[CR]Bikes as art, or not!

(Example: Production Builders:Peugeot:PX-10LE)

From: "Yanko Damboulev" <yanko@ffi.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 00:28:04 -0800
Subject: [CR]Bikes as art, or not!

We do not experience the commonplace, we do not see it; rather, we recognize it. We do not see the walls of our room; and it is very difficult for us to see errors in proofreading, especially if the material is written in a language we know well, because we cannot force ourselves to see, to read, and not to "recognize" the familiar word. If we have to define specifically artistic perception in general, then we should suggest this definition: "Artistic" perception is that perception in which we experience form - perhaps not form alone, but certainly form.

Perception here is clearly not to be understood as a simple psychological concept (the perception peculiar to this or that person or object), but, since art does not exist outside of perception, as an element in art itself. The notion of "form" here acquires new meaning; it is no longer an envelope, but a complete thing, something concrete, self-contained, and without a correlative of any kind. If we are riding our bikes full of joy then we are flying through the world like Jules Verne's characters flying to the moon in a cannon-ball. I believe that the bikes we love are art.

Yanko Damboulev
Los Angeles, CA 90069