itchy beauty
i just got back from teaching, was staring into space and eating watermelon at the coffee table when i flipped open the gertrude stein book on the table in front of me - randomly lit on this (from composition as explanation) about beauty:
"There is almost not an interval.
For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling. Now the only difficulty with the volte-face concerning the arts is this. When the acceptance comes, by that acceptance the thing created becomes a classic. It is a natural phenomena a rather extraordinary natural phenomena that a thing accepted becomes a classic. And what is the characteristic quality of a classic. The characteristic quality of a classic is that it is beautiful. Now of course it is perfectly true that a more or less first rate work of art is beautiful but the trouble is that when that first rate work of art becomes a classic because it is accepted the only thing that is important from then on to the majority of the acceptors the enormous majority, the most intelligent majority of the acceptors is that it is so wonderfully beautiful. Of course it is wonderfully beautiful, only when it is still a thing irritating annoying stimulating then all quality of beauty is denied to it.
Of course it is beautiful but first all beauty in it is denied and then all the beauty of it is accepted. If every one were not so indolent they would realise that beauty is beauty even when it is irritating and stimulating not only when it is accepted and classic. Of course it is extremely difficult nothing more so than to remember back to its not being beautiful once it has become beauty."
between rejecting and accepting - where is that? - i am curious about this interesting edge between "of course it is wonderfully beautiful" (but this is not its only quality) and when something has "become beauty"/'a classic' (everything else is rubbed off but "this is so beautiful! so good! so edifying!").
it's hot out today - things the heat makes me think of appreciating - beer, laziness, watermelon ice cubes, mosquito hawks, loud slow music. i wish you were all here, we could have a party!
xo xo xo xo xo xo xo xo xo
"There is almost not an interval.
For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling. Now the only difficulty with the volte-face concerning the arts is this. When the acceptance comes, by that acceptance the thing created becomes a classic. It is a natural phenomena a rather extraordinary natural phenomena that a thing accepted becomes a classic. And what is the characteristic quality of a classic. The characteristic quality of a classic is that it is beautiful. Now of course it is perfectly true that a more or less first rate work of art is beautiful but the trouble is that when that first rate work of art becomes a classic because it is accepted the only thing that is important from then on to the majority of the acceptors the enormous majority, the most intelligent majority of the acceptors is that it is so wonderfully beautiful. Of course it is wonderfully beautiful, only when it is still a thing irritating annoying stimulating then all quality of beauty is denied to it.
Of course it is beautiful but first all beauty in it is denied and then all the beauty of it is accepted. If every one were not so indolent they would realise that beauty is beauty even when it is irritating and stimulating not only when it is accepted and classic. Of course it is extremely difficult nothing more so than to remember back to its not being beautiful once it has become beauty."
between rejecting and accepting - where is that? - i am curious about this interesting edge between "of course it is wonderfully beautiful" (but this is not its only quality) and when something has "become beauty"/'a classic' (everything else is rubbed off but "this is so beautiful! so good! so edifying!").
it's hot out today - things the heat makes me think of appreciating - beer, laziness, watermelon ice cubes, mosquito hawks, loud slow music. i wish you were all here, we could have a party!
xo xo xo xo xo xo xo xo xo
posted by Lauren | 12:51 PM
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