not an Evil Librarian Posted October 5, 2019 Report Share Posted October 5, 2019 This is a problem I have had ever since my first read of The Way of Kings. Jasnah is an extremely rational person who has an extensive understanding of the scholarly field. Yet she seems to irrationally dismiss the visual arts as trivial foolishness. Now, I'm no scholar, but there seems to me that the visual arts are far more useful than Jasnah gives them credit for. just off the top of my head, the visual arts can be used for cartography, biological and anatomical diagramming, and visually representing recent discoveries such as artifacts found in archeological digs and new types of spren. So why does Jasnah view the visual arts as though they have no place in scholarship? she encourages Shallan to continue practicing her art, but merely as a way of attracting a man. I honestly don't understand how such a logical person who has such a great understanding of scholarship would view the visual arts in such an irrational way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aon Tia Posted October 5, 2019 Report Share Posted October 5, 2019 And not to forget, artifabrians can not possibly function without visual arts! Well may be she thinks so because she has always paid more attention to history, philosophy etc. I think she considered visual arts slightly inferior to other forms of scholarship and I think she wanted to tell shallan that her accomplishments in visual art will not sway her to take shallan as a ward as in that if you want to be my ward, you will have much less use of visual arts. Then you should know more of history, philosophy then you do. I mean that jasnah is not the type of scholar someone highly trained in visual arts should aim for. If this is your speciality then you would be better off in applying elsewhere. And to her credit, she does acknowledge to shallan Later that her disdain of visual arts was an erroneous judgement. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CalaCrisp88 Posted October 5, 2019 Report Share Posted October 5, 2019 Drawing and visual arts are not strictly one-to-one. You can draw scientific/mathematical diagrams or graphs without it being art. Art is typically something that is inherently emotional, based on feelings rather than science or fact or logic. Of course there can be some overlaps in the two fields; for example, artists may apply mathematical concepts to make their art more realistic or aesthetically appealing. But at its core, art is more about emotions than logic, and Jasnah obviously cares about logic much more. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
not an Evil Librarian Posted October 5, 2019 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2019 25 minutes ago, 8giraffe8 said: Drawing and visual arts are not strictly one-to-one. You can draw scientific/mathematical diagrams or graphs without it being art. Art is typically something that is inherently emotional, based on feelings rather than science or fact or logic. Of course there can be some overlaps in the two fields; for example, artists may apply mathematical concepts to make their art more realistic or aesthetically appealing. But at its core, art is more about emotions than logic, and Jasnah obviously cares about logic much more. That does not mean that the visual arts have no place in scholarship as Jasnah seems to believe. most of Shallan's drawings are very scholarly in nature. yes it is true that you can draw a graph without the ability to draw well, but what about a diagram of human anatomy? That would most certainly require a background in the visual arts. Remember, during Roshar's current time period, camera's are not a thing, so the only way to record what something such as a newly discovered spren, archeological artifact, or new fabrial looks like is with a drawing. In other words, the visual arts should be a necessary part of nearly all aspects of scholarship. 3 4 hours ago, The traveller said: Well may be she thinks so because she has always paid more attention to history, philosophy etc. I mean that jasnah is not the type of scholar someone highly trained in visual arts should aim for. If this is your speciality then you would be better off in applying elsewhere. True, but Jasnah seems to consider the visual arts to be a useless frivolity more than simply an aspect of scholarship that she has little experience with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pathfinder Posted October 7, 2019 Report Share Posted October 7, 2019 (edited) On 10/5/2019 at 3:51 PM, not an Evil Librarian said: That does not mean that the visual arts have no place in scholarship as Jasnah seems to believe. most of Shallan's drawings are very scholarly in nature. yes it is true that you can draw a graph without the ability to draw well, but what about a diagram of human anatomy? That would most certainly require a background in the visual arts. Remember, during Roshar's current time period, camera's are not a thing, so the only way to record what something such as a newly discovered spren, archeological artifact, or new fabrial looks like is with a drawing. In other words, the visual arts should be a necessary part of nearly all aspects of scholarship. True, but Jasnah seems to consider the visual arts to be a useless frivolity more than simply an aspect of scholarship that she has little experience with. Keep in mind how it was presented to Jasnah: Way of Kings page 91 "You didn't ask me about all the feminine arts. You left out painting and drawing." "I have never had much use for them." "But they are of the arts," Shallan said feeling desperate. This was where she was most accomplished! "Many consider the visual arts the most refined of them all. i brought my portfolio. I would show you what I can do." Shallan didn't say "hey check out all my scientific sketches of the ecology". In fact as per WoB, what she is doing in that regard is new. There isn't a whole practice of biologists going around drawing the ecology and studying it. To Jasnah Shallan was saying "hey let me show you the portraits of the heralds I painted!" (which she did mention she makes wonderful glyphwards just prior). Later when Jasnah sees what Shallan has done, she acknowledges its use and apologizes. Edited October 7, 2019 by Pathfinder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantus Posted October 7, 2019 Report Share Posted October 7, 2019 1 hour ago, Pathfinder said: Keep in mind how it was presented to Jasnah: Way of Kings page 91 "You didn't ask me about all the feminine arts. You left out painting and drawing." "I have never had much use for them." "But they are of the arts," Shallan said feeling desperate. This was where she was most accomplished! "Many consider the visual arts the most refined of them all. i brought my portfolio. I would show you what I can do." Shallan didn't say "hey check out all my scientific sketches of the ecology". In fact as per WoB, what she is doing in that regard is new. There isn't a whole practice of biologists going around drawing the ecology and studying it. To Jasnah Shallan was saying "hey let me show you the portraits of the heralds I painted!" (which she did mention she makes wonderful glyphwards just prior). Later when Jasnah sees what Shallan has done, she acknowledges its use and apologizes. That was my recollection as well. She ws very dismissive of it when she thought that Shallan's drawing was an artistic/aesthetic pursuit, the sort that Jasnah associated with more frivolous artistic pursuits. Once she realized that Shallan was capable of actual photo-realism, and from memory at that, she quickly changed her tune and acknowledged it's use to scholarship. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanLemon Posted October 20, 2019 Report Share Posted October 20, 2019 (edited) Let's not forget, Jasnah is still a person with her own biases and cultural attitudes regardless of her logic. I wouldn't go as far as to call her a hypocrit but there is more than a little bit of influence from her culture and personal preferences in her worldview. For example, despite her comment on feminine arts and being an atheist she still adheres to Vorin traditions on what is feminine and it's more than mere practicality causing her to do so, she honestly has that worldview. Edit: to help explain with her view of visual arts, her personal bias is that they are something that does not interest her or something she really has any skill in. She also thinks that she's ahead of the curve so to speak so if there is something that she doesn't consider to have value then it obviously can't have value Edited October 20, 2019 by StanLemon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karger Posted October 20, 2019 Report Share Posted October 20, 2019 The type of art Shallan wanted to show Jasnah was her person drawing. Jasnah largely thought this useless as a skill until she realized how Shallan used it to capture her so accurately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aon Tia Posted October 20, 2019 Report Share Posted October 20, 2019 1 hour ago, Karger said: The type of art Shallan wanted to show Jasnah was her person drawing. Jasnah largely thought this useless as a skill until she realized how Shallan used it to capture her so accurately. Agree totally. Shallan showed her portraits of people and animals which jasnah probably looks at a mere hobby type of thing and not a scholarship. And at that time jasnah had no idea how quickly shallan can make them, how accurately and from memory by taking just one look. There was no reason for jasnah to think that shallan would be good at cartography etc when she did realise, she told shallan that I made a mistake, I underestimated the usefulness of your talent. Which I think is usually very difficult for scholars of the her stature to do. This is one of the things I like about jasnah. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calderis Posted October 20, 2019 Report Share Posted October 20, 2019 As Jasnah said herself, one of the drawbacks of rarely being wrong is failure to practice the art of apology. When she realized her error, she did apologize. I think that speaks for itself. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aon Tia Posted October 20, 2019 Report Share Posted October 20, 2019 2 minutes ago, Calderis said: As Jasnah said herself, one of the drawbacks of rarely being wrong is failure to practice the art of apology. When she realized her error, she did apologize. I think that speaks for itself. Oh that speaks for a lot. I know it is not easy for people like her to apologise. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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