Ebert is an idiot

merkvah

And here's why:

Santiago now phrases this in her terms: "Art is a way of communicating ideas to an audience in a way that the audience finds engaging." Yet what ideas are contained in Stravinsky, Picasso, "Night of the Hunter," "Persona," "Waiting for Godot," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?" Oh, you can perform an exegesis or a paraphrase, but then you are creating your own art object from the materials at hand.

Here he is essentially saying "I myself cannot understand what message might possibly be contained in the works of these great masters, or in these great poems, therefore there is none." Yet any of us who did ANYTHING in college other than watch movies understand that these pieces and artists are of profound artistic significance. By citing these great artists and works of art as idea-less (read: meaningless) he disqualifies himself from being allowed to make ANY future comments on what is or is not art, and thereby making his "Video games can never be art" statement invalid.

ergo: Ebert = Idiot.

Forbe!

This would be great for the Discussion Thread. New threads without art are generally frowned upon, however, the Question, Discussion, Tutorial thread is perfect for this type of post.

MagicToaster

If a tree falls in the woods and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound? It's not really a question of if there is a physical sound, but more how can things exist when there is nobody around to acknwledge its existance. If you think he sees nothing in these works, then that's the reality he lives in.

You can't force anyone to acknwoledge the existance of a tree, so just live happy.

Also, read the rules of the forum.

merkvah

Sorry. I looked for a while trying to find where this should be posted. I figured that since it dealt directly with the definition of Art, this was a good place. My apoligies.

Nappuccino

No harm no foul. However, since this seems to be a set up for a discussion you might want to try Debate and Discourse