The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is one of the greatest works of art produced in the last 100 years and will one day be held in the equal regards as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. I came to this conclusion after viewing all four and a half hours of bonus features on the Two Towers: Extended Edition.

You might say, “It’s just a fantasy movie, Josh.” That may be, but the Sistine Chapel is ultimately just a ceiling. Both of these master works of art tell stories, you dig? The Chapel tells the story of a carpenter’s son who sacrificed himself for the good of others and the Rings tells the story of a young hobbit who sacrificed himself for the good of others [It is arguable that Frodo's sacrifice was of a greater nature because he did it for the good of all Middle Earth, which included multiple races and species, while the aforementioned carpenter's son did it just for us simple human beings.

However, do not try to engage in a discussion of the weighing of the sacrifices between the two with anyone who believes that the historical Jesus actually ascended to a physical heaven and truly was God incarnate because you will not win them over.]

There is almost no rooted sense of aesthetics in American culture any longer. I think it’s due to the secularists and their incessant attack on the traditions that built this nation and made it great, but that’s another essay in itself. The butthole of the argument (the point where the shit really matters) is that people have no good measuring stick of what true art is anymore. Well, listen up because I’m about to sprech knowledge and give back to my community.

I admit from jump that I did not compose this theory of aesthetics; James Joyce did. I wish I had, but I have profited from it immensely as have those others who I’ve taught it to. Joyce distinguished between two types of art–Proper Art and Improper Art. Simple, right?
Lets’ deal with Improper Art first; because it is the category that 99% of all contemporary creative expression falls under. Improper Art consists of two subcategories–the Pornographic and the Didactic. Still simple.

Joyce describes Improper Art that is Pornographic as any object that is intended to make instill in the observer a desire to possess the object. Pornographic art pulls the observer towards it. All advertising art is pornographic in that it is intended to cause desire in the observer to possess the product or service being represented. Still with me?

Improper Art that is Didactic is any object that is intended to cause loathing or fear of the object represented. All political campaign commercials today are didactic in the sense that they try to force your vote based on fear or loathing of “the other guy running.”

Think about the majority of music, novels, paintings, movies, and what passes for theatrics nowadays. The common approach is to instill either desire for possession or fear and loathing of the expression. From artists like Rage Against the Machine to the lead singer of Lords of Acid writhing and humping the stage in lingerie, the ultimate aim is to move the observer one way or the other. This doesn’t mean the expression is crap, although mostly they are, but it does mean that they cannot be considered Proper Art by Joyce’s definition.

So what is Proper Art then? Well, grab your hose and socks and pull because we’re about to get way deep. Joyce describes Proper Art as an expression that does not move the observer either way, neither towards the object with desire nor away from it with fear and/or loathing. In fact, a Proper Work of art completely blows away the boundaries altogether and a still point is reached. The Buddhists refer to the still point as the goal of meditation, where the mental state of the individual is beyond both desire and fear and, in fact, is the point where the ego of the individual dissolves and reality is experienced as it truly is–unleashed from the temporal bars of time and space, mortality and death. Proper Art rips open a hole in the phenomenal world and reveals the shining whiteness that lies beyond the gray veil, as Gandalf says in the final installment of the Rings trilogy.

Proper Art leaves the individual in a floating stasis of aesthetic arrest, where time, nor fear, nor desire can touch them. That is how I felt as the final seconds of the greatest cinematic experience drew to a close in that gigantic stadium theatre in Columbus, Ohio. I didn’t exist during those final moments. There were things greater than myself that had burrowed in like spiders at the coming of winter. The gaps between thoughts and the stilted experiences that, on a normal day, seem congruent and consecutive and ultimately compose what I sell as me to the rest of the world, began to rattle and hum. Death was calling, you might say, because what we are ultimately discussing when we talk about aesthetic arrest, the ending of time, and the sublime destruction of the temporal world is the death of the ego, the death of the me.

Proper Art is ultimately concerned with death on a personal level, and that is what the Sistine Chapel is about and that is also what The Lord of the Rings is about. The latter caused me to lose myself and I had no say in the matter but to watch myself go. It was one of the most liberating experiences I have ever had, comparable to those who are lucky enough to approach the alters in churches and feel God speaking through them. I am not that lucky because those old metaphors no longer speak to me, so I have to find my spiritual inspiration elsewhere. The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is one of the greatest spiritual watering holes I have ever found and I imagine that I am not the only person who feels that way about this masterpiece of contemporary Proper Art.

But, still there are those out there who insist on interpreting creative expression within the petty framework of Literary Criticism (I include all the ridiculous versions of current criticism under this heading: Multicultural, Feminist, Post-Modern, etc. All of these are bullshit and I recommend avoiding them like someone coughing up blood and about to pass you on a crowded sidewalk).

There are still morons like Lloyd Hart who insist on viewing everything through the sociological lens that always leaves perception distorted and stale. This halfwit actually tries to argue that Rings is a racist expression because all the bad guys are black and the good guys, who are white, are referred to as “Warriors of the West.” That’s like saying that Scott Paper Ltd. of Indiana is a company that is racist against white people because it markets a toilet paper called White Cloud to wipe poop butts. I’m sorry, but the color black has represented every villain in the history of spoken and written storytelling. It’s not racist, you pea-brained pothead, it’s a species oriented mythological mode, inflection, and metaphoric value of the human race. What about Saruman the White? He was a villain. Actually, when he became a villain, his robe became multicolored because “when the color white is broken apart, all colors are represented.” What does that say about bullshit Multiculturalism? That’s a social message that I can agree with, right there.

The bottom line is that there is little to no artistic appreciation today because there is no aesthetic of art. I consider it one of my personal goals to help change that unfortunate circumstance.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

You Should Also Check Out This Post:

More Active Posts: