Grand Opening

I said last year that I was going to start a sister blog devoted to art. Rather than wait to make it fancy, I decided to just start posting something and worry about the details later.

The purpose of this blog is to enjoy and discuss art of every kind. So, what is art? That's the other twist to this particular blog. We will not only attempt to enjoy and appreciate art, we will discuss philosophical issues related to aesthetics, the branch of philosophy dealing with art. Why is that different? Most modern intellectuals seem to take the position that art is undefinable. That it is some mystery beyond human reason and comprehension. This view, stemming from the broader modern assault on objectivity, has resulted in a deluge of nonsense masquerading as art being foisted upon the public. I titled the blog, The Rational Artist, not only for symmetry with my main site, The Rational Capitalist, but to emphasize what would seem to be a contradiction in today's subjectivist intellectual milieu, namely, that however difficult, art can be defined, analyzed, understood, and enjoyed.

Another important aspect of this blog is that while I appreciate certain forms of art, and I am a part-time musician and oil painter, my tastes are my tastes and my knowledge base, particularly in certain forms of art, is limited to say the least. Therefore, while I will certainly drive the site, I regard this site to be more of a collaborative effort in which I encourage readers to send me ideas, commentary, analysis, etc. (at the above email address or in the comment forms), and I will gladly make it a part of the proceedings.

I chose the quote above (from a Dave Matthew's song...), "come in from the noise", because this is, in a sense, the function of art. In a very real way, art is an attempt to select out from the noise of our daily experience a concrete representation of some aspect of reality for our contemplation. Whether that representation is a sculpture, story, painting, music, physical movement, or some combination, the artist selects, in Ayn Rand's words, "those aspects of reality which represent man's fundamental view of himself and of existence." While we will discuss these topics in more detail later, for now I hope you regard this site as a way to come in from the noise of the world - a world that seems to be getting increasingly noisier.

For now, I will leave you with a recent article sent to me by a friend about one of my all time favorite painters, Thomas Eakins. I also wrote about Eakins's medical paintings in a broader context here. At the top is one of my favorite paintings of his, Portrait of Maud Cook, which I saw in person and wrote about here. Enjoy.