| | Torres & Kamhi on "Romantic Realism"
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On an Aristos webpage* providing some information about Capuletti, Lou Torres refers in passing to the term "Romantic Realism" as applied by Objectivists -- or, rather, in his view, as in mine and Jonathan's, misapplied -- to the visual arts. The context is his listing of Quent Cordair Fine Art as a source for "a few limited edition prints and other examples of Capuletti's work, among many items by other artists."
* URL:
http://www.aristos.org/capulett.htm
Torres continues:
"(The gallery unfortunately labels the work it carries as contemporary "Romantic Realism," a term long misapplied by Objectivists to the visual arts--based on Rand's characterization of herself as a 'Romantic Realist' writer, in her essay 'The Goal of My Writing.' For a discussion of Rand's concept of 'Romanticism,' see What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand, 31-33.)
Following up on that reference...here's the passage cited:
EXCERPT-
[All ellipses in original.]
Romanticiam and Naturalism
To elucidate her view that "the palce of ethics in any given work of art" depends on the metaphysical view of the artist, Rand briefly introduces two concepts--Romanticism and Naturalism. These concepts figure prominently in her personal esthetic of literature but are misleading in the context of her theory of art, and have led to much confusion in the meager Objectivist literature on her esthetics. (23) Her analysis of these concepts-- both in "The Psycho-Espistemology of Art" and in an essay she wrote four years later, "What Is Romanticiam?" (as well as in several other essays reprinted in The Romantic Manifesto)--is almost exclusively in terms of fiction and drama, and she fails to indicate how her analysis would apply to other art forms.
Rand argues as follows: If an artist believes that man possesses volition, his work will be value-oriented; this is the essence of *Romanticism*. If, on the other hand, an artist is a determinist, holding that human life is controlled by external forces, his work will have an "anti-value" focus; Rand identifies this approach with *Naturalism*. Romantic art, according to Rand, projects "the values man *is to seek*" and presents "the concretized vision of the life he *is to achieve*." (23, emphasis ours) In contrast, Naturalistic art "assert[s] that man's efforts are futile" and presents "the concretized vision of defeat and despair as his ultimate fate."
Rand's initial focus on the concept of value-orientation as a defining characteristic of Romanticism is particularly confusing in the context of her theory of art. As she argues elsewhere, *all* art (not just Romantic art), necessarily involves values: "It is inconceivable to have an art divorced from values.... Values cannot be separated from any human activity....It is impossible...to write a book [for example] without some kind of selectivity....Every time a man has to exercise a choice, he is directed by some kind of values, conscious or not."
Delving further into the question in the essay entitled "What Is Romanticism?," Rand offers the following definition: "*Romanticism is a category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition*." (99, emphasis ours) Although she employs the generic term "art" in this definition, her subsequent argument explicitly refers only to "the field of literature." (99ff.) Moreover, the attributes she regards as *defining* Romanticism are again specific to fiction and drama and cannot be validly generalized to other art forms. It is clear that by the phrase "recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition," Rand does not mean simply that the artist exercises volition during the creative process. As we have just noted, *all* art-making, in her view, entails volition. What she means instead is that the principle of volition is objectified in the art work itself. As Rand herself argued in another context, the only way the principle of volition can be fully and clearly objectified is through the presentation of characters engaged in the choice and pursuit of values over time; that is, through their purposeful, on-going actions to gain or to keep their values in the face of obstacles or conflicts, whether internal or external. The only art forms in which that principle can be concretized are narrative and dramatic literature--as Peikoff's previously [on pg. 30] quoted remarks on the "model-building aspect" of art confirm.
Notwithstanding her numerous references to Romantic "art," Rand offers few clues as to what she considers to be the defining attributes of Romanticism in the visual arts or music. Those she does offer bear no relation to her own definition of Romantic art in terms of the "principle of volition." In her early essay "The Goal of My Writing," for example, she cites a scene from *The Fountainhead* in which the architect-protagonist Howard Roark explains to the sculptor Steven Mallory that he wants Mallory to create a sculpture for the Stoddard Temple because his figures "have a magnificent respect for the human being" and represent "the heroic in man." Rand explains that, in this passage, she "was consciously and deliberately stating the essential goal of [her] own work" as a "Romantic Realist." (168) But surely one could attribute "respect for the human being" and a sense of "the heroic in man" to any number of works predating the nineteenth century--for example, various classical Greek sculptures, Renaissance works such as Michelangelo's *David*, or numerous figures by Bernini and other Baroque sculptors, to cite but a few. These works could not properly be termed "Romantic," however, since Romanticism was an historical phenomenon, a product of a unique set of forces in the Western world of the nineteenth century, as Rand herself emphasizes.
Rand's only other reference to Romanticism in the visual arts occurs in the context of her criticism of the "virulently intense antagonism of today's esthetic spokesmen to any manifestation of the Romantic premise in art." (102) She argues not only that they resent plot structure in literature for its "implicit premise of volition (and, therefore, of moral values)" but also that
[t]he same reaction, for the same subconscious reason, is evoked by such elements as heroes or happy endings or the triumph of virtue, or, in the visual arts, beauty. Physical beauty is not a moral or volitional issue--but the *choice* to paint a beautiful human being rather than an ugly one, implies the existence of volition: of choice, standards, values. [102, emphasis in original]
Rand's attribution of "the *choice* to paint a beautiful human being rather than an ugly one" to "the Romantic premise [of volition] in art" is mistaken on several counts, however. Most obvious is that artists long before the Romantic era chose to paint beautiful subjects. More troubling, however, is Rand's apparent implication that the choice to paint a physically *ugly* human being necessarily indicates an *absence* of volition or values. She fails to consider how the individual artist's context and hierarchy of values might affect the significance of his depiction of beauty or ugliness in a given painting. Consider, for example, the insightful portraits Velazques (1599-1660) painted of the dwarfs of the Spanish court. Although he realistically depicted their physical deformity, that aspect is transcended by the depths of character he captured in each subject--qualities ranging from the serene confidence of his *Don Diego de Acedo* to the fierce pride of his *Don Sebastian de Morra*. Here, as elsewhere, meaning in art resides not merely in the ostensible subject portrayed but, more crucially, in *how* it is portrayed--a principle Rand herself recognizes in other contexts (see Chapter 3).
END EXCERPT-
Speaking of her recognizing in other contexts the issue of *how* a subject is portrayed, a remark she made about Capuletti's drawings of Flamenco performers is a case in point.
She writes in her article "Capuletti," *The Objectivist*, December 1966, pg. 14:
"A different aspect of Capuletti's art, yet the same basic principle, is shown in the eight portraits of Flamenco performers (individual artists within a traditional Spanish school of folk music and singing [and dancing - ES]). These are a brilliant display of visual characterization, done in black and white tempera, each presenting the essence of a personality by means of a face and two hands, with a mere suggestion of the body. The subjects are aging, portly, physically unattractive men and women-- yet, catching them in action, Capuletti brings out their remarkable vitality, their purposeful drive and, above all, their *dignity*. Degas managed to make ballerinas look awkward and flat-footed; Capuletti makes middle-aged peasants look significant and imposing. Such is his view of man."
The Flamenco drawings can be found at:
http://papertig.com/cpmenu.htm
Ellen
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