Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Ain't This America What is distinctive about American art and letters

That is preposterous! By what sophistry can one possibly arrive at a conclusion that I said/implied any such thing? In the second paragraph, which you omitted, it is my clear and unequivocal statement that

Should this sublime image from nature, produced by the artistry a raw, young culture, be considered inferior to anything produced by older cultures?

Where is there anything that can even be remotely construed as making the claim that you impute to me? I said the image was the product of that artistry, not the articles of nature.

Had I actually said that, you would be correct. But, since I said no such thing, you appear to be totally wrong.

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Ron, if taking some photographs of natural objects were to be regarded as high creativity in the arts, I would agree with you.

But it isn't, and I don't.

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As I said, a sublime image from nature, and the artistry required to capture it needed great genius and great pains in order for the to have the perspective that it did.

What pallid daubing on canvas, what refined scribbling on paper, could compare to that image? What artist's vision of that great truth and unsurpassed beauty can excel the thing itself?

It is a great feat of art and I believe you are wrong...just as you certainly were when you erroneously implied that I'd claimed "creation" of the Earth and the Moon.

Not to mention the incredible genius it took to get someone up there to take those images.

Exactly! That is the artistry, the talent I meant.

When I first saw that image, I was moved to tears by the shear power of it. No words to describe that incredible feeling of awe - like Jody Foster in Contact, where she says "No words!... No words to describe it!...They should have sent a poet!"

If it is the purpose if great art to inspire in us that recognition and appreciation of the beauty and truth of the creation about us, then this image was for me - and very possibly for many others - art of unsurpassed quality and depth, even if it was only a stream of electromagnetic pulses emanating from a point a quarter-million miles away from us.

And so it appears that Americas pinnacle, her greatest achievements, are not arts and letters at all, not the daubing of various pigments on canvas, nor the pecking on typewriters by apes until art is achieved, but indeed, the Teknological Artes!
The discoveries of our Natural Philosophers and the productions of their machines. The creator of the camera becomes more than the equal of the greatest painter, the inventor of the recording device more talented than the greatest musician because they can capture all that god has wrought and present it flawlessly to the manufacturer who creates not a single paltry masterpiece but millions upon millions of perfect images and recordings.

I would submit that the photography of Ansel Adams, who took "some photographs of natural objects" should be regarded as "high creativity in the arts."

in the end, it's all relative. numan's approach is numan's approach. do i believe he is wrong? of course. but for his own purposes, and his alone, he is right. of course, based upon the posts i have seen, numan would not agree with this assertion.

Even Americans don't claim that they invented photography.

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Genius? Most of the genius involved came from non-Americans.

Talent, organization and hard work there were in plenty. These are qualities for which the pedestrian American character has a flair.


I don't claim that photography can't be art. Obviously, it can.

But the NASA Earth photograph is not an artistic creation. It could just as easily have been taken by a ship-board computer. No creativity at all was involved.

Ansel Adams was a talented, creative man. To call him a genius is probably going too far.

By a curious chemistry of mental association, he reminds me of John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, who were Americans with at least a touch of genius.

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