The telos of art has been lost, and for this reason--the loss of purpose--we also find it impossible to define art. On reflection, does "art for the sake of art" really satisfy anyone? It is cant, it is bullshit, it is nauseating.

Indeed the attempt by art at self-justification is worn so thin that most do not bother to invoke it. If art exists only for the sake of art, then let us consign it to hell and be done with it. For that which is purposeless is meaningless.

To reveal the true meaning of art we look to what is hidden: certain statues of gods are accessible only to the priest in the cella; certain Madonnas remain covered nearly all year round; certain sculptures on medieval cathedrals are invisible to the spectator on ground level

The earliest works of art were intended for use in magical and religious rituals, ceremonial objects which were designed as much for presentation to the spirit world as for display to one’s fellows.

The key, what distinguishes mere production and representation from art properly conceived is that it must be address both god and man, in that order.

The meaning and essence of a work of art is inextricable from its context in a living tradition; to the Greeks an ancient statue of Venus was an object of veneration; to the clerics of the Middle Ages it was an ominous idol, to us it's an historical curiosity

“Art for the sake of art” is a sad tautology because art finds its meaning and its sanctity by acting as a mirror to the sacred. Art is the moon, it can illuminate the world, but it is not itself a source of light.

Or maybe art is not a mirror but a prism, refracting the light of god, but either way, it has no light of its own. You don't have to belong to any specific religious tradition to create or participate in the experience of art, but you do have to regard the sacred.

There are three sources of sanctity, which incidentally are revealed in both the Hindu Trimurti and the Christian Trinity, though the latter more obliquely.

Brahma => Father God => Creation, birth
Vishnu => Holy Spirit => Sustenance, food
Shiva => Jesus Christ => Eternity, death

Hopefully I managed to offend both Christians and Hindus with that tweet; look, syncretism is more art than science. But it was exactly 280, I didn't even edit it, it's got to be some kind of a sign.

Anyway, anything sacred has one of these three valences. Three itself is a sacred number, but that's a thread for another time. These topics then are the proper domain of art. When art fails to engage with the sacred, it fails to be art

Now, how did we get here? How did we lose the sense of art as a prism of the sacred? The problem starts with the printing press and accelerates with the advent of photography, film, and computer games. The solution, however, is NOT to destroy industrial society

An object of art has an aura, comprised of its substantive duration, its testimony to the history it has experienced, and its place w/r/t the collective consciousness of society. Another word for this is authenticity.

In order to be authentic, then, an object of art must be unique, and to be experience it in its fullness, we must be in its physical presence. You can feel, for example, the aura of a mountain range from its shadow. Not so with a photo

Face-to-face meetings, even brief ones, appear to cement personal connections of trust and liking to an extent not achieved by even years of mediated contact like phone calls, Internet text discussions, emails, or chat; this appears to be true in almost every context. h/t @gwern

The age of ubiquitous photography has given us representation without substantiation; art without an aura.
The age of mechanical duplicability of art has given us golems without shems; clay husks infernally animated without the name of god.

We can no longer feel the presence of god because we can no longer feel the aura of art. The orientation towards mass duplication has attenuated sanctity in all forms of representative production, especially film.

This is not to say that mass produced art cannot connect us to the sacred, only that it cannot do so using the old modalities. And if it is naive, it will only pull us toward homogeneity, alienation, and endless pointless revolution

In the words of Walter Benjamin, “the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.”

Benjamin taught me all of these things. For example he taught that mechanical reproduction “emancipates” the work of art from its “parasitical dependence” on ritual. As I have said before, emancipatory politics are the acid that dissolves humanity. https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1050389151760113667

Also from Benjamin: “the application of concepts, such as creativity and genius, eternal value and mystery [...] lead to a processing of data in the Fascist sense” my friends if this is fascism then let us join together

Indeed, in reading the essays of emancipatory revolutionaries we can see the deepest darkest desires in their hearts: a future with no creativity, genius, or eternal value. He called beauty a “cult.” Why would you want emancipation? What kind of devil calls sanctity a “parasite”?

To overcome this, to move backwards, we must move forwards. The only way out is through. It will require the artist to cultivate a very particular disposition, it will require an emphasis on the exact qualities that have been so denigrated by revolutionaries in our modern age

Brilliant thread by @QuasLacrimas. Implicit religious content taps into deep cultural currents in art https://twitter.com/quaslacrimas/status/1067989604144476160