LogFAQs > #970712282

Kenri posted...

I mean, SotN cribbed a lot of its sprites from Rondo of Blood, so this one feels like a slight miss? Like yeah that game is fuckin beautiful but they also took a lot of shortcuts.

Replace Symphony with Rondo, then. Either way, they represent the last era of major devs funneling real resources into sprite artwork.

I can't believe we're having an "aesthetics are/n't objective" debate in 2023 honestly. There's no objective view into what is and isn't visually pleasing. And don't hit me with that "okay then, I'll wear clown makeup to my daughter's wedding" example because it's missing the point: we view clown makeup as informal and tacky and inappropriate for daily wear not because of some inherent quality in the makeup, but because culturally we've reached a consensus that certain things are and aren't commonly acceptable. You see this come up a lot when people with implicit racial biases will talk down on people from other cultures, almost pitying them - what a shame these black youths don't know that baggy pants are wrong and dumb looking, or that these people from Saudi Arabia dress in such gaudy colours unlike our refined and mature formal wear.

Similarly, the dismissal of "modern art" as not being legitimate is in no way objective. The culture surrounding the art world has built up a sense of exclusivity and reverence that emphasizes the difference between insiders and outsiders, between serious art and pop art. It's the reason certain styles are seen as sophisticated and others, like "fantasy book cover-core" works, are considered common. A lot of the abstract and postmodernist art displays that draw flack aren't made because the artist believes a banana is a culturally significant aesthetic marvel; they're created and displayed as a metacommentary, a reaction to the forms and barriers that exist throughout the art industry. That somebody is able to have a toilet or a cold brutalist slab placed inside a velvet rope and captioned as an exhibit is less a statement about those objects and more a statement about what we consider to be "art" and why, not dissimilar to John Cage's 4'33" in the music world.