Aesthetic Escalator, the Sequel

To my last art post, The Aesthetic Elevator responds, in part;

"... I personally fail to see how fruit in a bowl is MORE engaging than certain abstract works."

All other things being equal, the painting of a bowl of fruit does a couple of things that the non-objective work does not (and let's keep in mind the difference between abstract art and non-objective art... in the proper sense ALL art is abstract).

Symbolic communication is a powerful mystery - but one that we sometimes forget about. We forget how weirdly strange it is that I can arrange the letters "a", "e", "p" and "l" in such a way as to make you think of an apple. It is even more odd that I can make some marks on a piece of paper and introduce you to a very particular apple that you have never met.

There is the artwork (the marks), and there is the viewer, and then there is this mysterious third thing that arises from the interaction of art and viewer... a thing not present that is MADE present. That's magic (the good kind).

Then there is the whole question of illusion (which is separate from symbolic communication). This involves the appearance of things like form and space. It involves the viewer's experience of passing through the surface of the picture (the "picture plane") and entering a different place. This is another mystery. The surface of the painting seems to dissolve - with no special effort on our part - and we pass through into another world.

Now: note that with any decent painting we will have all the positive aspects of the skilled use of the disparate elements of art... things like line, shape, value, color, texture, composition... and in addition, we will have the twin mysteries of symbolic representation and illusion.

In other words, good examples of representational art will always be more comprehensive - will always amount to more - than good examples of non-objective art. Good representational art will fulfill all the decorative and harmonious aspects of abstraction, with the added experience of space, form and symbolic communication.

All other things being equal, representational art is everything that abstract art is, plus.

Comments

[Jim Jankengt]

Amen! Preach on, Brother!!

[A.Williams]

If we don't think food is a good subject for artistic expression, thinking ist so commonplace and lacking substantial intrinsic qualities worthy of symbolic communication....then why do you think that God Himself used the symbolism of food to effectively communicate to us his divine and eternal love??

Food is a more powerful and important subject matter than most people realize.

[The Aesthetic Elevator]

For the sake of clarification, I didn't discount fruit in a bowl as valid subject matter (in fact I cited two still lifes that I'm very fond of), I just said — as Tim quoted above — that I don't find it "more engaging than certain abstract works." I wasn't making one more important than the other, I was simply stating that, for me, a bowl of fruit isn't any more or less profound than Kemper's glass installation.

This is a very well articulated piece, and I love Jones' passion for the things he paints. He's thought through his own artistic philosophy well and it shows here.

[Tim J.]

I'll just add this for us to chew on for later discussion;

I believe the power and mystery of representational art flows from the fact that it could be called "incarnational art".

[Mary]

Everyone may find this interesting:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_oh_to_be.html

You have to page down a bit to get the part about still-lifes -- but don't do it. Read the whole article.