Thursday, June 21, 2012

Muse-ic - 27

 Had an interesting comment  yesterday relating to this piece..the comment was "It's disturbing" To me that was wonderful...it's not meant to be a chocolate box nice pretty picture...I dread the time when someone looks at my work and has no reaction. for me, 'Art' has to illicit a reaction ...even if that reaction is dislike..it means the viewer has taken a stance..has hopefully made a value based judgement.

Art to me is a language and to fully understand what it's saying, you have to get to know the vocabulary.( the best way of course like learning a language is to move to and live with the people who speak it...of course, you can't all come and take up residence with me in my little house..but those who know me will understand what I express in my work.) To not do so is a little like hearing someone speaking a foreign language that you do not understand, and dismissing it as worthless on the grounds that it is "just babble". People make this mistake with Art..they understand the pretty pictures of the Pre-Raphaelites, but do not understand the 'foreign language' of Cubism for example.

With surrealism, or symbolism, the various aspects are often ( as in my case) recognisable and individually obvious, but when placed alongside often contradicting or divergent other objects, a sense of confusion or unease will occur. ( forgive my limited explanations...) this is because an understanding needs to be achieved and arrived at.

Of course there will always be those who cannot or do not wish to make the effort. Laziness and ignorance will always be the enemy of Art...complacency and apathy are as much if not more the enemy in my opinion. So if you want to understand what you're looking at..think, and arrive at your own interpretation, which is entirely a valid stance. but on the other hand...you could ask...and all I ask is that you don't dismiss 'Art' because you don't understand it...ignorance is no excuse!

3 comments:

Devil Mood said...

Would definitely take a "disturbing" over indifference. I think you're doing a great job.

Maybe for the people who follow your blog regularly, it's not as easy to get that kind of immediate reaction, since we get to see it from the start and have some time to "get used" to some elements before they all come together. So opinions from people who are seeing any of it for the 1st time are very valuable.

Niall young said...

DM...yes, you're right. Something also occured to me as I was driffting off to sleep last night...in relation to languages...I personally and to my own shame, cannot speak any other language than English. however I can listen to someone speaking in another language and totally enjoy the sound and flow of the speach without understanding a bit of it. I think you can also 'like' art without knowing why...perhaps it is also valid in contrast to not know why you dislike something...thus the debate about the definition of what 'Art' really is..heh!

Devil Mood said...

That's a good comparison!