Art, Love and The HumanSpirit | Yaron Lectures

All right, we're going to get started and um bear with me. I've never done this presentation before and it's kind of on two laptops and we we'll figure it out as we go along. Uh this is topic. He asked me to talk about this and uh so we'll see we'll see how this uh how this all works out. So, I want you I I want you for just the next few seconds just to watch the screen and I won't be talking So, we live in an age, we live in an age of cynicism and skepticism. We like to rip things down and tear things down, to put things down. Our TV shows and our movies are filled with anti-heroes. We can't even project Homer's Adysius because he's too heroic. We have to undercut him by making him feel guilty and seek redemption. Our art is full filled with mediocrity. things as they are, things as they are, you know, as as normal human beings. And we generally, you know, every every one of our shows and and with rare exception is about is is cynical. It's about again as I said ripping things down, making things smaller, looking down on people and on achievement and on success and on what human beings what is possible for human beings. So, you know, and and and the examples uh uh are many I mean there's some great television shows out there, but almost all of them have anti-heroes or have heroes who are actually the bad guys. uh heroes who were destructive. It's almost unheard of to have in our modern world art that wants us to look upwards. And yet, in my view, we need we literally need to look up, to admire, to see a vision of a hero, to see a vision of what's possible to man, not just what is uh average, normal, or actually less than average and less than normal. And the reality is that art can inspire all of us. I mean, think about looking at a sculpture and sometimes that makes you stand up a little bit taller, right? Or looking at a painting that makes you just feel good about the world around you and makes you much more observant about what is going on in the world around you. suddenly opens up your eyes to what is out there in existence or a character in a novel. Somebody who never existed. Some sometimes can become a companion on a life journey. Somebody who you ask what would X do? How would I live? How would he face this situation? How would he face this uh challenge? And what is it about beauty, about heroism, and about romantic love that seems to belong together? They bring out something in us that is there's a certain commonality to all of those beauty, art, love, heroism. There's something common to all of those concepts. I think a big part of that is our ability to admire. It's admiration. It's the ability to look up at something to set a standard for us to live towards. Great art can give you something to aspire to, can give you something worthy of admiration. Romantic love is the most intimate form of admiration in a person. It's admiration aimed at one human being, one specific human being. And this capacity to admire, the capacity to look at something and to say this is great. I want this. and I could be part of this. This is possible to me. That is one that is a capacity that is one of the great achievements of a human spirit. That in many ways is what life is all about. Kira in the in we the living one of Einran's novels says at some point what they want to destroy in me and this is she's living in a society that's trying to destroy her. What you what they want to destroy me is the wanting is the idea that I want because wanting the act of wanting is the act of valuing. The act of valuing is the act of living. To live is to want. To live is to desire. To live is to value. And when we give up on those, we die. And the cynics, the cynicism in our world wants us to give up on the wanting. It wants us to give up on the desiring. It wants us to give up on the valuing. It undermines it. It undercuts it. It tries to destroy it in everything that it does. So cynicism is a killer of values. And in a in a sense that it's a killer of values, it's a killer of life. It's a real killer, right? So, let's talk about art. Now, Einrand has a particular definition of art. Ran's definition of art is a selective recreation of reality based on an artist's metaphysical value judgments. Okay, that's a mouthful, right? So art is a selective recreation of reality based on an artist's metaphysical value judgments. So let's make that up. What does it mean to be a selective recreation of reality? Right? Art is not a projection of reality as it is. Art takes elements of reality and rearranges them and puts them together and it's selective in what it excludes and what it includes. A sculptor chooses a particular human being in a particular pose. A a painter, you know, doesn't actually include every element that is in his field of vision. He chooses what to include and what not, what to emphasize and what not, what to shine a light on and what not. This is what selectivity means. You know, in a a a a novelist doesn't just tell you the story of what's going on out there in the street. Every novel has to choose what to focus on and what not to focus on, what to emphasize, what not to emphasize, which characters are central and which characters are insignificant. So, selective recreation is just that. It's a recreation of something out there, but being selective. Well, but how does an artist decide what to focus on? What to choose to portray versus what to choose not to portray? Well, Rand argues that he does that usually subconsciously, but he does that based on his own metaphysical value judgments. Now, what are metaphysical value judgments? They're the value judgments that are most basic, most fundamental to his life. They are the judgments about the most fundamental aspects of reality and of human beings. It's the questions like you know is the world knowable, right? The answer to that yes no is a metaphysical value judgment. It's a judgment about the metaphysical nature of reality. Is man capable of living in reality? Is man capable of happiness? Is can man be efficacious in this world? That is a metaphysical value judgment about the nature of man. It is these kind of questions and the answers to them, they're going to shape what an artist chooses to focus on and what an artist chooses to ignore. what is uh what he chooses to select and not. In other words, you could think of it, an artist chooses what's important about life, what's important about living, and he abstracts away all the stuff that's not important and focuses on that which is important to him. might not be to you but to him. So what art does is it shows us the artist's convictions. It shows us the artist's values, what is really important to the artist. Now this happens to be, you know, one of my favorite works of art, uh, as it is to, I think, many people. And part of what makes this particular work of art unique, whoops, I see him standing in front of it. Is this is of course David. This is Michelangelo's David. But Michelangelo's David is different than other Davids that have been portrayed in the history of art. If you look at Donatello uh or Vero, uh David is after he's already killed Goliath and he's usually standing heroic with a sword. He's got a a leg on the head of Goliath and he's victorious and he's won and he's done the deed. Or if you look at um if you look at Benini's David, he's in the moment of about sl to to you know use the sling. He's in the moment of action. All the muscles are tense. Everything is in the movement of that sculpture. It's a magnificent sculpture, but it's about movement. That is the essence of it. Michelangelo chooses something a lot quieter. He chooses something much more profound in my view. He chooses the moment before the action, before the fight. Nothing's happening. Nothing has happened. He's readying himself for that action. So, what do we see? We see a man who's alert, focused, powerful, but he's composed. He's ready. Goliath isn't in the sculpture. We know he's somewhere out there. We can follow the eyes of David. And Goliath is somewhere out there. But imagine he's facing a giant. Now, Michelangelo makes David a giant because this sculpture is massive. If you've seen it, it's much bigger than life size. And he's facing something that for most mortals is impossible. He has to defeat this giant. He's a he's a young man, right? And a giant is being faced. The genius of the sculpture is that it's about the state of mind that Michelangelo is in. It's not about the muscles. It's about a mind. It's about a thinking, focused, courageous individual facing a giant facing odds, you know, where where the odds favor the other side. He hasn't won anything yet, but he's confident, he's focused, and he's getting ready for the fight. So, David's supposed to be timid at this point. He's a he's a little guy, but that's not the expression of somebody timid. That's the expression of someone focused and intent on victory. So this is spiritual ideas that the mind in action courage a virtue in marble projected to us in marble without the need for movement without the need for action. It's all in the relaxed nature of the muscles and the focus the intensity of the expression. And of course, no photo can do this sculpture or any sculpture really uh justice. This one is another sculpture that I particularly like, one of my favorites. It's Denise Foyakir Spartacus. And here the action has already happened, right? He is he has broken the chains. You can see the chains that he's broken. He holds a sword in his in one of his hands. He is again the body's tight, but it's the face. He's ready for action. He's already broken the chains and now he is free to move on. This is a man who's saying, "No, I will not submit." And again, you don't need big action. You don't need massive muscles. You don't need to literally see the breaking of the chains to get it. He's a man who's made a decision that I will I want freedom and I won't submit and I won't give up. And he's ready for the next step. He's ready to take the next step. The prison doors are open. Who knows what he's going to do next, right? As we know, Spartacus rallies men around him. This is a hero. A hero in the making. A hero taking his first step uh forward. And we can see the chains, a condition that was forced on him. We can see a face. The broken chains show us what he has chosen. He has chosen to bake the chains. He has chosen not to submit. He has chosen to to pursue freedom. All acts of the mind, all choices that the figure in the sculpture has made and of course that the artist has made about what he chooses to portray the selective recreation. They chose this particular moment, this particular expression. You know, you could have another artist who chooses to have him start running or in battle or just before when the chains are still on him. Each one of those would be a completely different sculpture which would portray completely different ideas. The artist chose this particular scene, this particular point. Now, this is what art does. It takes an abstraction like courage or like beauty or like victory or like freedom or like love and it makes it something that you can stand in front of and feel. So art takes abstract ideas and concretizes them. It makes them real in front of you in a concrete image or in a concrete story that you can relate to and that you can have an emotional response to. Now this feeling that odd gives you rand believed was not something that was optional. It was not something that was a luxury. was not something that you could live a good life without. She believed that art was a necessary condition for flourishing life, for a good life. That this kind of concretization of abstract ideas was necessary for us to really be able to appreciate those ideas, to understand those ideas, and to internalize them, and to live those ideas. that art ultimately was a survival value to live. She would say to live a fully human being as a as a fully human being versus an animal that just eats sleeps. Because we're conceptual, because we live in an abstract world, because we have all these abstract values, we need art in order to bring those abstract values into a concrete reality before us. It increases our understanding of them. But importantly, it gives us fuel to face the constant need to think and be in that abstract world. So, you know, here's how, you know, in a sense it works. We live in abstractions. Think about justice. What is justice? Yeah, we can kind of we can kind of I I could give you a definition, right? But what is justice? And what is injustice? And how do we how do we how do we understand justice and injustice? These abstractions, integrity, ambitions, love. What is love? Again, we can define them, but they stay abstract until we experience them. And art allows us to experience them. Art projects them projects those definitionations to us. So, think about think about I don't know I don't know how much how much opera you know, but think about what happens in in Tusca to the heroine. Think about the injustice. If you've ever watched Tusca, you're ripped apart, right, by what is happening to her loved one uh and and what she has to endure for him. Or, you know, think about what happens in Regalto as the the the main character in Regaloto lands up, I don't think this is, you know, a spoiler, uh, murdering his own own daughter without knowing that that is what he's doing, right? kind of the injustice of that situation. It resonates with you directly at the emotional level. Yes, that is injustice. I see it. I know it. And when revenge is taken, yes, that is just the guy, the bad guy is getting what he deserves. So, it gives a reality to something very abstract and it a reality that's emotional primarily, right? Art is not a philosophical essay. It's not explaining to you what justice is. son explaining to you what injustice is. It's giving you an emotional reality of that. It's giving you the experience of that abstract of that abstraction. So in that sense, art doesn't prove that justice matters. That's the job of philosophy. That's the job of reason. Art lets you experience what's at stake. experience the values that are at stake. How values in injustice are being destroyed. The suffering is being imposed. The life that might have been that is no longer. The abstraction now gets emotional weight. It becomes a part of your experience, a part of your life. That's the fuel. The fuel to act. The fuel to act for example against injustice. I know what that feels like. I'm going to be a warrior for justice or I'm going to emphasize justice or I'm going to care about injustices in the world because I know how that feels. So this is winged victory which is at the Louv again can do it justice in a photograph. Uh it's at the top of the staircase. It's massive uh at the at the Lou Museum. But I hopefully you can get a little bit about what this projects, right? She has no head. She has no arms. And somehow everything about her is motion. Everything about her is about triumph, success, victory. It's not an accident. She's called winged victory. We don't know what she was called originally. Uh you know, this is this is something left over from uh from uh Roman times. You know, the the the body leans into the wind, the clothing is being driven back, the wings are rising. She's a symbol and become a symbol for victory. We don't have to experience victory. We can experience it through seeing her. It feels like it's happening right now. Again, we get that experience of something that we might not have experienced recently in our lives. being successful, being victorious. And we get that emotional fuel. Okay, that's what it is. That's what it feels like. I remember that. That's what I want more of in my life. I mean, we need images of triumph. We need to see it to believe and to remind us that it's possible, that triumph and victory are possible. Again, in a world, particularly in a world of cynicism, it's hot. This is a painting of a single man standing on a rock above an ocean of fog. The world in front of him is vast, mysterious, and potentially a little frightening. And here's the question. Does this man look crushed by the all this vastness? Or does a vastness make make what he's done climbed up and reached the pinnacle of this mountain or rock? Does he make it more magnificent? Has he achieved something? Is he looking down on the world as if it's all at his command available to him? I mean different people are going to have different responses to this depending on their values and what they bring to the table. If this makes them scared scared, it says one thing about them. If this makes them want to go climb a mountain and see the world, climb a mountain, not necessarily literally climbing a mountain, but achieve, succeed, stand above. It says something else about the values that they have. A cynic looking at this painting sees how small the man is against the universe. You can look up at the stars and say, "Oh, how insignificant am I or how cool it is that I'm able to see all these stars and actually sends rockets up into, you know, and explore them." Well, take a piece of architecture, in this case, the Chrysler building in New York. Uh, New York being uh being the um you know, the skyscrapers of New York being one of Einman's favorite images. Something that really inspired her. I mean, this is there is no Chrysler building in nature. You're not recreating in that sense anything that actually exists. You're using the material of nature to recreate to create something completely new. And think about, you know, building something like this, imagining it, designing it, figuring out how to stand, and then workers climbing up all the way up there, and I don't know if you've seen pictures of how they built skyscrapers in those days, standing on these beams with with abyss before them and succeeding in building it. I mean, it's inspiring, you know. It's 77 stories high. It works. It's an office building or at least was an office building. It's functional. And the crown on top of it is just exuberance. It's joy. It's just celebration. It's showing off because it's an achievement. And again, the vision of achievement is inspiring. It fuels us. It gives us power to continue living our lives. You know beauty is rare and when we see something of beauty it gives us the energy to live to value to want to desire. It's um this is when when I met first go the skyline of New York uh 1926 I think it was uh she came on a boat from Europe. She just escaped the Soviet Union and you know she had tears and eyes. I mean this was a a dream come true. This was a vision of what was possible in the world. These kind of buildings with the possible you know reaching for the sky the ambition of it reaching for the sky as compared to where she came from which is you know starving poor reaching for hell not for heaven. Now, how does this all this connect? This is Raphael's assignment. How does all this connect to love? Why are we putting art and love together? Because art and romantic love are the two most personal expressions of your sense of life, of who you are, of your deepest values. How you respond to an artist's vision, how do you respond to another person, to the person who you land up loving, is going to be indicative of your most or deepest values, of your most important values. You know, these metaphysical values that we've talked about. Ran says love is an expression of value. It's not blind. It can't be blind. Blindness can't love. You need to be a thinking, feeling, seeing human being. Blindness. Blindness not in a sense of sight, but blindness in a sense of oblivion to what's in front of you. Blindness makes love impossible. There's What are you responding to? There's nothing to respond to. We're constantly told that love is unconditional. Love asks no questions. Love doesn't depend on anything. That sounds so, I don't know, generous and superficial. But do you really want somebody to love you no matter what you are and who you are? You lie, sheet, and a failure in life and people love you in spite of that. you are lazy and you never get off the sofa and you don't do anything in life and you want people to love you in spite of that. I mean, don't you want to be loved for your achievements, for what you've produced, for what you've made, for the kind of character you have, the kind of character you've created in yourself? Isn't that what love is about? I don't think anybody wants to be loved regardless of who they are. Ideally, you want to be loved because of who you are, because of your nature, because of what you've worked hard to become, because of your values, because of what you have chosen. You want love to be earned. You want the other to actually see you, not be blind to you, which is what blind love or unconditional love demands. And what do you really fall in love with? I mean, you don't fall in love with a resume. You fall in love with what Einran called a style of soul. A style of soul. The style a person has which is reflected in the values they pursue in how they carry themselves in how they act in the world in the things that get them excited and passionate and the things that they are walk away from. The seriousness with which they take their work. The excitement in their voice when they are passionate about something and they they embrace the ideas that they love. Right? the confidence, the humor, the things she won't compromise about, no matter what it's going to cost. You fall in love with a face, but only because you've learned to read that face. You've learned to understand what that face represents. In Ran's novels, romance is inseparable from admiration. Dagy Tagot responds to ability, to intelligence, to productive greatness. She she's turned on, right? Turned on by competence. Rooric and Dominique recognizing each other in independence they almost never find in anyone else. That's uniquely theirs. And Rand refuses the old lie that the body is somehow low and the soul is somehow high. She refuses the idea of a mindbody split. You don't have a soul floating in the air. Love is embodied in human beings in a material being. At best, desire is part of your response to the whole person. Mind and body are integrated. They're not at war. See, here's another sculpture. This one is uh by Stefan Cinding. Stefan Syninding called the kiss. Um it's also been called couple or man and women. It's simple. It's it's simplicity. It's not an allegory. Um it's uh two human beings in the moment of passion embracing kissing. U you know this isn't polite affection. This isn't platonic love. I mean look at the arms, look at the hands. Look at the weight of the bodies. Every part of the sculpture is trying to get closer. They're trying to get closer to one another. I don't know how well you can see it here. Uh this is in you can see this in uh Museum of Art in Budapest. U there's a copy of this at the Ksburg brewery in uh in Copenhagen. And I think there's a third somewhere. Again, desire is not generic. It says I want you, not just anybody, but you a particular person. And the physicality matters. Again, Rand rejects the idea of of mind body split. Romantic desire at its best is not the enemy of admiration. It's the admiration made intimate. It's admiration made intimate. The values you respond to have a voice, a face, a way of moving, a physical presence. And love is your whole self answering to this whole other self to this whole other person. That's why I think siddling belongs here. He gives us love as urgency embrace joy. We'll see in a minute a different expression of love is more tenderness and awakening. They're not opposites. The idea of tenderness and awakening and passion. They're two expressions of the same integration. Passion can be spiritual because it responds to a person. But the spiritual can be made physical in the desire in the wanting to touch and to embrace. So let's look at canova. So again sinning give us force of love in the body. Canova gives us its awakening power, right? Kenova's figures open upwards like wings. You can't see the whole sculpture here. Yeah. U this is Cupid. Psyche has fallen into a death-like sleep. Cupid finds her and wakes her with a kiss. And Kenova, like Michelangelo, chooses the exact right instance, the precise moment she comes back to life. There's tenderness and desire, physical beauty, and total intimacy. All in the same white marble. Life itself is returning through love. Note that psyche is the Greek word for soul, right? So look at what's actually in front of you here in a single image. right is art. Love and the human spirit. Love awakens the soul and art is what makes awakening visible. It It's right there. You can see it. You can feel it. So the rest of us can see it and we can want it. We can desire it. Now this is, you know, this is not two people dissolving into one big blob, blurry blob. It's two distinct human beings. Not really human, right? Psyche and and cupid, but abstract away from that. Two consciousness consciousnesses something like that. Uh each one whole, each one able to stand alone, which is exactly what makes choosing each other mean something, gives it the intimacy. So let's come back to kind of where we where we started. admiration. Cynicism is easy. To put the world down is easy. Try to find flaws in people is easy. It costs you nothing. Well, it cost you a great amount. But it's it's not hard. What's hard is to admire. Because to admire requires you to actually have values, requires you to actually want something. Requires you to be somebody and to want it's requires you to believe that greatness is possible. And once you admit that greatness is possible, then you have to ask yourself the question is am I doing what's necessary for me to be great? Am I doing what's necessary for me to live up to the artwork that I'm seeing? Again, cynicism is like a hammock. It's, you know, you can fall asleep there and you can relax and you're never going to challenge yourself. It's admiration that is challenging. It pushes you and again, it makes you ask, can I be David? Can I live up to that image of courage? Can I find love? Can I have that kind of level of desire? And that's what great art can provide us. An image of what is possible to those of us who are ambitious. Not ambitious in any particular realm, but ambitious about life, about living, about making the most of our lives, about living the best life that we can. So you know man can be beautiful, courageous, victory is possible. The world can be understood. It can you know it can be reshaped by the human mind. Love can be profound. Happiness happiness is serious thing and it is possible for human beings. And of course romantic love says something even more intimate. It says, "I see the character you built with your own choices. I see what you made of yourself." And that creation is an incredible value in my life. I want to go through the world with you because of who you are and because of what you've made of yourself. So art can make the ideal visible. Love makes the ideal personal. And the human spirit is the power inside you to recognize that ideal, pursue it, create it, and love it. So if you look one more time at David before the fight, having already decided he's going to engage. Spartacus breaking the chains because he's ready uh he has rejected a life of a slave and he's ready for a new life as a free man. Victory driving forward towards the wind and the lone man who's climbed above the fog to look at the world before him with all its vastness. A skyscraper rising where there used to be nothing, just empty space. And siblings lovers answering one another with a whole body, psyche, waking up in the arms of the person she loves. What do these give us? Not an escape from life, but the opposite. They give us life intensified, purified, concentrated, lit up with potential. So the question for all of us is you know what kind of art are you going to surround your life with? What what inspires you? Right? And who are your heroes? What drives you? How do you make the most of this one life that you have on this earth? and stop apologizing. Don't apologize for wanting art that lifts you up instead of art that sneers at you. Again, our culture expects you to love the cynical, the the the flawed. Stop apologizing for wanting an ideal. Don't apologize for admiring greatness. Don't apologize for wanting love that is passionate and earned and selfish in the proudest sense of that word. Love that is yours because you chose it and it's for you. Sadly, most people have no idea the power of arts can have in a human life. They might be rich in things but starved for beauty. We live in a culture that's rich, incredibly wealthy, and it's starved for beauty, starved of values. But that poverty for most of us is optional. You can walk out of it. It's not hard to surround yourself with beauty. It's not hard to find a great piece of music and to engage with it and focus on it. Turn off the lights and just let it sweep over you. Go stand in front of David and flaws. And I don't know, as cynical as you might be, I think it'll it'll move you. It'll strike you. Love and a fuel. Admiration is the spark. Great art tells you that life can be magnificent. Romantic love tells you that magnificence can become intimate and it can have a name and a face, a particular face. And the human spirit is the power in you to see all of it and pursue it and never once settle for less. In gold speech and atlas shrugged ran's offers a promise and I'll end with that. The world you desire can be won. It exists. It is possible. It's yours. And I'll add now go get it. Thank you. [applause] >> Thank you. To promote the book. >> Yeah. I mean, this is Ran's uh romantic manifesto um which is about art. Uh it's a series of essays about the philosophy of art really. Um it's I think her most challenging of her books because I think this is what she covers here is is not easy philosophically uh uh to to completely understand. Her analysis of literature is particularly particularly important. She was after all a novelist. So she understood literature more than any other arts. But but she has stuff here on music which is uh fascinating and and of course other all other forms of art as well. So Madic Manifesto uh check it out. you can buy pretty much anywhere. >> Okay, thank you so much. So, we are opening the Q&A session right now. So, if any of you want to make some some questions to feel free to to raise your hand, you can provide a mic to you as well. >> Questions on anything. >> Two questions. Uh, first of all, I was just curious, the wind victory, was it originally built without a head or was the head just like lost to the tar? No, it was built with a head, right? I mean, all the all the torsos you see from Greek and Roman stuff. I mean, the Greeks would think our admiration for torsos was ridiculous. You know, these are sculptures that broke. Um, wing victory was at the front of a ship. She was placed in the front of a ship and that ship sunk and they, you know, that this is what is is left of her. It's not the way she was created by the artist. And that's true of all the torsos, the Belv, the famous Belvadier torso and all the other torsos that you see in museums from Greek and Roman times. They're broken. This was not how an artist, you know, why would you make a a body without a without a head. So certainly the Greeks would never do that. >> Yeah. And then the second question uh was um I thought the talk was great by the way but I thought you were going to contrast this to sort of the kind of art that's more prevalent nowadays. So, um, >> what would you say about like contemporary art, what you see nowadays or maybe stuff by like, >> I don't know, Basat or Picasso that's a little bit bolder, but >> I mean, I think most contemporary arts, I mean, contemporary art is split into two, I think. Uh, one is it it views man as um weak and pathetic and broken and you know there's no heroism, there's no admiration, there's no striving in in you know most kind of contemporary arts that we see out there. if there's even man represented in that odd. But to the extent he's represented, he's not represented in any kind of admirable way. Not something you want to strive to. It's quite the opposite. He's he's represented as, you know, worse than the average as as as defeated and uh and decaying. And and you can see that you know you can see that really from mostly from the turn of the century of the 20th century of the last 120 years there's been very little of the um uh you know again of of of the heroic and the grandeur of art that came before it. Um and it it much more is like if you will going back to the medieval times when you know what they represented in sculpture for example goals right uh monsters not they weren't interested in presenting heroes because life sucked I mean life really did suck they couldn't imagine anything different right the only time life would be better was in an afterlife this the world life in this world was horrible u and and I think that to a large extent contemporary art since the turn of the 20th century has returned back to that. Um, in in in movies and in TV shows, what you see is, you know, the best TV shows are either shows that highlight physicality, right? And and uh, Might makes right. I'm thinking Lord of the not Lord of the Rings, um, Game of Thrones, right? If anybody's watched Game of Thrones, uh, which is which is this big hit, it's all about might is right. It's all about power. It's all about force. It's all about coercion and and putting, you know, destroying one another. There no real heroes in Game of Thrones. And and the heroes, when you think you're going to have a hero, they're either killed or uh or, you know, or they they they change or they they reveal their true motive, which is not particularly heroic. Or things like um uh God, what was the what was the school teacher becomes a drug dealer? Breaking Bad, right? Breaking Bad. Brilliant writing, brilliant acting, you know, really good structure, plot, but what is it about? It's about a guy descending into hell and there's no virtue there. There's not a single human being there who's a good guy except FBI guy and he's so pathetic and he's ultimately killed and he can't do anything. All the all the people who actually pursue anything during the the thing are the bad guys, right? They're all horrible human beings. So it emphasizes the horribleness of of man. There's nothing to admire in Breaking Bad. There's nobody to admire in Breaking Bad. And I think that's you know that is prevalent again in in in much of modern art. And then there's what I think is the other part of modern art which is or contemporary art which is non-representational art which is it it it takes away the art is recreation of reality. the the selective recreation of reality in Ran's definition and there is no selective recreation and in that sense I'm not sure it's art that is I I think it's much more about design about aesthetic some of it's very pretty some of it's even interesting it has interesting patterns and interesting colors and you might you might hang up on a wall or something you know pretty but it's not art it doesn't generate the kind of values and the kind of value response that you get from good art even when that look I only showed you admirable art, but I could have showed you uh what's his name? Monks the Scream. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Monks the Scream, but those of you who are, it's a powerful piece of art, right? It evokes real emotions. Now, the emotions are negative. They're horrible. You want to run away, but you know, it's great art. And I'd say a lot of the contemporary art is blah. It's it's it doesn't it it's not threatening and it's not pleasing. It's just it's just there. It's either you could say, "Yeah, that's pretty." Well, it's not pretty, but nothing more than that. >> So, next regarding that uh last uh you were talking about uh this to this uh last segment you talked about uh in modern art or contemporary art. I mean, um do you think there's um there's a segment of it which is nihilistic? Um they it's like a the use of an anti-concept. So, basically they they portray something that is clearly not art. just the sport and it's not even the sport. It's just not art. It's it's just something as it is like a chair in the middle of >> Yeah. I mean, there's the there's the banana. There was the banana that was stuck to thing and somebody paid $6 million and he got the banana and he ate it and and that was supposed to be odd and it's not odd. It's it's just somebody buying a banana for $6 million for for some bizarre reason. But there's no there's no metaphysical value judgment reflected there. There's nothing. It's nothing. But there is there is a nihilism. And there's definitely a nihilism in saying that that and and and and monk let's say even monk or or Picasso that that is the same thing. They're not the same thing. I might not like Picasso but Picasso is odd. It's representing something. It's saying something about the world. The banana is saying nothing about the world. And when you when you put them in the same concept, you destroy the concept. You destroy the whole idea of odd. And I think a lot of people's resentment today, a lot of people's disinterest, put it that way, in awe today, is partially a consequence of they don't even know what it is because they've got this mishmash of things. Some they can recognize, some they can't, and they're all in the same file folder in their mind and and that has really destroyed that folder and and and made it irrelevant. >> Yeah. So my question is what's the philosophical motive behind it or is there >> well as I said I think part of it is is as you said I think part of it is nihilism um part of it is is a sense of conceptual or philosophical laziness of not thinking through your categories and understanding what they are um and uh and and yeah so and and look and then then there's the question of the there's odd out there that I don't like but it but it's odd and and that represents again metaphysical value judgments that I cannot relate to or that I think are negative or antihuman. I I think Picasso has the elements of that or or or you know others. So it it it's it's the various things you respond to in art what motivates the artist you know every artist is going to be motivated by different things but I think the intellectuals who kind of lumping all these things into the same categories there is definitely a nihilism there. Yeah, maybe it's better for you to complete the It's better for you to repeat the question, otherwise you cannot hear. >> Oh, okay. Yeah. >> Okay. So, I have a question that that builds off of some of what was just answered in Miguel's question. There's a category of art Oh, sorry. There's a category of art I see that um it it's not depicting awful religious suffering and it's not contemporary craziness, but it has some element of sadness to it like children who are huddled and hungry or some level of of suffering that really happened. And I'm hesitant to call it art because I understand Ran's definition of it. But when I was studying history, seeing some of those paintings from those time periods really helped me understand it better. And I'm hesitant to know if we should criticize the artists or if we should acknowledge it as recordkeeping for the time because there's some value to do you know what I'm saying visually displaying certain realities of the world and not purely keeping a written record of it and yet they're put in museums today. So how do you >> Yeah. But I would definitely consider them ought that is I don't think that they are not ought by by her definition. a painting of of of something sad. The fact that it's sad doesn't disqualified art, right? Again, I only showed positive stuff, but but for every positive the there, you know, so a crucified Jesus, right, is it can be art, right? And it's it's reflecting something real. It's reflecting particular values that might not be your values, but and and you can still evaluate some of that art as great art. I mean, for example, in in literature, um, Rand recognized Austria as one of the greatest authors ever, right? One of the great romantic authors ever. And yet, she hated the philosophy represented in his art. It was the opposite of hers. But she recognized that the way he did it, you know, what he was representing was done in an artistic way. It was a real selective recreation of reality based on my metaphysical value judgment. And I think those paintings, religious paintings, um, uh, certainly art, if you go to the Renaissance, that's all art. Uh, you know, of something really sad. I mean, look, Tusca, the opera, um, you know, her is that a husband, a boyfriend, her husband is is lover is is being persecuted unjustly and and, uh, and she has to give herself to his jailer in order to try to free him and and uh, and and kills the jail. I mean, it's a whole story, right? It's a hu it's sad. I mean, it's tragic. You kind of everybody dies at the end and yet it's incredibly powerful because you get a sense of the injustice and the same if you if if it's a painting of somebody starving and and uh you know it could be because of an injustice, it could be something else, it evokes an emotion, a powerful response in you and that's that's good. I mean that's good art. >> Can that be good art? >> Absolutely. >> Even if it's very depressing. >> Absolutely. So how do you distinguish between good art that is depressing subject matter or executed well and bad art that is depressing subject matter >> executed well? >> Well the standards are going to depend on the particular art form. So and and this you need to be you need to understand the art form. So in painting you know what is the composition? How is light being used? Is the anatomy correct? You know how they doing the anatomy? Is what they're portraying actually conveying the idea behind the painting? Uh is does it add depth? If you see the painting a hundred times, you know, will you still find something interesting in it the hundth time or does it become boring the second time you saw it because oh, I've seen that before. It's uninteresting. All of those are going to determine whether it's good art or not. And those are determined by the particular uh the particular requirements of that art form. And you need to be a specialist in that art form to be able to say. So I I I did a review of uh The Odyssey the other day on my show. I have a podcast and I did a review of the Odyssey and I started out by saying, "Look, I'm not in a position to tell you what a good movie is and what a bad movie is. I can tell you what I like and what I think the themes of the movie are and what I think what I think is good and bad about it. But movies of all the art forms is the most complex. You know, you have to be able to analyze cinematography and music and acting and a script and a story and how they're integrated and uh and do they convey the theme that the artist intended to convey? And if all of that is done well, then you can say that's a good movie and that's a good painting or that's a good piece of music. Does it actually arouse the kind of emotions that were intended and does it do it well? Music is the hardest because we have the least vocabulary to explain it. But, you know, is is is the sculpture conveying something of meaning or isn't it is is again is the sculpture flat? Is it is it is it boring or is it going to bore you after one or two viewings? Um is this is it does it have a spirit? Does it have a soul? Does it actually reflect values? So you can have bad art that reflects positive values. You can have bad art that reflects positive values. There lots of that. A lot of so-called objectives to art is that, right? You could have uh you could have good art, great art that reflects very negative values, you know, and what's that? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. You have four quadrants. You have all the different options, right? and and and what how do you know what's good out or not? You have to be an expert. Most people don't know what's good out or not. Most people all they know and all they really need to know is what do I like and what do I like? What resonates with me and as I learn as you expose yourself more to art. The more museums you go to, the more art you expose yourself to, the better you will be at getting good art. So part of it is just experience and reading about it. And the history of art is fascinating. So study, you know, if you're really interested, study the history of art and that'll give you an appreciation for what good art is versus not so good art. But but you have to differentiate what you like versus what is good. Those are not the same thing. >> Thank you. >> Okay, I'll think there's more people here. >> Thank you so much. So my question is uh for a long time maybe for 10 years I'm thinking about such um thing So if the art is a kind of a signal [clears throat] that the artist bring to the performing to the world. >> Yep. Then is it important for good art that the single the understanding of this signal that uh what you understand is the same that the artist bring inside of the art or it doesn't matter the matter is uh does it resonate with you impressed it or not. So yeah because for me is the same in communication. The good per performer or marketer he needs to >> yeah the person [snorts] receiving has to receive the same message that you're communicating. I think art is trickier than marketing, right? Because because art reflects an artist's subconscious value estimations that sometimes he is not aware of himself. Sometimes the artist is not aware of his actual if you ask the artist about what this painting is about, he will give you a different answer than what I think the painting really is about. The question is, is is the what will determine whether it's good art is is the message whatever that message is whether the artist intended it on purpose or not is the message integrated in the work. That is all the pieces in the work all working towards the same message, right? all working to convey the same thing or are they are they you know clashing and therefore conveying a a jumbled message the more integrated it is the more it all adds up to one message I think the better the artwork is so it has to convey something but if the artist doesn't know what he wants to convey and often he doesn't then you know you you can't evaluate the artwork based on what the artist intended or not Okay, just I'll make a quick quick one here. Uh, can we me? Yeah, I'll make a question. >> Yeah, good. >> So, I think you mentioned a few times metaphysical value adjustments. >> Yeah. >> And it is my understanding if you can explain a bit the bridge between metaphysics and ethics. >> And why Rand told us that arts like it's it's critical to human survival. Why do you need to answer to those metaphysical questions? Why they are so important in your life? >> Yeah. So I think so metaphysical value judgments as I said are the value judgments you make about the most important questions the metaphysical nature of the world again is the is the world is there a real world out there is is it is there something out there that I'm perceiving? Am I able to perceive it and understand it? Is my reason efficacious? is man able to achieve happiness and success and flourishing in this world and that is what an an art conveys. So you know for example um you know a lot of a lot of you you'll find a lot of art is blurry right it's reality is not sharp reality is not exactly the forms are not quite there Picasso comes to mind some of the impressionists come to mind it it's it's everything's blurry and and that says something about the artist perception of the world about our ability to know what's out there in reality and you know on the other hand other is sharp and and clear and crisp. Um, but it might be sharp and clear and crisp, but then the images there are kind of weird. I think of Dolly Salvador Dolly gives you a sharp reality. You actually there is a real there's a world out there, but the world is not what you expect and the world is not kind of it's it's it's it's fluid and it's uh it's kind of risky. So again, these are metaphysical value judgments and each artist kind of has a different spin, a different perspective on it. It's really important as human beings if we're going to be successful in life to know what our view is. Can I be successful in life? How to achieve success in life? What does it require to be successful in life? If reason is the way in which we know the world, do I value reason? How do I cultivate, you know, uh reason? How do I how do I pursue a life of reason? So an art can give me an image of what that looks like, you know, and the most the most conceptual of all arts uh or the most concrete in a sense of all arts is literature because literature actually walks you through it and I rand actually walks you through and and and gives you the philosophical content in the novel itself. Uh so how do I apply once once I come to certain conclusions about the world, how do I actually live it that way? art I think gives you both the fuel for it but also the knowledge of what to look up to what what what success looks like. >> Thank you for the great talk first of all. Um so I guess this question can be summarized by this big why. Um let's uh take a step back to why or how the art was created. Let's say the art of greatness in ancient times. Um it's well not denying the agency of the artist but most of the time it's commissioned by the core by aristocracy and it definitely carries the will reflects the will uh and taste um of the aristocracy you can literally see their faces in you know the gods. >> Sure >> and um but nowadays what we talked about the contract of what nowadays arts reflect uh or a more general level. So uh of course it reflects the taste of um the market of course well that was not our market as well before >> popular was popular market um so I guess is why is this shift before well in the past it's more like as a medieval peasant you look at the painting you're like okay my lord is this god and I am uh not even there but when nowadays people have more resources people have more opportunity Do you think there's the shift in the in the value judgment that lead that led to this to the change in art and into and to kind of more contemporary art and the cynicism? So I I mean so so you're right. So you know art before the 19th century was basically commissioned and you did what you were commissioned. But if you look at two artists painting exactly the same aristocrat, the two paintings are going to be very different because they're going to reflect something about how the artist views the world. And no two artists are going to view the world exactly the same. So the aristocrats going to come out a little different in in the two paintings. If Leonardo da Vinci did the Mona and somebody else had done the same woman in the same pose, it would have not been the Mona. It would have been something very different. It would have been a different expression, a different you know that little smile she has the background where he emphasizes kind of his the perspective. All of that would have been different. So even then there was a reflection of the of of who the artist was even if it was commissioned like nobody else would have done the cyine chapel like Michelangelo did the cysteine chapel. It's it's it's Michelangelo and you can't mistake it for anybody else. Um, so the artist comes through even when it's commissioned. I think the change is not because of the market. If you think about the marketplace, the marketplace really arises in the context of art in the 19th century, not in the 20th. So, uh, Beethoven is really kind of the the first artist who is, uh, selling tickets to his concerts, right? He's an entrepreneur. He actually puts on concerts four hours long with his latest two symphonies and a you know and a mass and something else. They go on and he sells tickets and he makes money because in the 19th century you get a middle class. You're not completely dependent aristocrats. He's the first musician really who can break away from those aristocrats. And yet they're still pursuing what I consider great art. They're still pursuing that level of art. What happens in the 20th century particularly post World War I is that philosophically the world gets flooded with a different different metaphysical value judgments. So what do we get? Uh if you think about the world up until that point, human beings have a certain confidence about their reasoning mind and their senses particularly post um uh post enlightenment, post uh uh 17th century or 18th century enlightenment. They have a confidence in reason. They have a confidence in the ability to to understand the world. There's a scientific revolution. We have a confidence in understanding how the world works. And there's a there philosophers who are reinforcing that idea that and and there's a there's a conception of human beings as heroic and that great things are possible in life. And then you know a lot of this comes out of German romantic philosophy. The idea that no reality is an illusion. You don't really know what's out there in reality and your reason is deceiving you and you are nothing and nobody and heroism and achievement and success is impossible and individuals don't matter only groups matter only the collective is important and there's a there's a constant for a hundred years over the 19th century the philosophers are are punching you know humanity downwards that you know and and what you get is ultimately you get postmodernism. What's postmodernism? It's the idea that truth is unknowable. It's cynicism and skepticism in philosophical terms and that is then reflected in the art of the 20th 20th century and 21st century. So I think what if you look at the world it all starts with ideas that influence culture that influences politics. So uh you know politics is downstream from culture and culture is downstream from philosophy and ideas and when the ideas change the culture changes which means the art changes. So you see the change in ideas between the middle ages and the renaissance is a change between mysticism and a respect for reason and knowledge and the beginning of a scientific revolution. And then that is undermined by German and French philosophy in the 19th century, late 18th century, 19th century. And that results in art of the 20th century. So these things follow a certain pattern. Ideas first, art reflects those ideas. >> Thank you very much. >> U Thank you very much. >> I actually reached the conclusion after hearing I think I'm a bit of a cynic. Sorry for that. >> You're not the only one. The culture is filled with it. >> Yeah. But it's uh in a sense because I see real value in what you describe here, but uh of of the idea of the necessity of looking up of uh admiring something of of of uh wanting something greater than yourself, but also >> well, I would never I would never say greater than yourself. I would say wanting to be greater yourself. >> Okay? wanting you to be greater. >> That works. uh but um what what I think is also there's also a certain value and that's why I would agree with what she said before that with the arisal of let's say a certain market logic to the art world that people would also want to see themselves as they are reflected like in in art forms. So the idea of fallible heroes, of flawed characters, of moral complexity, of moral ambiguity, uh I would say that appeals to me personally like personally like in a story, in a book, etc. that appeals to me very much uh as because a book is a long story and you can convey many meanings alongside it and it can be very complex. That appeals to me personally uh just as much as in a sculpture that doesn't have all that space and all that time to convey an idea. It needs to be very direct and immediate. uh this culture conveys as you said moral certainty a certain confidence a certain something to aspire to or maybe even deep suffering deep sadness etc but like very intense and what I mean to say is like >> so so I get that it appeals to you right they they both have their value in as much as I'm trying to say is both trying to look up and rise as well as trying as well as looking at representations of life of art and seeing like okay this is the the the hero is attainable and maybe in a single story you can see a hero who is at the same time deeply flawed but also manages to rise in some way while staying deeply flawed >> and deeply relatable. So I I I I I really just don't have a conclusion here. It's just more like amusing of what is of what can like a hero be? >> Yeah. I mean, look, I we live in a culture and we live in a world that it rejects idealism, that rejects the the striving for an ideal and and and therefore we look for heroes that are, as you said, relatable and and the the the the guy next door, right? And and I'm not saying there's no value in that. You know, many of them do heroic things and they're flawed heroes, but they actually do something good. I enjoyed the dis the Odyssey, right? I even though it's a tale of redemption, which I can't really relate to, but and I think it's a it's it's flawed in comparison to to to Homer's Adysius. Um I I even enjoyed Breaking Bad, right? I enjoyed watching Breaking Bad because the writing was good and because the acting was good and because there was a kind of an interesting story sometimes, not always, um going on. But the point is that you know it says something about a culture and about the ambition of people in a culture if that is all the art that they consume and that is almost all the art that we consume. So I think it's it shows a lack of ambition a lack of idealism a lack of striving a lack of of of of wanting to be something much better and much greater and in a sense settling. And I get it, you know, it's easier to settle, but uh I I want I want to challenge you maybe not to settle and and to be ambitious and to be ambitious in every realm of your life. To be ambitious in in your own character and your own career and in the love, you know, in your love life and in the art that you pursue. and not just to settle for yeah this is where I am and he's reflecting back where I am but to go no he's up here and I want to be up there and and I can be up there and I want to have the ambition to be to be that much better or that much greater. So I'm urging you to be more ambitious but I get that there's an appeal to uh to to other forms or or to kind of the other other type of of of art. and look at successfully in the marketplace. As you said, people that's what people want. I think it's a negative reflection on the marketplace. That is the the marketplace's verdict is not always right. It's the marketplace's verdict. I'm not going to change it, but it's not always right. >> Good afternoon. Two things. One, following the idea of uh said art, >> sorry, >> following the idea of sad art. something odd for >> sad shadow. Yes. Okay, I got it. >> I think the best example would be realism. Einran said realism is the lowest form of art. Opposite to romantic would be which should be the guy the highest. I studied it. It was influenced by Marx. The idea was to represent the ugliness of life. >> Yep. >> So she still considered it life but hard but low. >> Yeah. But but you can have sad romantic art. >> Yeah, of course. >> I mean I mean I don't want to give away the ending of the living but it's not exactly happy. >> Yeah. >> I would connect it to learn um the value of enjoying good evil art or >> good enjoying great art is philosophically evil. >> Exactly. Yes. >> So I think I would go there. Um, I think today, like it was mentioned, people want to identify and to be represented. There's that idea of representation. How would Red react to that? Cuz she says realism, which is the closest to a picture, would still be art, but it's not just picturing a sad moment in history, which we identify. It's really the ugliness, the dirt. >> Yeah. So, >> well, I mean, she writes a lot about naturalism, which is what I think you're referring to as a realism. Uh, you know, and it can be odd. Now, not necessarily odd, but it can be odd if it's done well. Uh, and you know, she she said it's reflective of a certain state of the culture, right? it and you can you can find like Toltoy she viewed Toltoy as a naturalist but also as a great author right so there's really this is Lennis Peacov's you know uh you you can still find things to value in Toltoy even as you hate the philosophy and and yes characterization and you know description and the qu just the quality of the writing the way he puts sentences together and his use of language I assume if you if you knew Russian it would even be greater. Um so you know there there's great value to be gained by experiencing truly great art even if it's sad or philosophically really really bad or reflective of really really bad philosophy. So yes I agree with you know Lenn Puff's absolutely right. >> Second thing aren't we propagating the problem by accepting new definitions of art? Because maybe we could just keep the old classic Aristotilian definition that Ren kind of works on and just create new categories like design, uh, decoration, patterns and keep the definition as it was because by expanding it, we are permitting generations and generations to forget what's art. Couldn't we just in the future try to have a more objective definition and new categories for things that are called art but are not? So, I think that's what Rand is doing, right? So, she has a definition of art. I I think it's an accurate definition of art that she started through and and and has 2,000 3,000 years of art from which to induce a proper definition. And yes, and then we can say um you know uh uh other things might be design, they might be uh you know there other categories. So, it's not to dismiss other forms of aesthetic expression. It's to say these are things that are not they don't fall under this definition. They don't fall under odd they are something else. So yes. >> Okay. So let's do one final question and Antonio I will give the floor to you. >> Um question. >> Yeah. So I just wanted to um bring up something which I think um isn't for you and it relates to basically what you said about finding relatable team. So if you look at Apple for example, it's about right and she depicts lots of people in that book. Um, one of the people that she depicts is John G. But one of the notes and correct me if I'm wrong when Einran was writing at the shrug was that John G was supposed to be a character without progression. In other words, he was supposed to be perfect and to come out of the womb with all of the virgins. Now, she did that for a reason because she was trying to depict what the ideal man was. That was the purpose of her whole life. But I understand what you mean when you say this is not relatable. I can't relate to a guy who was born and was just perfect. Right? So, I understand that. But there is a fundamental difference between depicting someone who is flawed with the goal of showing you the reader that you can actually overcome your flaws and work through your flaws rather than just showing someone who is flawed for the sake of flaws. For example, if you look at characters like Hank Rearen, he's a man who is deeply conflicted, but he is always trying to even though he has some bad ideas, he is always trying to struggle through whatever bad premises he has to achieve virtue. If you look at a character like Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, a man who at the beginning is, I think, a criminal and an immoral person who goes through immense transformation. So, it's not like we should shy away from, you know, relatableness, showing that people are not perfect. But why are you showing it? Are you showing it just because it's bad to show perfect people, or are you showing it because we can give people examples that you can overcome your troubles, you can overcome your virtues, and you can become greater than you are. >> Much of modern art doesn't want you to do that, right? It it's not trying to get you to be better. It's it's trying to reaffirm your mediocrity. >> Yes. I wasn't making a statement about what most of modern art is trying to do, but but >> y >> the proper application of >> Yeah. You couldn't you couldn't build a novel where everybody was everybody was a John G. There's no drama. There's no there's no there's nothing going on. You you have to have people who are changing, who are developing, who are improving. And and all the novels have that. You want the microphone? >> There it is. It's behind you. >> Like when most people read Out Atlas Shrugged, they're more inspired by John Wolf than Hank, right? And and I say that being inspired to some degree by Hank also. >> Yeah. I mean, I find I you know, yes, but I, you know, I find it I find it weird when people and and I'm sorry if I insult anybody in the audience, but I find it weird if somebody reads Atlas Shrugged and and identifies with John G. >> Yeah, of course. Of course. I >> but I know people who do right and and it I think it's you know so when I read Atlas Shrugged just to give you a sense I don't know if everybody's read Atlas Shrugged here I identified with Eddie Willis that's who I thought of myself as right it wouldn't be conceivable for me even to think of myself read a giant right even though he has to change he's a giant right at the beginning and and and Dagy's a giant so um you know who you can relate to the person who's relatable to you but there's an aspiration in terms of where you're heading And and and it's the aspiration which I think is what's important in art. I mean you look at the David and you don't go I'm David. Yeah that's me. I mean that would be bizarre, right? I mean it's like it's like wow that's that's I'd like to meet that guy or I'd like to be that guy. Right. That's the kind of aspiration that's always involved in art. I want to become not I am. >> Do you have uh any recommendations? You were criticizing some shows. like what are some shows you would recommend some artworks, paintings >> or also where to go to learn more if you've already read the romantic manifesto because I I am hesitant to trust other >> well I mean I would definitely re get your hands on whatever Leonard Peacoff has written about art so his eight great plays that talk that he gave on great art with bad philosophy which was inspired by a paper that I wrote for him and he landed ended up doing that talk as a consequence. Um, what else has he done on art? He did something on poetry that is really really good. So, uh, I would definitely and then I would just get a basic history of art book or take a course on YouTube. I think any basic history of art up to the 19th century. Once you get into the 19th century, I think they go off, but up to the 19th century is going to you're going to learn a huge amount. And I find that people who objectivists who kind of go, "Oh, no, that's Christian. That that's a religious art. I'm not interested." You're missing out on a huge realm of massive values because, you know, there is heroism in some portrayals of Jesus. There's a heroism in or intimacy in the portrayals of Mary and Jesus as a baby. There's all kinds of and and so there's secular values. It's not like Michelangelo or Raphael or or any of these Titian or any of these guys would you know that the paintings reflect their religious values. They reflect human values and there's immense human values in the religious stories. If you can abstract away a little bit the religiosity so learning about the Renaissance and learning about the arts and the artists and the language that they're using in painting and sculpture is incredibly valuable. And then I think just experiencing it and often going to if you go to a museum um kind of doing a history tour of the museum starting with the Middle Ages and and moving up and then you can see the differences and you can see how things are changing. Um and so learning art history is important. And then the other thing is just discovering what you like. So um going into a room in a museum and there'll be I don't know 20 paintings on the wall. Where does your eye go? What attracts you? Like you don't have to. There's no moral commandment. Thou shalt have to see every single painting in this room. Go to where your eye takes you and try to understand why you're responding to this painting and not responding to that one. What is about this that really draws you to it and and and you're not being attracted to the other piece. And so you develop your own language and your own relationship with the artwork. Uh but it's a lot of it's just experience experience experience. It's it's going out there and doing that. And same with with sculpture and everything else. Why am I attracted to this and not that? But you don't have to experience and see everything. Look, I like a lot. So, um uh you know, if you go to the if you want 19th century, the mosce in Paris is amazing. The first floor is is just packed with beautiful art. Um anything before that in Paris, you've got the Louvre. Uh so and of course Rome and Florence have the have the the Renaissance covered. So but there's yeah there's a there's a ton of good art. There's a ton of good art and you what you find I think valuable will expand the more you experience it because you'll you'll find value even in things that you go yeah but that's like a crucifixion or that's that's really but you'll see something that attracts you. you'll see something beautiful in it that inspires you. >> Okay guys, so thank you very much. Thank you for [applause] Thank you Julia as well.