zen_tom

I like what you say here, about a thing having a history - when I see a painting that moves me, it's often when I see the detail of how the paint was applied to the canvas, and I begin to see the painter actually creating the work, feeling what it may have been that the creator felt.

A photograph has a different set of properties that move, and more often than not, it is the nature of the subject that is most exciting. Seeing and being able to study the pores and wrinkles on the skin of a portrait, or the range of colours in a landscape, the sense of space and again, history that can be evoked by a grand (or even not so grand) vista - but again, there is the human element where your attention is directed by the photographer, perhaps to see something different, or to think about something different.

If I see something that really grabs me, it is like talking to the artist themselves - this has only happened on a few occasions, but meeting the art was like meeting a person. I had previously thought there might have been some kind of aesthetic form, something that we find appealing, perhaps because it contains ratios we find comforting, maybe we are tuned to percieving the patterns that nature makes. But thinking now, I think a strong aspect of the responses I have are to do with the history of the piece - each brushstroke a testament to someone else, each itself an almost incontrovertable proof that I'm not alone, that other people have secret internal worlds and experiences just like my own - the piece is an artifact, a record of something important - and we are able to read and to feel the essence stored within.