If they write another vampire romance but nobody reads it, would...

[Praxiteles]

My actual question is a bit more useful version of the old tree-falling-unheard-in-a-forest conundrum. It's actually two questions, interrelated, and the first assumption is that quality of writing can be, to a reasonable extent, objectively measured (or at least sensed vaguely - but objectively). Naturally I have no real answers to these questions.

Suppose we write a story that's mediocre superficially, but from a higher perspective, or a different system of thought, it's masterfully and elaborately beautiful. Let's take a milder example. Suppose a single detail of our story -- complements it perfectly, is a wonder of metafiction, is exactly what the art needed, and generally raises the introspection/complexity/innovation of our story significantly. Now suppose this: either because very few competent readers read it, or no one paid it any mind, or it was never shown to a large audience, the detail is lost on everyone. Does the story deserve to be called masterful? Can it be beautiful by virtue of something in its nature, that no one sees? Is art all exhibition, or is at least a part of it inherent in the inner structure?

It's possible to argue yes to my first question. Try this. Suppose this detail just can't be read as part of the experience of the story. It coheres artistically, it's very clever, but it just doesn't inhabit the plane of thought that stories do. Suppose, for instance (this may not be possible), that the text forms a cipher to a certain function or mathematical expression whose graph correlates to something in the story. Suppose (I've done this) the sentence structures of sentences of the first paragraph mimic each other but slowly metamorphose also, before returning briefly to the master sentence structure as a kind of textual recapitulation. Suppose (I've done this also) we use the words "joined like eggshell halves", and this begs itself to be read in trochaic metre, which suggests the zigzag motion that could illustrate something like the shape of eggshell halves. Suppose (this is the clearest example) the real work of art is embedded deep inside a famous sculpture, never to be found because who would dare smash or even split a sculpture of that beauty? And this is a clear artistic statement. The real work of art is the heart under the marble facade or something.

Would this be considered valid artistic expression?

 

[IJuggler]

The last paragraph broke my brain, sorry. All I can say there is that I believe that art is more superficial than that.

I want to write a long post in reply, but it's far simpler to compress it all into a common saying; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To someone, somewhere, anything would be a masterful work of perfection.

But your first assumption was correct. To some extent, all writing can be held to a standard. But after passing every nuance of grammar, a piece can still be terrible stylistically, while there are many good writings that don't follow some or many rules of grammar. There are different dimensions to telling how good a story is, and the more formulaic a standard is, the less it really effects the quality of the fiction(so far as I see it).

 

[Mrs. Lovett]

This thread really made me think. I guess there should be more than one way of writing a story than the 'flat' way - just putting all the information on the 'surface'. If someone could weave a puzzle into plain words to give the story a deeper meaning, and if I could decipher that meaning and realize its significance, then I'd definitely call it a work of art. But if I couldn't decipher it, then I probably wouldn't compliment the story as much. I agree with IJuggler on this - beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Either way, though, it takes a lot of thought to hide a puzzle behind a story. (In fact, this reminds me of the book The DaVinci Code. A lot of DaVinci's paintings looked innocent on the outside, but it turned out that there was a deeper meaning behind them that many overlooked. In the end, those meanings turned out to be crucial.) I'd definitely consider this to be a valid form of artistic expression. Problem is, some people will understand it and some people won't.

 

[IJuggler]

And now that Mrs. Lovett reminded me, I have to say; in Europe, back when the Crusades were still running, authors were often writing messages in their stories. They usually began the signal with some sort of grammatical error, and the hidden message was recieved by only those who it was meant for.

I think that sort of writing would be far easier to do than to write a puzzle, or a description within the words. Furthermore, I think that if you're trying to decipher hidden messages from works of fiction posted on the Internet for peer review-style criticism, than you have too much time on your hands. Go buy a book about quantum physics or something.

 

[Praxiteles]

Well, we don't have to focus just on pokémon fanfiction. Remember how much Nabokov or Duchamp (not a writer, but whatever) used to love wordplay and hidden correlations?

Anyway, hm. One thing to note. Puzzles are not what I meant. This doesn't have to be actual deliberate ciphering, and it definitely shouldn't be difficult to penetrate for the sake of being difficult. It's just structure beyond the blatantly stated sentences or outlined plot, like stashing metre into prose or outlining paragraph structure or chapter names in artful ways. About the only reason someone wouldn't notice it is if they weren't expecting anything there.

Aside from that you guys are starting to sway me; I thought I would be 'inner structure is important' all the way, but now I realize the artist is the last person to appreciate beauty in his own work. For one because the clearest things a writer sees about their own story is its flaws, and for another because his understanding of the art is too complete, he'd be bad at the interpretation job. Taking that into consideration the readers and critics would be the ones who define the value of a story.

 

[Diddy]

In his life-time Vincent Van Gogh only sold two or three paintings and he was generally seen as a poor artist and a menace to society towards the end of his tragically short life.

Yet after he died, I think you know what happened. It wouldn't be wrong for me to say that he is one of the most widely regarded artists of all time. You can't look at a field of sunflowers without thinking Van Gogh.

So you could say that this is a case of being in the woods to hear the tree falling and you don't like what you hear, but in a few years time, different people, more modern people come to your forest and like the sound of your tree falling.

In my eyes, Art can be anything to anyone, but if it isn't judged by anyone, it can't be art. The creator has a biased opinion on his creation, therefore has no opinion.

 

[.Bright Side.]

Art is for art's sake, and the audience can not be restricted to one way of seeing art, just like how readers never read stories the same way. If an author were to write a paragraph of a story to parralel the bible, a reader amy interpret that as an homage to a past author or even an artist's work.

As with Duchamp's ready-mades, which made many critics cringe and authors marvel due to their own perceptions and interpretations of it, readers find new meaning in words that the author may not have intended on. Still, it does not make the writer nor the reader wrong.

Everything involving creative media is subjective. Using subtle allusions ot graphs or other works is valid artistic expression, as with any reason behind any creative media (which explains the rise in modern artists like Frankenthaler or Pollock)

 

[Giratina!]

It can be called masterful if the person looking at it sees it as masterful. I hate to use an example you've already brought up, but I've seen people who honestly thought the Twilight saga was a deep, well-written, sincere, sober romance series. They called it masterful. Me, I call it wish-fulfillment with undeveloped villains (Aro and company) who had the potential to be awesome but weren't. In no way do I see it as masterful. We can't ask "is ______ masterful?" because no matter what we say, there will be someone who disagrees, and no matter who we ask there will be an opinion biased by the answerer's personal beliefs.

Artistic expression, as far as my stupid little thirteen-year-old brain is aware of, is how the artist chooses to portray his works. If everybody fails to realize that his rather stupid idea of stuffing his best work into a marble sculpture actually happened, and he didn't tell anybody, then it's just a matter of time before some unsuspecting natural disaster breaks it open and reveals the beauty inside. It's artistic expression to the artist, because he knew; and if someone else put it in there, it's artistic expression to that person, because he knew. Nobody else knew so they don't call it artistic expression, but it existed and someone did it - therefore, in the grand scheme of things, since one person accepted it as the subjective matterof artistic expression, it is.

Basically, if one person believes it, yes it is.

 

[Praxiteles]

Giratina!, BrightSide : OKAY I LOVE YOUR EXPLANATION.

Mostly because my stupidity didn't work out that art is hardly ever a collective experience: it has meaning and specific beauty (or lack of such) to specific minds. Personal experience with art justifies/condemns it, taking anything like an aggregate or general consensus is pointless. Most of the ****ery that happens around art tends to happen when people forget this.

Thank you for the lucidity. I couldn't in my dreams have got to an understanding like that when I was thirteen. And, uh, yeah, that marble sculpture analogy was pretty fail.