Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 23:10:46 -0600
From: George Trail <gtrail-AT-UH.EDU>
Subject: Re: PLC: A theory about theory [was Anyone get Gass?]


>> And the theorists to whom I am opbjecting, including Freud, had so
>>  >little exposure to the data that their theories do little more than expose
>>  >their own ignorance.
>>
>>  [Pshaw. Give me a concrete example from Freud].
>>
>Pshaw yourself, George, though the curmudgeon rhetoric suits you.
>
>I already gave an example of an optician who "theorized" about van Gogh on the
>basis of one painting.  I gave a second example of a psychoanalytic critic
>who"theorized" about Greek art though his "data" about Greek art was
>apparently limited to one substantially misleading cliche ("Greek art is
>realistic"). This man could not name even 3 examples of Greek sculpture, did
>not know the names of any Greek sculptors, did not realize that Greek art is
>divided into several stylistic periods of which some are more "realistic" than
>others, did not want to know the names of any of these stylistic periods, did
>not want to know the names of any specialists who had written on Greek art,
>and actually argued that one could "theorize" about Greek art without (ahem)
>examining the data.

[Pat. I think you _can_ read, despite the fact that you don't. I said,
FREUD, not some anecdotal optometrist nor an underqualified and nameless
lecturer. FREUD, Sigmund, one each. Cite the master, do not tell me tales
of assholes who have no names. ]
>
>If you didn't understand what point was being made by either of these two
>examples, or by Reg on the music theorists who donh't know beans about music,
>multiplying examples won't help.  You don't intend to listen.  But here's an
>example from Freud that I review in a forthcoming article, and even though it
>doesn't interest you, it may interest somebody else.

[It is _precisely_ what interests me. I can walk across the street and talk
to optomitrists. I never wanted to, but I could.]
>
>Delusion and Dream is Freud's only essay about a novel. He examines Wilhelm
>Jensen's Gradiva.  The protagonist of Gradiva, Norbert Hanold, is an
>archaeologist who falls in love with a plaster cast of a sculpture of a
>walking girl.  The sculpture is described as a Roman genre piece.  Hanold
>nicknames the girl Gradiva. He becomes convinced she  died when Pompeii was
>buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (79 AD).  He goes to Pompeii, where
>he sees Gradiva--alive.  Read DD is you want to know more about <that>.  I'm
>interested here in the statue.
>
>Jensen gives no indication whether he had an actual piece of sculpture in
>mind.  Freud assumed that he did, and went to look for the statue.  Or claimed
>he had found it.  Big problem, though. Jensen said the statue he was
>describing was Roman. Freud claimed the statue he had found (in the
>Chiaramonti Museum in the Vatican) was Greek.  Why the discrepancy?  Freud
>blamed it on Jensen, whom he scolded roundly for "deceiving" the reader (by
>saying the statue was Roman).
>
>There are other possibilities that Freud perhaps should have considered.  If
>he went looking for a Roman statue and found a Greek stature, then maybe he
>didn't find the statue he was looking for.  Or maybe there never was such a
>statue. Jensen might have imagined the statue, just as he imagined Norbert
>Hanold.   It's been my experience that these kinds of oversights

[What oversight? I have seen no oversight. You have raised question which
have nothing to do with "oversight," but instead to a claim of accuracy. }

come almost
>entirely from persons with no education whatsoever in the visual arts--the
>most naive sector, say, of my beginning students. I often wish Freud had had
>the opportunity to take an introductory class in art history, and maybe also
>an introductory class in logic.  I find him weak in both areas, and
>inexcusably weak for a man who's holding himself forth to be an expert on art.

[But nothing in what you say above justifies this.]
>
>Reg mentioned that musicians and musicologists don't think much of those
>"music theorists" who are abysmally ignorant of music. Nor do artists and art
>historians think much of "art theorists" who are abysmally ignorant of art.

[You, who can not tell me what art is, say this.]


>Show me a person who admires Freud's views on the arts and I'll show you a
>person who knows very little about art.  For those who know even a little bit,
>Freud can get pretty irritating pretty fast.

[Show me a person who talks a lot about logic, and I'll show you a person
who does not understand the concept of begging the question.]
>
>pat

g




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