[Buddha-l] beauty--or art-- (?) and the restraint of the senses,

[jkirk]

 >   
Who can resist such a heartfelt plea?
First of all, if you look at the developments in Western art of
the last century, the monks may have a point. Much art has been
made just to shock the public or as a new attempt to give a new
defintion of what art should be. But there still is quite a lot
of art around that is purely esthetic. The monks have never heard
of Kant and are so busy with learning texts by heart, that we
shouldn't expect them to have much comprehension of art and
certainly not Western art. Kant made the difference between
presentations of desirable things, which evoke desires (e.g. the
pictures of dishes in a Chinese restaurant) and art which doesn't
evoke desires, but merely appeals to good taste (e.g.
still lives). You don't buy a painting with apples because you're
thirsty. Kant and Plotinos saw art as pure representation, and as
such it doesn't evoke upadana. In fact I wonder if the esthetic
view of the world isn't close to the enlightened view. The Buddha
once made a remark about the beauty of a city (was it
Kapilavastu?), so the enlightened gaze is sensitive to esthetics.
Art is just free visualisation, but if the only thing you're
supposed to visualise is the stages of decomposition of the body,
it might seem just a superfluous distraction.
The monks would however endorse Plato's evaluation of art: an
illusion of an illusion. Perhaps they were afraid to get to close
for comfort to the rasa theory, which has some affiliation with
esthetic extasy or rapture. Whether pure art is a familiar
concept in India is an interesting question.
Speaking for myself I cannot imagine that one would slow down
ones development by listening to Bach or looking at the Taj Mahal
and meditation is easier in a park than in a junkyard. And about
Buddhist
art: the best Buddhist paintings are probably the Chinese ones,
because of their love of nature. Creativity and good taste are
not monkish qualities. A monk wants to obey rules and repeat
again and again.

erik
===============
"A monk wants to obey rules and repeat again and again." 
Brilliant! the ostinato tendency in Buddhist art(s), to the
extent that it wasn't already there before Buddhism turned
up---perhaps it replicates, reinforces, exalts practice. 

"And about Buddhist art: the best Buddhist paintings are probably
the Chinese ones, because of their love of nature." 
Agreed.
 
"Kant and Plotinos saw art as pure representation, and as such it
doesn't evoke upadana." 
Seems that the ancient Indian sages (of most cults and lineages)
were so dedicated to clamping down on the body, that all visual
representation became body for them. Later came the romantics,
like Kalidasa [sorry, back to literature]--he often saw
landscapes as metaphors for sexual love and longing. But this
literature was fostered in and by luxurious courts and kings, who
according to their social dharma celebrated body and artha,
instead of condemning it.

"In fact I wonder if the esthetic view of the world isn't close
to the enlightened view."  Didn't Kant view this as an aim and a
result of the contemplation of esthetic experience? 

As for your comments about "other art"--contemporary
stuff--agreed. Like so much modern music, much modern art became
bombastic, imperial, and or sadistic in its aim of shock and awe
(to quote a recent exponent of the same).   

JK