Chess is not an art

guitarzan wrote:

I get a kick out of your tastes in music, electricpawn. You might be surprised to learn I used to own that Mothers of Invention FREAK OUT album, and I had ABSOLUTELY FREE, too. I should have kept those - they're probably worth something today.i

BTW, I'm not putting down Johnny 'Guitar' Watson or his playing; I just think t's fair to analogize him & his music with a comic book when speaking of art, that's all. Some of those cartoon artists can really draw!

Fair enough Guitarzan. Zappa's one of my favorites, but I like just about anyone who can really play guitar.

I thought you don't like Zappa...

 Since you posted this shortly after my post, and since I was the only one posting had who claimed to be a poet, I must assume, ilikeflags, that your sarcasm was aimed at me. I have written about 300 poems and had about 40 published; also I have won several poetry prizes; I have also written 7 full-length verse dramas, 1 published, 4 produced onstage. So, while there are no credentials for being a poet, I have at least been called that by persons other than myself. And while I am neither a girl, nor 14, nor keep a journal, I can assure you that none of these things are disqualifications. By the time I was 14 I had already written a large number of poems, long lost ansd so not counting in the 300. I have never kept a journal, since I saved my writing for things I wanted other people to see, not for things I wanted to keep private. In my adolescence, for several years I was more involved with mathematics than with writing. During those years, chess was an arena where my interests intersected, the mathematical, logical side with the artistic side, spiced with competitiveness I was never short on. But then, I had already been heavily influenced by Plato: for me, logic and mathematics are steps the mind takes toward contemplating the higher forms such as Beauty and the Good, which is also the object of Art. The fact is that I have often found some of this contemplativeness and mystic rapture in chess, and for me this is one of its principal attractions.

^^Wow, a real poet! Virtually!

Hm... not that it matters much, but Plato wouldn't hold art or poetry to be on the same level as logic or mathematics. We don't know where he would put chess since he never saw the game.

Yeah when I was 14 I was a girl, too.  I still didn't fall for that Platonic forms nonsense, mind.

A human and a bear and a gerbil and a penguin and a turtle and a lizard and a vulture all eat and then excrete. They are all animals.

Oh yeah? Then which is the finer thing: An eagle or the truth?

Is brain surgery an art? I think it's just a hobby.

Is it the bassoon thing?

...and don't forget everyones favorite, the old American pie...

Well, I can only do brain surgery on weekends, out back in my garage. So it's really just more of a hobby for me.

were you quoting Dahmer? or Hannibal Lecter

Hey!

Just because I drowned my poor mother in a bathtub full of milk and Fruit Loops doesn't make me a cereal killer!

chess is an art. gardening is an art. Picking your nose is an art. And don't forget the art of farting. Being an art isn't really such a big deal nowadays.

Is chess a fine art... no.

regarding the first page of this thread, right brain/left brain is psuedoscience and people can imagine anything that is physically possible, so that connection between chess and music is pretty weak.

Chess doesn't really imitate life. how can your relay an emotion through a chess game (without annotations saying, "I was eager...")Another difference between an art and a game is rules. Chess has rules, where if you break them, it's not chess anymore. What artform has rules? Name one, anybody.

Well, you have to paint something for it to be a painting.