William wrote: > You mention recognizing a referent who see a representational artwork. > Yet the thing about images and objects or words, etc. is that they can evoke > many referents, even some unfamiliar to most people and probably even to the > artist.I would agree that there is always, always a referent and many of them > to be brought to mind by anything at all.
But that's what I did say in the third state, the contextualizing of the image. Take one of Motherwell's Elegies. What can I evoke from those big black ovals and oblong things? Bull's testicles and phallus? Well, okay, in a strained and attenuated process that might include knowing about M's interest in Surrealism, philosophy, acquaintance with Picasso's works, especially the tauromachias. And it is called *Spanish* Elegy and Hemingway wrote a famous book about bullfighting, etc. What about figural work? How is it that we can (generally) agree on the referent of artworks of widely different styles of representation? > And emotion...how does one say, OK, I've had the emotion, now what do I think > about it? Emotions are not something set aside from stream of experience. You description makes it sound like a slow and linear process, like metabolism. It's much quicker, I submit, almost instantaneous. It's not: (1) Ah, painting. (2) Wait, is that an emotion I'm feeling? (3) Let me look it up in my memory files. It's more like: 1-2-3. Painting. Wow. Here are details. The first stage is determining what "kind" of object it is, for example, drop cloth or intentional painting? I rarely have a well-defined emotional reaction to a drop cloth, but I do to a Pollock. That is immediately followed by a feeling, even if that feeling is boredom or disinterest. Then I build a context from anything I have available, mostly remembered information, other works in the same room, previous experiences, memories of other works by other artists, often similarities between the work I'm looking at and other works not present. I almost always frame the connotations by noting that "this reminds me of ________." In my experiences, this contextualizing is a multi-track feedback loop between steps 3 (context) and 2 (emotions). I see the work, feel something, remember contextual items, the feeling modifies somewhat, more contextual connections, more nuances or changes in the feelings. Actually, sometimes the feeling is indifference or annoyance, but I try to contextualize the work by recalling others, yet the feeling barely changes (I'm still indifferent). All of this happens quickly, continuously, and in multiple notions at once (your "stream of experience" of the work). | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
