geocanuck
Does their age determine their validity?
>However I believe since the modernist movement the ideal has shifted to be more about eliciting an emotional reaction
That does not mean that what they produce cannot be ugly or bad.
>I really don't think you are going to get many art critics to agree with a "Guernica is bad, actually" take.
...Okay? Does the existence dissenting opinion mean that I am incorrect? Let's say my claim about Guernica is true. It is indeed ugly and bad art (remember, this is objective). Art critics saying "No, Guernica is beautiful and good" essentially say "the truth is false". So, if Guernica is indeed the antithesis of beauty, it matters little what dissenting art critics say, as they are incorrect in stating that something is not what it actually is.
"To produce the beautiful, art must imitate nature. Yet not every imitation of nature, merely because it is an imitation, is therefore beautiful, as realism pretends. The reality imitated by art must also be beautiful, or art must add to it the idea that will give it beauty." Br. Louis de Poissy
"Beauty and goodness in a thing are identical fundamentally; for they are based upon the same thing, namely, the form; and consequently goodness is praised as beauty." Summa Theologica P1 Q5
Guernica imitates reality as it is a depiction of a war crime. However, just because it is a depiction of reality, it does not mean that it is beautiful. Further, it does not depict the beautiful nor give it an idea that makes it beautiful. As you say, the grotesqueness, horror, and chaos depicted was intentional. You yourself say it is ugly, and I agree. Following Aquinas's thoughts above, if beauty and goodness is fundamentally identical, then it follows that the antithesis of beauty and goodness is also identical. Therefore, since this work of art is the antithesis of beauty (ugliness, as you yourself say), it is also bad art, not to mention that the bad is not praised as the beautiful. I hope this answers your question.
to be brief, beauty is a transcendental. thus, it exists independently of the individual, and further, exists independently of the material universe. thus, a claim like "this angle is 72 degrees" does not have an analog in metaphysical space because the object does not exist in an empirically measurable space. think of it this way: can you measure beauty, truth, or goodness with calipers? the notion is ridiculous because these ideas exist in metaphysical space, not in a material space. the definition of beauty converges on the conditions of integrity, harmony, and clarity. Does the music have integrity? Is it complete and whole? Or is it incomplete? Is the harmonious (think about this in terms past musical theory...)? Is it proportional? Does it exhibit symmetry (imo this is not limiting)? Or does it sew discord and disharmony? Is it asymmetric and poorly proportioned? Is it clear? Is processing fluency (ease to which information is processed) high?
A more interesting question to ask is: is this music in accordance with natural/divine law?
So, you can get an objective statement on beauty by understanding beauty as true, good, and virtuous. It is objectively complete, harmonious, and clear. It is the ideal to which art strives. Therefore, when something is in accordance with the nature of beauty, we can say objectively it is beautiful. We can make an antithetical statement to this if something (say the music) is in discord with the nature of beauty.
in many traditions, ranging from Chinese philosophy to the ancient Greeks, beauty is associated with goodness, virtue, and truth. particularly of the Greeks, there was an emphasis on its relation to mathematics, namely proportion and symmetry. aesthetic considerations like symmetry/asymmetry, simplicity/complexity are utilized in mathematics, physics and cosmology to define truth (or lack thereof).
the Thomistic view is that: A) beauty is a transcendental (a Platonic view) and B)that there are 3 conditions: 1. integritas (wholeness, integrity, perfection) 2. consonatia (harmony and proportion) 3. claritas (radiance/clarity that makes apparent the form to the mind, analogous to processing fluency)
The definition of beauty thus converges on the idea that: something is beautiful when it is harmonious, complete, and clear. something beautiful is virtuous, good and true. you could also argue this as "in accordance with natural order" as the natural order is complete, clear, and harmonious (and thus beautiful). you could go further with this idea and argue that beauty is "of God" or "in accordance with God" or "in accordance with the Logos". but that is a different argument for a different time.
art is the field of human interest whose ideal is beauty. therefore, it follows that beautiful art is complete (has integrity, wholeness), is harmonious (perhaps in accordance with natural world i.e. proportions such as golden ratio, etc. this is not limiting), and is clear (the form is readily made apparent to the mind, i.e. high processing fluency, the information is easily processed)
Does Sgt. Pepper fit this criteria? Is it beautiful?
hence "somewhat objective"
"beauty is truth, truth beauty"