Art or Indulgence?

[Dave2002]

I once had the idea of setting down large model dinosaurs in my garden, T Rex and Triceratops made of resin, about a meter long. You see life-size ones in other park settings...
Would they be more acceptable to the alien-plant-rejectors here than these spun-glass-fantastical?

(And you can put a scarf round the dinos' necks if you want...)

Been done, but not here. Upsets the neighbours.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/houses/111408167/flintstone-house-upsets-us-town-owner-sued-by-the-locals

[oddoneout]

.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?18836-School-Music-Fighting-the-cuts/page13

Take no notice. I am being a silly old so&so

As for gardens, I think Japanese gardens stand for something very different from the idea of English gardens. I can’t say exactly what it is but it seems to me that they are ultimately detached from life/living things. Come to that, there is no equivalent to the English word ‘garden’ in Japanese. I think those objects in Kew Gardens will go down a storm in city parks (not in temple gardens) in Japan. Nature is not really appreciated unless there is something explicitly artificial in it, and those objects are magnificently artificial.

Or more deeply attached than is the case with English gardens?
"It is morning. The man has washed and put on a blue suit. He is now sitting quietly while he sips a cup of tea and stares off into the landscape before him...
But not once while looking at this scene, though he looks at it every morning, did the man say to himself, "This is just a garden." What he saw was a landscape: alive, unsullied, vast, and serene. It prepared him for his day in the city that lay beyond the garden wall."
Japanese gardens are representations, albeit it highly stylised, of the natural landscape.
The Courtyard Garden.." he carefully arranges a few items and uses their relationships to suggest more than is immediately visible to the eye. He adds man-made items like lanterns... to decorate it, and to allow it to function practically in daily life."
Assuming that the Japanese garden at Kew has been created according to Japanese design principles, it could be argued that the placing of the glass globes in it is more intrusive and 'at odds' than the placing of the structures elsewhere in the grounds.
Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton are the UK equivalents I suppose of the idea of the Japanese representation of nature, although writ lifesize and not requiring the same level of imagination and contemplation of the oriental version.

[MrGongGong]

I am talking about this particular work in this particular CONTEXT. I see no point in talking about 'ANY artwork' as such.

I'm still puzzled why you find this artwork somehow out-of -place though?
Is there ANY artwork that you would see as appropriate ?
(hence the foxes)

When I first went to Japan I wondered why every shrine I visited seemed to have the foxes with neckwear... (I did learn about them)

[french frank]

I'm still puzzled why you find this artwork somehow out-of -place though?

If I may …

Surely one can do no better than refer you to Richard's Msg 51, especially:

Thinking about it, on the whole I prefer my "idealised landscape" not to be interrupted by such things, but clearly they do lead to thoughts about what is artificial and what is natural and what those things mean, and to interesting discussions on those subjects, which is one of the functions of art after all.

I think this has been an interesting discussion. Apart from anything else, it demonstrates (as if we didn't know) that in matters of art there are differing tastes. It isn't always possible to "explain" to people whose tastes differ, in a way that they will "understand" or that they will find "valid". Such are the Mysteries of Life.

[MrGongGong]

If I may …

Surely one can do no better than refer you to Richard's Msg 51, especially:

Thinking about it, on the whole I prefer my "idealised landscape" not to be interrupted by such things, but clearly they do lead to thoughts about what is artificial and what is natural and what those things mean, and to interesting discussions on those subjects, which is one of the functions of art after all.

I think this has been an interesting discussion. Apart from anything else, it demonstrates (as if we didn't know) that in matters of art there are differing tastes. It isn't always possible to "explain" to people whose tastes differ, in a way that they will "understand" or that they will find "valid". Such are the Mysteries of Life.

It is interesting indeed
Earlier this year I did a short residency at Cove Park in Scotland (http://covepark.org)
one thing I really loved about the place was the complete lack of ANY visual art, sculpture or even pictures on the walls even though that is what many folks go there to work on.

[Serial_Apologist]

Alan Watts wrote, with regards to Japanese gardens:

"The style of garden which goes with Zen ... is not ... one of those ornate imitation landscapes with bronze cranes and miniature pagodas. The intention of the best Japanese gardens is not to make a realistic illusion of landscape, but simply to suggest the general atmosphere of 'mountain and water' in a small space, so arranging the design of the garden that it seems to have been helped rather than governed by the hand of man. The Zen gardener has no mind to impose his own intention upon natural forms, but is careful rather to follow the 'intentionless intention' of the forms themselves, even though this involves the utmost care and skill. In fact the gardener never ceases to prune, clip, weed, and train his plants, but he does so in the spirit of being part of the garden himself rather than a directing agent standing outside. He is not interfering with nature because he is nature, and he cultivates as if not cultivating. Thus the garden is at once highly artifricial and extremely natural!

"This spirit is seen at its best in the great sand and rock gardens of Kyoto, of which the most famous example is the garden of Ryoanji. It consists of five groups of rocks laid upon a rectangle of raked sand, backed by a low stone wall, and surrounded by trees. It suggests a wild beach, or perhaps a seascape with rocky islands, but its unbelievable simplicity evokes a serenity and clarity of feeling so powerful that it can be caught even from a photograph. The major art which contributes to such gardens is bonseki, which may well be called the 'growing' of rocks. It requires difficult expeditions to the seashore, to mountains and rivers, in search of rock forms which wind and water have shaped into asymmetrical, living contours. These are carried to the garden site, and placed so as to look as if they had grown where they stand, so as to be related to the surrounding space or to the area of sand in the same way as figure to background in Sung paintings. Because the rock must look as if it has always been in the same position it must have an air of mosss-covered antiquity, and, rather than try to plant moss on the rock, the rock is first set for some years in a place where the moss will grow by itself, and thereafter is moved to its final position. Rocks picked out by the sensitive eye of the bonseki artist are ranked among Japan's most precious national tr4easures, but, except to move them, they are untouched by human hand.

"The Zen monks liked also to cultivate gardens which took advantage of an existing natural setting - to arrange rocks and plants along the edges of a stream, creating a more informal atmosphere suggesting a mountain canyon adjoining the monastery buildings. They were always sparing and reserved in their use of colour, as were the Sung painters before them, since masses of flowers in sharply varying colours are seldom found in the state of nature. Though not symmetrical, the Japanese garden has a clearly perceptible form; unlike so many English and American flower gardens, they do not resemble a daub in oil colours, and this delight in the form of plants carries over into the art of flower arrangement inside the house, accentuating the shapes of single sprays and leaves rather than bunched colours".

Earlier he has written:

" [T}he art forms of Zen are [not] left to mere chance, as if one were to dip a snake in ink and let it wiggle around on a sheet of paper. The point is rather that for Zen there is no duality, no conflict betweeen the natural element of chance and the human element of control. The constructive powers of the human mind are no more artificial than the formative actions of plants or bees, so that from the standpoint of Zen it is no contradiction to say that artistic technique is discipline in spontaneity and spontaneity in discipline.

"The art forms of the Western world arise from spiritual and philosophical traditons in which spirit is divided from nature, and comes down from heaven to work upon it as an intelligent energy upon an inert and recalicitrant stuff. Thus Malraux speaks always of the artist 'conquering' his medium as our explorers and scientists also speak of conquering mountains or conquering space. To Chinese and Japanese ears these are grotesque expressions. For when you climb it is the mountain as much as your own legs which lifts you upwards, and when you paint it is the brush, ink, and paper which determine the result as much as your own hand.

"Taoism, Confucianism and Zen are expressions of a mentality which feels completely at home in the universe, and which sees man as an integral part of his environment. Human intelligence is not an imprisoned spirit from afar but an aspect of the whole intricately balanced organism of the natural world, whose principles were first explored in the Book of Changes ..."

(Watts, A. (1957) The Way of Zen. Pelican Books, Thames and Hudson, London. PP 193, 212-214). (Apologies for any typos).

Half the world's problems would be solved, were this book to be made compulsory school reading worldwide, in my opinion. The rest is politics.

[doversoul1]

I'm still puzzled why you find this artwork somehow out-of -place though?

Thank you ff.

Is there ANY artwork that you would see as appropriate ?

I don’t know enough about arts that exist in the world to answer that.

(hence the foxes)

What’s the foxes got to do with all this? Signs are always placed where they are needed.

[doversoul1]

Or more deeply attached than is the case with English gardens?
"It is morning. The man has washed and put on a blue suit. He is now sitting quietly while he sips a cup of tea and stares off into the landscape before him...
But not once while looking at this scene, though he looks at it every morning, did the man say to himself, "This is just a garden." What he saw was a landscape: alive, unsullied, vast, and serene. It prepared him for his day in the city that lay beyond the garden wall."
Japanese gardens are representations, albeit it highly stylised, of the natural landscape.
The Courtyard Garden.." he carefully arranges a few items and uses their relationships to suggest more than is immediately visible to the eye. He adds man-made items like lanterns... to decorate it, and to allow it to function practically in daily life."
Assuming that the Japanese garden at Kew has been created according to Japanese design principles, it could be argued that the placing of the glass globes in it is more intrusive and 'at odds' than the placing of the structures elsewhere in the grounds.
Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton are the UK equivalents I suppose of the idea of the Japanese representation of nature, although writ lifesize and not requiring the same level of imagination and contemplation of the oriental version.

I am intrigued. What are the sources of these quotes? A man who has a private garden, walled or otherwise in the middle of a busy city must be a millionaire. Stone lanterns have become more for decoration in modern times but they were originally placed in various places, including gardens, and lit in the night in order to keep evil spirits away, even metaphorically.

The Japanese garden at Kew is a very good appropriation.

I think when we talk about gardens and nature in another culture, in this case, in Japan, it is important to remind ourselves that the words we use to talk about have very different meanings and implications. In Japan’s indigenous belief system, ‘nature’ is where deities and spirits dwell and not something us humans to look at and admire, or the place to walk about and enjoy ourselves. Besides, it’s often hot and damp outside, living plants breed insects and caterpillars that bite and sting, and plants on the ground can hide poisonous snakes.

Anything more philosophical, please read Serial_Apologist’s post #66

[MrGongGong]

What’s the foxes got to do with all this? Signs are always placed where they are needed.

They are sculptures of things that exist in other forms in the world
just like the glass ones at Kew ?

Though it's interesting that you see them as "signs" in the same way that I might see some religious art from my culture as a "sign" in the same way that bell ringers don't necesarily regard the sonic art they practice as "music" .



(I deliberately chose the foxes as I thought they might be something that you would know about and to me, with my western head on, seem very similar in some ways to the plant sculptures at Kew)

[doversoul1]

They are sculptures of things that exist in other forms in the world
just like the glass ones at Kew ?

Though it's interesting that you see them as "signs" in the same way that I might see some religious art from my culture as a "sign" in the same way that bell ringers don't necesarily regard the sonic art they practice as "music" .



(I deliberately chose the foxes as I thought they might be something that you would know about and to me, with my western head on, seem very similar in some ways to the plant sculptures at Kew)

Add the foxes to the pipe. I’m sure it will come handy one day.

[oddoneout]

I am intrigued. What are the sources of these quotes? A man who has a private garden, walled or otherwise in the middle of a busy city must be a millionaire. Stone lanterns have become more for decoration in modern times but they were originally placed in various places, including gardens, and lit in the night in order to keep evil spirits away, even metaphorically.

The Japanese garden at Kew is a very good appropriation.

I think when we talk about gardens and nature in another culture, in this case, in Japan, it is important to remind ourselves that the words we use to talk about have very different meanings and implications. In Japan’s indigenous belief system, ‘nature’ is where deities and spirits dwell and not something us humans to look at and admire, or the place to walk about and enjoy ourselves. Besides, it’s often hot and damp outside, living plants breed insects and caterpillars that bite and sting, and plants on the ground can hide poisonous snakes.

Anything more philosophical, please read Serial_Apologist’s post #66

The quotes come from a book I have called 'A Japanese Touch for your Garden' by Kiyoshe Seike and Masanobu Kudo which is apparently based on a Japanese encyclopedia of garden making. It was a charity shop find and full of fascinating detail; it is also very different from the English idea of Japanese gardens, which I must confess I don't generally like very much. I think that the minimalism necessary doesn't perhaps come naturally to gardeners(as opposed to those who design outdoor spaces/rooms) in this country?
I take your point about gardens in a city but another part of that passage is "The landscape the man was looking at was not a real landscape at all, but a Japanese garden only a few meters square" ,and several of the book illustrations are of gaps between houses, entryways and the like. The placement of the few items such spaces contain nonetheless has regard to the same ideas informing the much larger spaces.

[doversoul1]

The quotes come from a book I have called 'A Japanese Touch for your Garden' by Kiyoshe Seike and Masanobu Kudo which is apparently based on a Japanese encyclopedia of garden making. It was a charity shop find and full of fascinating detail; it is also very different from the English idea of Japanese gardens, which I must confess I don't generally like very much. I think that the minimalism necessary doesn't perhaps come naturally to gardeners(as opposed to those who design outdoor spaces/rooms) in this country?
I take your point about gardens in a city but another part of that passage is "The landscape the man was looking at was not a real landscape at all, but a Japanese garden only a few meters square" ,and several of the book illustrations are of gaps between houses, entryways and the like. The placement of the few items such spaces contain nonetheless has regard to the same ideas informing the much larger spaces.

Thank you. I found the book.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Japanese-Touch-Your-Garden/dp/4770016611

One of the authors, Kiyoshe Seike, was apparently the first major Western trained architect in Japan. The book was obviously written to cater for Western readers and it seems to serve the purpose well. One problem I find is the word ‘landscape’. I think this should be ‘scenery’. What the man in blue suit in his urban (‘city’ is another problem) dwelling is seeing in his mind eyes while looking at the little patch that is his garden is those famous gardens of temples and palaces, and not the mythical or philosophical landscape that those formal gardens evoke or inspire. Also, his and his fellow citizens’ gardens are not connected with the idea of cultivation/gardening. Ideally, those ‘gardens’ should be maintained by paid gardeners because it’s not ‘doing’ but ‘having’ that counts where people’s gardens are concerned (generally speaking, that is).

What I meant when I said that Japanese formal gardens were detached from life was that (I think) the plants are not there as part of what we see as our living world. They are part of the perfect landscape of those (as far as I understand) mythical mountains in remote places where enlightened masters live and meditate (strictly one per place).

Parks in cities are modern (in Japanese culture) creation that was landscaped to offer people space to be and enjoy which is pretty precious in the crowded country. Here, those objects in Kew gardens will make a great attraction.

[french frank]

What I meant when I said that Japanese formal gardens were detached from life was that (I think) the plants are not there as part of what we see as our living world. They are part of the perfect landscape of those (as far as I understand) mythical mountains in remote places where enlightened masters live and meditate (strictly one per place).

That makes sense when you see the decorative Japanese porcelain:

[eighthobstruction]

That makes sense when you see the decorative Japanese porcelain:

....goish that second one is a real beauty....the fineness of rim and the rippling of the colbalt edge....

[Stanfordian]

I am interested in receiving original photographs of any Art Deco items such as jewellery, buildings, etc with a description what or where it is.