When I go to art museums, I like watching the people as much as I enjoy looking at the art. Especially museums in DC, which cost nothing to see, and are located in an international city teeming with tourists from other states and countries. I love listening to the hodge podge of languages surrounding me. Some will talk about everything but the art on the walls, and some insist on enlightening any willing ear on the history and importance of each piece. I am generally a quiet observer, though when a piece is especially good I will express my satisfaction, and discuss its merits with friends or family.
I'm certain that knowing art history and/or composition better would grant me further insights on what makes a piece of good art, and perhaps I would even enjoy it more. I would never discourage someone from learning as much as they wanted to know about art and its creators. Though I personally have very little interest in art history, I like reading those little plaques that briefly explain an artist's life and/or mission in creating his work. But I consider this epistemologically different from appreciating the art itself. And, if someone were to know everything in the universe that could be known about art but refused to allow themselves to react genuinely to their subjects of study when viewed - in other words, if they analyzed the art to death but squashed their emotional response to the pieces - they would understand art less than an uneducated child gazing in awe at the Statue of David.
Art must speak to me on its own, without any historical or social context. When I like a piece of art, it's not because of its political commentary, or what it did for any social movement. Something about the piece must reach out to me on its own merit, independent of anything objective I could learn about the artist. It sings to me with colors, shapes, and lines, something beautiful and profound, singular and universal. The art just is, for its own sake. The artist may have had more complex reasons for creating it, but the art itself can be appreciated simply because it is beautiful. It may not call out the same response in every viewer. Even if you do not like a particular paining or statue, everyone can acknowledge the great ones because they evoke some kind of powerful emotional response, be it positive or negative. This connection to the viewer, and the viewer's subsequent reaction and communication with other viewers is really what art is all about.
In summary, art must be appreciated as it is, just so. Added layers of information can provide deeper appreciation, but only if they add meaning and power to the experience instead of obfuscating the intuitive emotional reaction that arises naturally upon viewing a masterpiece.
Walk in Beauty ~ Lisa
While I totally and whole-heartedly agree with your beautiful essay (!), I still find that sometimes...sometimes...something that was at first looked over can earn a double take in light of an interesting or exceptional history. Knowledge of context can add more power (which, I think, is beyond mere appreciation) to an already powerful piece, or clarify intent of a piece misread. Not saying that the context should speak FOR the art, but sometimes I think it can help the art speak a little louder.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. As I was trying to say in my post, I am always in favor of learning more about the context and history of a piece of art. I just wanted to point out that no one can truly understand art on a purely academic level without experiencing it emotionally.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Thank you, Alyssa! :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point, Lisa. Even the greatest critics of a medium have to have an experience with it, or something fundamental is lost.
ReplyDeleteHowever, like you said in your post, there is a certain epistemological difference in the intellectual appraisal of a piece. I wouldn't say it is less valid, just that it offers a different, and in some cases necessary perspective. These critics understand the conventions, styles, and patterns emerging in the medium, and are better able to give us a context for which to appreciate a piece.
Yes, even if they were to lose the emotional response, I feel as though that group of appraisers would feel just as fulfilled by art, but because of the piece's technical prowess, instead of it's emotional strength.
I like what you said, Michael, though I'm a little confused. If the subjective perspective is not necessary to properly appreciating art, then what exactly is fundamental about it? I think that having only one or the other experience is a perfectly valid method of viewing art, but combining the two perspectives provides someone with a more comprehensive understanding of the art.
ReplyDeleteJust a writer's note: I focused more on the importance of the emotional aspect in my essay as a response to the way I was forced to view art on school field trips - learning as much as possible without allowing time for emotional responses to the artwork. Perhaps if I'd been surrounded by people who refused to learn anything historical or technical about the art they loved, I'd have written a different essay from the opposite perspective.
Yea I would definitely say that I got a different treatment in terms of how I was taught art. I learned it in loose semi-related segments of history and an appaulingly boring list of subjects on which to draw. Or at least it seemed to me to be nothing more than this from the way it was taught. It seems almost imperative that art should be blown through its course on an emotional kite which I never got to touch. Or perhaps it has no intrinsic meaning past the meaning of the different frequencies of light that hit the eye.
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