drunkinabeautifulgarden asked: I throw around the forbidden term “transcendence” about every 5 minutes, when it comes to music. It just sounds better than the banal "sublime" (which i use every 10 minutes). being a materialist, i guess i fix my need for religion in music and arts in general.
by the way, good stuff on your tumblr.
To paraphrase Benjamin, “The crossroads between idealism and materialism are bewitched.” It seems to me, in some strong sense, there is a sense of transcendence that can be achieved through the work of art, but this is only vis-a-vis the very material conditions that engender the work of art in the first place. The subject matter of “Guernica” is a work motivated by war, the material of the painting bound to the spirit of the people who created the canvas, the paints; but the painting itself can be judged as a work of art, not merely as representative statement of the Spanish Civil War. The work of art itself achieves a status as a work of art, not merely as a sign of something that it represents. It’s a sort of transcendence engendered by immanence. My brief two cents on the matter.
But, I think it’s perfectly fine to throw around the term in an “ordinary usage” setting. Thanks, by the way.
