I suppose my last sentence was not clear. Read it again and notice I wrote 'constructed' -- and that means we do have a preconception of events and we do shape what we see/experience through previous experiences, etc. That's mediation. I assumed we all agree on that -- excepting Cheerskep and maybe Miller -- who still insist that sensory activity is all passive. Science -- that bugaboo, neurological neuroscience -- demonstrates that we participate in forming and interpreting the patterns we call seeing. It's amazing that even Aristotle intuited that. WC
________________________________ From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, April 3, 2009 3:51:35 PM Subject: Re: Judging the late Titian On Apr 3, 2009, at 5:22 PM, William Conger wrote: > Well, I agree that the impact of an artwork is immediate, which is almost the > same as saying that a work of beauty is instantly felt. So in general I > would agree with Miller that we don't need to know anything secondary to the > artwork to feel its effect on us, our perception, assuming that perception is > a constructed response to sensory events. I can't go with you all the way on this, William. We don't see paintings in a vacuum. From our early years, we learn what pictures are and later what paintings, a specific kind of paintings, are. We learn what museums and other art galleries are. How is it that we can walk through a museum or gallery and *immediately* prefer one painting over the other, to immediately form judgments of the paintings? We're not seeing for the first time "jewel-like colors" or "smoky atmospheric effects" or "bravura brushwork." We know--to one extent or other--what these things are and how pictures are formed. And part of that background context of information are the theories and specific history of styles, patronage, etc. You can't look at any Titian and immediately decide it's good or bad without a greater context of judging those things. How can Miller say which parts of the Titians he wants to "protect" from the other parts, if he doesn't already know about them? Why does he want to "launch an attack" on the Titians, if he doesn't already have some knowledge of Titians, Renaissance art, other representational art, iconography, etc.? This is Miller offering himself as a new Ramanujan of art. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [email protected]
