Art still communicating

Writing about art as communication last week elicited interesting responses from readers. While many did not post comments, some gave me permission to quote them. I'm going to share a few of their statements below.

Bust of Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek bronze
original by Lysippos from 330 BCE. Source: wikimedia.org

Someone sent this remark by Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) from his Poetics: 
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
This sentiment is later repeated again and again by various modern artists. Makes me wonder whether they read Aristotle in school. 

Swiss painter Paul Klee (1879-1940): Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes visible.  

Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957):  What is real is not the appearance/external form, but the idea, the essence of things...It is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface.  

French artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954):  I do not literally paint the table, but the emotion it produces upon me.

When you read what several visitors to this blog have expressed about art and communication, I think you’ll agree that they’re all referring not to the outer representation or facsimile of nature, a person or thing, but to something that happens inside--inside the artist and inside the viewer.

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Blue and Green Music, by Georgia O'Keeffe.
1919-1921. Source: wikimedia.org

One woman, an artist herself, told me of an experience she had at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. At one point, it was her task to handle paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe while alone in a gallery. She recounted the extraordinary moment: “I felt her presence so strongly that it was spiritual. In that instance, painting communicated the artist’s soul.” It didn’t matter whether the painting was of a flower, a canyon, a human-made structure, or even music. O’Keeffe’s feelings about them, how she sensed them internally, is what was transmitted.

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Pamela Goedhart, another artist, wrote, “To me, art communicates the moment. Emotion. Beauty. Atmosphere. Personal experience….art is evocative of my past experiences and my hopes/dreams for the future.” And someone who doesn’t know Pamela added a similar thought: “Any time a human being shares emotions, thoughts, and feelings with his/her individuality and talent, that's art.” French painter Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) would have agreed with her, for he said: A work of art which did not begin in an emotion is not art.

I don't remember where I came across the following by American landscape painter George Inness (1825–94), but his words echo the responses above: A work of art does not appeal to the intellect...Its aim is not to instruct...but to awaken an emotion.

Sunset on the Passaic, by George Inness, 1891. Source: wikimedia.org

I’ll end with a quote a friend offered after reading My Name is Red, a novel by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk: 
Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight.

Without even knowing what the book is about, I requested it from the library because I’m hoping to come across more of Pamuk’s poetically phrased insights about art.



Questions to reflect and comment on:
What role do emotions play in your experience of making or viewing art?
What works of art or artists in particular affect you on an emotional or spiritual level?

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