# What Do You Look For in Creation?



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

To me, everything in the universe is creation and thus art in that everything expresses an idea or emotion.

What do you look for in your favorite creations?

To be impressed?
To be moved emotionally?
Etc.


For me, I need to find the work interesting. For example, abstract expressionist art interests me in its focus on line, shape and color. In doing away with representationalism, viewers can either create a figure from the work, and or simply feel its energy. You can feel the energy of representational art, but for me it’s not as fun to look at because it gives a lot of answers instead of asking lots of questions like abstract (non-representational) art does.

Films like Donnie Darko or The Matrix interest me for different reasons. Darko is like abstract expressionist art in that it gets you asking questions. The Matrix gets you thinking about philosophical ideas, but offers all the answers even though you can choose to question it’s conclusions, most folks don’t. A movie like Darko forces you to ask questions in order to make sense of it. Both forms of film interest me, and for ones like the matrix, I am one that does question its conclusions.

With books, I enjoy the classics. I enjoy books that celebrate a sophisticated prose, like Sherlock Holmes or Frankenstein. The Fountainhead is another novel I love!

With music, I prefer instrumental works of Jazz and Classical that capture my imagination. For example, A Love Supreme has melody and structure that captures my imagination. Schoenberg is a composer whose work also thrills me for the same reasons.


Thoughts?


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

I look for signs of intelligence. Superhero movies, popular music and reality TV show no signs that a thinking person is behind them.

Movies, books, music that haunts me for days afterward, that blossom and flower in the mind as you reflect on them, that's what interests me.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Creativity! 😎


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

nothing man makes is equal to the beauty I see in the natural world. Often the things that are right under our own noses are some of the most beautiful, and if we were to find them on Mars or the Moon, it would be the greatest discovery in the history of mankind. But they aren't on the moon, they are right here.

I've seen the full solar eclipses, meteor showers, the northern lights and the southern cross, but I think the best celestial show is the sunset. Its just that we see them every day so we stopped looking at the beauty that is right there.

This is why I choose not to live in a city or town, but to live in the woods on the side of a ridge here in central Pennsylvania.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I put up with a lot in trying to understand works of art, but I get excited about something when there is something there that I feel a visceral connection with. I remember someone, when asked about music and the meaning of life, said he was looking for what made his soul sing. It's subjective, but I guess that's the best way to put it.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Nate Miller said:


> I think the best celestial show is the sunset. Its just that we see them every day so we stopped looking at the beauty that is right there.
> This is why I choose not to live in a city or town, but to live in the woods on the side of a ridge here in central Pennsylvania.


I take walks on the trail near my house, and at sunset, the light illumines the leaves of the overarching oaks, making the trail look like a cathedral. Sometimes I embarrass myself by showing outwardly the intense feeling of childlike wonder that I'm feeling inside. But as Wordsworth said:
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

I look for Yahweh in all creation. Yahweh is creation and creativity shared with and through all.


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## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

Milhaud


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

PeterKC said:


> Milhaud


Maybe Haydn could also be squeezed into that creation du monde.


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## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> Maybe Haydn could also be squeezed into that creation du monde.
> [/


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Nate Miller said:


> nothing man makes is equal to the beauty I see in the natural world. Often the things that are right under our own noses are some of the most beautiful, and if we were to find them on Mars or the Moon, it would be the greatest discovery in the history of mankind. But they aren't on the moon, they are right here.
> 
> I've seen the full solar eclipses, meteor showers, the northern lights and the southern cross, but I think the best celestial show is the sunset. Its just that we see them every day so we stopped looking at the beauty that is right there.
> 
> This is why I choose not to live in a city or town, but to live in the woods on the side of a ridge here in central Pennsylvania.


Beautiful answer!


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

Looks like two unrelated questions. The first bit says little to me, the world isn't 'created' in the same way as art. Though artistic interpretation after-the-fact is legitimate.

If the question is about what I look for in art it's much the same as most people: entertainment, drama, to be moved, distracted. informed, to forget. It's what most people use art for.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Chat Noir said:


> Looks like two unrelated questions. The first bit says little to me, the world isn't 'created' in the same way as art. Though artistic interpretation after-the-fact is legitimate.
> 
> If the question is about what I look for in art it's much the same as most people: entertainment, drama, to be moved, distracted. informed, to forget. It's what most people use art for.


But I didn't say in the SAME way, just that everything is creation.

I agree that creation can be used in those ways, but there are others.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

Captainnumber36 said:


> But I didn't say in the SAME way, just that everything is creation.


It seemed to me a superfluous and shoehorned-in theological belief, when the real question is: what do you look for in art?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Chat Noir said:


> It seemed to me a superfluous and shoehorned-in theological belief, when the real question is: what do you look for in art?


It's more stating that I think everything is art, because everything is created in some way or another and expresses an idea and/or emotion.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm not saying it's all equal. We just have our preferences.


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## Viajero (1 mo ago)

Hi, Captain,
Interesting question! For me, a work of Art must be both visceral and intellectual. If I am not moved, it doesn't work for me. The Tahitian paintings of Gauguin, the music of Beethoven and Dexter Gordon, the prose of Thomas Mann, the poetry of Eliot and the Zen Masters, the philosophy of Sartre, Camus, and Schopenhauer and . . . similar to Nate's response, I am deeply moved by the natural world and have always looked to it for spiritual healing in offshore sailing, fly fishing, and hunting. As the existentialists believed, life is absurd and only we can give it meaning. We live moment to moment. Time is ephemeral.
Viajero


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