I admire the beauty of the past.


But beauty is not necessarily good.


Beauty is that which pleases, and that which pleases is not always good; also, it is subjective. It is indeed in the eye of the beholder.


And therefore it cannot be used for an objective definition of art.


Or so I understand from Tolstoy's What Is Art? But I agree with this.


And so this admiration of the beauty of the past. It is remembering the pleasant past(but not necessarily more pleasant than today. Still, it is.)


It is called nostalgia, I think.


Specifically a scene where I successfully defended what I lived for. Did my very best.


Happiness and pleasure are, for me, the fulfillment of purpose.


Sadly, though, I no longer live for that. Or perhaps not so sadly, for that beauty was not necessarily good. It cannot be played out again, but I look forward to a different sort.


By my idea, which by no means I have or ever will claim is the perfect one, art is a manifestation of man used to communicate. I suppose that puts language into the category of art; it's quite a novel idea to imagine that every gesture or sentence we string together would be considered art. But why not? I have just recently expanded this from my previous idea of art being a tool of communication that expresses what cannot be expressed in words.


And this raises the question. Why then do people not content themselves with the art of language and desire to see other art? And the answer is this: the art of the common languages bores them. There are only so many common phrases and meanings denoted by them; people are full able to appreciate these meanings and would like some variety.


So, I would divide art here into two categories: one the common art which people use to communicate to a sufficient degree of success, art which is easy to create and is understood perfectly by everyone; and the other a higher sort of art(I wouldn't call it high art for the already present meaning and connotations of that term) which takes more effort to create and also more effort to understand, but which captures more accurately ideas and concepts which common art(or one's mastery of it) cannot express.


Actually, why should the second category even be higher? It is not superior to common art as I term it, just different. And I guess that puts many of my blog posts under this category. I would by no means call it good art. And here the problem of the meaning of "good" arises. Good art can have several meanings; good is a vague word after all. But what I mean is that I would by no means name it beneficial to anyone, or capable of expressing perfectly whatever ideas I have tried to put forth. But I have tried to make it so, and most of the time only for my understanding of the idea and not that of others. The purpose? So I do not lose these ideas which may be useful in other times... well most of them don't look useful at all to me, but one never knows and at least I can remember with more detail what happened. So there we go. My blog is essentially a storage point of my art for my own appreciation.


I have an example to illustrate the some of the points which I have mentioned earlier. Imagine two guys hurling vulgarities at each other. That is art for it is communication! And it is effective common art for it gets the point across clearly to anyone who cares to listen - particularly the two guys so involved. However, it is of course morally very bad art. Reasons for this I think I need not explain. And the most redundant statement is that this is definitely not pleasurable, and therefore definitely not beautiful, to either of the two guys or any onlookers; unless one of them actually manages to pick up a liking to having profanity thrown at them. To that sort of person, I have nothing to say. But it does make the point that art is not necessarily pleasurable or beautiful.


That's the end! All this talk above based on my reading of the first few chapters of Tolstoy's What Is Art? and deliberation upon it. Once again, these are just my ideas or Tolstoy's ideas and by my own analysis at the time of writing I find whatever is written on my blog correct; however I dare not fervently proclaim that it is indeed correct for my analysis is, as everyone else's , not perfect. I look forward to reading the rest of the book and thus having new ideas presented to me, or having my own ideas challenged or reinforced. (It's taken me a damn long time to get through what I've already gone through so far.)


And I have some things to say about someone's review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. (quote: "slash slash bang bang. Oh, it's over.") Methinks it was not that bad as it DID get some ideas over - which was the point of the movie. For one example the love-hate relationship between Wolverine and his brother Sabretooth.


The movie did not, however, start me thinking at the end as Dark Knight did. I am not sure what that implies but I won't worry about it now. I have sleep to catch up on. Till the next post.