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And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Friday, July 24, 2015

From the Abstract to the Concrete

Paintings from the 1999 Bruce Beresford film, "Double Jeopardy"
(1) a publication

(2) a newspaper

(3) The San Francisco Chronicle

(4) the May 18 edition of the The San Francisco Chronicle

(5) my copy of the May 18 edition of the The San Francisco Chronicle

(6) my copy of the May 18 edition of the The San Francisco Chronicle as it was when I first picked it up (as contrasted with my copy as it was a few days later: in my fireplace, burning)
Wassily Kandinsky, "Study for the cover of der Blaue Reiter Almanac" (1911)

8 comments:

Always On Watch said...

FJ,
In an artistic mood right now, FJ?

Thersites said...

I saw the movie "Double Jeopardy" last week on TV. The protagonist tracked her "murderer" husband down through the two Kandinsky paintings above.

And actually, I was curious as to "why" abstract art emerged when it did.

Thersites said...

Abstraction in mathematics is the process of extracting the underlying essence of a mathematical concept, removing any dependence on real world objects with which it might originally have been connected, and generalizing it so that it has wider applications or matching among other abstract descriptions of equivalent phenomena. The advantages of abstraction in mathematics are: It reveals deep connections between different areas of mathematics, Known results in one area can suggest conjectures in a related area, Techniques and methods from one area can be applied to prove results in a related area, The main disadvantage of abstraction is that highly abstract concepts are more difficult to learn, and require a degree of mathematical maturity and experience before they can be assimilated.

Thersites said...

Hume's Principle and the problem of Inductive Reasoning, generally.

Gert said...

Thersy:

It's just a shame that abstraction is so hard to apply to stuff like 'economic theory' and other societal knowledge.

You can fully describe a hydrogen atom with it but that doesn't tell you much about the human condition, does it?

Thersites said...

I don't know, ever look at Guernica? It may not allow one to postulate a "range" of human conditions, but it does rather forcefully present one.

Thersites said...

What the Chapman Brothers are doing to Goya should be criminal. If I were the Spanish government, I'd file a War Crimes charge at The Hague's ICC.

Gert said...

'Making a point quite firmly that we are indeed total idiots'.