Object Culture Part VII

 Featured image: Pitcher and a Lemon

As I think about differences and the objective and the subjective, I also think about my values, the values that I live by. For me, there is a clear line between good and bad values. So how does this judgment fit into my thinking? I have said in the past that one needs to have an opinion on things to be able to create one's own personal values. So, most values that we create for ourselves are based on good and bad, truth and non-truth.

As an objectivist, I believe that our subjective states of mind should have no effect on the facts of reality. Objectivists are Spock-like in nature. There are no rational contexts in which the facts of reality can be subjectified, like the subjective reality of the Velveteen Rabbit. Why? Because reality is based on reason, and the reasonable “real.” lt has been defined as something that grows, and breathes. Reality to an objectivist is different from subjective reality. There is always the need for balance. The subjective reality for the rabbit, oh wait, the rabbit “in reality” can’t really think. So, the subjective reality of the writer of the book Velveteen Rabbit is one in which the rabbit can imagine that he is real. And the objective reality of the rabbit is that the rabbit really doesn’t breathe or grow.

How do these two realities relate to the realities created in art? There is the subjective imagined reality of an artist which can be developed into a concept and have the potential of becoming real. Then, there is the reality of a realistic painter in which a landscape is photo perfect and looks real. Neither of these are real. They don’t breathe. They don’t grow. Or, do they? What happens to our imagined creation and invented concept? What happens to the photorealistic painted landscape? They become part of an artist’s foundation, which she builds upon. It grows because it changes as she builds upon it. The creation breathes through the artist and the viewer.