Is music the highest art?

The famous quote by Walter Pater goes, "All art constantly aspires to the condition of music."

I think that all art does aspire to the condition of music. Sound has a pervasive, innate quality that can trigger emotions quite immediately. Beautiful music can bypass the mind and go straight to the soul, whilst other art forms like poetry or painting may need to be 'detected' and decoded first. Of course, some poetry, paintings and dance does have the same immediacy that I find in music, and in that case those pieces of art have attained the condition of music.

I guess so. I can lose myself in music. 😃 .. sometimes I just sit there and wonder how music is created by those artists and .. some songs/symphonies or whatever sound sooo beautiful, I am at loss of words and they're touchy too.

Music is undoubtedly the most popular form of Art......but not the highest form of Art.......
Comparing two forms of Art is like comparing oranges and Apples...........Each form of art is a pleasure to the people who enjoy it......but there can never be a comparison......hence we cannot rank the arts...

First let us define what "highest " means, xobi. What criteria do you set for judging the "altitude" of an art?

Originally posted by: xobile

The famous quote by Walter Pater goes, "All art constantly aspires to the condition of music."

Without getting into the meaning intending by Pater, let's discuss whether music really is the highest of the arts. Some questions to ponder:

What is art?

What makes one art form 'higher' than another?

Could you say music is the highest art in any sense?

What about songs which are really a mix of music and poetry?

One thing I noticed, people don't really complain about dancing these days and rant and rave about the "good old days" like in singing. One might argue that singing is tougher and the current gen doesnt have the aptitude to perform as well, or one might say that dancing is timeless. Although I feel that the second argument is a bit weak.

Originally posted by: old-black-joe

One thing I noticed, people don't really complain about dancing these days and rant and rave about the "good old days" like in singing. One might argue that singing is tougher and the current gen doesnt have the aptitude to perform as well, or one might say that dancing is timeless. Although I feel that the second argument is a bit weak.

Dancing does receive its fair share of criticism. People do criticize the pelvic thrusts or raunchy stuff in our movies. The sensual styles like lambada, bachata, rumba were not well received by many people. But the criticism is much less.

I don't think this difference is due to singing being harder or dancing being timeless. In fact you cant say one is harder or more timeless. A musician may find it hard to dance and a dancer may find it hard to play instruments or sing. Timelessness again depends on what people enjoy.

I think its the question of exposure music has received. Music has exploded from just an art form to a mass entertainment platform. The number of artistes we have in various genres, the kind of recognition they get, the number of musical releases, award ceremonies and all that - dancing does not have that. So with more exposure there is more room for criticism.

Another difference I would say is the community. The dancing community tends to be much more responsive and adaptive to change. New age dances although receiving criticism were eventually well received. Music on the other hand tends to have stalwarts who are set in their eras and averse to changes. For example even back to the times of Beethoven, older composers criticized him especially for his fast paced scherzos, but painters of the time were well received after the initial criticism.

Well from what you wrote , one might infer that music has a stronger grip on people, making them creatures of habit, right?

Originally posted by: old-black-joe

Well from what you wrote , one might infer that music has a stronger grip on people, making them creatures of habit, right?

Seems more like it - music and cinema seem to be what captivate audiences most. Even in performing arts cinema beats broadway, play theater etc.