It has been my experience that many people can't 'see' art - they don't get it. Their view seems limited to its decorative qualities. This is from direct observation over an extended period, and has included relatives of mine that I'm fond of. So I'm not being elitist - I'm trying to be as accurate as possible.
Yes we all have different aptitudes, and the rest is down to education (which needn't be formal, it can be 'self-education' and that's fine). I believe that a balance of emotion and intellect is best (not in a particular occupation, but in life).
It was not aimed at anyone specifically, and most certainly not you
That is very unkind to the poor dead man. Yes he was a kind of minimalist, but had a considerable provenance including doing workshops with Paul Hill - not a seminal figure? And many of his images were made (on film, please note) in West Cumbria where he was living - have you ever been there? It's an out on a limb sort of place mostly, an edge-land. There's Barrow, Sellafield, and Whitehaven for instance, but in the spaces between, not much happens, there's not much to be seen. Yet part of the context is that the Lakes hills are a stone's throw away to the east.
Surely she is (was) of our cultural age, the one that's still current? That's how I think of her, anyway. Another filmie - is that what you meant - pre-digital? I hardly see that as a marker - it doesn't define the image content, only the equipment used.
Not all but a great many - the genre is so prone to repetition - photographically, look at all the big bales, milky waterfalls, milky seas, sunsets, piers and jetties ... and tell me what they mean. How do they inform us? Likewise with the interminable samey watercolours.
I don't assume
Fear, possibly?
I mean that they can't access the content (assuming that there is some) - they can only see the surface.
I think this touches on the heart of the argument. When you view a painting, say, don't you try to read it's nature? Much of the mechanism by which we do that is intuitive. Intuition isn't the same as whimsy, it can penetrate things and reveal a truth, which might be a purely visual / emotional one. It's not about pleasure, it's about recognition. With experience, you learn to trust your own intuition and this is certainly true of how we fully access art. There's a test, also, which is that others might share your perception of a given work, and this can be touched on verbally as a reinforcement. Note that I said perception, which isn't the same as opinion - opinions are out of this argument, and are pretty pointless.
Yes indeed.
Then the visceral response is the meaning .... meaning isn't restricted to the intellectual faculties.
Consensus helps as a check to your personal take on something, is reinforcing and, actually, social
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It can do. But I'd want to discuss the exact nature of the response. If it was mere pleasure, as with a sunset, say, then no.
If the consensus was contrary to my perception then it wouldn't be a consensus with me, would it? As said, I trust my own perception.
It's well worth discussing, though ... you know, sometimes people can be taught to 'see', although they must bring their own aptitudes to the table. Painting and music are like the stuff of life to me, and I'm a practitioner of neither so don't understand the techniques used. But I can still access them intuitively. And as with all art forms, some work is deeper than other work, in which case I would like to imbibe that work as deeply as it can provide. If it has depth, I don't want to just skate across its surface, I want to go down and in ...
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
No - I usually can find consensus! Not obviously with everyone, but with other people who are interested in art (or music) and have a depth of engagement with it.
Depends how you define pleasure ... you might get pleasure from something that is mere decoration or entertainment and not necessarily art. So pleasure isn't a defining principle.
For me its not about the art itself that gets people annoyed but the critique of art and the patronising approach that can be portrayed to those who are accused of not being able to understand art as they've not studied it, or the exponents of the art being discussed.
Well it works - it doesn't need the title to convey the message. It does come over like an advertising shot though, what with the full-frontal label.
