It was E. Gombrich who said that there's no wrong way to experience art. That implies that there's no one right way either. But as Gombrich also argued, these subjective experiences don't negate the actuality, the physical properties, and the contextual evidence, in which the artwork was made. It is useful to examine all of that, not because it points to some one correct, provable, aesthetic experience, but because it may reveal conditions to explain why one has certain experiences.
DeDuve was being disingenuous, and an academic bully, when he pretended to put "powerful aesthetic synthesis" which is all about his own feelings, into the painting as if it were something physical and measurable. There may be properties in the work which, together with other factors, not excluding our own socially constructed sense of "aesthetic" and "synthesis" and "powerful" (powerful being the most elusive of all), help to evoke a "gaze" that can be interpreted as having some embodied sensations -- like the sense of being in different position relations to the Bar painting's visual elements. Mando's experience of the painting, through a reproduction, I guess, is valid. But it doesn't take into consideration all of the physical and historical facts surrounding the work, its making, and even Manet's own words and practice. If Mando had examined the contexts of the work, I feel confident that his statement would have been different, but I'm not sure that his aesthetic experience would have been different too, although it would be less encumbered by factual errors. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, November 2, 2009 8:21:09 AM Subject: Re: manet Yes -- Mando is out of a loop -- i.e. the discourse that explains how "The Bar at the Folies Bergere" is one of the greatest paintings in art history - which has become something of a cottage industry in academia. But how can Saul call this "THE loop" if "Context determines hierarchy" (as he told us yesterday) Mando is simply thinking outside that context. And -- what really did happen to the right hand of the woman on the right? Where is her elbow? In the central figure, the white cuffs begin in the middle of her forearm -- but here they seem to begin at the elbow - in fact, Manet seems to have painted two elbows on the same arm. We can ask all kinds of questions about pictorial reality - including how many "implicit vanishing points" may be found. But I join Duve in placing an asthetic context (i.e. the search for a "powerful artistic synthesis") above all the others. Some of us feel the presence of such a synthesis in that painting -- and many others, including Mando, apparently do not. And who can prove which of us is wrong without resort to an argument by authority? ............................................................................. .. >Boy are you out of the loop (Saul) >>That painting seems like an abandon painting that was never finished. It looks like it started as still life painting of two tables with liquor and glass ware,great detail on the persimmons. Then he started to add the center figure which had too much detail for a still life quality, then started to add those two figures that would occupy the same standing area and never resolve it. The yellow stripe indicates something (?). I think the right hand on the woman on the right became the last straw, and he stopped. (Mando) ____________________________________________________________ Weight Loss Program Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/c?cp=d-2T9Zbdos0Qq7svQ0-f3gAAJz6c l_zTaptgNR5c8Mer1v9kAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEUgAAAAA=
