destroy culture and build it up as his own culture. Art is history and memory and philoshy and poetry and freedom and culture and individual and everything it needs to be or has to be. yet we knew of hitlers destruction of art before we knew of the genocide and torture of the jews. who is this man in this documentary? a snob. first of all michealangelo was angry to be painting when his love was sculpture is that beauty to be paid and live well off to abandon you passion? this man doesnt have taste. he is hoping to be the hype that feeds the starving what they need. but all he can do is create a little hitler. i say that there is more beauty in a heavy set loving compassionate woman who gets angry and tells of a stuck up little rich girl who knows nothing of suffering and love than there is in a well figured twenty one year old plasstic srgery addict that overcompensates for thier inner lack of identity. this man want to give and identity to art as one is superior to another, and he is the cult of commercialism, that dies and consumes a economy and gives it no life to recover.

ceh philosophy the greatest artist is the appreciator that gives life to the work
the greatest friend to the artist is the critic that gives passion to the artist to be or not to be no matter what
the artist is a recycler that reshapes what is into a new form
the form was already and so the artist is not a creator but a recycler

so in a fact perhaps this man is a artist and not a philosopher yet with a multitude of words his destructin to defame even the destructive beauty of what is seen a ugly that is in itself food for the philosopher perhaps he should learn to make art so he can see that he is infact not a philosopher and he can perhaps learn that he knows nothing of art and be enlightened that he has no wisdom and is not a philosopher but an artist no matter how base in my opinion, he would indeed make a jar of piss but i think he would put himself on the cross, because his work cries out that he thinks himself like hitler one who thought himself to be the savior of the world, a false christ, and i love jesus, but i find this man has no name he should learn to paint or sculpt or deconstruct and destroy and perhaps then he may come to find his beauty, it is not his talent words. he is provoctative and destructive, and if he could be that way without killing a race of people or a race of artists, perhaps he could be enlightened and know what is art if he kept his mouth shut and silenced his pen and explored the world of art blindfolded as one without eyes and then i might wonder what he knows or learned. but he is not talented as a critic. he has no appreciation, but let him critize my art pieces and designs and i will be very happy because they are as ugly and beautiful as he will never understand nor see in his life. he is blind. what is his name? he's very old and stupid. i am only 35. i hope i have plenty of rejection, it makes my art grow and defy this falsehood of definition. multitude of words. how do you them now?
the death of art and appreciation is the following of hype and critics that have no passion for life or death and destroy that they can be remembered

Brad Whodat Tomlinson
Brad Whodat Tomlinson
12 years ago

Beautiful.

Malachi Simonyan
Malachi Simonyan
12 years ago

I think he makes some great points. I am an artist myself, i enjoyed this a lot, i don't why everyone has to be so aggressive about this documentary.

Lucas Ekblad
Lucas Ekblad
12 years ago

Are u sure about that?

Leda Farrow
Leda Farrow
12 years ago

Too simplistic for me. I can't believe it just ended without even exploring beauty in a contemporary context. What of Janet Cardiff's Forty-Part Motet? or Olafur Eliasson's weather project? There is so much contemporary art out there that explores beauty in such incredible ways! This guy is an idiot!

Leda Farrow
Leda Farrow
12 years ago

too simplistic for me. I can't believe it just ended without even exploring beauty in a contemporary context. What of Janet Cardiff's Forty-Part Motet? or Olafur Eliasson's weather project? There is so much contemporary art out there that explores beauty in such incredible ways! This guy is an id**t!