On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 9:15 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > In a message dated 9/26/12 1:30:46 AM, [email protected] writes: > > > > > > > > http://www.calgaryherald.com/travel/Museums+Galleries+speak+Dummies/7207602/s > tory.html > > > > Jeff spalding, the Director of the Calgary Museum of Contemporary Art, > says, "no matter what the artist tells the viewer a piece is about, b the > audience might find deeper significance in the gesture than the person who > happened to bring it onto the earth did.b > > On our forum I've used the term 'a.e.' (tryng to veil its inspiration, the > troublesome phrase "aesthetic experience") to label the semingly sui > generis > ecstasy that I've received over the years from certain works of creative > people as various as Mozart, Hokusai, Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, > Pavarotti, > Scott Fitzgerald, and Van Gogh. > > Here's an odd fact: I have never been "brought to experience" an a.e. > because of an "explanatory" remark about the work -- by its creator or any > other > commentator. > > (Clarification: I have certainly brought to the work by others. I've said > that I found the literary critic Malcolm Cowley to be hugely beneficial, > but > not because of anything "expanatory" he ever said. His gift to me was in > saying "Read this passage..." -- something I might have raced over too > quickly > or missed altogether. He made me focus, but nothing he or anyone else has > made me experience an ecstasy that I would not have without the > "explanation". > ) > > I wonder if this is true of other listers? >
But isn't there the possibility that you might have misunderstood a work of art/the artist's original intent?: - It is a luxury to be *understood*. Emerson According to this article, the Bradbury says that everyone has misunderstood the message of FAHRENHEIT 451: - *Fahrenheit 451* is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy<http://www.laweekly.com/related/to/Joseph+McCarthy/>, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands. This, despite the fact that reviews, critiques and essays over the decades say that is precisely what it is all about. Even Bradburys authorized biographer, Sam Weller <http://www.laweekly.com/related/to/Sam+Weller/>, in *The Bradbury Chronicles*, refers to *Fahrenheit 451* as a book about censorship. http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterp reted/
