During my last trip into Chelsea, I met up with an unnamed writer and sometime curator -- natty in jeans and jacket with, of course, folded handkerchief in the pocket -- amidst some mediocre paintings. I asked him what he thought of them and he sort of shrugged; then he admitted that he doesn't usually like "narrative," "illustrative," "literary" art. He observed it was like reading a Wagner opera versus hearing it: He much prefers to have a pure aesthetic experience. Much of the art he sees, he said, is like reading Wagner, being told what he should feel rather than simply having the feeling.
I told him I understood what he was talking about. I understand the idea of the purely aesthetic experience. After all, I'm the guy with a Stendhal quote taped to his easel. Stendhal, you might know, is the 19th century writer with a syndrome named after him: He wrote about nearly losing his mind while viewing the paintings of the Old Masters in Florence. He was overwhelmed by his response to the beauty around him; he was, in fact, overcome by a purely aesthetic experience. When I wrote about art being the promise of transcendence, this is something of what I was writing about.
I'm afraid, though, that that unnamed writer would not like my own art very much. I think it's all fairly illustrative. In fact, I have to wonder about this idea of narrative art. Is all figurative art necessarily narrative? What about landscapes? Is there any art which is not abstract which is not also illustrative? Is abstract art the only style capable of transmitting a purely aesthetic experience without engaging some other part of the viewer's mind?
In modern times I think we're in trouble when it comes to overcoming our audience with an aesthetic experience. Two hundred years ago -- even a hundred years ago, really -- your average person simply didn't see a lot in the way of beauty or color. Imagine for a moment growing up in a town where the only standard of physical beauty was based on the most beautiful people you had personally met. These days we form our ideals based on magazines and movies and TV; imagine not having those for comparison. La Gioconda became the icon it is today because it was the most masterful, realistic rendering of a human being ever painted. Today we see far better renderings every day in the newspaper or on the Web: They're called photos.
It must have been much easier in those days to enflame someone based on an image. Those Old Masters must have been truly staggering. These days we're all inundated with colors, forms and images far beyond the daily experience of humans at any time in the past. The purely aesthetic isn't as powerful as it used to be; our senses have been dulled by repetition of strong signals. So where a Vermeer or a Titian could literally drive his audience to distraction, today an artist is lucky to get someone to say, "That's nice." I really think giving someone that pure aesthetic experience -- causing them to suffer from Stendhal's Syndrome -- is much more difficult these days.
But I think it might be interesting to ask exactly which quote from Stendhal I've got taped to my easel. Here it is: "Beauty is the promise of happiness."
To me this brings us to a place in art after you get past pure aesthetics. After a work of art has either moved you or not moved you, you can still -- hopefully -- engage your intellect. Maybe a painting grabs you, shakes you, makes you weep, whatever. Maybe it doesn't. Especially if it doesn't, now you can think about the painting. It can work on a level apart from pure aesthetics. It can be considered as a concept, an idea, a communication, a manipulation of symbols.
At this point, you can think about narrative. Maybe it's an interesting story. Maybe there's no narrative and it's an exploration of color theory, like Josef Albers. Maybe the painting is about forms or the unusual juxtaposition of cultural archetypes. Maybe it's beautiful, and in that beauty you see the promise of happiness. It could be ugly, and in that you see the horror of life.
Is one type of appreciation better than another? Is a painting which doesn't induce Stendhal's Syndrome a lesser painting? I'm pretty sure you know my answer to this question. Hell yes, it's a lesser painting. But that doesn't mean we should dismiss it outright -- even a lesser painting can still have things to say. As much as we might like, not all of us can be Wagner. Some of us can only hope to be Chopin. Some of us are stuck being Metallica.
I'm not sure what the unnamed writer would think of this. I didn't say all of this, or even hint at it, while we were talking. It takes me a little time to get my thoughts in line, sometimes, and a gallery opening (with music) is hardly a place for in-depth conversation. As we parted, the writer gestured towards me: He made little typing motions with his hands. I guess that means he's reading, and maybe he'll comment. Maybe not.
Just remember: Beauty is the promise of happiness, but it's a promise not always kept.
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