So it's either joy or nothing for you? What about the truly bad stuff, especially the clumsy bad stuff that's heralded as great by the curator/dealers/critics, the establishment?
You like to retrace the marks that make up the artwork but don't like to see the faces of singers as they contort in making sounds. Why are there some kinds of artworks where the traces of its making may hinder its ability to move us? And what of those artworks that make the materials and methods of their making the subject matter, as in process art? Finally, what is the genre of artspeak that describes one's fully subjective response to an artwork without any appeal to claiming that it is possibly the same for all? Why do we want to describe our emotional experiences to others when we realize that they can't really be shared? Is this why the study of artworks tends to center on formal and historical characterizations, eschewing the emotional? wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, December 21, 2010 8:55:34 AM Subject: Surprised by Joy* When I witness a work of art--painting, sculpture, dance, song, theater, etc.--the strongest feeling I get is joy. I almost never feel any other emotion, just a range of good feelings from mild satisfaction, to elation, to joy. The works evoke that reaction from me. On a few occasions, I feel a strong reaction to the *represented* action. I tear up when I read the bunkhouse scene in "Of Mice and Men" ("Make 'im stop, George!"). I still feel my breath stick in my throat when I see Goya's "Saturn Devouring His Sons." I feel cold when I see Breughel's "Hunters in the Snow." But for almost every other WoA, I react with joy and lifted spirits at the way they were made, at all of the choices the maker made and how those choices were executed. It starts with raw perception, but then proceeds along one of two routes: marvel or disappointment. Right now, I'm listening to Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus," and it fills me with a powerful feeling and transports me. I can hardly understand the words, but the music, the orchestration and choral singing, is just great. Van der Weyden's "Deposition" is utterly and movingly elegant, no misery or anguish there for me. Sometimes, my reaction is emptiness or unfulfilled expectations: "That's it?" Dali's works are the epitome of that, for me (in contrast to Ernst's, which are far more incisive and shrewd, i.e., a modest bit of intellectual and visual joyfulness). Also, I find it very hard to watch the face of a singer. I have to close my eyes when the camera goes in for a close-up, or in church I don't watch the priest of cantor singing. For some reason, it distracts me from the song and music, it personalizes it and, on TV, I don't want to look at the singer's teeth but listen to the music. So I look away or close my eyes. But I do get very engaged in watching the full body gesticulations of the conductor of a symphony orchestra. *Apologies to C.S. Lewis | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
