--- Chris Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Is an aesthetic rush stronger -- as a formal > presentation seems to look *more* > like other things?
I don't know. Only the experiencer can say. > > Or, if one feels puzzlement at what "those other > things" might be -- can > there be any aesthetic rush at all? Why assume full intentionality of the part of the artist? Some allusions are cultural, some belong to the viewer, some may be intended. > > There certainly are some people who love to be > puzzled -- or race their minds > through all the possible suggestions: "Do you see > yonder cloud that's almost > in shape of a camel?" I suppose that's true for some people. Others might be moved by the new configuations and relatedness an object has to what is imagined or brought to mind. That is often a result of a new formal presentation. > > But usually, as Aristotle has noted, an audience > enjoys an imitation -- > and don't we call something "abstract art" when we > don't think an imitation is > occurring because we have no idea what is being > imitated? Well, what you get depends on what you bring to the experience. The fomal presentation of an artwork, how it arranges its parts, etc., is very, very important, I believe. I think the urge for formal order is innate. The drive for new and surprising, even bewildering formal order is very strong, although most peopleare passive in that respect and when the new threatens their sense of cultural order, they may be disturbed, angry, and so on. In daily life we expect events to have some coherence, to tell as story as it were, even if we realize that we create our own stories by choosing from the near infinitude of events or thoughts In experiencing some abstract art we may find ouselves imagining that the shapes and colors, the rhythm, contrasts, etc., urge us to recall disparate things or images, events, feelings. Sometimes we make up a coherence for those allusions, sometimes not. I also think that the formal arrangement can evoke feelings associated to bodily actions -- much like we experience when we look at figurative art or dance, etc. Some people expect art to be very mechanistic in conveying a message. That's a reliance on an if-then type of linear proposition. But artworks tend to avoid that and work instead in an "oceanic" realm of consciousness, feeling, recognition, accusation, solace, all of that. The viewer needs to invent the coherence for the work by finding it through sensation. Needless to say, 99+ percent of all art fails to challenge a perceptive viewer. If that's consistent over time then the work fails to "deliver the goods" as the pragmatist say. Artworks, like human beings, are incredibly frail. Not one of them can prove intrinsic value or refute trivializing judgment. At the least, they require sympathy or empathy, something loaned by someone (and culture, collectively). That's the a-priori condition of their survival. WC
