Enrico_Gruen

As a new user to the forum, I've found myself darting around looking for a a thread that really caught my attention as a way to dive into the process. This is definately the one.

My last year of high school (lo the many years ago) in creative writing class, we started a debate on the nature of art. This debate, which was only intended to go one period, ended up lasting almost the entire semester, becoming quite heated at times. At about the midway point of the term, I have a revelation about the nature of art. It was not generally accepted.

I argued that "art" could very well be the word that describes a person's emotional reaction to a thing. Their indescribable, intense emotional response could in itself be the art, thus allowing the thing to be simply a thing. To me this only seemed fair, as asking an inanimate object to be something so much greater than the sum of it's part seemed rather unfair; worse still was the reality that placing so much stake in something that was only every going to be it...was likely a recipe for disappointment.

There's evidence of this everywhere...how many of us were truly impressed by the Mona Lisa when we saw it for the first time. It's smaller than we expect, and protected by a railing and dark glass. How many of us have gone to visit famous works of art expecting them (the things) to impart some reaction onto us...the feeling of being in the presence of great art.

Compare that example to the number of times you stood in total awe of a sunrise. If you're like me (spritual, but not religious) you might have marvelled at the natural art. We know the sunrise will come, just as we know the Mona Lisa is in the Louvre. Why does one impress us so frequently when the other perhaps does not?

It could be because we don't see nature as art (in the same sense as a symphony) and therefore don't expect it to conjure the same level of emotional reaction. Or it could be (and this is where is start to come together) that we feel that we are integral to nature, in exactly the same way that we can feel distant from a painting? It is only then that we realize that we are, in fact, the art. The response starts with us, allows us a connection with a thing, thus permitting emotional communication (if you will).

Food for thought and something I hadn't really thought about in a long time. Look forward to seeing it through.

__________________
Enrico Gruen

“Any 20 year-old who isn't a liberal doesn't have a heart, and any 40 year-old who isn't a conservative doesn't have a brain.”
- Winston Churchill