Saul, I'm not sure what you're getting at. Are you asking about the 'viewer participation' idea that was part of the cubist project or 'reader response' in critical theory? One of the earliest comments on this that I know of is by the teacher of Velazquez and eventual father in law, Francesco Pacheco. Pacheco told Velazquez that in painting portraits he should leave the details vague because then viewer's and the person portrayed will see the person they want to see. This is an amazing bit of psychology from the early 17C. Reader response theory, and its variations, asserts that the reader determines the meaning of a text which until that occurs is neutral or blank.
As we all know, in ancient Greece, the idea of entasis, or visual modification of architecture to allow for sighting correction, seems to acknowledge an aesthetic of incompleteness, or making us of optical distortions to evoke a perception of geometric accuracy. Or, even Keats Ode On A Grecian Urn might involve an aesthetic of incompleteness with the viewer's aesthetic longing forever sustained, and thus never fulfilled, by the inaccessibility of art. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, August 30, 2012 3:19:26 PM Subject: Re: is list dead? On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 5:22 AM, saulostrow <[email protected]> wrote: > okay - this having been said - i'm curious if anyone here has any insights > into the aesthetics of incompleteness... - Perhaps the sketch of a work is so pleasing because everyone can finish it as he chooses. Eugene Delacroix
