In a message dated 2/26/10 2:11:47 PM, [email protected] writes:
> In a message dated 2/23/10 6:56:17 PM, [email protected] writes: > > > > Do you believe we get that feeling > > > only when contemplating what most of us call "works of art"? What "IS" > > > it?!" > > > > I think we would do well to limit the question to what we feel when > contemplating works-made by human beings,objects or series of actions > designed > to be repeated ,not sports feats or natural phenomena or other living > beings. > Kate Sullivan > Why impose this limitation? I want to understand the "nature" of an "a.e.". This is a big 'IF", but it may be true: If the experience we sometimes get in "real life" from observing a still-life, or an action be it simply graceful, "lovely", or "dramatic", is undistinguisable from an a.e. from a "work of art", my guess is that will help us to see the underlying causes of the feeling we call an "a.e.". "Art criticism" has for a very long time now been devoted to "explaining" "art", which, claim I, means it seeks to explain why some WoA's result in a.e.'s and others don't. I say the following without having thought it all the way through: Art criticism can sometimes persuasively convey why a WoA does NOT work, but it never tells us why it DOES work (despite veiled tautologies like "It positively stimulates our emotions/neurons/DNA/etc").
