Martin Rice on sat 2 feb 02
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wes Rolley"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: [CLAYART] George Ohr
> At 12:35 AM 2/2/02 -0600, you wrote:
>
> >I taught art appreciation for years. One of the key principles (which I
> >expect both of you know) is that appreciating art need not have anything
at
> >all to do with whether or not you like the work. Likes and dislikes are
one
> >criteria for appreciating art, but that is a fairly limited context for
> >appreciation. A much broader appreciation comes from imagining or
examining
> >the life of the artist, his/her motivation for creating the art and the
> >message communicated by the work.
A very interesting and not uncommon approach stated by Vince. Another
approach to
appreciation of art -- and I'm talking about all media now, not just plastic
arts -- says:
Deal with the work, never read about or investigate the artist's life (in
fact, best case is if all his/her papers, letters, theoretical articles,
musings, etc. were only looked at by historians). Pay no attention to what
the artist says his/her motivation was or any message that he/she claims to
be communicating because of the intentional fallacy, that is, just because
the artist says he/she is intending to communicate something, does not at
all mean that it has been done, regardless of what he/she thinks, and, in
fact, the artist might easily
have communicated something entirely different from the intended message.
Finally (and I'm not sure any more who said this, "Every age needs its own
Goethe," which means that each age appreciates a
given artist or work of art in a different way, one that makes sense of the
work to it. Then, that age will decide whether or not the artist/work of
art is deserving of appreciation.
Martin
Lagunas de Barú, Costa Rica
www.rice-family.org
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