This is precisely what Longinus advises to the poet when he distinguishes between describing and doing. The poem relays direct experience, as if it is yours, and not simply described to you.
But this is a different issue from the "content" of conceptual art. There the idea, reception, is the artwork and the object that presumably prompts it is negligible or only alluded to. That accounts to the often purposely clumsy and ephemeral nature of the conceptual art object, as if its very triteness or awkwardness magnifies the "splendor" of the concept. After all, to function beyond mere chin-rubbing musing, an idea must surprise and astonish the mind, be splendid, effulgent. It's really the same old art and the balance between object and perception. With conceptual art the balance is tilted as far as possible to the perception side; with purely formal art the balance is tilted as far as possible to the object side. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sat, January 15, 2011 10:20:06 AM Subject: Re: "The systematic preference for ideas to the detriment of aesthetics in contemporary art reflects a painful imbalance in our modern lives." In a playscript I'm now revising, a character says: "I'd never write a story to bsayb something. Guaranteed: Except for a few passing rants, Shakespeare didn't write Hamlet to say something. He wrote it to do something -- to those who listened and saw."
