2008/02/21

Tweak this Venn?



Venn Diagram you want, Venn Diagram you get. Thoughts, please? Taking the following definitions of the sets and subsets, would you tweak this Venn?

Things Unseen - the spiritual world
Things Seen - the corporeal, material world
Expression - the contact attempted between sentient beings
Communication
- the contact made between sentient beings
Abstract nouns - denoting something immaterial and abstract, as patriotism, fear, love
Laws - Gravity, No Stealing Allowed, Head of Household's definition in a tax form, and anything else all people can see and act upon or universally acknowledge
Art - the intersection of all of it

So? Tweaking?

3 comments:

Ami said...

That's the word I was thinking of. Forward me your dictionary.

Genuine Lustre said...

The art that I like abides by laws, but does everybody's art abide by laws? I'm thinking of what I consider the weird stuff - performance art, images projected onto forest canopies, tatoos etc.

I will think more about this but right now need to make mashed potatoes for my father in law - guess who's coming for dinner? MIL is down south at the vacation home.

Mario said...

Um, this kind of makes my head hurt but here goes:

I'm not sure how there can be an overlap between things unseen and things seen. They seem to be mutually exclusive to me, at least as defined here. And if there was any overlap, I'm not sure it would be called abstract nouns.

The diagram seems to be saying that art is made of communication between sentient beings that use abstract nouns according to certain generally accepted laws. I suppose that can be true, but it seems a terribly limited view of art. Where are the abstract nouns in a painting? I mean, when did the artist use abstract nouns in making that painting? You see what I mean?

Also, many people see something like art in, for example, the design of a nautilus shell, or the iridescence of a mat of moss. It's hard to see this as a manifestation of deliberate communication.

Art is very much a subjective experience. This diagram doesn't seem to capture that essence at all. But then perhaps no venn diagram could. I don't know.