Deborah Thuman on fri 20 jul 12
James Freeman wrote that rhetoric and mathematics are better means of =3D
communication than art. I'm sure that's true for some people. Rhetoric =3D
is a means of communication with words. Art can be a way to communicate =3D
that for which the person has no words. I've done a fair amount of what =
=3D
I call emotional art - both ceramic and fiber. I can say with art what =3D
is too difficult for me to say with words.=3D20
Rothko did something similar with paintings. I've stood in front of =3D
pieces of Rothko's work and it took every bit of my effort not to cry - =3D
and I am at a loss for why I felt such deep sadness. I know Rothko =3D
suffered from depression and I, too, am a veteran of the depression =3D
wars. Maybe I was connecting with his sadness.=3D20
James - art may not be a means of communication for you, but it is a =3D
means of communication for some.=3D20
Deb Thuman
http://debthumansblog.blogspot.com
http://www.etsy.com/shop/DebThuman
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Deb-Thumans-Art-Page/167529715986
James Freeman on fri 20 jul 12
On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 9:11 AM, Deborah Thuman wrote=
:
James - art may not be a means of communication for you, but it is a means
of communication for some.
Deb...
I did not say that art is not a means of communication, I said that it is a
particularly poor and imprecise one. As an exercise, try to explain to me
what you just explained, but with a drawing or a sculpture, and no words.
We can certainly attempt to communicate with art. To claim that we do
communicate is quite another thing. Perhaps Rothko's work communicated
something to you, or perhaps more likely Rothko's sad story caused you to
cry, and his painting merely acted as the trigger which caused you to
recall the story. When I see a Rothko painting, all that is communicated
to me is "ho-hum, colored squares". While I find Rothko a very interesting
person (having read his collected papers), I do not relate to his life or
his paintings at all, so they cannot possibly communicate anything to me.
(I also read a story once about from where Rothko's "square" paintings
actually derived. It had to do with a chest of drawers. Not terribly deep
nor romantic!)
Phil explained to us that all of the little bits and pieces in the
background of old paintings likely actually meant something, to certain
folks, at a certain time, in a certain culture. To us, those old
references are lost, so the painting no longer communicates the same
message (if it even communicates at all). If I look at your work without
knowing something of your background, your thought processes, your private
metaphors, how am I to possibly discern your coded meaning? If, on the
other hand, you wrote about your thoughts, your meaning would be much
clearer, and to a much wider audience. Your encoding of your thoughts
within your own private artistic language renders your message just as
inscrutable as if you had written your post to me in Sanskrit, or in a
cipher known only to you and a few friends. Artists tend to assume that
others do, or should, speak their private language, then get upset at we
philistines because we do not.
It is fine to encode thought within your artistic works. I do it most of
the time, even if only at times subconsciously. To expect anyone else to
decipher that thought, however, is quite a stretch. Unless the "message"
is blatant and jejune, how many of us can truly decipher a purported work
of art, especially a "conceptual" one, without referencing the title,
artist statement, art critical writing, art historical writing, or our a
priori knowledge of the artist or work? In our heart of hearts, I believe
most of us know that we cannot, and that what we confuse with understanding
is actually the mere recollection or recognition of what someone else told
us. To quote a great modern statesman, "You didn't do that. Someone else
did that."
Whether one agrees with what I just said, or not, how could I possibly have
explained the above in a picture or a sculpture?
Just some thoughts.
...James
James Freeman
"Talk sense to a fool, and he calls you foolish."
-Euripides
http://www.jamesfreemanstudio.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesfreemanstudio/
http://www.jamesfreemanstudio.com/resources
Robert Harris on fri 20 jul 12
To take up James' banner here, what he actually said was
"If our goal is to communicate an intellectual idea, then art is a
particularly poor choice of medium. Mathematics or rhetoric are far better
suited to communicating such."
He never said that art was a poor medium for communicating, period.
What you are talking about communicating is emotion, NOT an intellectual
idea. I am sure James would say that for that, art is indeed a good medium.
Robert
On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 9:11 AM, Deborah Thuman wrote=
:
> James Freeman wrote that rhetoric and mathematics are better means of
> communication than art. I'm sure that's true for some people. Rhetoric is=
a
> means of communication with words. Art can be a way to communicate that f=
or
> which the person has no words. I've done a fair amount of what I call
> emotional art - both ceramic and fiber. I can say with art what is too
> difficult for me to say with words.
>
> Rothko did something similar with paintings. I've stood in front of piece=
s
> of Rothko's work and it took every bit of my effort not to cry - and I am
> at a loss for why I felt such deep sadness. I know Rothko suffered from
> depression and I, too, am a veteran of the depression wars. Maybe I was
> connecting with his sadness.
>
> James - art may not be a means of communication for you, but it is a mean=
s
> of communication for some.
>
> Deb Thuman
> http://debthumansblog.blogspot.com
> http://www.etsy.com/shop/DebThuman
> http://www.facebook.com/pages/Deb-Thumans-Art-Page/167529715986
>
--
----------------------------------------------------------
Lee on fri 20 jul 12
On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 8:11 AM, Deborah Thuman wrot=
=3D
e:
> James - art may not be a means of communication for you, but it is a mean=
=3D
s of communication for some.
When communication is taken out of the creative loop, "art" is reduced
to a form of masturbation.
It is a Post-modern phenomenon that drives your average person away
from modern art.
As it is said, a picture can be worth a thousand words. Art can only
be effective in communication, if we have an intention to communicate.
Without the intention, you are reduced to reading the artists'
unconscious communication, while they inflict their narcissism upon
the audience.
--
Lee Love in Minneapolis
http://mingeisota.blogspot.com/
"Ta tIr na n-=3DF3g ar chul an tI=3D97tIr dlainn trina ch=3DE9ile"=3D97tha=
t is, "T=3D
he
land of eternal youth is behind the house, a beautiful land fluent
within itself." -- John O'Donohue
Robert Harris on fri 20 jul 12
As usual, James, a thoughtful post, my own thoughts, which I think are only
re-formulations of yours, are thus. After my original quick (too quick?)
riposte to Deborah, I started to think about analogies.
I know that Deborah is a lawyer, and speaks of going to court ...
I know little of real-world litigation, but in TV-land lawsuits, when a
lawyer has the facts on his side, he presents them with little emotion,
appealing to the jury's logic and rational thought. When instead he wants
to engage their emotion, he moves from pure rhetoric to oratory (art if you
like). So an intellectual idea is conveyed with pure words, emotion is
evoked with acting.
However, in both this analogy, and in art, I think it could be argued that
emotion is only evoked not communicated. In fact, I might even go further
to say that I would define the word communication as only involving the
exchange of ideas or concepts, which specifically precludes true emotion.
Much like we can only communicate the idea/concept of the colour blue,
rather than how we actually see it.
So to you, little emotion is evoked by a Rothko painting, whereas to Deb,
much is evoked.
I believe that good communication implies, on the whole, understanding by
everyone.
(Obviously there are some exceptions. Concepts, like General Relativity, or
Quantum Mechanics, which require much study of many works to fully
comprehend on a first reading, are not easily communicated.)
Indeed, part of the reason to have dictionaries, in which words have a
prescribed meaning (and to teach children this use of language), is to
enable fluent communication across cultural and geographical boundaries.
While evolution of language is interesting, and to a certain extent, should
be encouraged, I believe that if a writer wishes to communicate with the
most number of people he or she should, where possible, use standard
definitions of words. On the whole it is not the responsibility of the
reader to learn a whole new language (or worse new definitions for words in
their old language), in order to understand the writer. Along these lines
"Finnegan's Wake" is a prime example of "The Emperor has no clothes".
In much the same way, an artist cannot expect the viewer to work too hard
at interpreting his private code. Indeed when I see art shows, where the
artist has a long epistle explaining his work, I wonder if he is not
actually a writer pretending to be a painter.
James Freeman on fri 20 jul 12
On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 11:36 AM, Lee wrote:
When communication is taken out of the creative loop, "art" is reduced
to a form of masturbation.
It is a Post-modern phenomenon that drives your average person away
from modern art.
Art can only
be effective in communication, if we have an intention to communicate.
Without the intention, you are reduced to reading the artists'
unconscious communication, while they inflict their narcissism upon
the audience.
Hmmm...
I find myself in a very odd position. I "kinda-sorta" agree with Lee!
Very disturbing, especially since he speaks of masturbation! Actually, the
"masturbation" line is a paraphrase of one of my favorite philosophers,
Robert Heinlein, and I have quoted it in this forum in the past:
"Abstract design is alright - for wall paper or linoleum - but ART is the
process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all, but very
human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of
unemotional pseudo-intellectual masturbation... whereas creative art is
more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce - render emotional -
his audience, each time."
While I think it is just fine for art to attempt to communicate emotions
other than only pity and terror, I otherwise quite agree with Heinlein. He
goes on to say,
"...One does have to learn to look at art, just as you must know French to
read a story printed in French, but in general it's up to the artist to use
language that can be understood, not to hide it in some private code like
Pepys and his diary. Most of these jokers don't even want to use language
you and I know or can learn... ...they would rather sneer at us and be
smug, because we "fail" to see what they are driving at. If, indeed, they
are driving at anything - obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence."
Where I differ with both Lee and Heinlein is that I do not think art should
ever attempt to consciously communicate an emotion (or an idea). I believe
that when it does so, it becomes advertising at best, and propaganda at
worst, and in any case is no longer art. When you as a maker respond to an
emotion or an experience by producing a work, your honest impressions will
be contained within the piece (though may or may not be "communicated" or
even decipherable). If, contrarily, you consciously set out to make a
piece "about" something, the work will more often than not be constrained,
cliche, or the above mentioned advertising or propaganda.
Guernica is often cited as a piece which communicates the horrors of war.
I offer that it does not. It transmits very clearly a state of emotional
turmoil, but any anti-war reading is likely the result of reading someone
else' interpretation of the piece (even if the one doing the interpreting
is Picasso), and that interpretation will have been based on knowledge of
things quite extrinsic the the actual painting.
Food for thought.
...James (who really should be in the studio right now!)
James Freeman
"Talk sense to a fool, and he calls you foolish."
-Euripides
http://www.jamesfreemanstudio.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesfreemanstudio/
http://www.jamesfreemanstudio.com/resources
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