Appreciation

[A. G. Maisey]

Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology from Yale has written a book titled:- "How Pleasure Works".

http://www.amazon.com/How-Pleasure-Works-Science-Like/dp/0393066320

I have not read it, but I recently read a review of it, and extracts from it. These were sufficient to cause my thoughts to turn towards the ways in which we appreciate keris, and keris art. Bloom has addressed the subject of how and why humans value and enjoy things. It would seem that the oft proffered advice of "buy the keris, not the story" is in fact completely contrary to the way in which we do experience, enjoy, appraise and put a dollar value on all forms of art, and this includes keris.

I think many of us would have heard the story of the great violinist, Joshua Bell, who took $32 from busking in a subway, but for whom people will pay hundreds of dollars to hear perform in a concert hall.

We could argue that the concert goers are paying their hundreds of dollars for a total experience --- the atmosphere, the chance to rub shoulders with important people, the opportunity to be seen, photographed, and appear in the society pages. Maybe. But the violinist is the same --- subway : concert stage. Same man, same music. But unappreciated because of place.

People pay huge amounts of money for Princess Diana's old clothes. Find similar in a Salvation Army Store and you'll pay $4.50

Ditto for George Clooneys sweaters.

Han van Meegeren was a brilliant forger of great art works, especially of Vermeer. In fact van Meegeren's "Supper at Emmaus" was lauded by critics as "Vermeer's" finest work. Of course they didn't know it was painted by van Meegeren.

Vermeer's painting "The Woman Taken in Adultery" apparently caused people to have life changing experiences when they viewed it --- until such time as they found out it was painted by van Meegeren not by Vermeer.

We are urged to consider art works, and I suppose all collectables, in an objective way. Value the work for what it is, not for who made it, who owned it, or where it has come from, but do we?

It seems not, more, it seems that it is not possible for us to divorce the object from the idea of who made it, who has owned it, and where it is from. The object is always accompanied by ideas that refer to the object, but are not part of it.

Indeed , it seems we are hard wired to always buy the story, and that story can be presented in a number of ways, it need not necessarily be the crude deceptions of a shonky dealer.

If we consider the subject that concerns us most here, the keris, I believe we would all agree that a keris by Mpu Jayasukadgo is infinitely more desirable than a keris by one of the current era makers.

However, viewed in a totally objective way, that Jayasukadgo keris may be no better than one turned out by a current era maker. We have given the Jayasukadgo a greater level of desirability, and hence value, simply because it is attributed to him --- and note this:- it is only an attribution, not a certainty, still it can make an enormous difference in value, and in our perceived appreciation.

In other words we've bought the story.

If all this is so, and Paul Bloom appears to have demonstrated that it is so, then this raises a question:-

Exactly what is it that we appreciate, enjoy, and pay good money for when we indulge ourselves in our interest and add another keris to the collection?

Are we paying for the keris, appreciating the keris, or are we feeding something in our sub-conscious that helps us to escape from the mundane?

A long time ago I coined a phrase:- "The Silk Road Syndrome" .

I intended it to refer to that nostalgic longing that many of us have for 'far away places with strange sounding names'. The empty spaces. The sunlit beaches. The smell of incense in the still evening air. A temple gong whispering through a purple twilight.

Thoughts and half memories that play unbidden in the back of our minds and help us get through another trial balance, another oil change, another brick in the wall --- depending upon how we support ourselves.

It occurs to me that when we add that extra keris --- or whatever --- to the collection, what we are really doing is contributing to our life support system. Putting something in place that helps us to open a window to a world a little less mundane than the one we live in, and in turn help us to keep focused on the need to plod on with burden of job, family, career.

The object of our collecting becomes a key that opens that window.



I would welcome the thoughts of others on the link between the appreciation of art and objects and the maintenance of sanity in a world that is rapidly decreasing in size at the same time that it is equally rapidly increasing in ordinariness.

[Gustav]

There is almost nothing to add.

It seems to me, if we reduce all what is grown culturally around a certain thing, there stays a fetish. Fetish is absolutely necessary for a human mind. What kind of fetish it is, depends on familiar background (also historical period), ambitions and intellectual abilities of a person (which mostly are not equally developed and serve as a lovely entertaining picture for some comparatively seen wise people). And the layer of civilisation is probably thinner and lesser as one can expect, even if persons are regarded and regard themselves as intellectual.

[Rick]

I read a short story .
That story led me to the keris .
The Keris led me here .
This forum exists because of that story .



Add me to the Silk Road Gang, maritime branch . :D

I have two named maker pieces, both are signifigant to Modern Keris history .

Mostly I buy for the keris; I see keris making as an exercise in achieving excellence within a proscribed form (Haiku in Iron?) .
The challenge is to be able to recognise that excellence when it is seen .

I bought the story years ago . ;)

[A. G. Maisey]

Ah, well.

Rick, I think you perhaps might suffer from the equally well known Conrad Syndrome, rather than the Silk Road Syndrome.

I used to suffer from this myself, after I saw a movie that focused heavily on Surabaya and sailing ships. I was probably about 12 at the time.

But I'm cured now.

[drdavid]

Without inspiration and dreams where would we be? Those and a lot of persistance make for a full life.

[BluErf]

We all justify our purchases/collections.

My dad thinks my kerises are worth little and I have thrown all my money down the drain... But they are worth the world to me, and I would spend a huge part of my disposable income on them. :D

[Gustav]

Me too.

[Rick]

Sorry ?

Just bought a newer car .
Having the kitchen remodeled .
Added a Garden Shed, and maybe air conditioning .

What is this substance you refer to as "disposable income" ? :confused: :D

[Paul Duffy]

Alan,
What a wonderful fire-ball to throw into the Keris-Warung- Kopi hearth,the puzzlying nature of human pleasure.I've not read the book,but in a review I see that the author argues that pleasure is not primarily a response to certain perceptual and sensory experiences,but instead has a significant cognitive component,what we think about has a huge impact on how much pleasure we derive from it.
I'm a collector of keris,my appreciation was,and still is the complexity of a keris.I have,over time come to understand that a keris comprises many components,handle and fittings,sheath,and blade.I certainly gain more knowledge about the keris,and the community in which they were and still are made and used by reading,looking at as many keris as I can,and by visiting this site.
I know that part of my pleasure is being able to learn more,I suppose why else would I be here on the web.
But my pleasure is not in the dollar value,although it is a factor.Business and pleasure can co-exist
I enjoy showing keris to friends,collectors and non-collectors who are interested.
I sometimes wonder if the pleasure is just the ability to escape from the discipline of every-day working life.But then why not just listen to Bill Frissell playing jazz guitar,or almost any Beethoven music.
I don't know why I don't have the same fascination for Japanese,or Indian edged weapons,,why do I get more pleasure from keris,especially those from
Java.
I think it is a very subjective issue,and I agree that many friends and family don't share my pleasure.Though some do,it's hard not to resist the odour of Indonesia.Once a friend picks up a keris,looks at the blade,wonders about the pamour,or sniffs scented wood then they have been affected by the fire ball.

[BluErf]

Sorry ?

Just bought a newer car .
Having the kitchen remodeled .
Added a Garden Shed, and maybe air conditioning .

What is this substance you refer to as "disposable income" ? :confused: :D

Sorry, let me call it by a better name - "self-actualization funds" :D I aspire towards building the best keris collection in Singapore!! :D

Now you'd have motivation to get a smaller car, live with the good ol' kitchen and do without the shed that you never actually needed... :p :p :p

[Rick]

:D :D :D :D

Words escape me right now !!

Are you a married Guy Kai Wee ? ;) :D

Yes, the kerisses take me away from the mundane plastic world that we endure daily .
An investment in sanity if you will .

[RSWORD]

A great and complicated question. I think my pleasure in collecting involves a number of aspects.

The first is the thrill of the hunt. I think there is a little bit of treasure hunter in all of us. Rummaging through an old garage sale and stumbling onto a nice antique weapon, albeit a rarer occurance these days, is quite enjoyable.

The second is having a tangible link to the past. I think we collectors have vivid imaginations and I like to imagine the journey a 300 year old sword has had from point of origin to my hands today. I have learned more about world history through the study of swords than I ever did in the classroom. But letting my imagination run rampant is most enjoyable.

The third is an appreciation of the skill and artistry exhibited in these pieces. These aesthetics bring joy to the artistic side of my brain. When you look closely there are always so many minute points of detail to enjoy. From time to time, I find something new to enjoy in a piece I have had for years and this is enjoyable. The old saying, "They don't make them like they used to" is so true.

I have noticed that the more I learn about my sword collection the more I appreciate what I have. It seems the more I appreciate what I have, the more I want to learn. It is a never ending loop.

[David]

A great and complicated question. I think my pleasure in collecting involves a number of aspects.
The first is the thrill of the hunt. I think there is a little bit of treasure hunter in all of us. Rummaging through an old garage sale and stumbling onto a nice antique weapon, albeit a rarer occurance these days, is quite enjoyable.
The second is having a tangible link to the past. I think we collectors have vivid imaginations and I like to imagine the journey a 300 year old sword has had from point of origin to my hands today. I have learned more about world history through the study of swords than I ever did in the classroom. But letting my imagination run rampant is most enjoyable.
The third is an appreciation of the skill and artistry exhibited in these pieces. These aesthetics bring joy to the artistic side of my brain. When you look closely there are always so many minute points of detail to enjoy. From time to time, I find something new to enjoy in a piece I have had for years and this is enjoyable. The old saying, "They don't make them like they used to" is so true.
Rick echos some of my thoughts on the question with a few adjustments.
The first is the thrill of the hunt.
Must admit there is nothing like finding a great buy in an unusual place. Hardly the first concern for me as i tend to buy most of my keris from established dealers. But every now and then finding an undiscovered treasure can be exhilarating. :)
The second is having a tangible link to the past.
I think this is an important one for me. The vast majority of my collection are antique keris. It isn't important to me if it once belonged to a peasant or a sultan, but i am most interested in keris that actual found a life within the context of a past Indonesian culture. So the exact story is relatively unimportant to me. I am more interested that there is an undiscovered and perhaps undiscoverable story there. Actually the only keris i ever bought for the "story" was a contemporary Maduran naga keris of little quality, but it was once owned by the captain of the Picton Castle, a three-masted barque that yearly sails clear around the world with stops in Bali. I was fascinated by how well travelled this piece was since it had circumnavigated the global many, many times making it perhaps the most well-travelled keris in the world. :)
I know the story is true because i bought it from the captain himself, who proudly showed me his replacement keris a rather gaudy naga with nasty brass "kinatah" all over it. I much preferred his older, less adorned companion. It was a story and concept well worth the $50 i paid for it. :)
The third is an appreciation of the skill and artistry exhibited in these pieces.
This is most definitely a major consideration for me. I simply marvel at the sheer beauty of the keris, from blade to even the simplest of dress. This is what also keeps me open to acquiring contemporary pieces from time to time as i can maintain in my collection levels of artistic achievement that i might not otherwise be able to afford in an antique keris. I must disagree Rick, because i think that in many way they do still "make them like they used to" and in some ways they make them even better (artistically). The levels of artistic accomplishment in keris making today are superb.
I would also add that for me the interest of keris goes beyond history and into mystery. I am fascinated by the mythology behind it and the culture from which it is born, living on the edge between the seen and unseen worlds. There is a lure of magick and mysticism here, which while horribly over played to the gullible for commercial allure is non-the-less a reality that is special to a time and a place that is presently at risk of vanishing completely from the face of the earth.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you gentlemen for your responses, and I do hope more responses from others will follow.

Reading these responses what I am seeing is a recital of the reasons why we collect, as we ourselves see those reasons.

Speaking for myself, I am uncertain that I can clearly identify why I continue to collect keris. The keris has been a part of my life for so long that taking a keris into my care has become almost an automatic response. In recent years, say, the last ten years or so, when I buy a keris that I identify as one that is to be kept, it is almost as if on the first moment that I see it, there is a cord that runs from the keris to me. I usually do not examine it critically, and condition is of absolutely no importance, that keris goes home with me. Other times I will buy a keris for myself just because I recognise its quality, or rarity, but often a purchase of this type lacks that "connective" element.

So, that's how I buy, but why do I buy?

I don't really know, except that it is what I do.

However, if I go back a long way in time, I can very clearly recall that being in contact with keris was something that took me into another world. Maybe the reason why this doesn't happen now is because to a large extent I have been living in that other world --- albeit a modern version of it --- for many years now.

We can all probably rationalise our collecting in one way or another, however, I would like to put forth the idea that at its roots, our collecting is an emotional activity that is the product of memories and experiences stored in the sub-conscious, and the activities that we undertake when we collect, give us with access to those stored memories and experiences, providing pleasure and assisting in the maintenance of mental balance in our increasingly difficult world.

As Rick said:-

An investment in sanity if you will .

[Jean]

So, that's how I buy, but why do I buy?

I don't really know, except that it is what I do.



Dear all,
I basically agree with what has been said but just want to add this:

Collecting is a state of mind and an addiction (ask your family and friends) but unlike drinking, gambling, or taking drugs it is a positive one in my opinion.
Best regards
Jean

[Rick]

Jean, addiction is a bit strong; no ? ;)
An Addict would bankrupt himself collecting ... :D :eek:

For me; I collect when I can; but I know someday it will also be time for me to stop .
I will be content with what I have .

A collection can be a great burden on one's heirs .
Museums just let 'em rust . :shrug:

[Laowang]

Jean, addiction is a bit strong; no ? ;)
An Addict would bankrupt himself collecting ... :D :eek:

For me; I collect when I can; but I know someday it will also be time for me to stop .
I will be content with what I have .

A collection can be a great burden on one's heirs .
Museums just let 'em rust . :shrug:

Apropos of your posting, Rick:

When there is possession, there must be loss of possession; when there is a gathering together, there must be a scattering - this is the constant principle in things. Someone loses a bow; another person finds a bow; what's so special in that? The reason why I have recorded this story from beginning to end in such detail is to let it serve as a warning for scholars and collectors in later generations.

from Records on Metal and Stone, Li Qing-zhao, written during the second year of the Shao-xing Reign (1132), Song Dynasty, China

The collecting of things appears to fulfill some deep-seated need on our part as humans; my only disagreement with Alan's hypothesis would be that it is not just a modern phenomenon, as we can date collecting in China to as far back as the Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE). Perhaps the need for refuge from everyday life was as great back then as it is now.

[A. G. Maisey]

Laowang, your quotation is accurate and appropriate, and cannot be faulted.

However, I will offer one correction:-

I have not put forward a hypothesis.

What I am looking for is the opinions of others in respect of the foundations of our appreciation of those things which we may choose to collect.

[Rick]

Should we look to the fetish bag as possibly the first incarnation of collecting ?

[A. G. Maisey]

Rick, what started my reflections upon this question was what I understood as related in my first post.

It appears that when we encounter something we think about that something not objectively, in isolation from all our previous experience, but subjectively . It appears that we cannot but react in this way. So, when we encounter something that relates to our field of collecting we are already thinking about that something in terms of what we already have in our minds. In other words, we cannot but help to "buy the story".

Perhaps not the story that is laid before us by Mr. Shonk, but rather the story that we probably self generated in our own sub-conscious from various inputs over a length of time. If asked, we could probably not even identify the "story" that is influencing us.

My enquiry is an attempt to get each of us to try to look into the very foundations of his own urge to collect.

We might have one person who identifies his collecting urge with investment, perhaps because of something he read or some experience that has convinced him he is wiser to place money into matchbox cars than into blue chips.

We might have somebody who begins to float (mentally , a la morphine) when he handles particular type of paper weight.

Perhaps a type of hairpin might take somebody back to childhood in grandma's house, so that person collects hairpins, in order to revisit a gentler time with each handling of a hairpin. The collector of hairpins probably does not consciously know this, but he or she does know that when the hairpin is handled an indefinable warm glow occurs.

All sorts of different things could cause all sorts of different reactions, and these different causes are currently what my thoughts are concerned with.

You told us that you "read a short story", and that awkened your interest in the keris. Very well, accepted. But what did that short story implant into your mind, and what effect does that implantation have upon your perception and appreciation of the keris?

Do you understand where I'm going with this?

[BluErf]

:D :D :D :D

Words escape me right now !!

Are you a married Guy Kai Wee ? ;) :D

Yes, the kerisses take me away from the mundane plastic world that we endure daily .
An investment in sanity if you will .

Yes, I'm married :) I convinced my wife that it was gd investment. :D

[Rick]

I bow in your general direction , Sir . :D

[Rick]

Rick, what started my reflections upon this question was what I understood as related in my first post.

these different causes are currently what my thoughts are concerned with.

You told us that you "read a short story", and that awkened your interest in the keris. Very well, accepted. But what did that short story implant into your mind, and what effect does that implantation have upon your perception and appreciation of the keris?

Do you understand where I'm going with this?

Alan, you know that I am not the most eloquent of communicators .

So I must quote; this is a snippet of the implant and the dream and longing it awoke :

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We knew him in those unprotected days when we were content to hold in our hands our lives and our property. None of us, I believe, has any property now, and I hear that many, negligently, have lost their lives; but I am sure that the few who survive are not yet so dim-eyed as to miss in the befogged respectability of their newspapers the intelligence of various native risings in the Eastern Archipelago. Sunshine gleams between the lines of those short paragraphs--sunshine and the glitter of the sea. A strange name wakes up memories; the printed words scent the smoky atmosphere of to-day faintly, with the subtle and penetrating perfume as of land breezes breathing through the starlight of bygone nights; a signal fire gleams like a jewel on the high brow of a sombre cliff; great trees, the advanced sentries of immense forests, stand watchful and still over sleeping stretches of open water; a line of white surf thunders on an empty beach, the shallow water foams on the reefs; and green islets scattered through the calm of noonday lie upon the level of a polished sea, like a handful of emeralds on a buckler of steel.

There are faces too--faces dark, truculent, and smiling; the frank audacious faces of men barefooted, well armed and noiseless. They thronged the narrow length of our schooner's decks with their ornamented and barbarous crowd, with the variegated colours of checkered sarongs, red turbans, white jackets, embroideries; with the gleam of scabbards, gold rings, charms, armlets, lance blades, and jewelled handles of their weapons. They had an independent bearing, resolute eyes, a restrained manner; and we seem yet to hear their soft voices speaking of battles, travels, and escapes; boasting with composure, joking quietly; sometimes in well-bred murmurs extolling their own valour, our generosity; or celebrating with loyal enthusiasm the virtues of their ruler. We remember the faces, the eyes, the voices, we see again the gleam of silk and metal; the murmuring stir of that crowd, brilliant, festive, and martial; and we seem to feel the touch of friendly brown hands that, after one short grasp, return to rest on a chased hilt."

Bang !!!

I was a goner .
I had my connection to the dreams, longings, and adventure of my Youth in something tangible .

[rasdan]

Hi all,
Given this some quick thought and here it is. These are normal stuff, all I had done is put it in writing and I may not be able to defend this much. I had a lot of stuff going on in my mind and I just write up whatever goes through at the moment with no critical analysis. Sorry if i got it all wrong or if i go out of topic.

From what I see, 3 general factors that govern lives of most of us are God, Glory and Gold (first figure). I think there’s a clear relationship between gold and glory. The relationship between God and the other two is subjective to our perception and sensitive and I’m not going to touch that. If we agree that these are the main purpose of our life then, everything that we do would evolve around these three factors. (Not all of the purposes are my own purposes in life/collecting, i am just trying to generalise what is the common objectives and I am not suggesting these as your goals in life/collecting as well)

Now, we have an “extra” purpose in our lives which is keris collecting. The three normal purposes why people collect and/or study keris are investment, status symbol and historic values/cultural relationship. While collecting as a tool for our investment and status symbol is quite obvious, there’s also people who collect/keep keris for it’s historic values/cultural relationship. These kerises are kept by museums, inheritors and general keris enthusiasts.

The common governing factor in achieving the first two objectives for collecting (investment and status) is quality. While inheritors and museums commonly can’t be bothered by quality, general keris enthusiasts will most likely go for that as a human nature (be it tangible or not).
If we construct the three purposes for collecting in a set (as we did in the first figure), we can see that this “extra” purpose is not really an extra since there’s a strong relationship between the two initial purpose of life - gold and glory with investment and status. Indirectly, investment and status can also be indirectly linked to God/doing good which again won’t discuss here.

So, is there any link for people that collect keris for its history and cultural relationships with God/doing any good? I think it also got something to do with quality. Since most collectors would spend most of their time trying to understand this. – To get a better investment and portrayal of their status. Along the way we actually collect experience and knowledge. Not just about keris but about life in general.

Therefore, the key word here is understanding quality. We can’t collect keris with the single aim of, say status symbol alone. For example, when we collect keris as a status symbol it is like wearing “nice” clothes when going to the mall or to the office. Why can’t we be bothered to dress like that when going to bed? Coz no one’s looking. Who decides whether our clothes are cool or not? It’s the media. Quality can be secondary in this business. Women can wear stilettos and hurt their ankles and say that’s quality fashion wear. People can have their hair dyed purple and if the TV people say that it’s cool, they would probably think that they are on the right track. You can wear a plain sweater you got for Christmas to the office but if the media says it is out of date and you look like a geek you may end up throwing it away.

However on second thought, when we know quality and choose to keep a high quality keris it does not mean that we are after the status or investment. (Which makes Figure 2 inaccurate (?) any other suggestions?.. now i myself am confused :D). Ok, nevermind the diagram. If we know to quantify quality, we can have a keris, keep it in a drawer and studies/wonders about its history and feel good about it without relying on weather other people say it’s good or not. In other words, we must know the real quality. Not just the stuff commonly understood by normal people. Again, to achieve that level we must undergo the quality identification/quantification process described above. It takes knowledge to quantify quality and if we really know quality we can’t be bothered what other people say about it.

So, what’s quality got to do with God/doing good? It lies in the knowledge gained in attaining the knowledge about it.

A big time keris collector and a long time dealer/collector in Malaysia died last year. For the big time collector, none of his children enjoys keris very much. They are very rich people and his children had chosen to leave the kerises in his private gallery. As for the other one dealer/collector, his collections were sold off by his son. No more glory, no more gold to enjoy. What is left is the good that they had done.

In conclusion, my current opinion is that although investment, status symbol and cultural/history purposes in keris collecting may lead to doing something good, quality understanding is the most important part in keris collecting since it would lead to the ultimate objective(?) in collecting which is probably to leave a trail of useful and critical knowledge that would be useful to one's nation or perhaps to mankind – true keris making skills, knowledge and quality publications that have good references and would stand to critical evaluation. Unfortunately, i think we will need more than 20 years of critical experience before we can even consider leaving our "trail of knowledge" or we may run the risk of spreading the wrong knowledge IMHO. This "trail of knowledge" would complete "Link x" in Figure 1. i.e I am suggesting that whatever purpose we have in life we must link it with God/doing good.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Rick, that's exactly where I'm going.

Trying to identify what goes on in our minds.

As I said, you suffer from the Conrad Syndrome. This quote is from Karain, isn't it?

I was born in 1941, in the middle of WWII, so in 1945 when it concluded, I would have been only four years old. My mother's cousin was an inmate of Changi prison camp during WWII, and at the conclusion of hostilities he chose not to return to Australia, but to go back into Malaya (as it was then) and live with a woman he had met before he became an inmate of Changi. Sometime after that, maybe one or two years, I really don't know how long, but I was still a little kid, he came back to Australia to visit his mother, before going back to Malaya again. I was present at the family meeting that celebrated his return, I heard the stories and they made a lasting impression.

During the time he was in Malaya he sent small gifts home to his mother. One of those gifts was a keris. This was the first keris that I handled, and I can still remember it, 60 odd years later.

A lot more experience and knowledge came after that, but my mother's cousin living in Malaya was the beginning, and the physical keris was originally the link to the imagined place from his stories, and the retold stories about him that I overheard from the adults around me.

[A. G. Maisey]

Rasdan, I doubt that I have ever read a better logical analysis of the motivation to collect.

If this is the result of your "quick thought " process, your "deep thought" process frightens me.

However, this is not really what interests me at the moment. I'm trying to go beyond the rational and logical to the emotional foundation.

Human beings can learn to be rational and logical, but the human nature is an emotional one that logic and rationality are grafted onto.

What I'm trying to do is identify that emotional level, the level which underlies the logical level.

What goes on in our minds to cause something else to happen?

I started this thread with reference to the work of Prof. Bloom, where he puts forward evidence to support the idea that we cannot appreciate art in a vacuum. The art is appreciated against a sub conscious background that has been constructed from our previous experience.

If this applies to art, and Prof. Bloom seems to have demonstrated that it does, then it probably applies to most other things within the human experience.

The appreciation of what we are concerned with here, that is, keris, is very close to, indeed overlaps, the appreciation of art.

What I am looking for are the emotional strands that underlie that appreciation.

[Rick]

I went for my first sail when I was 6 months .

Harrison Smith was my ancestor; we always had exotic pieces around the house .
http://www.pacsoa.org.au/places/Tahiti/tahitiB.html
He died before I was 1 .

I grew up on the Water .

I read The Pearl Lagoon .

Might as well blame NC Wyeth, Frank Schoonover. and others of the great Illustraters as well .

Stevenson; who can leave him out ?

Arthur Ransome was my first favorite author .
Peter Duck; now there's good kid's yarn .

Patrick O'Brian my last .
O'Brian was the frosting on the cake .

I believe all these experiences created the emotional strands for me .

I was set up !


Rick

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for the additions Rick.

That's exactly it. The formative influences that create a matrix in the sub conscious against which we measure things.When we get a hit, that triggers feelings, and these feelings motivate us.

How about 'The Coral Island', did that get a run? Kids stuff, yeah, but it made a mark in its day.

'Two Years Before the Mast'?

[Rick]

Ah Man, I was set up from birth, I'm afraid . :D
I think some of us lucky Westerners are .

For me the keris undoubtedly represents these feelings and emotions in a tangible form .

I just wish I had found the keris earlier in my life .

Those paragraphs from Conrad I quoted ?
They set me on fire .

Coral Island .
I'll look it up .

[drdavid]

I think I have a handle on what you are getting at now Alan.
As you know I am a keen collector of Japanese art and I have explored my emotional links to this but until you asked the question I had not really thought about my emotional links to the keris.
They seem to stem from my family which is not because of Javanese connections, I am fifth generation australian, with Irish and English on both sides. My family does not follow a pattern of occupations, we have tradesmen, professionals, farmers, public servants, priests, artists and a few eccentrics including my grandfather's brother and his son. Both sadly deceased, both fascinating gents.
Stan my great uncle owned a private museum at Kurnell south of Sydney. Kurnell is famous in Australia as the place where Captain Cook first set foot on mainland Australia. It was full of exotic things, jaws of great white sharks, old divers suits, steam cars, convict chains, settlers gear and also some old weaponary. And now that I think back I'm sure that was the first place I ever saw a keris. Stan told me some of his collection came from the East Indies, which was as exotic a place as a kid could think of in Australia in the early 1960's.
His son Roy was a dealer in second hand stuff, not antiques just second hand anything. His shop was in Sutherland which I know was not far from where you grew up. He accumulated personal collections of all sorts of things, I remember his shaving mug collection particularly. Roy gave me my first edged weapon, an old Martini Henry bayonet, and whenever something else turned up he would let me know. I collected knives and swords and bayonets for quite a long time but eventually they all got put away and forgotton about.........Until somewhere 40 years or more down the track keris turned up in my life again and it immediately became necessary to collect them. Those 2 relatives have a lot to answer for. I remember them fondly :D

[rasdan]

G'day Alan,

A bit of a correction. It's not really a quick thought, it had been in my mind for quite sometime, i just recalled it back and put it in some organisation.

Well it seems that my mind is working at the obvious surface level. I gotta change my mindset from an engineer to an architect. :)

As for me, my interest in keris probably came from old movies. Sensing my interest, my grandfather made me a wooden keris when i was 6 years old. I played with it everyday. In the same year my second uncle (which is younger than me) and i sneaked into his father's room, opened the closet to handle my great grandfather's keris.

Probably it is not really interest in keris, but in weapons actually- because i also liked other daggers/machettes and if i can i would also like to play with my great grandfather's shotgun, but that one is kept by another relative. :)

I can't forget that day. That's the first time i have the thought - One day I'm gonna get a keris for me!!

[David]

Like Rick i grew up on the ocean (or close enough to get to in a 20 min. car ride) in an area that historically saw a lot of sailing, boat building, fishing etc. I suppose i had very early dreams of going to sea and found fascination at a young age with whalers and their travels to exotic places like the South Seas. Read Moby Dick and Treasure Island at a very young age and devoured historical books on whaling and pirates. So right there i suppose there is the set-up for a love of the South Seas and swords. But this does seem, at least to me, to be a bit of a given for most children, at least in the western world. Sort of like my early interest in dinosaurs. I mean, isn't that every small boy's interest.
I have also always had a very strong interest in anything old, so even as a kid i loved kicking around flea markets and antique stores. They have always been like museums to me, except that if you have the money you can actually buy the stuff and bring it home with you. :) But even people's old junk is interesting to me, appealing, i suppose, to the sociologist is me.
Now i also have always had a strong interest in science, the stars, space travel and science fiction. Again, not all that strange for small boy growing up in the American culture. I have also been a collector of things since i was very young and have always collected rocks, fossils, shells, coins, stamps, feathers, old bottles, old cameras, etc. Yes, this drives my wife crazy as i still have substantial amounts of all these collections about the house.
As a teenager i began to find interest in eastern philosophies and mysticism. My mom used to read stories of Greek mythology, Native American legends and folktales to me as a child that were all packed with acts of remarkable deeds and magick. This led me onto a spiritual path and a strong interest in the concepts of magick and how different cultures apply themselves to magick and the search for spiritual connection. So this has been a focus of study for me for the past 35 years.
So, one fine day in 1981 i was on vacation in New Hampshire and i was kicking around an antiques flea market. I discovered a Moro kris that just grabbed my attention and imagination. Neither i nor the seller had any clue what it was, but of course i had to have it. I was living in NYC at the time so when i got home i took it into the curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to find out what i had bought. He IDed it as Moro and somewhat misleadingly discribed them as pirates and spoke just a bit about the mystical connection the Moros had with these swords. I had to know more, but i didn't have much luck. No too much later a self-styled "shaman" friend of mine was leaving town and wanting to lighten his load. He knew of my interest in my Moro kris and offered to sell me a Javanese keris he had. I could see the connection in the blade form, but didn't really fully understand it at the time. Still, i had a hard time finding any information, not really knowing where to look. Then i just happened to find a Hilton Horizons travel magazine that a street book vendor was selling with 2 javanese keris on the cover. Inside was the article "Beauty, Magic and Powers of the Keris" with numerous full page color photos. It describes a number of legends of the keris and the (again misleading) notion that all keris were made from meteoric pamor. So we now have this incredible convergence of life long interests for me. The South Seas, pirates, magick and mysticism, heroic legends of valor, glory and bravery and, last, but not least, star metal from outer space. And as if to add just one more synchronicity i come to discover that one of the early accepted published works on keris was written by Gardner who i was already well aware of as the father of modern Wicca. Gentlemen, i think this is what is commonly referred to as "The Perfect Storm". ;) :D
It took a few more years until i discovered the internet before my collection really began to flourish. I must say that i blame this site. :) The only other reference i had managed to find up until then is the wonderful coffee table book Court Arts of Indonesia, but stumbling upon this place was like a godsend.....well, perhaps not for my pocket book. From 1981 - 2004 i had collected only the 2 blades. Since then i have added well over 50 blades to my collection. :o ;) :)

[A. G. Maisey]

I most sincerely thank you all, gentlemen.

The responses that are coming in now are exactly in the order of what I was looking for, and they demonstrate, I believe, the emotional foundations of our shared interest, not only that, but those emotional foundations seem to have a distinct similarity , a similarity that in all cases stretches back to the time when we were children. None of us are now capable of considering any keris in the absence of that stored experience that stretches back through our lives and creates a mindset that automatically comes into play when we bring the keris to mind.

Seems to me that we have "bought the story", and cannot give it back.

I do hope we will continue to get further contributions to this thread.

Dr. David, it seems I have had some dealings with your relatives.

I have visited that musium at Kurnell when I was a kid, and I also made purchases from several antique dealers who had shops in Sutho. I bought a Moro keris from a bloke in the arcade that runs through to Eton St., and I bought a shamshir from a dealer who had his shop down where the old movie show used to be in Boyle St.. In fact, there seemed to be several dealers and an auction room in that Boyle St. location, they changed position from time to time, and might have even been the same person, I don't know.I bought a few other things from the Boyle St. dealers too, I forget what now, but they got regular visits from me.

Sutho has changed a lot now. Used to be a blacksmith in Boyle Lane. Still got and use a spud bar that my dad got him to make from a truck axle in 1948. One of my kids recently bought a yuppy style townhouse in one of the new little dead end streets that sit in behind President Avenue, just up the road from where I went to school in a weatherboard classroom with no heating in winter, and no insulation in summer. President Avenue was a gravel road then.

Time changes all things.

[Rick]

"Time changes all things ."

Is that not one reason we collect ?
An attempt to freeze (in a tangible form) that which is being lost .

[BluErf]

David, there are many points in your experience that resonates strongly with mine. The keris is like the jack that we use to plug into "the Matrix". :)

For me, years after my initial connection and bonding with the keris, I had a second "epiphany" of sorts. That was when I got in touch with the North Malay Peninsula kerises. It is hard to describe, but it had to do with the beauty of the flow of lines in the keris blades, the sheaths and the hilts, and the indescribable aesthetic presence that top-class pieces exuded. It changed the way I looked at kerises, and a keris was no longer just a seemingly pretty and interesting thing that I collect. It had to have that 'balanced flow of the lines' perfectly melded with the natural beauty of the organic parts and the man-made beauty of the metal parts. The keris became something that captured the intangible inspired vision of the makers. Something wondrous taken out of the unseen realm and given shape using temporal materials... It was a whole new experience for me, and I guess it is true that I'm looking for my "next fix" in my collecting journey, and I haven't been quite getting a sufficiently high dosage... :D ...and it sometimes drives me mad thinking about it...

[A. G. Maisey]

No Rick, I don't think so.

It may be one of the reasons public collections are put together, but I am increasingly certain that the reason we --- that is, you, I and other private collectors collect is based purely in emotion.

The idea of conserving something may come as a later, logical addition to our primary emotional drive, but without emotion at the wheel, there would be no collection to conserve.

[Jussi M.]

Greetings,

What can be said that has not been put forth already? I´ll add a spin:

Buying is a ritual.

Acquiring new pieces to ones collection is a task of advancing the "whole" of which the act of acquisition - the ritual - is a tangible part of. The "whole" in question is the egotistical/spiritual pursuit of becoming one with something/separating oneself from the current. - Escapism or pursuit if you will.

The collection per se is thus a vehicle one uses to get to ones desired destination which, of course, is an oxymoron as the more experienced/jaded the collector becomes the further the destination appears as there really is no destination to be reached by the act of collecting. This so unless we see the process of collecting per se as the destination by which time you realize this your original motives have given way to a new set of motives, which in turn feed the phenomena from another perspective until yet another layer of motives surface. This is what we see as maturation though it really is just a new beginning; a newly found amateurism and the joy that comes with it. Or, the acceptance of a failure which gives way for a new attempt from a different angle. Thus the process of collecting is, in itself, the desired destination in motion.


The logic behind?

You are what you buy - you want to become one with what has previously described in this thread as the story? - you become one by performing the ritual(s)!

Or rather, in you subconsciousness you rationalize it to be so. There was a time (speaking from a typical Western mindset now) that we were what we did. As the modernization brought fragmentation and multiple virtual and real realities that shattered the route of becoming by doing a new route was established: becoming by consuming. On a consumer culture we manifest and actualize ourselves (again speaking from the typical Western mindset and surroundings) by consuming. Thus the acquisition of kerises (buying) on a way really does, on a perverted way of sorts continue the original tasks the keris originally stood for. On a way perhaps the roles of the keris have not changed but the surroundings and the ways in which we fullfil and describe these roles in these surroundings have.

What we are discussing here is, after all, (consumer) behaviour.

If it is so that consumerism and marketing have taken the role (again speaking from the typical Western viewpoint) of religion and spiritualism then the act of collecting is a religious/spiritual ritual. Yes?

Can it be so that the original keris culture has not ceased to exist but that it has - partly - found new ways to express itself on the 21st century via and by the collecting community that centers on it?

So, yes. I agree that the story is it. What I am interested though is what gave initiation for the story and motivates it if not escapism or pursuit as put forth above?

Thanks,

J.

[A. G. Maisey]

Jussi, I feel that what you have given us is what I would categorise as "modern marketing theory" :-

the same psychological game that (supposedly) gets us to buy that cherry red , drop top sports car with 400 horses under the bonnet

we have seen the nightly ads on TV, with Little Miss Lovely draped over it in almost nothing except a diamond choker and impossibly high heels

we have seen the ads in "Financial Review" of it parked outside the most exclusive club in town

we've got a spare 3 million in our hip pocket

what better way to get rid of it than by buying a few dreams?

But can we scratch a wee bit deeper than this?

Come back to my original post to this thread.

Why did Josh Bell take $32 in the subway on one day, and $25,000 the following day when he climbed onto a stage?

What is the difference between a painting that is attributed to Vermeer, and one that is not?

Maybe what you have written is touching on what I'm trying to get at, but I feel it is touching on it as an overlay, not as a part of the foundation.

What is going on in our minds?

Perhaps you may care to think a little more on this question?

[Emanuel]

I started collecting due to a life-long interest in swords. I had no direct connection to them, but when I was six or seven I coveted an uncle's army/hunting knife.
My first swords were the stainless steel repro variety from the local shopping mall. I got my first real sword or dagger when I discovered ebay in 2005, joined this forum and got a keris from Henk, followed by a takouba, a khukri and so on. None of them had any specific story, or provenance or attribution, but I got an interesting feeling when holding them. I had an interesting dream about a keris the night before I received the one from Henk. I had no such feeling from a 10lb "ginuwine Toledo sword" that my sister brought me from a trip to Spain.

Since then I've been adding to the collection whenever I can. I've been snatching up flissa whenever possible even though I wonder "do I really need another?". I think humans are hoarders by nature. We find something we like and we try to accumulate as much of it as possible. Why else collect dozens of the same identical object? We feel good having many versions of the same thing. I find it odd that we don't get tired of them. Don't they get boring and mundane when we have dozens or hundreds of them? Pictures of Spiral's khukri walls and some of the keris collections come to mind.
I do discriminate, however. I only like khukri with the pre-WWI lines and hardly care for the British patterns. I love the British 1796 LC and HC sabres because of their proportions and fine lines, not because collectors say they are desirable. I fell in love with a picture of a flissa before I read about it. I generally go for pieces that look like they've been used once in their lives.

My collection room feels almost like an old church when I step in it and not for any spiritual/religious reason. I get the same feeling of old use and faint traces of what came before. I handle the pieces, examine them and think briefly about their lives before putting them back on the wall. I think that despite the modern ideal of consumerism we crave anchors to the past. We need something that has endured the test of time, perhaps especially when we undergo lots of change. I've moved around a fair bit in my life before settling here in Toronto. Perhaps elder collectors here have seen the quick pace of societal and technological change over the past century and look for something constant and unchanging? Keris may be newly produced, but the keris system is old and not too prone to change.

Would we feel different if tomorrow we found out that all the books on arms and all the fellow collectors here were a huge hoax? That our flissas, tulwars, khukris and keris were made within the past 80 years in a prop factory for 1920s Hollywood?

[Emanuel]

Another thought...

Perhaps we do indeed fetishize our collections' significance in their lives and through them live what we cannot directly achieve. They had a clear purpose and they were very important to their makers, owners, their societies. They did what we cannot, went where we cannot. We harken to that feeling of usefulness and purpose when that seems to be lacking these days. The tool had a strict purpose and its user had an equally well-defined purpose. Use the tool for the specific objective. These days it seems like much of our lives lacks purpose. Go to school, get higher education, get a "respectable" job, get an office, get a house, get a car, get a tv, watch tv garbage, conform to standards, perpetuate the cycle with offspring. Once in a while achieve something relevant to the multitudes at large and be widely remembered.

In counter-point, loads of people care not a damn about old things. They crave change and piles of rusty swords are garbage. I think these people are crazy and dangerous...

Of course there is also obsessive compulsion. Collect paper clips...paper clips are safe...touch object that came into contact with other objects of idolatry and fetishism... :shrug:

I prefer the thought of collectors as wardens, keepers and caretakers of the world's material culture for collective memory.

[Jussi M.]

Jussi, I feel that what you have given us is what I would categorise as "modern marketing theory" (...)

But can we scratch a wee bit deeper than this?

Maybe what you have written is touching on what I'm trying to get at, but I feel it is touching on it as an overlay, not as a part of the foundation. (...)

Perhaps you may care to think a little more on this question?

Greetings Mr. Maisey,

I was not implying to marketing or advertising per se but what lies beneath it. - Yes, advertising tries to exploit the phenomena we are talking about by riding on top of it hoping to catch the wave (and building them from scratch) so to speak but the phenomena we are addressing is born within - not something that can be put forth from outside unless there is a craving already.

We humans want to go further and achieve our goals of which the highest is happiness (self-actualization). We become happy by advancing towards our goals. What ever might be associated with happiness thus becomes a vehicle that could take us towards it. Buying and money per se have absolutely nothing to do with it except that they have become the norm to get them vehicles which one uses to close with what one identifies as the bringer of oneness I. happiness. This is why a fake Vermeer is not OK. If it were one would willingly accept redemption.

Would one willingly choose a fake God on his side?

No. This is why we accept to sacrifice (pay) a lot for the original but become angered if deceived. - Whilst both the original and fake might appear similar in appearance it is only the original which has the power to bring us closer to oneness / happiness.

In my opinion the story per se is therefore not it.

It is the values embedded within and evoked by the story that are it. The story is merely a vehicle to get to the source which paradoxically or not lies within our very own value system and the preconception formed by it. We humans are, by nature, social predators. Thus there is "always" a social element in everything we do whether the act itself be of a social nature or not. An act done in seclusion of, say in ones own study room, has therefore a "social element" in it as it as it is the lack of the social elements that make´s the act (ritual) special for the performer of it. Thus, say for example a collector of kerises may feel genuine oneness I. happiness when he is performing his monthly ritual of oiling his ORIGINAL kerises.

The act (here oiling) thus becomes a physical manifestation - a ritual if you will - of the pursuit of self-actualization I. happiness by coming closer with - choose - and what one deems as "it". It has been said that a "man is the image of God". By closing and advancing what one feels is "true", "original" and "right" one becomes closer to oneness I. being happy by performing them "divine" acts.

What these acts are or what vehicles are used is mere surface level noise. What is important is what values we attach to these acts and vehicles, why and how this happens, how do we "label" new things of either belonging or not belonging (separating) to the same camp with what we deem "worthy" and "good", how do we come up with what is "good" etc?


Why did Josh Bell take $32 in the subway on one day, and $25,000 the following day when he climbed onto a stage?

Because both audiences recognized the authenticity and divinity of the performance. The zeros in the physical manifestation of these acknowledgments is irrelevant.


What is going on in our minds?

That indeed is a good question.

[A. G. Maisey]

Jussi, I respect the effort and thought has gone into your posts, however, I feel that you might be moving perhaps level or two in advance of the purely personal appreciation of an object, and that is what we are directing our attention to.

What is happening when we encounter, rather than when we acquire, or feel a need to acquire.

The propaganda/marketing/ societally influenced logic can certainly work for the individual who has been exposed to it, but how do we understand the influence of the object itself in the absence of these influences?

[rasjid]

I started collecting "things" after married and with kids! :)
From precious stones and knives, all of them I always wanted to know the details on how to identify the material I collected.
With knives, I'm interested to know the material used and what's the difference / advantages with other materials - so I collect a few different type of sword with different type of material -and also tried to make knife as well.

Now, with the keris - the same cycle as well, I do not start with buying all old / antique keris on the market because I personally believe 90% (normally I would say 99% :D ) the keris on the market are recent make. (this is purely personal opinion). The old keris I'm referring to is before 1800. Even early in 1900, I believe people already make "created" old keris as well. How many people in the old days have keris made for them with kinatah on it? I believe in the old days, the keris (as a pusaka) only made by order and shown to close relative only. Other keris (as a tourist keris - nowadays) also plenty during that era.

I like keris from art and the time spent to make one. I personally like to know more about the material first, asked the maker how he made and what material they used, choose the warangka/pendok material or design, etc. Try to introduce some new material and see the difference. All this experience, I can not get if I bought old keris.

I collect keris if I have the "feel" that I like it, the model, pamor, "feel" when handling the keris, it does not matter if new or old - as long as within my "knowledge" of keris at that time... ;) I even buy a keris (was told old) but I know it recent made... as long as I like it... simple

cheers..

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for these further contributions Emanuel and Rasjid.

I think we are building towards some sort of an understanding of our motivations to collect.

However, I would like to very gently make one point:-

the subject of the thread is "appreciation", and the question I raised was this:-

"I would welcome the thoughts of others on the link between the appreciation of art and objects and the maintenance of sanity in a world that is rapidly decreasing in size at the same time that it is equally rapidly increasing in ordinariness."

We are drifting ever closer to an answer to a different question, which involves the motivations or reasons for collecting.

Perhaps we collect because we have an appreciation of something, but I wonder what is the link between that appreciation and our individual feelings?

If we consider this question, then a further question arises which concerns the the origin of the appreciation.

Possibly the appreciation of the object could generate a desire to acquire a number of those objects, thus we become collectors.

So, the function of "collecting" is several steps further along the path than the point at which it began.

We do not need to collect anything, to have an appreciation of that thing, but the feeling of appreciation still has its effect upon us.

This is the matter I would like to address.

I see it as having two parts:-

1) --- origin of appreciation

2) --- effect of appreciation upon us as individuals.

I'm taking a leave of absence at this point, in order to attend to some personal matters. I will be very interested to see any further thoughts on this matter.

[Montino Bourbon]

when I was about 16, going to school in Switzerland, roughly in 1958, I saw a movie that changed my life. It was “the seven samurai”, and although I had had, as a child, a childish fascination with swords, I immediately “got into” Japanese swords.

Years later, as a senior in high school in Manhattan, I was in an archery loft on 86th St. and I happened to look across the street. There, above Lowe's 80 6th St., Theatre, I saw people practicing kendo, which for those of you who don't know (I'm sure all of you know, but I mention it anyway) is a Japanese martial art based on the Japanese sword.

From there, it was collecting Japanese swords, and a lot of time passed. The swords that I handled, and practiced Iai-do with, always had an energy about them that I liked.

About 20 years ago I started finding out about keris, and especially all the “magical” aspects of them. Since I already had a pretty good grounding in metallurgy, I could really appreciate the artistic energy that went into making them, and the occult energy that they held.

One day, I went by a pawn shop, and when I went in I noticed some keris on the wall. I asked to see them, and one of them really jumped out at me. I have shown that keris here on this forum, and it is one with a handle in the shape of Petruk, one of the sons of Semar. the keris is quite fine, beautiful painting on the wrangka, but what especially impressed me was the energy.

I obsessed on that keris, especially after I had a very intense dream in which I and that keris had a very interesting exchange of energy.

I offered the shopkeeper a price, which he did not accept. I raised it until finally he sold it to me.

I'm a musician, and a few different times I have worn that keris on stage. Alan has seen photographs of it, and has commented that it's possible that it may have belonged to a performer, perhaps a Dalang.

I also have to tell you that sometimes, like right now, certain pieces in my collection ask me to oil them. I feel that if I don't get up right away and put oil on them, they won't have the kind of energy that they should have. Or maybe they'll feel neglected, and pout when I next go to see them.

Since then, I have collected a few keris. I don't have a large collection, and I have other nice things in it including some moghul pieces and some nice wootz daggers. I also have very “down home” pieces, such as primitive farm implements and “using” knives. I always like to feel the energy in a piece, and I won't buy it unless I get a really “good hit” from it. Lately I bought a little kukri that probably belonged to some farmer. I paid less than $20 for it, and when I got it it was obvious that it was made by a smith for real use. I'll probably publish photographs of it sometime soon, and although it's nothing fancy I really like it for its no-nonsense energy.

So yes, I did buy the story. Without the story, there is really no collecting. My teacher, Ali Akbar Khan, was the greatest musician of the last century in India, and pretty much everything that he taught had a story. I like stories. I'm a pretty good storyteller myself.

Alan, I want to thank you for starting this thread. I find it interesting and fascinating to hear everybody's take on the subject, and I hope that I answered your question without wandering too far from the subject.

[VANDOO]

I CAN'T BREAK ANY NEW GROUND HERE BUT WILL TRY AND EXPLAIN MY PERSONEL ATTRACTION AND INTREST AND MY REASONS FOR IT. THE PERSONALITY I WAS BORN WITH HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE INTERESTED IN MOST EVERYTHING AND I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN VERY OBSERVANT. I STARTED WITH BUGS AND HAD A COLLECTION OF SORTS WHEN I WAS TWO YEARS OLD.
MY INTREST IS DRAWN BY CURIOSITY OF ANYTHING NEW, DIFFERENT OR UNUSUAL. ANY NEW THING IS NEVER ORDINARY UNTIL YOU ARE AROUND MANY FOR A LONG TIME AND SOME THINGS SUCH AS THE KERIS NEVER BECOME ORDINARY. MY INTRESTS ARE MANY AND I AM LIKE A BUTTERFLY GOING QUICKLY FROM ONE FLOWER TO THE NEXT. MY INTRESTS IN SUCH THINGS AS KERIS REMAIN BUT TIME AND OTHER THINGS TAKE ME AWAY UNTIL I RETURN AGAIN.
THERE IS A MUCH GREATER LIKELYHOOD OF CHILDREN RAISED IN A KERIS CULTURE BECOMING INTERESTED IN THEM. BUT I THINK THE NORM IN THAT CULTURE IS TO FOLLOW THE TRADITIONAL USES AND CEREMONIES RELATED TO THE KERIS. TO COLLECT LOTS OF KERIS BECAUSE YOU LIKE THEM WOULD PROBABLY BE UNUSUAL IN THEIR SOCIETY AND OF COURSE ONLY THE WEALTHY COULD AFFORD TO COLLECT MANY.
I READ SOME ADVENTURE BOOKS WHERE THE KERIS WAS MENTIONED WHEN I WAS A YOUNG BOY AND SAW MY FIRST KERIS IN THE 1960'S. IT WAS SOMETHING NEW AND EXOTIC AND THE PRICE WAS FIVE DOLLARS SO I BOUGHT IT. IT WAS NOT A GREAT SPECIMIN BUT THE PATTERNS IN THE BLADE AND THE BELIEF THAT ALL KERIS BLADES WERE MADE FROM METEOR IRON MADE IT VERY INTERESTING AND ATTRACTIVE TO ME.
THIS MADE ME LOOK FOR INFORMATION AND I FOUND A LIMITED AMOUNT AT THE LIBRARY BUT LEARNED MORE FROM AN OLD COLLECTOR AND DEALER WHO HAD ACTUALLY TRAVELED THE WORLD AND FOUGHT IN THE WAR. HE HAD A LOT OF KNOWLEGE AND TOLD GREAT STORIES EVEN THOUGH WHAT HE HAD FOR SALE WAS WAY OUT OF MY PRICE RANGE AT THE TIME. I ALWAYS LOOKED FORWARD TO VISITING WITH HIM TWICE A YEAR AT THE LOCAL GUN SHOW.
I PREFER A WEAPON THAT HAS BEEN OWNED AND USED BY A PERSON IN THE CULTURE FROM WHICH IT COMES. THESE KERIS HAVE A HISTORY AND STORY THAT GOES WITH THEM EVEN THOUGH WE MAY NOT KNOW IT. I LOOK AT THE WEAR AND PATINA AND PONDER THE STORY AND HISTORY, I ALSO APPRECIATE THE WORKMANSHIP AND THE PATTERNS AND BEAUTY IN THE BLADE AND THE WOOD. I CAN STAND AND LOOK AT THE PATTERNS IN A GOOD VAN GOUGH PAINTING AND CAN DO THE SAME WITH A COMPLICATED SWIRLING PATTERN IN A KERIS BLADE.
PERHAPS WE ALL HAVE A NEED TO STUDY AND LEARN WHICH LEADS US TO OUR VARIED INTRESTS. WHILE SOME MAY ONLY COLLECT THE KNOWLEGE OTHERS OF US NEED THE ACTUAL OBJECTS TO STRENGTHEN AND ENRICH THE LEARNING PROCESS. SOME OF US GET ENJOYMENT SHAREING WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED AND OTHERS GAURD THEIR KNOWLEGE JELOUSLY. EACH TO HIS OWN :shrug:
SOMETHING NEW AND UNUSUAL WILL ATTRACT MORE INTEREST THAN SOMETHING COMMON AND ORDINARY.

WAYS AND REASONS TO COLLECT.
1. A GREAT EMPU HAS PASSED AWAY AND THEREFORE NO MORE KERIS OR FITTINGS WILL BE MADE BY HIM. THIS WILL MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE AS AN INVESTMENT FOR SOME AND OTHERS WILL WISH TO HAVE ONE FOR SENIMENTAL REASONS OR PERHAPS SPIRITUAL REASONS AS THE KERIS WOULD HAVE THE SPECIAL POWERS THAT EMPU WAS KNOWN TO PUT INTO HIS WORK.
2. THE MYSTIQUE OR POWER ASSOCIATED WITH THE MAKER OR THE FAMOUS OWNERS OR FAMILY OR PERHAPS OF SOME GREAT BATTLE OR DEED. A KERIS CAN NOT GAIN FAME WITHOUT THE GREAT DEEDS OF THE OWNER.
3. SOME MAY START COLLECTING BECAUSE THEY SEE SOMEONES COLLECTION. IT MAY BE BECAUSE THEY WISH TO COMPETE WITH THEM AND OUT DO THEM OR JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE FACINATED BY THE KERIS AND THE STORIES.

I DON'T COLLECT BECAUSE OF FADS AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INDEPENDENT AND WENT MY OWN WAY WEATHER IT WAS POPULAR OR NOT. THIS HAS SERVED ME WELL AGAINST SALES AND PROMOTION AS I BUY WHAT I LIKE NOT WHAT THEY SAY I SHOULD BUY. AND I WILL JUST AS QUICKLY BUY A NEW KERIS IF THE QUALITY AND PRICE ARE GOOD AS I WILL BUY AN OLD ONE.

[Laowang]

While we may be urged to appreciate works of art objectively, I'm not sure in truth anything is really appreciated objectively. Anything meant to be appreciated for its aesthetic content is received subjectively; we've been socialized since birth in the ways in which we respond to things. A painting by Vermeer or Picasso or Cai Guo-Qiang is beautiful or moving because we have been socialized to perceive it that way, and respond to it in that manner, although of course as humans we do not all react in the same manner.

Hence, the story is important. It may be the story the creator of the object intended, or didn't intend, or a completely separate story we bring to the object. Perhaps it doesn't matter. Once an object enters the world it becomes the property of the world, and open to multiple readings.

Traditionally collectors have collected and appreciated objects for all sorts of reasons. Traditional Chinese literati collected paintings, poems, and rubbings of ancient stele not only for perceived intrinsic beauty, but also because it was something one did as literati, just as you also painted and wrote poetry. It was also a form of recreation, in which you and your friends would get together, have a drink, and appreciate some items from your collection. (In that regard, this forum serves a similar purpose, but without the alcoholic beverages)

Victorian English collected for a number of reasons; the expanding English empire gave them access to many more things. Partly collecting was a demonstration of their reach and power across the globe, but they also had great curiosity for things (orchids, rhododendrons), a burgeoning interest in science (insects, birds, fossils, minerals), and many other motivations that don't come currently to mind.

As an occasional collector of keris who grew up in relatively mainstream American culture, there were a great many things to prompt an interest, some of which has been mentioned by others. Novels and stories, from Conrad to Robert Louis Stevenson to Tolkein; interest in knights, pirates, South Seas adventures; modern incarnations such as Dungeons & Dragons, etc.

I first came across keris several years ago, during a trip to Singapore with my wife to visit in-laws. My brother-in-law had a beautiful old keris tajong he was holding for a Malay friend, who was living abroad for work. At the instruction of the friend, he kept it in a cabinet near the entrance to his flat, with the hilt facing the door; according to his friend, this would help protect him and his family. This certainly caught my attention; not so much that I viewed the keris in any way as magical, but that someone had crafted it at some point in time with that belief, and others continued to possess it with the same belief. In the world we currently live in, where the vast majority of objects that surround us are produced somewhat indifferently in factories, and are identical from piece to piece, the keris is remarkable for this contrast.

Perhaps most importantly, for me, the keris is meant to be held. In this regard it is unlike so many other things that one could collect. The hulu is designed for one's hand, and the weight and form of the blade to be properly handled by that hand. The heft of a keris in one's hand provides a kind of tactile pleasure unequaled by any other collectible object I can think of. And the range of weights and fits of keris, from light and (relatively) delicate cotengs and keris selit, to large Bugis and Balinese blades, only makes that distinction from other objects even greater.

[BluErf]

Would appreciation not have its root in how we value things? We appreciate an object because we assign a high value to it. We would never appreciate anything that we feel is useless, cheap or not beautiful - in effect anything that is of no worth to us.

If we appreciate something, perhaps we would do more to affirm that value we see in the object. That could include collecting, protecting, singing praises, consuming, ensure the continued transmission of that object, etc etc.

Then going back to question of why do we value things - how about evolutionary effects? If something we appreciate is good for us and helps us survive, then, wouldn't a well-honed sense of understanding what is good for us help us survive better? With much of the human race no longer concerned with finding food on a day-to-day basis, and with the new 'unnatural' pressures arising from our social circumstance, perhaps that sense of appreciation has moved from basic necessities to more unusual things like art and kerises. Things that help us handle modern life better.

Perhaps the world is becoming so literal and visual, and the mysterious world is no longer that mysterious, we appreciate objects that help us feel that sense of mystery and wonder; something that allows us to hold on to the hope that the world is more than it seems; there are more possibilities; I can break out of this tired and shrinking world!!! This is something that helps us bear with our present world.

[Rick]

Perhaps the world is becoming so literal and visual, and the mysterious world is no longer that mysterious, we appreciate objects that help us feel that sense of mystery and wonder; something that allows us to hold on to the hope that the world is more than it seems; there are more possibilities; I can break out of this tired and shrinking world!!! This is something that helps us bear with our present world.

This . ^^^^
Hammer; meet nail . ;)

[sirek]

I can go along with the idea:
“Collecting is an instinctual behaviour and is genetically fixed.”

You can enumerate several reasons why someone collected:

-it gives respect and appreciation
-pleasure, sensory pleasure and aesthetic pleasure
-the excitement of the search for specific things and the hunt for more
-a combination of passion and pleasure
-greed, some collectors simply want more and more
-trade or investment funds, just for financial gain
-distinguish you, profiling, collecting art shows good taste
-attention and respect, image building prestige, ambition,

Add something to your collection works as a kind of antidepressant:
your body will reward you with a brief shot happiness.

Collection is also rewarded by a social component:
that of community life. (As in this forum).
A collector with a nice keris can make no impression on his neighbour, but he can during a keris-meeting. (Or the neighbour must also be a keris collector :D )

But the question still remains: Why collect a keris ? And not an other form of artwork?
Why I bought as a child at a flea market among a thousand other things a keris? Or perhaps was it because the seller had a good story? And I also bought a story with emotion? :shrug:

I have unfortunately no answer. I live in Europe and have no keris culture but I'm still interested in the keris, appreciate the craftsmanship, respect the culture. Therefore I believe that it is a form of instinct. :confused:

[Rick]

I think many of us may accumulate other works of art or something else beside only the keris .

In the past I, like David, was a bottle digger .
That was almost more of a sport than a hobby . ;)

Original marine art is another of my interests; ties in nicely with the whole draw of the keris for me as does my interest in Asian art .
When I enjoy these I can plug in to that peaceful place .

You could almost call it a form of self-medication .

[A. G. Maisey]

Well, it seems as if during the past week, nobody has had any further thoughts on the matter under discussion here.

Perhaps we have exhausted the subject.

I've read through all of the posts more than a few times, and the message that I am getting seems to come down to this:-

1) --- our appreciation of anything can never take place except against the background of previous experience

2) --- this previous experience creates a matrix that we use either consciously or sub-consciously to evaluate the subject of our appreciation

3) --- the way in which the item that we evaluate is appreciated has an effect upon our emotional state

4) --- the effect upon our emotional state is beneficial to our overall well-being.

If this is so, then it is certain that we can never evaluate, nor consider an object in a purely subjective fashion. We are, if you will, unavoidably locked into evaluation of the object against everything that has previously entered our experience. We may try to be subjective, but our subjectivity is inevitably expressed in an objective fashion.

In other words, we're all hooked on "the story".

As I think is clear from the postings to this thread, that "story" is a little bit different for each of us.

But what is the purpose of this arguably self delusionary process?

Maybe Rick has summed it up very precisely as "self medication".

Does anybody have any further thoughts on this matter?

[BluErf]

G'day Alan,

It's good to have you back.

A few thoughts came to my mind.

Humans use heuristics to help them make decisions in reasonably short time without having to analyze everything from scratch; otherwise, life would be non-functionable. Joshua Bell getting $32 in the streets could be because people may have associated street baskers with mediocre skills and hence not even pay attention to his playing. Or simply because people on the streets are going somewhere and don't have time to stop and listen. In contrast, going to a concert hall and paying big bucks to hear a musician play probably suggests that the musician is fantastic. Of course, in a concert hall situation, we are talking about selling to a crowd that is already sold on the product, and they are there specifically to hear the musician play. As to why people are willing to pay so much to listen to Joshua Bell, I don't think it's purely the story, but because he has achieved a very high level of skills that the vast majority of people cannot achieve. That high level of skill has allowed him to provide some form of pleasure (which can be acquired) to the rest of the others. Pleasure, evolutionarily speaking, comes as a positive feedback to something that is 'good' for our existence, whether it is material or not.

Princess Diana and George Clooney's clothes could have been highly valued because of their immense popularity. People like them for a variety of reasons like them having good-looks, great personalities, rich, etc. These are traits that everyone is desirous of because they are advantageous to living a better life. The affinity arising from our liking of these traits could have resulted in us wanting to be with them or like them, and the closest thing we could get is something closely associated with them - their clothes. At the bottom of all this, again I reckon, lies that sense of what is 'good' for us.

I'm also thinking about the phenomenon of why some island cultures appreciate fat women, while others appreciate waif-like models. I thought the former could be associated with survival logic (fatter = able to survive leaner periods, provide more resources to babies), while the latter could be because thinness in rich society is associated with glamour, wealth, the aesthetics of good looks, etc, which again, I would tie back to the evolutionary sense of what is 'good' for us in order to survive. Between the fat, the thin and the musician, the common thread could be that if I am ahead of the curve, I could probably do better in life than the rest of the laggards.

I think human beings have been a a bit of an evolutionary quirk in that we have come so far in so short a time. Our inbuilt evolutionary responses may have been warped by the "unnatural environment" that we have built, resulting in all these seemingly senseless responses, including to art and the Keris.

[A. G. Maisey]

G'day Kai Wee.

Well mate, you've just given a very easily understood proof that we do indeed always buy the story.

You've said that you don't think its purely "the story", but most especially in the Josh Bell comment you have demonstrated admirably that it is.

When I'm talking about the "the story", I'm thinking of it in the broadest possible terms, and most often that story has been composed by ourselves, and the material that has been drawn upon for its composition is all of our previous experience.

Diamonds.

Wonderful as a store of wealth, inseparable from the idea of romantic love, indestructible, uncorrupted by time, the ultimate prestige signal.

Was it always so?

Nope.

The relative value and popularity of diamonds has increased along with increased supply. The reverse of what we might expect.

It is really only since the late 19th century that diamonds have moved into the prestigious position they now occupy, and this has been due almost solely to the magnificent management of the diamond trade by De Beers.

De Beers have managed to invent and manage the entire diamond mystique and its associated values.

In fact, they have sold a story to the world.

So, if we consider a diamond, any diamond, we cannot but consider it against our lifetime exposure to the position of the diamond in our modern culture.

We simply cannot escape our past, and it is our past that creates for us the measure against which we appreciate anything.

When we get down to the level where we are actually engaged in the appreciation of something, what we know about that something undoubtedly influences our feelings of appreciation. As Laowang has said:-


"Anything meant to be appreciated for its aesthetic content is received subjectively; we've been socialized since birth in the ways in which we respond to things."


We see an unknown painting in Salvation Army Store. Its unsigned. A childlike representation of badly proportioned sunflowers. Is it maybe OK for the guestroom? No, I don't think so. A bit on the crude side.

Headline in the following week's Sydney Morning Herald:-

"Lost Van Gogh Discovered in Suburban Salvation Army Store"

Well --- you win some, you lose some.

Maybe if we'd been exposed to the right story at some time in our past, we would have recognized it as Van Gogh too.

That story, or if you wish, experience, and the knowledge or opinion that it generates influences everything in our lives that follows.

[Jussi M.]

Greetings,

I´ll be adding something at a later time :)

Jussi

[BluErf]

G'day Alan,

I agree that aesthetics is received subjectively, but if we go far back enough, I always believe that there is a reason behind why that aesthetics is appreciated more than others. A bad violin player will never be able to sell his 'story' for a sustained period of time. A deeply flawed diamond cannot be sold as top of class. Just like a cheap Madurese Muda keris can never pass off to be a top class keris.

In as much as we choose to appreciate something subjectively, it cannot be just the story. It must be accompanied by a quality that makes it relatively hard to acquire/achieve.

[David]

We see an unknown painting in Salvation Army Store. Its unsigned. A childlike representation of badly proportioned sunflowers. Is it maybe OK for the guestroom? No, I don't think so. A bit on the crude side.

Headline in the following week's Sydney Morning Herald:-

"Lost Van Gogh Discovered in Suburban Salvation Army Store"

Well --- you win some, you lose some.

Maybe if we'd been exposed to the right story at some time in our past, we would have recognized it as Van Gogh too.

That story, or if you wish, experience, and the knowledge or opinion that it generates influences everything in our lives that follows.
I do think that we can take this theory too far. Van Gogh is Van Gogh for many reasons. I do not enjoy a Van Gogh painting simply because the established art world has determined he was one of the greatest painters that ever lived. If this were the case i would also enjoy Pollock and Albers and a great number of other artists that the establishment deems worthy and collectable artists. In fact i find those artists not at all to my liking and i don't know what the hype about them is all about. But if i were to see an unsigned Van Gogh in a junk store i would probably buy it on it's own merits because i like Van Gogh's style and i would therefore probably like the unsigned painting. I would buy it because i like it, not because i know it is a Van Gogh. I will admit though that if i were to then find out it was indeed Van Gogh i would consider it of greater value to me. But it probably would change were i decided to hang it. :)
In the case of Joshua Bell, personally i do not associate buskers necessarily with mediocre talent. But there is a great difference between taking your act to the streets and having an audience come to a specific venue. The people on the street didn't ask for the performance, they may not have the time for it, they may not like the particular genre of music, they may not be particularly well off financially, etc. Those who chose to go to the theatre event, on the other hand, know what they want and what they expect. The acoustics will be perfect, there will be orchestra accompaniment, the seats will be comfortable, the social environment will be high, etc.
If i were a fan and caught the performance on the street i would be just as appreciative, maybe more so because i don't necessarily have the money for the expensive theatre tickets.
This isn't to say that my tastes aren't purely subjective, because they are. I just don't think that for me personally that they are driven by the same standards of establishment acceptance as they are for some.
An excellent film that addresses some of these issues might be Orson Welles last film "F is for Fake". It deals a lot with the ideas of forgeries and fakes and how differently people relate to an object when the forgery is discovered. Famous art forger Elmyr de Hory is featured in the film, a man who forged his way into many of the world's greatest art galleries. Frankly i would love to own a de Hory (or any forgers work) if it were a beautiful and well painted image, though i would also like to know that it isn't "the real thing" as well. I appreciate art not based upon the name attached to it, but whether or not it appeals to my subjective eye. :)

[BluErf]

That story, or if you wish, experience, and the knowledge or opinion that it generates influences everything in our lives that follows.

I just read this sentence a second time, and I'm wondering if "the story" is equivalent to experience and knowledge, then everything in this world revolves around 'a story'. If that is the definition, then it would seem that by definition, the question in discussion can have no other answer. :)

[Rick]

Alan wrote:
"When I'm talking about the "the story", I'm thinking of it in the broadest possible terms, and most often that story has been composed by ourselves, and the material that has been drawn upon for its composition is all of our previous experience."



I just read this sentence a second time, and I'm wondering if "the story" is equivalent to experience and knowledge, then everything in this world revolves around 'a story'. If that is the definition, then it would seem that by definition, the question in discussion can have no other answer. :)

I think The Story is universal and is being quickly forgotten in our brave new techno - world ; the council fire and spear have disappeared .

So, maybe I'm going too far afield in posting this link; I couldn't get all the way through the book back in '69 as it is a challenging read .

http://edj.net/mc2012/mill1.htm

[David]

Well, i don't know if i am going too far afield either, but i have discovered that you can watch "F is for Fake" on youtube in 10 minute at a time segments and suggest that it may well inform this conversation on the appreciation of art.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9zZNFzrvAA

[A. G. Maisey]

Kai Wee, you have precisely identified the point I have been trying to make.

I have not been trying to establish how or why we appreciate the various arts, but rather, the factors that are at play in our own minds when we involve ourselves in some way in one form of art or another, and the effects upon us of that involvement.

I am using the word "involvement", because it could be purchase, or viewing, or listening or anything at all that requires us to become involved in the art work.

The "story" is always present, and it has been composed from all our previous experience.

Thus, we never, ever can appreciate a work of art in the absence of that story, because it is our experience that provides the tools (mental) by which we measure the work.

The fellow who rejected the "lost van Gogh" for his guest room lacked a story. He had not been exposed to van Gogh, could not recognise the style, had nothing by which to measure it, and labeled it as just a bit too primitive for his taste.

David has outlined for us his own position in respect of van Gogh, and this style. David is a mature, perceptive and educated man with a broad appreciation of art. It is simply not possible that he could reach his age with no exposure to van Gogh. That exposure has created David's "story". His experience, and this experience has resulted in the generation of a liking for the work of van Gogh. Thus, if he sees something in a similar style he will still like it, whether it is by van Gogh or not.

David's return to the Josh Bell example is, I feel, precisely accurate as a demonstration of the way in which the "story" affects the perception. In the right place at the right time we have one expectation and a matching perception. In a different place at a different time the expectation differs as does the perception.

Each of us has our own story, and that story is what directs our expectation, perception, and ultimately our appreciation.


Incidentally, I'm very partial to van Gogh's work; when I raise my eyes above the top of my computer monitor I see "Starry Night" hanging on the wall.

However, my taste has not always been thus. Forty years ago I had a very great dislike of all post impressionists, it is only as I have become older that my tastes have changed and I now can see things that I could not see when I was younger. I now have a different story to the one I had some years back.


I do not believe there is any "right" answer, or equally any "wrong" answer to this subject under discussion. What interests me is the perhaps different ways in which each of us may consider this question.

[David]

Just curious if anyone bothered to check out the film "F is for Fake" that i linked to and if they thought it informed this conversation any? :shrug: :)

[Gustav]

I admire Orson Welles abowe all, this particular film is in my collection. I know it for four years now, the problematic was very clear and familiar to me (in my level of understanding) as I saw it for the first time.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes David, I did take note of the film.

Watching a full length movie on a computer screen is not an option for me, not even in 10 minute bites.

However I have read all that I can find about the film. Based upon what I have read, but not seen, and am probably unlikely to see, I do have some difficulty in trying to understand how the matters dealt with in this film could assist in aiding an understanding of what is happening in the mind of somebody when they become involved in the reception of artistic endeavour.

Actually, "artistic endeavour" narrows things too much. My original phrase was "---the appreciation of art and objects---", and this is precisely what I mean. The appreciation can be of anything at all that pushes the right button:- some form of fine art, matchbox cars, old woodworking tools, beach pebbles--- anything at all that strikes a chord in the soul and creates some sort of special feeling.

From the beginning of this thread I have been trying to understand how other people feel when they involve themselves the act of appreciation, and if possible, if they recognise what started them on this path of appreciation of a particular thing.

I know that the thread has wandered all over the place and has certainly not stayed anywhere near the path I might have liked it to take, but that's the nature of these sorts of discussions, they tend to create a life of their own.

But I think the important thing is this:- there is no right and no wrong in anything that anybody may care to post to this thread. Its not an exercise in finding a correct answer, because there is no correct answer. I see this an attempt to understand ourselves, not an attempt to understand the act of appreciation.

Although, having said that , I feel that an understanding of how and why we appreciate something may assist in a better understanding of ourselves.

Coming back to the film, could you precis what it is about this film that you think could assist with our discussion here?

I think that perhaps the comments posted to this thread have shown that the way in which we react to something is a product of our previous experience. That previous experience constitutes the "story" that we always carry with us. When we encounter something that fits the pleasure generating model we carry in our subconscious, we engage in the act of appreciation. Pretty much as Rick has put it:- "self- medication".

I think that's probably about the way I see it at the moment, but I'd welcome further comments that could throw a new or different light onto the subject.

[Bill M]

Good thread, many answers.

Another question: What is Beauty? Art? Why do we pay large amounts of money for old wood and metal? Joshua Bell's patrons pay huge amounts of money in sold-out performances to hear a great violinist? A rare bottle of wine?

"Conrad syndrome?" "Silk Road Syndrome?" Some even take it as far as the "Stendhal Syndrome." How about the "Stranger in a Strange Land Syndrome?"

Why? What do we get out of it?

Because Art, with a capital "A", whether visual, auditory, gustatory, perhaps olfactory gives us a special feeling. A 'feeling' that goes beyond mere kinesthetics. A feeling in the "gutski wutskies"- the solar plexus that for a moment takes us beyond the physical, the mundane.

When Handel composed "The Messiah" he said it was "like having his fingers plugged into God." --- "plugged into God." Think about that.

Back to "Stranger in a Strange Land Syndrome." Though we enjoy the physical plane, do any of us feel it is really our home? Or are we drawn to something beyond? And does great art, a keris, a painting, a fetish have a connection for us, a visceral connection to that Source?

And maybe, do we connect to that "Source" through art that was created by someone who, like Handel, was connected when he, or she created it? And that "art" transcends language, religion -- all the tags we like to hang on it?

Because that "Source" that we reach for is beyond our five senses and our nearest "sense" is that visceral sense that gives us Joy. And folks, we ARE addicted to Joy! An addict will do what it takes.

The rest of this justification is just our conscious mind trying to make sense of this. It really can't, but it tries. Words like "Investment" "Value" etc, come to mind. But then we have to ask "Why?" Why does a piece of wood, a canvas and oil, have value? Because it reaches out to us. Mentally we say, "It connects us with Joyful memories, the past, etc." The Silk Road Syndrome? Sure, but it goes far beyond that if we let it.

Perhaps a keris really IS a conduit. Think about that, 'a conduit.' "Art as Conduit"!;)

To me, great art is something that grabs you every time you relax enough to bond with it and I see something different every time, every day.

But I must take time to relax and focus and en-Joy. Otherwise I am like the people who walk right by Joshua Bell playing magnificent music in a subway.

And folks, more and more, I am taking the time to stop and smell the roses.

[Marcokeris]

[QUOTE=Bill Marsh]Good thread, many answers.

Another question: What is Beauty? Art? .....
I agree ...100%

[David]

Yes David, I did take note of the film.

Watching a full length movie on a computer screen is not an option for me, not even in 10 minute bites.

However I have read all that I can find about the film. Based upon what I have read, but not seen, and am probably unlikely to see, I do have some difficulty in trying to understand how the matters dealt with in this film could assist in aiding an understanding of what is happening in the mind of somebody when they become involved in the reception of artistic endeavour.

Actually, "artistic endeavour" narrows things too much. My original phrase was "---the appreciation of art and objects---", and this is precisely what I mean. The appreciation can be of anything at all that pushes the right button:- some form of fine art, matchbox cars, old woodworking tools, beach pebbles--- anything at all that strikes a chord in the soul and creates some sort of special feeling.
Well Alan, it is a bit difficult to explain why i find this film pertinent without you having actually seen any of it, but the film very much deals with what drives the appreciation of art and the concept of fakes vs. "the real thing" and how various people deal with this concept when appreciating art. Elymer de Hory claims that their are supposed "Matisse", "Modigliani" and "Renoir" in museum collections around the world that are actually his creations, that receive praise based upon their perceived authenticity. This seems to very much be something that is in line with this current conversation. :shrug:

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for that response, David.

Yes, ideally I should watch this film, but I doubt that I'll find it in the local video stores --- however, I'll try.

The idea of forgeries drawing favourable critical comment certainly does give some indication of the way in which the human mind works in its relationship to art. I referred to this in my Han van Meegeren comment. The van Meegeren case is possibly the best documented of this type of case, and I personally find it very edifying.

This sort of thing, whether de Hory or van Meegeren, is I feel a good example of the "story" in action:-

our experience has told us that a Rembrandt, Matisse, Modigliani or whatever is great art, so of course, when we are in the presence of such great art, we would need to place ourselves outside the herd to look critically at that great art and decide for ourselves that it was not quite as great as the "big men" had declared it to be.

it is human nature to follow the opinions of the mob, and mob opinion is formed by mob leaders.

As I have already said:- we cannot escape the story; we always carry it with us.

This theme is certainly a part of this discussion, however, my original idea --- which I seem not to have been able to convey very clearly --- was more directed at the effect of things on our feelings.

A "thing" might be a work of art, but it might also be a shell, a pebble, a pair of sunglasses, in fact almost anything that functions as a key to unlock a part of our subconscious and generate an emotion.

This is perhaps where our appreciation of an object enters consideration. We might return again and again to appreciate that object because of its effect upon our emotions. To facilitate easy return to the object, we try to provide easy access to the object, so we collect it.

Possibly. Well, in any case this is about where my thoughts on the matter are at the moment.

To diverge a little from this central theme.

Not so long ago a book was published that uses as the major part of its content the keris in a collection that is generally acknowledged as being an important collection, and the proprietors of that collection as being knowledgeable in the field of keris. A large number of the keris pictured in that book are not correctly represented, in the case of one particular current era keris, authorship is absolutely incorrect. But 99.9% of the people who look at those images of keris do not know this, indeed, cannot possibly know it. So the deception stands. This same scenario occurs again and again in books published on keris, and only a very, very few people are able to detect the inaccuracies. Thus keris knowledge is irreparably corrupted. This is what happens in our own little field of interest. How much greater is the corruption in the broader field?

I have made this comment to try to illustrate that we are all subject to the opinions of others, and those opinions form a part of our individual stories, ie, experience.

[Rick]

Yes, the dreaded "Expert" .

[Bill M]

Well, i don't know if i am going too far afield either, but i have discovered that you can watch "F is for Fake" on youtube in 10 minute at a time segments and suggest that it may well inform this conversation on the appreciation of art.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9zZNFzrvAA


David, et al,

The film is also available from Netflix in it's entirety as a streaming video that can be watched on TV screen if you have streaming capabilities.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/F_for_Fake/70029549?trkid=191776

Sounds quite interesting. Anne and I plan to watch it tomorrow night. Will get back to this thread after we watch it.

[Bill M]

David, et al,

The film is also available from Netflix in it's entirety as a streaming video that can be watched on TV screen if you have streaming capabilities.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/F_for_Fake/70029549?trkid=191776

Sounds quite interesting. Anne and I plan to watch it tomorrow night. Will get back to this thread after we watch it.


Did not enjoy the film. Meandering monologues. Mostly about Clifford Irving and Elmyr de Hory, possibly one of the greatest art forgers of the 20th century. Fortunately "fast forward" skips over boring parts.

Somewhat germane to this discussion as to how much and how often art is more a matter of an "expert's" opinion, whether that opinion is intentionally duplicitous, erroneous or accurate -- but I think the film adds little to the discussion about how great art deeply affects us and gives joy in a visceral sense. To me, this is much more important than an "expert's" opinion.

[David]

Did not enjoy the film. Meandering monologues. Mostly about Clifford Irving and Elmyr de Hory, possibly one of the greatest art forgers of the 20th century. Fortunately "fast forward" skips over boring parts.

Somewhat germane to this discussion as to how much and how often art is more a matter of an "expert's" opinion, whether that opinion is intentionally duplicitous, erroneous or accurate -- but I think the film adds little to the discussion about how great art deeply affects us and gives joy in a visceral sense. To me, this is much more important than an "expert's" opinion.
Sorry you didn't like the film Bill. Personally i find no boring parts to skip over, but to each their own, eh? :)
People both appreciate and acquire art for a multitude of reasons. Often enough, for some (though i like to think i am at least somewhat immune to it), the gateway to what they believe to be good art is greatly influenced by the stories spun by the "experts". But i believe it is probably impossible to determine just how much sway the opinions of the experts actual has on our own appreciation of art. What gives us "joy in a visceral sense" does not develop in a vacuum. Certain much of the art and music we enjoy so much would be virtually unknown to us if it were not brought to light and touted by the "experts". For me the questions raised in the film over how much the "experts" nod to an piece of art effects it's valuation by society is in fact very germane to this topic.

[Bill M]

Glad that you liked the film, David. I think that I was just looking for something else. I did like the woman in the short dress. :D

Certainly we do not develop in a vacuum, and certainly we are influenced by experts. A big question is who are the experts? Is the supposed expert in his arena?

The artist has the inspiration and the expert/critic tries to describe it.

Agreed, that the artist needs to have a degree of technical skill. How to hold the brush, how to mix the paint, - or how to put notes on a staff for a particular instrument, etc, but then it is the artist who brings the inspiration to life, who manifests the inspiration here for the rest of us to experience. Not necessarily the expert.

The point I am trying to make is that I feel great art has roots in something beyond what we normally see. Great Art is certainly in the eye of the beholder and it can be a pebble, or a leaf, or a sunset. But something that transports me.

Primitive cultures often have no written language. Their language is in their art. Their history is in their art. But make no mistake, in many, if not most, if not all, primitive cultures, the pieces we consider "art" were not considered "art" by the so-called primitive people who made them. Not at all. Not something to hang on the wall and "decorate" their homes or caves!

These pieces were working tools. Tools that protected them from malevolent spirits. Gave them fertility for crops, animals and themselves. Helped them understand and maintain their place in their cosmos. Pieces that dug deep into the roots of consciousness.

And they still dig deep, when we are quiet enough to let them influence us. Then we may see a man in a keris. We may feel -- though we do not have the slightest understanding of the thoughts of the people who made and used these objects -- we may feel that common wordless bond of understanding that we interpret as "Great Art."

Wordless and visceral.

I suggest that experts can certainly open a door, but it is us who decide to go through it, us who decide to spend money and time on old bits of wood, metal, ivory, etc, because these pieces give us joy. They transport us beyond the mundane.

Perhaps this is the difference in an "someone who acquires" and a "connoisseur."

Ultimately as a friend once said, it is us who have to live with the piece.

[Jussi M.]

Certainly we do not develop in a vacuum .

The point I am trying to make is that I feel great art (X) has roots in something beyond what we normally see. Great Art is certainly in the eye of the beholder and it can be a pebble, or a leaf, or a sunset. But something that transports me (Y).

I suggest that experts can certainly open a door, but it is us who decide to go through it, us who decide to spend money and time on old bits of wood, metal, ivory, etc, because these pieces give us joy (Z). They transport us beyond the mundane (Q).


X+Y=Z and Z > Q (we prefer Z to Q)

Where

Q: state of existence "devoid" of enjoyment (here "Z")
X: something we associate as a "bearer" of enjoyment
Y: a ritual act of "connecting" (I. acquisition, listening)

Z = self-medication with enjoyment.

The hippies knew...! :D Anyone recognize Mr. Maisey?

http://www.ilmc.com/20/images/stories/ILMC20_Images/hippies.jpg


:D :D :D


Thanks,

J.

[Rick]

Ahem, I attended Woodstock .

[Jussi M.]

Ahem, I attended Woodstock .

:D

http://s3.amazonaws.com/hottopic_shockhound_production/attachments/1627/Woodstock1.jpg




All the fun aside... Whaddya think about hte X+Y=Z?

Is it that simple?


Thanks,

J.

[Rick]

I'm not quite sure Jussi; but it seems to equate . :)

Does anyone beside me have a collection of small, found, disparate objects that they keep together for good luck ?





No ?

















Okay then, I'm crazy . :o

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes.

To both, mate.

But then we're all crazy --- aren't we?

I've got collections on collections, and to compound matters, my wife is no better.

Javanese village jewellery, kacip, gemstones, vases, porcelain, art glass, pocket knives, watches, coins, ivory carvings --- I could go on and on.

But these things all cost money.

The stuff that doesn't cost money can be just as much fun:- river stones, beach stones, bush rock, drift wood, hollow logs with orchids growing in them, natural bonsais taken from cliffs or holes in creek rock shelves, unusual bits and pieces from around old buildings & etc & etc & etc.

And right down at level one Jussi's equation undoubtedly applies to all these things.

Human beings do not usually repeat behaviour that brings distress.

They do repeat behaviour that brings pleasure.

But the mechanism of the mind that joins the "thing" and the feeling of pleasure can and does have have a multitude of variation.

[Rick]

Thanks Alan,

As a 21st Century man ; I have to admit; yes, I keep a fetish collection; most are found objects, stones or minerals from many different places I have been .

They all represent something special to me that (believe it or not) I believe enhance and empower my life at some subconcious level .

If they did not; I wouldn't have chosen or found them; nor they, me . ;)



Yes, I'm crazy . :cool:

[David]

Thanks Alan,

As a 21st Century man ; I have to admit; yes, I keep a fetish collection; most are found objects, stones or minerals from many different places I have been .

They all represent something special to me that (believe it or not) I believe enhance and empower my life at some subconcious level .

If they did not; I wouldn't have chosen or found them; nor they, me . ;)



Yes, I'm crazy . :cool:
Well call be crazy as well.... ;)

[Rick]

So, what do you think ?

Are you crazy too ?

Rick

[A. G. Maisey]

Rick, maybe we're all crazy, or maybe we're all not crazy.

We go for regular trips to places to collect rocks.

Beach rocks, river rocks, volcanic rocks. One time we went on holidays up to a gemstone area in northern NSW, and we collected so many rocks, and particularly thunder eggs, that my wife and two of the kids came home by train.

Now that's crazy.

Mate of mine took his family up to place called Mullaley. Farm holiday. The farm incorporated the site of an old gold mining village, long gone the village, but he found the old village rubbish tip and spent his holiday digging up bottles. His kids came home by train too.

Gathering these sort of things makes you feel good when you find them, and then you put them somewhere around the house, and you feel good every time you see them.

My two desk paperweights are rocks. One is a piece of water worn agate, the other is a piece of water worn bloodstone. I use them like worry beads, and they remind me of the circumstances of their finding. They make me feel good.

So whether its a fetish thing , or just a memory key, one way or another these things have a positive effect on our lives.

Crazy?

Yeah maybe.

But crazy smart.

[Rick]

Yes, mate .
I have a thousand things I have collected or found that appeal to me and bring great memories and pleasure .

Very few of these go into my fetish box .
These few that are in it, are somehow quite different from the others .

So maybe I've drifted us off topic a bit .

Funny how thin the veneer of modern enlightenment actually is sometimes...., at least in my case .
I don't think I'm alone .

Anyway, back on topic . :o

[A. G. Maisey]

Rick, I'm inclined to think that all of this is most definitely on topic.

My original question in Post # 1 to this thread was:-

I would welcome the thoughts of others on the link between the appreciation of art and objects and the maintenance of sanity in a world that is rapidly decreasing in size at the same time that it is equally rapidly increasing in ordinariness.

Yes, certainly we've tended to focus on art, and collecting as opposed to pure appreciation seems to have dominated the thoughts of most of us, but these last few postsare, I feel, getting close to the heart of the matter:-

for one reason or another a "thing" can make us feel good.


It might be because it stirs a memory, it might because it opens the door to the steppes of Central Asia, it might because it transports us to a beach somewhere on the other side of the world, it might be because it makes us feel safe.

Whatever the reason might be there is a link between the "thing" and something that is happening in our mind, and that link has a positive effect.

I reckon we're on topic.

[Rick]

Funny, you know; many will not show their Pusakas nor even their kerises on this site .

I would never share pictures of the contents of my fetish box .
Beside being off-topic I feel they would be diminished somehow by doing so .

Call me whatever you like . :shrug:

Somehow it seems like more than appreciation; more elemental .

[A. G. Maisey]

Yeah, I reckon that's a part of it:-

things that one identifies as a part of oneself should remain unique unto oneself

I feel that its OK if we allow close friends to see and handle our keris, but I cannot bring myself to post pics of my personal pieces for the world to see.

Appreciation

Elemental.

The two ideas are probably related, and if we talk "elemental" we can move away from the purely human.

Here in Oz we have a bird called a bower bird. It builds a bower out of grasses and twigs and strips of cloth etc, in which it dances to attract a mate; this bird has an obsession with all things blue, and it decorates its bower with anything blue that it can find.

Don't tell me that bird doesn't appreciate the colour blue. A link between the blue thing and what is happening in the bird's mind, even though it might be driven by inheritance.

As for names, I used to know bloke who would say:- " you can call me anything you like --- just make sure you smile when you say ba***rd"

[Bill M]

:)

[Jussi M.]

Jussi

So, what do you think ?

Are you crazy too ?

Rick

You need to ask? ;)

http://brians-mnm-wiki.wikispaces.com/file/view/animal-muppets-wallpapers1.jpg


Maybe it is so that the so labelled "crazy" amongst us actually are the healthiest? Anyway, I very much agree with what Mr. Bill Marsh has put forth a few posting before only that I would like to change the words "great Art" with "what we identify with enjoyment". – Why? Because I personally feel that the usual associations we get from the word "Art" exclude most of what we identify with enjoyment but not the other way around.

Stones and rocks? Sure. – I usually have one in the front pocket of my jeans. At the writing of this I have two, one in each pocket – the usual good luck stone and its more recent back up :p

[drdavid]

No fair, now you guys are talking rock collections. I moved out of my parents place well over 30 years ago, they still ask me when I am going to get my collection of rocks out of their old shed. Like you Alan, i was involved in collecting rocks from lots of interesting places in New South Wales and Queensland, and I too have a lot of thunder eggs (an enclosed generally star shaped agate for those not familiar with the term). I spent a lot of my youth poking around old mine dumps, creek beds and cliff faces. And for Rick, David and Jussi, my favourite form of exercise is hiking up mountains. Where I live they are not like the Alps, only rising up to 1400 metres but there are hundreds and hundreds of them. Mind you some of them you have to hike for 3 days to get to the bottom so that you can walk to the top. Each one I walk up, I have to collect a small stone from the top. Otherwise I wasn't there. Fetish is a pretty good word for it really.
DrD

[A. G. Maisey]

You sound a bit like me Dr.

I've got some really good stones.

I mean really powerful stones, like from Candi Sukuh and Candi Panataran. And thats apart from from the 4.5 tons I have from various other locations. Just can't walk away from a good rock. Got my eye on one up near Abercrombie Caves. Its buried in a creek bed, and involves a steep 500 yard carry to get it to a vehicle. Looks like it weighs about 250-300 pounds. That's going to take some ingenuity.

Jussi, the reason I included "art" along with "objects" was because I wanted people to consider things like the performing arts. I considered "enjoyment" and "satisfaction" and a few other ways of phrasing the idea I had, but when I went that way I just couldn't get away from food, sex and drugs. I put a lot of time into phrasing that idea.

[Bill M]

I would like to change the words "great Art" with "what we identify with enjoyment". – Why? Because I personally feel that the usual associations we get from the word "Art" exclude most of what we identify with enjoyment but not the other way around

Fine with me. "what we identify with enjoyment" Whatever terminology you enjoy. :D

I know there are certain things that fill me, deeply fill me. I have realized that these things also always have new aspects. I have had oriental carpets for many years. I have looked carefully at them for years, yet every time I look at them, and relax, I see things that I have never seen before. New designs and patterns, patterns that I enjoy.

Yet, it takes relaxing and putting aside the rush of the daily activities. That Joshua Bell was playing some of the most intricate and powerful music -- in a subway while most people blindly walked by -- does not surprise me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myq8upzJDJc
you will notice a few people who stood and listened. Some knew who he was, others heard something they enjoyed.

The majority of these people were focussed on the cares of the day, not a 'street musician looking for tips.' Yet later, I could guess, some of these same people may have bought tickets, sat down in cool darkness of the theater and were transported by the exact same music.

I have bought CDs of these pieces and his work is breathtaking. Without telling friends who he is, or who wrote the music, have played it in a relaxed atmosphere and have seen them moved to tears by the grandeur.

So, "what we identify with enjoyment". We, my wife Anne and I, have a diverse collection from many different countries, wide-ranging in scope. China, Indonesia, Philippines, Africa, India, Papua New Guinea, and others. "What is the common thread?"

Simply, we collect what we enjoy. But let me take that a little deeper we feel that it is not really the object itself that we enjoy, it is something beyond the object that gives us enjoyment. The object is a conduit.

Sometimes an overwhelming conduit! Earlier I mentioned the Stendhal Syndrome. For those not familiar, here is a definition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome

[David]

Yet, it takes relaxing and putting aside the rush of the daily activities. That Joshua Bell was playing some of the most intricate and powerful music -- in a subway while most people blindly walked by -- does not surprise me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myq8upzJDJc
you will notice a few people who stood and listened. Some knew who he was, others heard something they enjoyed.

The majority of these people were focussed on the cares of the day, not a 'street musician looking for tips.' Yet later, I could guess, some of these same people may have bought tickets, sat down in cool darkness of the theater and were transported by the exact same music.
I would like to comment that the Joshua Bell example does have a few problems. First and foremost, human beings will follow their survival instincts. Mr. Bell playing in a subway during rush hour doesn't receive the attention it deserves simply because people are rushing to get to their jobs on time. On time arrival to jobs = keeping those jobs=feeding ones family. If you put Mr. Bell in Central Park on a pleasant Sunday afternoon i believe you would see a completely different reception of then music. Their have been so many times when i have had to rush past a good musician playing in the NYC subways that my ear recognized as someone worth stopping to listen to, but my schedule would not allow. It wasn't a matter of venue so much as timing. Of course i would often drop a little something in their music case on my way past if i thought them worthy, but could not stay to listen, a recognition that seems missing in this Washington subway station show. :rolleyes: :)

[Jussi M.]

Jussi, the reason I included "art" along with "objects" was because I wanted people to consider things like the performing arts. I considered "enjoyment" and "satisfaction" and a few other ways of phrasing the idea I had, but when I went that way I just couldn't get away from food, sex and drugs.

OK.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes David, I agree completely.

Part of the act of appreciation is the time and place.

My original comment in post #1:-


We could argue that the concert goers are paying their hundreds of dollars for a total experience --- the atmosphere, the chance to rub shoulders with important people, the opportunity to be seen, photographed, and appear in the society pages. Maybe. But the violinist is the same --- subway : concert stage. Same man, same music. But unappreciated because of place.


I used the Josh Bell example because I believe that it is pretty well known. I've had it quoted to me in at least three different situations, and quoted to illustrate at least three different ideas. What I wanted to do was to give a simple, easily understood example to demonstrate that the act of appreciation does depend upon more than the thing being appreciated.

I keep coming back to this:-

for one reason or another art or an object can make us feel good

why?

if I read back through the posts to this thread I think I can see a common idea that has been expressed in a number of ways

I believe it is this idea that is what this thread is about.

[Bill M]

This Joshua Bell experiment continues to haunt me. I was talking recently with a well-known psychiatrist about this event. He said that one of the biggest factors influencing our behavior is environment. A huge difference in a subway and a concert hall. He was not at all surprised that Joshua Bell was mostly ignored. Obviously people are thinking of other things and usually intentionally ignoring buskers and panhandlers.

But he made a very interesting observation. Other than some people who recognized Bell, the one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother had to pull him away, but the entire time the boy was watching the violinist. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

I will be 67 soon. A few years ago I decided to make a conscious effort to relax more often and enjoy life. My wife, Anne, is a constant joy. She has this childlike quality to stop for a rose, a pebble, a sunset, things that I had blocked out.

I used to push her along like the mothers above, but now, I stop and respect her interest -- whole new worlds open.

"Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."

[Bill M]

Its a quiet Saturday morning and I have time to muse.

One of the topics in this fascinating thread has to do with Beauty. I worked my way through college as an Architectural photographer. I have always felt a bond with buildings and the men (and women) who designed them.

An architect takes an idea, translates it into form, function and substance, creating places where we live, work, are entertained, and worship. What a great occupation!

A photographer is always updating his portfolio. I was very good at my work, but I realized that I wanted to have spectacular, beautiful photos of, well, spectacular buildings. In short I wanted a perfect beautiful photo of a building whether the architect was paying me to photograph that building or not.

So I began a search for the perfect photographs for my portfolio. The most beautiful buildings photographed perfectly. I drove streets, studied buildings, waited for the sun to strike the building perfectly while I chose the right film, the right lens, the right angle.

I worked very hard, but the "right" picture, the "beautiful picture" eluded me. Something was always off! I took no pictures, none. My search for perfection created a log jam in my head that went so far as to effectively stop me from taking ANY pictures -- even the work for which I had been commissioned.

Stymied, angry, frustrated, I remember sitting on my camera case staring at a huge parking garage an architect wanted photographed. I thought, "A damn parking garage! Frank Lloyd Wright would never do anything like that!"

A moment, an epiphany struck me. I had it backwards. I had set up an impossible no-win situation -- find and take the perfect, beautiful picture? No, doesn't work that way! Find the beauty inherent in whatever you are seeing.

The parking garage seemed to change, huge, dramatic sweeping lines, massive white concrete punctuated by brilliantly colored automobiles, and much, much more. I felt a bond between me, my camera and the magnificent building.

The architects were thrilled! From that moment, from that perspective I did some of my best work. My portfolio glowed with beautiful photographs.

The point is that when we first seek beauty, that connection, the world gives it. From the right frame of reference, there is beauty everywhere.

[drdavid]

Bill, I think you have hit the nail on the head, beauty can be found anywhere, if we are open to seeing it
drd

[Jussi M.]

A photographer is always updating his portfolio. I was very good at my work, but I realized that I wanted to have spectacular, beautiful photos of, well, spectacular buildings. In short I wanted a perfect beautiful photo of a building whether the architect was paying me to photograph that building or not.

So I began a search for the perfect photographs for my portfolio. The most beautiful buildings photographed perfectly. I drove streets, studied buildings, waited for the sun to strike the building perfectly while I chose the right film, the right lens, the right angle.

I worked very hard, but the "right" picture, the "beautiful picture" eluded me. Something was always off! I took no pictures, none. My search for perfection created a log jam in my head that went so far as to effectively stop me from taking ANY pictures -- even the work for which I had been commissioned.

Stymied, angry, frustrated, I remember sitting on my camera case staring at a huge parking garage an architect wanted photographed. I thought, "A damn parking garage! Frank Lloyd Wright would never do anything like that!"

A moment, an epiphany struck me. I had it backwards. I had set up an impossible no-win situation -- find and take the perfect, beautiful picture? No, doesn't work that way! Find the beauty inherent in whatever you are seeing.

The parking garage seemed to change, huge, dramatic sweeping lines, massive white concrete punctuated by brilliantly colored automobiles, and much, much more. I felt a bond between me, my camera and the magnificent building.

The architects were thrilled! From that moment, from that perspective I did some of my best work. My portfolio glowed with beautiful photographs.

The point is that when we first seek beauty, that connection, the world gives it. From the right frame of reference, there is beauty everywhere.

I must say the above write up from Bill truly rang a bell on my head.

It actually hit it pretty hard. A knockout of Sorts? – Yes, or maybe a epiphany would be a better term.

Please let me ramble a bit – I will get to the point soon... So, lets speak about something else first... Lets talk about watches and audio: I´ve been always enamored with watches and within the past 10 years or so I´ve managed to get somewhat deep onto the watch-collecting game and all that comes along with it: trading, socializing on hobbyists forums with fellow collectors and photographing them tickers - you cannot play the game of show & tell on the forums unless you take pictures of ´em timepieces.

Many matured watch-collectors have a pretty good set of photographic equipment at their disposal. - Many feel that it is not sufficient to have neat tickers - you have to be able to take cool pics of them too. So, the cameras become upgraded regularly as does the rest of the equipment. - They use light tents, filters, macro-lenses... you name it. I however take my pictures (and I take them daily) with a 6 year old mobile phone camera having learnt a valuable lesson from the time I leaned heavily towards high-end audio.

This is where we loop back to Bill´s posting, please bear me. So... twenty-odd years ago when I was a freshman in the university I bought a new set of speakers for my stereo-equipment. I was astonished with the effect it had on the sound! :eek:

I was astounded, and, when I learnt out that playing romantic music for visiting girls with a good sounding rig was not a bad tactic from my part I became even more interested on the secrets of audio reproduction... :D

So... I went back to the audio store to see what else could be done... I soon learnt what differentiates an integrated amplifier from a separate pre- and power-amp combo, what are the pros and cons of them, how does room acoustics apply to the equation, what are the differences between solid state vrs. tube vrs. hybrid designs... why is a short signal path important, how does cabling affect the sound... Etc. Soon I had tons of Audio magazines all around the house and a rig that costed more than I could afford and which was always somewhat OK but still "wrong" sonically - there was always something that could be bettered... After years of enthusiastic upgrading and finally finding a setup in which all the components complemented each other on an almost perfect way... I decided to sell the equipment (save for the loudspeaker- and signal cabling which I still have... Just could not sell them as it took me bloody ages and countless hours of trial and error to find the "perfect" cabling :o ).

Why I sold?

Because somewhere along the line I had lost the spark that initiated my interest towards High-End Audio in the first place - the love for music. Instead of enjoying the music I had reached a learnt state in which I was listening to the setup instead of the actual music, trying to pinpoint the systems weaknesses looking already forward to the next upgrade. To put it frankly I lost the appetite for music for years. Even today I never concentrate to listen to it per se whilst I have learnt to enjoy it again. - Good music is good never mind the media it is reproduced via.

This is why I refuse to upgrade my watch-photographing rig beyond my six year old mobile phone. I much prefer to wait for a good light and hope some of the pics got out OK than start fiddling with light tents and be afraid of getting infected with a "gotta get a better camera-bug".

You may now ask what does any of the above has to do with what Bill wrote and the appreciation theme this thread is about? In my opinion appreciation is purest when it is not clouded by knowledge. A novice may appreciate a thing based on feeling only as much as a seasoned expert can but for different reasons and a different frame of mind. Which is the purer form of appreciation - appreciating something whilst not knowing anything about it ("cool" or "awesome") or appreciating something knowingly ("yes, this is a very rare specimen from the late Ming Dynasty")? In my personal opinion the innocence and clumsiness associated with novice amateurism is somehow admirably pure and spiritually elevating compared to professionalism and expertise for what is an expert but a novice who has lost his innocence (and with it the capability of wonderment?)? – I think what Bill found with that parking garage experience of his hence was renewed ability to see things through novices eyes past acquired technical skills and experience?

Not a good pic but good enough – yes, I also appreciate this old Seiko of mine ;)

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w308/JCJM/Seiko%206138/DSC01710.jpg


Thanks for taking the time to read this.

J.

[Rick]

Thanks Jussi .
You made your point quite well . :)

I couldn't disagree with a lot of it . ;)



Did you have a vacuum tube amp ? ;)

[Jussi M.]

Did you have a vacuum tube amp ? ;)

Yes ;)

[A. G. Maisey]

Acting upon David's recommendation, I pursued, and finally obtained a copy of "F for Fake". I got hold of it through inter-library loan from a library in a rural area 400 miles from Sydney.

I found it a very difficult film to watch, and I watched it the first time in two sessions. But the second time I watched it I gritted my teeth and sat through it in one go. After these viewings of the movie, I then read quite a lot about this movie from several sites on the net. Apparently the vast bulk of people did not find it any easier to watch than I did, however I learnt that it was not really intended for light entertainment, but rather was intended as a masterwork of editing. Apparently this is recognised as the true value of this film:- it is a landmark in the art of editing. Because of this it has become an extremely important film for students of cinematography. The subject matter is secondary.

However, that said, David is absolutely correct in his opinion that this film is able to add considerably to this present discussion. The entire film is about, and is based upon, deception. In fact, in the film the point is made that all film making is in fact the practice of the art of deception. The purpose of what we are permitted to see is to create the impression that the film maker wishes to create.

If we reflect upon this, it is perhaps only a very short step to realise that in any avenue of life itself we base our feelings, knowledge, opinions upon that which we perceive. In other words, the opinions we form, and the feelings that something or someone can engender in us are formed from only those aspects of the person or thing of which we are aware.

If we apply this line of thought to our present discussion, it can be seen that our appreciation of anything, be it an art work or not, is based upon what we believe we know about that thing. Thus, if we believe that we are experiencing great art, to hold an opinion other than that would be contrary to human nature.

But in this discussion we have not really been addressing the ideas that apply to great art, rather, we have been considering the appreciation of things on a more personal basis. I believe that we have shown that the way in which we relate to the things that we appreciate is based in our previous life experience. To put this another way, when we encounter something for which we have an appreciation, that appreciation is rooted in some memory of the past, be it an active or a passive memory.

If we can accept this construct, then the same argument applies to these more personal objects of appreciation, as it does to the broader sphere of recognised art, the only difference is that we consider these personal objects in personal terms, whereas the more public objects of recognised art are considered in more formally specific terms.

I feel that this brings us back the that which has already been proposed here:- that we appreciate things because those things strike a chord within us. That chord can be one that has been accidentally created by life experience, or it can be one that is the result of learnt concept.

To return to our "F for Fake" movie.
Yes, that movie demonstrates very well that we can be guided , or perhaps deceived, into seeing things in a particular way.

Because of this perhaps it is now time to ask another question.

What part does knowledge play in the act of appreciation?

To take Jussi's watch story as a starting point:- is the appreciation of a genuine, certified, Watchaholic for a genuine, certified Audemars Piguet Royal Oak any greater than the appreciation of Freddy Bloggs from Nowhereville for his genuine, certified Audemars Piguet , made in China, Royal Oak?

Does knowledge sharpen appreciation, or does ignorance permit a personal response in the ignorant, as does knowledge in the educated?

[Jussi M.]

To take Jussi's watch story as a starting point:- is the appreciation of a genuine, certified, Watchaholic for a genuine, certified Audemars Piguet Royal Oak any greater than the appreciation of Freddy Bloggs from Nowhereville for his genuine, certified Audemars Piguet , made in China, Royal Oak?

In my opinion the answer is both yes and no. – Yes in that a judged opinion based on how the item/act in question relates to others of the same ilk within a "standardized" set of criteria used to compare them is... in a way more solid - it appears more objective though the application and weightings of the said criteria is always subjective. - It should be remembered that branding originated as a means to mark ownership, not as a means to portray any given set of values to be associated with the said brand or make. So no, in my opinion the Freddy Bloggs opinion is just as valid - it´s just completely nude within its subjectiveness as it has not been disguised "objective" by the cloak of knowledge and experience. However... we live on a world in which the majorities opinion matter most and is thus perceived as "truth". So, if we look at things exclusively from the standpoint of appreciation they are both right and valid views. If we conclude the rest of the world onto the equation I feel that Freddy Bloggs opinion is easily countered. It´s just the way it is that we tend to appreciate more what the "expert" has to say about things than the "commoner". Why? - because reality as we have to deal with it is not formed by the latter. It is formed by the clan of "experts".


Does knowledge sharpen appreciation, or does ignorance permit a personal response in the ignorant, as does knowledge in the educated?

In my opinion, yes.

Or rather, knowledge shines light to areas previously unnoticed. When this happens on a continuous state the previously "lighted" or acknowledged parts of the whole in question become dimmed by the new focus. In the extreme these areas become void in not so much different than what happened to my listening of music described a couple postings above - the focus turned from listening the actual music onto listening to the effects that the equipment used for listening the recording. In my case it become so difficult to get back to the original unlearnt state of just listening to the music that I stopped listening altogether - by becoming too aware, too "expert", I lost the ability to enjoy, not much different from Freddy Bloggs enjoying his "subjectively" genuine timepiece - how can it be "fake" if it fulfills and even exceeds Freddy Bloggs needs and expectations?

I would hence state that awe in ignorance and "genuine" appreciation that stems from knowledge and experience are the two sides of the same coin. When an expert realizes that his expertise is "nothing" but a set of learnt knowledge, connections and skill´s he is no longer bound by the expert role and he can widen his horizon by the subjective areas that were dimmed by the hard light of the expert search light.

Is it not funny when we contrast this with what the wikipedia has to say about "Emeritus":

"The term is used when a person of importance in a given profession retires, so that his former rank can still be used in his title. This is particularly useful when establishing the authority of a person who might comment, lecture or write on a particular subject. The word is typically used as a postpositional adjective but can also be used as a preposition adjective. It is frequently capitalized when it forms part of a title. The word originated in the mid-18th century from Latin as the past participle of emereri meaning to "earn one's discharge by service". Emereri itself is a compound of the prefix e- (a variant of ex-) meaning "out of or from" and merēre meaning "earn". Emeritus does not necessarily indicate that the person is retired from all the duties of his previous position; he or she may continue to exercise some of them."

An example:

http://www2.ku.edu/~kuanth/people/pics/darwin-ape.jpg

Robert J. Smith
Professor Emeritus
Socio-Cultural Anthropology
(see: http://www2.ku.edu/~kuanth/people/faculty.shtml )


So, in a Emeritus we have what used to be the experts expert who has earnt the right to step out of the experts role and shine the unlighted areas of the whole he "was" partly an expert in. - So, the same unnoticed things that Freddy Bloggs might have written in the newspaper may become huge and widely casted top news when said by the Emeritus even though it might be the exact same thing Freddy Bloggs said. – There are no objective truths - only degrees of subjectiveness that may be perceived as such. So, the short answer is that Freddy Bloggs and the "expert" are both right and wrong at the same time.

In the end it is not about the act of appreciation itself. It is also not about the story either. Ultimately it is plainly about the way we can appreciate things. – A human brain has two sides that have different tasks assigned to them. Depending on the situation - time and place - we come across a new phenomena or item it is the state of mind (the brain) that mostly dictates our response and the rest will follow. A true expert (Emeritus) has become so saturated with the subject s/he is expert in that s/he can let the logical side run in parallel with the soft side in subconsciousness and let the soft lead the way. Thus s/he is able to see things a mere expert is not capable of as the hard focus of the logical re-search light dims what it is not focused on. If you contrast this to Bill´s experience with the parking garage you can see that this is what happened - he was able to transcend ("regress") beyond his analytical mindset and see the garage with novices eyes again while still being able to use his acquired expertise skills in taking photographs – using the hard side of the brain subconsciously in parallel with the soft side. If you think about it the word "research" is composed of "re" and "search", thus ultimately meaning to search for something already found but lost (like my partly failed quest to re-find the enjoyment of listening to music).

A mere novice is just a child. A mere expert is often just an adult convincing the rest and/or himself that he is an expert. A transcended expert - Emeritus - is a person who acknowledges his knowledge is just that and that there is more to the subject s/he is supposedly an expert in that meets the logical side of the brain. I guess that remaining or -gaining an innocent, uncorrupted childlike ability to see and experience things bare of excess (story) is what appreciation, at it´s highest order, really is about?


Main point:
Does knowledge sharpen appreciation, or does ignorance permit a personal response in the ignorant, as does knowledge in the educated?
It has the capacity to do so but it is not automatically so.

Or? :shrug:

Thanks,

J.

[Jussi M.]

See Bill reaching over the left side to the right? ;)

http://s4.hubimg.com/u/53183_f520.jpg

:D

Thanks,

J.

[A. G. Maisey]

Oh --- Jussi.

Matthew 5:37

[Jussi M.]

John 8:7

[A. G. Maisey]

Not throwing any rocks here Jussi.

Its just that after reading what you wrote --- 3 times -- I reckon you're having ten bob each way.

Which I guess is good in a way.

I'm not going to come back in and give my opinion on the question I've asked, because I'd like to hear a few opinions from other people.

Just one thing I'd like to mention, and that is this:- whichever way you look at it, the act of appreciation is a deeply personal thing.

[Jussi M.]

Not throwing any rocks here Jussi.

I know Mr. Maisey... :p
http://cdn2.onetipaday.com/wp-content/uploads/pictures/2007/06/speed_typing.jpg

What can I say? - I am not a morning person and it was 7:30AM :shrug:

Anyways my point is that appreciation is a multifaceted phenomena.

:D :D :D

Thanks,

J.

[David]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4oKXagF3IE

[A. G. Maisey]

Ah yes.

The wisdom of Monty Python.

As Jussi remarked, appreciation is multi faceted, and Monty's parting remark is one of those facets.

[Jussi M.]

Ah yes.

The wisdom of Monty Python.

As Jussi remarked, appreciation is multi faceted, and Monty's parting remark is one of those facets.

Right on.

Me? - I consider this appreciation defined:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMD_L8IDZnc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrUkKLq860I&feature=related

Nuff said.

Thanks,

J.

[Jussi M.]

Take III:

Go to http://www.strategichorizons.com/authenticity.html
Please choose video "go beyond the experience" (2:49).

The video is about marketing yet it is valid to keris also ;)

IMO.

Thanks,

J.

[A. G. Maisey]

I cannot see it Jussi.

Read the spiel.

Its accurate comment, but I cannot locate the video.

[Jussi M.]

I cannot see it Jussi.

Read the spiel.

Its accurate comment, but I cannot locate the video.

OK, lets try it this way:
1. please go to http://www.strategichorizons.com/
2. follow instructions written on below screen shot:
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w308/JCJM/sekalaista/vikingsword.jpg

[A. G. Maisey]

OK. Got it.

[Bill M]

Ah, drop a pebble in the pond and watch the ripples . . . . . :)

Last week we visited a couple who have one of the largest private collections of contemporary African and print art in America. They also have 40 Andy Warhol, Man Ray, De Kooning, Picasso, William H Johnson, Bob Blackburn, Dali and others of that ilk.

The man has been collecting for about 30 years. Block prints, serigraphs, engravings, original art - oil and watercolors. He confided in me that the only money he ever borrowed was to buy art. He has never been in a high income bracket.

He has a very important collection. He lends pieces to museums for shows. Three good museums are currently displaying his pieces.

He knew or knows most of the contemporary artists, but he knows almost nothing about the techniques or circumstances involved in creating the art and does not want to know because he feels it would interfere with his enjoyment. I understood his point.

I have not been a fan of contemporary art, but began to feel a connection with many of the pieces. This was good art.

I asked him the common denominator of his varied collection? "I buy what I like!" he answered. He was not influenced by critics or investment value. "I buy what I like."

What he appreciates.

I begin another ramble that hopefully leads to a segue.

Yesterday we had about 40 docents from a major Atlanta museum, visit our home gallery. I gave a brief introduction. "Most of what you will see here was never considered art by its creators. These pieces were working tools that protected the makers from spirits, gave them fertility, were conduits to ancestors, were parts of initiation ceremonies, or protected and nurtured them after death.

"We have about 800 pieces from 100 to 5,000 years old from a wide variety of epochs and civilizations. We invite you to look around and enjoy and come back together to ask questions."

Bright, inquisitive minds. Delightful guests. It is always exciting to see your treasures from other peoples' perspectives. Many were focussed on particular objects. "What is the red hat?" "This hat identified a Zulu woman as being single." "Who is the blue man in the India picture?"

"What is your favorite sword and why? What is your latest acquisition? . . . " Then the inevitable, "What is the common theme in such a varied collection?"

Simple answer, "I buy what I like." A more penetrating question, "Have you ever examined why you like something?" "Because it makes me feel connected to something. Something important, perhaps sacred." Pause, a quiet moment.

Certainly I have studied many of the cultures that made these pieces. Many had no written language, their language, their history, their religion is told in the carefully carved and painted pieces. And I feel something -- a connection when I hold them. I feel battles and noise when I am quiet, holding a sword. Stories, but wordless - images, sounds. Something both episodic, but more of a long, enduring, overall picture. Something greater. And the more I appreciate this connection, the stronger it grows.

Let me say that again: The more I appreciate this connection, the stronger it grows!!!!

Another friend collects "Hudson River School" oil paintings. (American 1825 to 1870s) Landscapes. Snort. I have never appreciated landscapes. But when Anne and I visited him to see his collection, I was moved almost to tears. The oils had luminosity that connected me with deep emotions. It was like there was a light behind the painting that projected a spine tingling effect.

For a while, I ignored our hosts explanations for which painter painted what, lost in the images. Phasing back in to his narrative I heard him say, "This painter was from England. He came here and painted autumnal landscapes. He returned to England and was criticized for painting in colors that could not possibly be real. Leaves just could not be those colors." He returned to the Hudson River and collected leaves. He displayed them with his paintings.

Did this help me appreciate the paintings more? Possibly. Did this information give my conscious mind something to justify my deep subconscious feelings? Did I rely on the enormous value of these paintings to have a personal value? My host never mentioned monetary value, neither did my host with the Warhols, but I had an idea. However that was very much secondary.

What I FELT was much more important. Maybe we need to have some knowledge to feed the conscious mind while the subconscious feeds us with incredible feelings.

I asked my host the common denominator of the many artists who painted in the "Hudson River" style. He said simply.

"They were expressing their love of God through Nature." I think they achieved their goal.