{"id":20627,"date":"2025-04-16T19:56:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T23:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=20627"},"modified":"2025-04-16T19:56:43","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T23:56:43","slug":"on-art-i-think-above-my-weight-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=20627","title":{"rendered":"On art: I think above my weight class"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/
Photo credit: Sui Sim. Unsplash license.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tonight I must be in an antic mood<\/strong>, for I intend to talk about Art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is, of course, absurd. I am a middlebrow, generally unknown fantasy writer. Google my latest novel (The Baldur Game<\/a><\/em>, in case you forgot, which is not unlikely) you\u2019ll find that the only person talking about the book online is me. I have zero standing to make pronouncements about Art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I\u2019ve had a couple thoughts. I\u2019ll maunder on about the first one tonight. The next one will be provided the next time I find myself with a night without a book to review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One truth that grows increasingly unavoidable as one grows old (though I think I\u2019ve never repressed it much myself) is that we are going to die.<\/strong> The sands of time are sinking, the sun is setting in the west. Choose your metaphor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m inclined to think of it as like floating down a river. You can\u2019t slow your velocity and you can\u2019t go ashore and rest \u2013 you are forever being carried by the current.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The river has pleasant stretches and unpleasant stretches. Some stretches are horrible. Some are delightful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But good or bad, they speed past. The bad ones come to an end, but so do the good ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And sometimes you see one so wonderful, so sublime that you want to preserve it. You want to share it. You feel that the world will be better \u2013 it will be an act of love for humanity \u2013 if you can just preserve that moment for others to enjoy as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what art is. An effort to preserve \u2013 to freeze \u2013 one of those fleeting moments and make it available to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art, therefore, is an attempt at stopping time.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or it was, until the Postmoderns decided that Art should be an exercise in self-expression, the less interesting the self, the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tonight I must be in an antic mood, for I intend to talk about Art. This is, of course, absurd. I am a middlebrow, generally unknown fantasy writer. Google my latest novel (The Baldur Game, in case you forgot, which is not unlikely) you\u2019ll find that the only person talking about the book online is … Continue reading On art: I think above my weight class<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[225],"class_list":["post-20627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20627"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20630,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20627\/revisions\/20630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}