I only wish that you could go into more detail about them [i.e. changes in experience] -- indeed, I think that the value of all discussions on this list resides in the details of personal examples rather than argument.
Though I realize that a personal experience can be very difficult to remember and then describe. [...] because I'm also feeling the colors and shapes, and didn't put all that into words -- and I'm not sure about the chronology, since many things can be felt simultaneously. I suppose I do not see the value in narrating my experience for precisely the reasons you describe Mr Miller. I would be confabulating, rather than reporting. Such a retroactive reconstruction (Prousts memoire involotaire?) may be interesting, but it is not particularly useful for discussing art or aesthetics. As Proust demonstrates, dunking a pastry in coffee can lead one to all kinds of reminiscences. Although Proust extracts some profound artistic effects from this, there is nothing specific to art in such a reaction. A pastry is as good and important as a painting by Vermeer. I believe I have said this before, but perhaps it bears repeating: if you are exclusively interested in the process involved in a particular experience, then you are not particularly interested in either art or aesthetics. Any number of things may instance a given experiential process. They need be neither art, nor discussed aesthetically. Furthermore, I have already told you how my comportment towards artworks changed. Viz. Dutch painting, I began to attend more directly to its materiality, to the actual brush strokes and the paint, to the unity and interplay between techniques of depiction and the subject being depicted; that is, the implicit notion I had prior to reading Bernstein was something like, 'prior to the 18th Century, pictorial space should be organized according to the mathematical strictures of Perspective etc and the subject of depiction should be idealized, such that the specifically material aspects of an artwork (e.g. application of pigment) dissolve or become unobstrusive in depiction of a paintings subject." I looked at Dutch paintings as if they were works that belonged to the Italian Renaissance. Indeed, Bernsteins argument against Vermeer and in favour of De Hooch is based on the idea that the De Hoochs work exhibits something very different from the formalization of pictorial space, which Bernstein connects to a certain understanding of utpoia (form-content identity etc). Notice that this more precise claim does not invalidate the idea that perspective and the mediality of painterly representation are criteria for aesthetic evaluation and criticism. Rather, it indicates a set of limits in which they can be fruitfully discussed. Bernstein foregrounds a series of features in order to delineate a new set of experiental possibilities that an overly broad way of seeing covers over. What else can I say on the matter, without confabulating? What else could be of aesthetic interest? On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Chris Miller <[email protected]>wrote: > Apparently, the two of us think quite differently about phrases like > 'aesthetic experience', 'way of seeing', and 'free-running imagination', > Mr. > Asthetik. > > So it occurs to me that the best way to discuss those issues is to > exemplify > them. > > If that is that avoiding the issue, I stand guilty as charged. > > But as you might recall, I began this thread by asking : > > "Does anyone else have any personal examples of text changing your mind > about > how you think about some artwork, recording, or book?" > > You were the only one game enough to name some, and I respect you for it. > > I only wish that you could go into more detail about them -- indeed, I > think > that the value of all discussions on this list > resides in the details of personal examples rather than argument. > > Though I realize that a personal experience can be very difficult to > remember > and then describe. > > For example, Mando just asked me for my reaction to this sculpture: > > > http://www.echelman.com/ > > And here is a list of what went through my mind in chronological order: > > > That's fun, there must be a party > looks like a jellyfish > wonder how big it is > wonder what it looks like from the other side > wonder if it would look good anywhere but in this photograph with the city > lights behind it > oh, I see those lines of the cables that suspend it, from what has it been > hung? > wonder why Mando found it so interesting - because it's cross-sections are > so > circular, just like his statues? > > > > ... which is only a partial description of my response, because I'm also > feeling the colors and shapes, and didn't put all that into words -- and > I'm > not sure about the chronology, since many things can be felt > simultaneously. > > > > ____________________________________________________________ > Save big on Stock Trading Fees. Click Now! > > http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxQzmhbAwPI5tqjZM21Y0AMHq > Tzs9Otbbv5BiN07I5up6zPAmoV9za/
