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This webpage is the personal site of MILES WILLIAMS MATHIS, an artist and writer offering ARTWORKS, WRITINGS, SCIENCE, and LINKS. A piece titled “Tess with Whippet” is available again for the first time since 1995. MILES WILLIAMS MATHIS is also the co-founder of La Guilde de la Blanchepierre. The site features artwork, including “The Triptych Altarpiece of Harriet Westbrook Shelley,” which is 15 feet (4.5 meters) tall. The text includes an essay, “An Introduction to the Argument against the Avant Garde,” which critiques the current state of modern art and artistic criticism. The author, speaking as a metaphorical “chasm odonton,” argues that artists have become subservient to critics and have lost their voice. He criticizes theories that art has become philosophy and laments the decline of artistic integrity, which he attributes to a focus on “ambition, distraction, uglification and derision.” The essay references James McNeill Whistler and his antagonistic approach to critics, contrasting it with the perceived appeasement of contemporary artists. The author specifically challenges the views of Clement Greenberg, particularly his 1949 statement on painting, and Arthur Danto, questioning his assertion that art has become philosophical. The essay strongly asserts that analysis, philosophy, politics, destruction, framing, finding, thinking, randomness, and pathology are not art. Instead, art is defined as rare, requiring talent, isolation, depth, subtlety, mystery, emotion, and inspiration, built upon craftsmanship and character. The author poses a question to young artists about their ambition for lifelong recognition versus wealth. The essay concludes with a call for a radical reawakening and reinvention of art, moving beyond the repetitive and reactionary trends. The page also displays images of artworks, “Russian Girl” and “Joachim,” with their dimensions.
List of Subjects, Names, References, Locations, Companies, etc.:
- MILES WILLIAMS MATHIS
- 1995
- La Guilde de la Blanchepierre
- The Guild of the White Stone
- The Triptych Altarpiece of Harriet Westbrook Shelley
- 15 feet (4.5 meters) tall
- An Introduction to the Argument against the Avant Garde
- Hamlet
- Tolstoy
- Caravaggio
- Cellini
- Troy
- James McNeill Whistler
- Messieurs les Ennemis
- 1890
- Nietzsche
- Lewis Carroll
- Athena
- Witchking
- Clement Greenberg
- 1949
- Arthur Danto
- 1995
- Columbia University
- The Nation
- Soho
- Sophoclean
- Corybantes
- Michelangelo
- Van Gogh
- Jackson Hole
- New York City
- Russian Girl
- Joachim