On Jan 19, 2009, at 11:34 AM, Chris Miller wrote:
Would anyone care to offer some positive examples of sentimentality
in any of
the arts ?
Would anyone besides William characterize this "good sort" as
"rooted in
values and human perseverance in reality"...
And wouldn't you say that all three versions are "steeped in
sentimentality" ?
[Okay, William, you asked, for it: you got it! I was working on this
when your message of an hour ago arrived.]
The word "sentimentality" carries a great weight of disapproval with
it: Kinkade, big-eyed children, and cuddly puppies. So-called
sentimental portrayals appeal immediately to feelings of bathos and
pity and seem to quickly by-pass reflection and contemplation.
If you are looking for examples, you must carefully and precisely
describe what you refer to as "sentimentality." Merely using it to
designate strong feelings is not enough, as you point out. But, if you
name a certain cluster or nexus of feelings as "sentimentality," then
it's easier to identify exemplars of it.
For example, if you are looking for artworks that "represent scenes
from Christian orthodoxy and history in a pleasing and serious way,"
well, that category could include every holy card ever printed. If you
add "so that you identify or feel close to the figure," then you get
closer to "sentimental" kinds of holy card scenes, closer to kitsch.
Holy cards appeared in the 19th century, as newer, mechanized printing
spread cheap products to many people. The style of holy cards emulated
that of contemporary, popular Victorian art, a lot of which was in the
Beaux Arts and Academic styles (although, ironically enough, Durer's
"Praying Hands" eventually became quite popular in the 20th Century
Let's think of other categories of "sentimental" images: icons and
baseball cards ... and pornography.
In my experience, religious icons don't convey much of the
"sentimental" identification, the heart-warming connection to or
nostalgia for what is portrayed. Indeed, icons are made to be vehicles
of meditation through which the individual connects to the idea or
referent behind the image. Icons might easily show a dolorous scene,
as in the Stations of the Cross, or saints' images in an iconostasis.
But one wouldn't encounter the writhing of St. Teresa in Ecstasy, as
Bernini envisioned.
Note that in early post-Constantine Christian iconography, the
resurrected or triumphant Christ was portrayed far more often than the
dead Christ, because the Church wanted to direct the faithful's
attention to the theme of resurrection, not to the pain of the
Passion. To show Christ nailed to the cross would evoke great empathy
and, worrisomely, perhaps instill great doubt and fear in the
faithful. Later, when the Church was more confident of itself,
portrayals of the Crucifixion became more common. I believe this
betrays the worry of the Church leaders that the unlearned faithful
would respond more "sentimentally" to the images, respond with more
visceral identification and empathy.
Judaism and, later, Islam forbade the portrayal of humans: They chose
iconoclasm (breaking of images) to thwart the power of the image--
idolatry--to entice people and hold sway over their emotions. Idolatry
holds out the seduction of sentimentality. Pornography is perhaps the
most powerful genre of sentimentalism--the immediate, direct,
unfiltered impact of a preformed emotional response.
Baseball cards, on the other hand, while they seem to work in some
ways like icons, actually provoke the viewer (boys) to "identify" with
the player and emulate the stance, the glower on the face, the grip on
the bat, of the "hero." Thus, they tend be a hybrid: baseball cards
have both a "sentimental" component and simultaneously the
dispassionate element of an icon.
Hero stories and portrayals come closer to the sentimentality you
speak of.
In any event, the strong "sentimental" feelings are rooted in how one
feels about what the story portrays or signifies--the descent from the
cross, e.g.--and less about its form, its manner of making, its "style."
BTW, these remarks don't even take into account photography and
movies, which are fraught with "sentimentalism," as witness virtually
every "big studio" movie since "Birth of a Nation."
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Michael Brady
[email protected]
PS, happy inauguration to all.
