The highest art form: what is it?

According to Nudie jeans, denim.

Sun Tzu never said this, but, he wrote Art of War. So, I guess, according to him, it would be war.

"Music is not illusion, but revelation rather. Its triumphant power lies in the fact that it reveals to us beauties we find nowhere else, and that the apprehension of them is not transitory, but a perpetual reconcilement of life."

-- Tchaikovsky

"Though everything else may appear shallow and repulsive, even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God."
-- Felix Mendelssohn

"When I open my eyes I must sigh, for what I see is contrary to my religion, and I must despise the world which does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit."

-- Ludwig van Beethoven

"Music...can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable."

-- Leonard Bernstein

The Greeks breached the idea of art and they could almost grasp it through their Medea and Oedipal transgressions; however, being the abstraction that art is, it proved utterly impossible to quite get an hold of.

The convulsive, tragic, frightening, and utterly sensual feelings of the transcendental can only be experienced by saints, and sinners. As they say, the name of God is unutterable.

Originally Posted by Ivan Kipling

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The highest form of art, doesn't exist.

Do you know something we others don't?

I suppose I was referring to the highest form appreciable by the human intellect.

At present I'd be inclined to rate music above the rest. It speaks to me. Many claim poetry but I've never been able to hold with it. Perhaps in years to come it will have a deeper effect upon me than music

Originally Posted by Ramses

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Professional Wrestling

Definitely up there..

I can't say there's a "highest."

Three higher: Love, music and philosophy.

In order:

Music
Literature
Distillation of cognacs and single-malts
The fine art of wave riding

Honorable mention:

Orthodontics
Internet Appreciation

Orthodontics has a delightfully subversive sado-masochistic strain to the whole practice:

No one mentioned performance or video art.

I will say that I find it interesting that no one has mentioned tailoring or bespoke shoe making.

Philosophical dialogues.
Photography.
Music.

Originally Posted by kronik

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I will say that I find it interesting that no one has mentioned tailoring or bespoke shoe making.

Ah! I was wondering when someone would comment upon the lack of this.

Originally Posted by kronik

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No one mentioned performance or video art.

I will say that I find it interesting that no one has mentioned tailoring or bespoke shoe making.

Tailoring, cobbling, millinery etc are, in my opinion, crafts practised by artisans, rather than arts practised by artists.

Originally Posted by chrysalid

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Tailoring, cobbling, millinery etc are, in my opinion, crafts practised by artisans, rather than arts practised by artists.

Indeed. As I understand it, an artisan can produce the 'thing' in question time after time, to the same quality/standard. This differentiates from an artist and his art form, I'd say.

Originally Posted by LabelKing

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Orthodontics has a delightfully subversive sado-masochistic strain to the whole practice:

That is so Glamorama.


Zappa's Uncle Meat is perverse in a somewhat more visceral sense.

Originally Posted by Britalian

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Indeed. As I understand it, an artisan can produce the 'thing' in question time after time, to the same quality/standard. This differentiates from an artist and his art form, I'd say.

I know that there is no definite demarcation between 'art' and 'not art', but how would you class musicians and composers? I would suggest that a classical musician is not an artist, but a classical composer is.

This can also be transposed onto acting: Is De Niro really an artist when reciting the words of Schrader under the direction of Scorcese?

Originally Posted by chrysalid

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I know that there is no definite demarcation between 'art' and 'not art', but how would you class musicians and composers? I would suggest that a classical musician is not an artist, but a classical composer is.

This can also be transposed onto acting: Is De Niro really an artist when reciting the words of Schrader under the direction of Scorcese?

Good points. I'm with you on the musician/composer split. Wasn't it Brando who referred to his profession as a craft while others insist it's an art. (Or maybe it was v.v....?)