On Jan 23, 2009, at 9:13 AM, Chris Miller wrote:
What about you, Michael ?
Can you step away from the passive consideration of "how
sentimentality is connected", and tell us how you would make a
connection?
1. The dictionary entries for "sentimental" and "sentimentality"
include the word "excessive" in several definitions and the word "self-
indulgent" in one of them. This is instructive.
2. Sentiment (feeling) embraces all of our experiences. In art, the
feelings one has are provoked by two sources, the represented subject
and the form of the work. I believe that most people, especially those
not well-versed or disciplined in art connoisseurship and
appreciation, sense these two sources as one. The depiction,
particularly a "descriptive" representation (i.e., not "abstract"),
triggers a sentimental response far more immediately than do the
formal qualities of the work. Most people "see" the scene before they
see how it is formed; but then, that same viewer recognizes ("re-
knows") the kind of artistic skill that went into the work (the
"accuracy" of the "realism" is a big plus, the range of colors, the
degree of fineness or coarseness of finish, *and* the directorial
skills of stage managing the image, etc.). A naive viewer's first
response would be to what the image depicts, and the viewer feels a
sentiment for whatever that is, for the landscape, the biblical or
historical story, the happy children, the nude figure. The sentiment,
then, is rooted in the representation, not the work. The viewer would
apprise the quality of the work in terms of how pleasingly (formally)
the work conveyed the representation. This accounts for the popularity
of Kinkadiana, and likewise the widespread esteem for Rockwell. Wyeth
might have been a bit harder to "get" because of the "austerity" of
his many well-known works. I'm sure the notoriety of the "Helga"
pictures rose on the explicit nudity of her attractive body but was
tempered by the unglamorous setting of the old frame house, quilted
sheets, and IIRC diaphanous scrims. In any event, the external subject
and its stage-managing in the picture supersedes the formal qualities
in most people's estimation, I believe.
Not so with "abstract" paintings, which have no discernible
"referent." So the viewer is left with looking at the canvas, and not
beyond or through it, and what is left is almost entirely the formal
properties. Most people, I daresay, have very limited capacity to
"sentimentalize" abstract paintings (i.e., to infuse them with
sentiment) because they don't know how to encounter the formal
properties of painting as equivalent in "sentimental" potential to
"realistic" paintings.
For myself (at long last, I answer your question), I react emotionally
(sentimentally) to all paintings as things-in-themselves. And as I've
written on many previous occasions, I feel a distinctive
motherwellspanishelegy feeling and a slightly different
hockneyswimmingpool feeling, a stdamianocross feeling and a
vanderweydendeposition feeling, on and on. And, btw, for me the
sentiment is rooted in the painting and abetted by what the
representation may offer.
Do you ever use the word "sentimental" to show disapproval ?
Does anyone else ?
"Anyone else"? So you have already answered your question to me? Do I
need to reply?
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Michael Brady
[email protected]
