In aesthetics, it's not just the cause that gets confabulated, Mr. Asthetik.
It's the effect as well - as Mr. Conger has suggested with his discussion of
how our minds stitch together images from the furtive, fleeting phenomena
that pass before our eyes.
How can one confabulation be judged better than another? This is a question
for which argument cannot provide any definitive answers.
And so we're left with describing our confabulations as best we can - and yes,
I do think that there is a unique relationship between a given artwork and
every viewer. Perhaps not for the insensitive, disinterested, or dimwitted,
but among those who cultivate an active interest in such things.
Which is also why I wish that you (and now Saul) would provide as much detail
as you can regarding the examples that you have given regarding the instances
when you "changed your mind about the way I look at art" Why are both of you
so tight lipped? (though, I do appreciate that you both are offering so much
more than others, who feel, perhaps, that such revelations may damage the
authoritative postures which they cultivate so carefully)
Were you changing your mind about some work of art as you remember it? Or as
you were, at that moment, seeing it?
Or, as you were, at that moment, seeing it in reproduction?
You ask why these differences are important, and I can only say that,
recalling my own experiences, they have been.
(and that's why I will never move to a city that doesn't have a big art
museum, and keep building a collection of reproductions of things that can't
be found there)
But I can no more prove the importance of these distinctions to you, than I
can prove that Sanford Robinson Gifford is a much,much, much better painter
than Thomas Kinkade.
You either see such a difference --- or you don't.
*********************************************************
*******
Mr Miller,
The difference between confabulation and argument is well established. The
former is a process well known to psychology that occurs in the absence of
an individuals lack of any knowledge concerning the proximate cause or
motivation of a given (usually bodily) phenomenon (a physical reaction, a
desire, an urge and impulse, or a recreation of a series of experiences).
Mr conger has already addressed this subject. The latter is well defined
too. There is no conflation of them on my part. To suggest that the only
way to be certain whether confabulation has occurred is to consult the
proximate cause of the phenomenon being explained is to fundamentally
misunderstand what I have been saying. Again: confabulation only occurs
when the proximate cause is unknown. Hence, one would have to be advocating
a causal theory and presuppose that there is a unique relationship between a
given artwork and every viewer, which provides the basis for adjudicating
among descriptions, etc. Such a position is false.
I do not think your argument for the difference between a pastry and a
Vermeer is compelling either, since you point to features that are
incidental (name of creator being a fine instance thereof). The point, what
one would have to prove, is that artworks have a unique causal power to
produce a unique kind of experience. They do not possess such a power, and
so one cannot successfully essay the kind of argument you have outlined
below.
Finally, I find your repeated questioning after whether I have actually seen
a painting by De Hooch to be rather distasteful. In the first instance, one
would have thought that my attempt not to answer this question in the first
place would have made it amply clear that I am not inclined to answer it at
all. Out of politeness, one would have refrained from pressing the issue.
Unless there is some great insight to be gleaned from whether I have
actually 'experienced' an original De Hooch. The lack of any explanation
for this repeated query implies something less than felicitous on your part.
Explain to me what difference this makes in the present context, Mr Miller,
and, should I find your explanation compelling, I will answer your. As the
matter stands, my sense is that you are trying to nitpick in a completely
unproductive matter by bringing up issues that have little to no
significance in the present context. Honestly, sincerely, what difference
does it make in our present context if we were to take it on good faith that
I have actually seen, perhaps on a Visit to New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of
art, or perhaps at the staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, or maybe even at the
Louvre, several paintings by De Hooch, rather than to assume that I have
seen only reproductions? Why is this even an issue? What would an honest
answer illuminate?
All this aside, I am happy to see this discussion blossoming. So many
voices!
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