Do you wish there's a god?

[Alan V]

I don't think that a mental function is an art form.

Fine. I thought I was agreeing with your point, but if not, not.

Consciousness is selective just like art is. So my point was a simile, I guess.

If entertainment is mere relaxation or enjoyable time-wasting, no. 

Perhaps "diversion" is a better word. Again my point is that even though I was raised to be an artist of a sort, I don't fall in with the typical pieties about it.

As for Magritte, those jokes get old fast. 

I think Magritte's "This is not a pipe" is one of the most profound paintings ever created. It is not a joke, it is true. A picture of a pipe is not a pipe.

Just for reference here: I have a master's in painting from a New York art school, and a doctorate in the philosophy of art from a Japanese university. And I have never heard anyone say that art is about directed attention. 

Cool. I am surprised you spend so much time writing on internet forums, but am glad you're here.

However, my point was simple. Artists want people to pay attention to their art. They are implicitly saying, "This is more important to pay attention to than something else you might spend the same attention on." It's their gig.

People used to say that taking a photo is the act of directing attention. But maybe they don't say that any more, what with Photoshop and all. 

My point was that people are directing attention to their art. In the case of photography, they are directing attention to their specific selection from the real world. In the case of painting, it could be something entirely imagined, decorative, emotion-laden, or whatever.

Certainly artists want to direct attention. But is that what the art is about? Or do they direct attention in order to do something else? To stick with the names I mentioned before, Brueghel and Rembrandt do more than point. If somebody directs my attention, they sure as hell had better have something good to direct me to. 

So I wasn't saying artists are pointing at something else, they are saying, "Look at my art."

Well, some things are more worthwhile looking at than others. That's why it's better to look at the good ones. I would never dispute that there's bad art. But why is this relevant? Art enriches, and some of it enriches more than others. 

My question is, is the art in question worth my attention? That's why I mentioned bad art. Much art is not worth my attention.

Now, going back to what you said earlier, about how the religious classics are lipstick on a pig: Do you remember the chapter in Walden called "Reading"? If you wanted to review that, I think you'd see that the author is decisively and entirely in disagreement with you. If he were posting on this forum, you would tell him that he's wasting his time.

I was thinking more about religious paintings as lipstick on a pig. As far as classics are concerned, yes, Thoreau made a point of recommending them in the chapter on "Reading" in Walden. (He spent more time recommending specifically religious classics in A Week On the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.) And that's why I spent a semester learning Classical Greek in college, before I gave it up to focus on translations of classics of Sufi mysticism -- for almost 25 years.

Would I do it again, knowing what I know now? No, I would not. I sometimes think it would be a good idea to write an update to Walden in which the recommended reading was of science instead.

If Thoreau was brought forward in time by a time machine, yes, he would likely still promote the same ideas. But I like to think that if he actually grew up in our times, he would more likely agree with me now. (This one point is a big reason why I do not get along with other Thoreauvians. I consider Thoreau as a friend and a philosopher rather than as a mystic laying down the law.)