Concept Vs. Pleasure
But the question persists, so I thought I'd flesh it out a bit: How should we contextualize or frame such artists?
Do we celebrate their achievements but plaster our praise with disclaimers? Do we simply celebrate their achievements and sneer away those fools trapped between so-called sophistication and real sophistication (the latter being a license to like what you like, the rest of the world be damned)? In the end, this discussion seems to turn on whether we place more value on concept or pleasure in artwork. Yes, yes, I know, there's no reason we can't have both. Except that, if we're honest, we'll admit we don't have as many qualms about celebrating concept sans pleasure...it's just the other way around that makes us squeamish. (Some might suspect it's sourced from an inferiority complex, but let's not go there, ok?)
Many of us describe them as our "guilty pleasures"; those artists who, for whatever reason, simply make us smile despite being panned by the critics. Wyeth is one of those for me. But then I liked him as a child, long before I had any idea there was this swirling vortex of pain-infliction and expectations we call a "critique." (OK, that's not fair, I'm as fond of the critique now as I was Wyeth then...it's just nowhere as charming.)
Of course, as soon as you go far enough down this road, you have to start acknowledging that many of the works that Joe Public may be uncharmed by do indeed elicit the same degree of (and often more) delight once you invest in the artist's vocabulary and/or the dialog, but isn't there something to artwork that can delight without that investment? Or is that simply an insipient delight, one that more knowledge beats out of us...the way one's favorite children's adventure seems calculated or forced when revisited as an adult?
Having said that though, I've often wondered why, if Picasso et al. strived to create like a child because there was something inherently good or pure or important about that vision...why isn't seeing like a child equally important? Is there some way to recapture that point of view?
As usual, I don't know the answers...I look to you for those.
posted by Edward_ at
11:07 AM
25 Comments:
I have limited time today, so just a few quick thoughts:
The perceptual can be conceptual.
We have yet to develop a reliable, resiliant theory of meaning that includes cognition, social interaction, memory, and sentiment.
This is very complex stuff with hundreds of dimesnions of interaction amongst its parts.
If an image or object continues to affect you for several decades and does not wear thin, something is going on. The work should be considered meaningful, not an anomoly as a guilty pleasure.
Until we can develop a theory of meaning that gets beyond Derrida's model of the trace and can incorporate both traditionally conceptual semiotic works these "guilty pleasures," we're not looking at the entire picture.
Massive parallelism is required in this next model. Currently, complex systems theory offers the only solid foundation for such a model.
Okay, I need to kick this soapbox back under the table and get back to work. Thanks for yet another thought provoking read, even if it really is just about a lightweight like Wyeth. jk ;-P
Thanks for clarifying the issue more intelligently, James. I think you're right: it's "conceptual vs. perceptual" and whether they're not more related than the current dialog presumes.
Gonna have to brush up on "Massive parallelism" and "complex systems theory" and get back to you though.
Can we finally jettison the myth of the dumb image or the "merely" retinal? Much (though certainly not all) of the Modern project (and the postmodern after it) has been very much about the juncture of sensation and thought.
I've always like this quote from a certain noted utopian, advocating a general aesthetic education:
"Art looks more towards a field where sensitivity is developed into an organ of cognition and hence explores areas quite different from formal logic. I have to admit that only quite a small minority is still in a position to understand pictures. The times educate people to think in terms of abstract concepts... most people think they have to comprehend art in intellectual terms—in many people the organs of sensory and emotional experience have atrophied."
—Jospeh Beuys (as found in the volume Art in Theory 1900-2000, pg 905)
This is a whey deep string of comments for a supposed light weight. I have a lot of respect for the Wyeth clan, although there is a visceral coldness about them. NC was the best of them, and a great colorist.
Wyeth and Rockwell are the painting equivalent of children's books read by adults: they give you back in a polished form what you already know, so that you can appreciate craft and nuance and feel comfort in knowing the ending. As children we like to read the same stories over and over. This kind of art relates to the same need in adults.
I wouldn't say "children's books." Meditation guide, maybe. There's a certain contemplative aspect to Wyeth's work. I agree they're simple to read, but they still reward lengthy and repeated viewing. The beautiful white light on the bedsheet, the tone-on-tone differences in light and shadow on the white walls, the contrast between the left and right halves of the room (not just in shade, but also in color, with the slight greenish tinge to the left), more tone-on-tone paintwork between the bedsheets and the dog's fur, the puffy delicacy of the bedsheet's fringe ... the painting is a masterpiece of skill and intelligence by any standard.
I side with Henry's argument more than I do the opposite view wrt Wyeth.
I think seeing as well as he does is more than we credit it for in the contemporary critique.
The unbearable lightness of being Andrew Wyeth?
Quite the contrary, Wyeth is like the great athlete that makes things look so effortless and easy that one can mistakenly take extraordinary skills for granted; when in fact what they do is impossible for other top talents to replicate. The ease of our access to his eye, that which makes it easy for critics to dismiss him, is the source his greatness. A paradox to be sure...
I guess it all boils down again to the nominalists vs the realists. Whether you prefer concepts like the realists/platonists or the factual like the nominalists. Wyeth builds up facts, but for my money the Dutch painters, Flemish and Durer did it better. There is magic in Durer's silverpoints - these were created before photography, before scientific methodology was developed. Wyeth's work exists with those methodologies already firmly in place. Meticulously describing what we already know is a marvel of skill. Forcing us to focus on what we already know is a gift. But I prefer art which opens up new doors. Cummins meticulous drawings open up new doors. The "ah" factor is her work is not just about skill and patience.
I think that I have to agree more with ml (to a point). Children reread (or rewatch in the case of Blue's Clues) the same thing over and over again because since so much is new to them, they must limit what is new in order to learn rather than becoming frustrated. And it takes a number of times through to become knowledgable. To them, learning isn't just about the ending, rather it is about the story too.
By choosing simple themes (endings) that are easily recognizable, Wyeth's and Rockwell's works allow us to learn to appreciate that which Henry mentions and Mac appreciates (the story). Once the appreciation for those things is ingrained, then the critic is free to enjoy the effort of understanding works with difficult themes without the confusion of both not understanding the theme nor appreciating the craft. In essence they are freed to enjoy the story on the way to the end.
Edward, you often tell the story of the collector who ate breakfast for a decade in front of a painting he did not understand until one day he did. Suppose the collector had no appreciation for the craft of the artist; would he have been so patient in understanding the theme?
Well put, Crionna.
Whoa...this is very quickly becoming my favorite thread on this site yet.
Wyeth is like the great athlete that makes things look so effortless and easy that one can mistakenly take extraordinary skills for granted
I do think there's a good deal of taking what he does for granted, Mac. And, as I've noted before, I think drawing parallels between art and sports is one of the most productive ways to talk about art. Further, I think that most atheletes of the talents you describe, in addition to a passion for the game, probably have goals similar to those of artists at the top of their game as well: making history (breaking records).
With Wyeth, however, he's unlikely to do so in his own time because, despite his gifts, "the dialog" is focused on technical/conceptual advancements, and he's not pushing the envelope in any way the keepers of the critique respect. I think history is sometimes kinder to some artists than their contemporaries were, but that's just me getting all sentimental here.
But I prefer art which opens up new doors.
It is exhilarating. But I have to confess...some of my favorite pieces in my collection are the oldest ones. Ones whose advancements were nowhere near new by the time I was born. So advancement, in and of itself, can't be all there is. There must be something compelling about a piece that lasts longer than the novelty of its advancement for it to still affect us, no?
So, then the question becomes, what do advancements really mean to future generations? I mean I understand why they're important to us here and now, but if "Artist A" discovers, oh, let's say perspective just for the argument, but "Artist B" can incorporate perspective into a landscape so much more beautifully than artist A ever could...which artist's work would you rather own?
There's certainly value to the work by Artist A, and there's satisfaction in knowing that what you have represents real genius...but the piece by artist B is simply sublime...he may have stolen the advancement, but he did something better with it. (And yes, we get into a slippery slope here, but I'm assuming Artist B is making his own more minor advancements, and not just copying his predecessors...he's just not the genuis Artist A was in the technical sense.)
Edward, you often tell the story of the collector who ate breakfast for a decade in front of a painting he did not understand until one day he did. Suppose the collector had no appreciation for the craft of the artist; would he have been so patient in understanding the theme?
Hey! No fair using my own anecdotes against me! ;-)
I think I see what you're saying Crionna. I do believe art is a science, if you will, in that the more you study it, and keep your antaena stretched out there, the greater the odds are you'll have your eureka moments.
I'm not convinced though that Wyeth's themes are as familiar as they might seem.
{{I was going to share an embarassing anecdote here about my own days as a painter, but on reading it in preview, think I'd most definitely best not...let's just leave it at his themes are perhaps deeper than they seem...and time will tell.}}
I think that I have to agree more with ml (to a point). Children reread (or rewatch in the case of Blue's Clues) the same thing over and over again because since so much is new to them, they must limit what is new in order to learn rather than becoming frustrated. And it takes a number of times through to become knowledgable. To them, learning isn't just about the ending, rather it is about the story too.
Hrm... I'm digging around in some of my cognitive science sources for citations. I think this intuitive account of why children gravitate towards repetition is a mischaracterization.
It is not because they are learning so much, but because repetition--in particular the sensation of anticipation followed by an affirmation of anticipation--actually triggers pleasure reactions in the brain. Selection may have favoured a neurological structure that does this resulting in a bias in our biology for certain types of repetition. (At the level of individual neurological agents, repetition leads to stronger connections due to a reduction in electrical resistance accross synapses and an increase in chemical receptors. But that's details. :P )
Developmental biology internally is driven by hormone levels that vary in different stages of life. These levels can direct which states the system is more biased towards. For example, the hormone levels of a normally developing child (normal in the biological sense) would bias it towards this pleasure in repetition.
As we age, those neurological pathways remain. Even if our internal chemicals bias us towards other pleasures (like more orgasmic pleasures of apex and release), these old pathways can be lit back up, similar to how an old dry mountain washout can run fresh with water each year.
I know it seems like nit-picking, but if we are trying to get to why this stuff matters and how it relates to the conceptual, we need to be precise regarding the foundations and axioms.
(Maybe I'm on a different page altogether. But I think this stuff is important...)
So, then the question becomes, what do advancements really mean to future generations?
Edward, I don't think history is nearly as progressive and linear as we tend to assume. This might in fact be a relic of the industrial and modern ages. Or maybe it is just a hazard of intuition, much like an optical illusion.
They pander, they give you what you want and keep giving. Once a populist figures out what works they will keep on doing it. It might be cynicism or it might be co-dependance driving the artist. When a viewer with higher expectations catches a whiff of this there is a distinct let down. I don't want to be pandered to, I want to be surprised, have my world view expanded.
With Wyatt and Rockwell there is another level of annoyance because they use all that technique to what is ultimately a mercenary end. One can still enjoy the mastery.
This 'conversation' has made me think of how irony is very pervasive in the art world, and has been for some time. If you compare the ironic and the romantic, which do you think would be considered serious art in the current art milieu?
I do think that there is a place for irony but it seems to have been taken to an extreme.
I remember at a visiting artist's presentation in an MFA program someone asked the artist if she thought her work was romantic. She reacted as if it was the worst comment or question someone could have about her work. She adamently refused the romantic reference.
Ironic is serious, romantic is frivolous.
I think there is room in the art world for a little romanticism.
Irony deserves its own thread, I think Mark. As I've argued elsewhere, I don't think whether work is "ironic" or not is even any longer in the artist's control.
I think I'll post on this next week.
I get you James.
So, can it then be said that those among us who seem the happiest are those that have found something that they enjoy repeating, to the point where they have almost innate skills of story creation and that their ability to concentrate on the ending and not the story results in what we might call great art, whether that is a painting, a perfectly bent tee shot, or a truly sublime pasta sauce?
To say that a masterful artist like Wyeth is a ‘guilty pleasure’ because his work seems ‘conceptually light’ presupposes that concept is more important than beauty.
Novelty has replaced talent. Many of the above comments are about seeing something new or seeing work that pushes the boundaries. What should be remembered is that just because something is new it is not automatically good as well.
As the Beuys quote suggests the art world has moved to praise concept over skill. The question not being addressed here is why have art critics and contemporary artists reached the conclusion that beauty is a four-letter word? The reason that ‘Joe Public may be uncharmed’ by modern art is that Modern is that an artist can receive higher praise for a good explanation than for the work itself. This creates a disconnect for the general public that is difficult to overcome if it can be done at all.
The effect of this is to relegate art and the art world to relative obscurity within our broader cultural framework. Is there fear on the part of critics and conceptual artists that if beauty is celebrated they will lose their positions and power as the arbiters of meaning and worth?
Conceptual work has merit and should be celebrated as such. Work that has great beauty and skill has merit and should be celebrated as such. Why as artists are we willing to close off part of our world, aren’t we supposed to be the open minded ones? Weyth is not a guilty pleasure, only a pleasure.
If "work that has great beauty and skill has merit and should be celebrated as such" is true, then crafts in general would be viewed as a higher art form than most paintings. My own work is beautiful (which has been its criticism) and is laboriously if not well crafted. I am not against these qualities and think the current art scene could use a dollop more. But what I seek in art is more than an empty shell - a sense of tension and excitement which escapes the loop between artist and creation and invades the viewer. This is personal. I adore Giotto and Cimabue and don't much care for Raphael. And what appeals to me about the first two is that I see the struggle to manifest something they know and feel but have never seen. What does not appeal to me about Raphael is his mastery which strikes me as empty. What appeals to me is essentially a Romantic construct - the concept of genius. And talent is not genius; genius is not talent.
Isn't this all really just 'different strokes?' I agree with Edward's post some weeks ago, when he said that he looks for some level of accessibility in art, displaying the decoratively beautiful work of an artist in the same post. We DO need to take back beauty, as observed above. We need more art that can be enjoyed both without AND with the rule book (to quote yet another outstanding post in this absolutely superb blog).
Responses
First to Robert:
Novelty has replaced talent.
I agree with you there. I think this may have gained steam with the spread of the "myth of authorship" during the modern era and the strategy of progress via novelty. That strategy: Breakthru leading to new research leading to new breakthru, etc etc. This model was supported and proven succesful by the rapid technological advances of the last century. Considering the overall lifestyle benefits we experienced between 1890 and 1960, it makes sense that as a culture, we might just take for granted that this is the most effective and correct model. But I think we forget that Hamlet was a retelling of an old story. Originality ain't everything.
Conceptual work has merit and should be celebrated as such.
But not all conceptual work. Just like there are crap still life paintings, there is also crap conceptual work. And there is a lot of it. Unfortunately, I don't think we are collectively discerning enough not about what conceptual work gets celebrated via collections and elevation of careers. I think it is important that faulty work still gets showing opportunities. There is valuable artistic research by following this sort of work from cradle to grave. But feedback is essential for this work to blossom and develop into more than a faulty first go. Unfortunately these days, often the only feedback is the marketplace which provides a single binary bit of information at best: did it or didn't it sell? We need to be engaging eachother more often around the arts--and not just as arts professionals. Only a vibrant living culture can produce great art. (It needs much, much more than a vibrant and living marketplace!)
Crionna:
So, can it then be said that those among us who seem the happiest are those that have found something that they enjoy repeating, to the point where they have almost innate skills of story creation and that their ability to concentrate on the ending and not the story results in what we might call great art, whether that is a painting, a perfectly bent tee shot, or a truly sublime pasta sauce?
Wow! That is an interesting and insightful read. And I think you are correct: sublime pasta sauce has a lot to do with this. I'm not being facetious. The mystery or truly great lasting works of art lie across several lanes of traffic from the socio-economic all the way down to the lizard brain. And that lizard brain translates chemical resonance into pleasurable refined sensations of taste. (Actually, our refined sense of taste might be more of a mammalian relic... not sure about that one! I do know that the average pidgeon only has about 14 (14!!!!) tastebuds. Poor saps!)
Also, internalization as you've indicated is a big part of learning. There are thresholds of learning where nuerological activity actually transfers to different regions of the brain. We are far from understanding what it means, but there are scientists asking questions along the lines of "What does it mean that some care buffs activate parts of the brain associated with facial recognition when talking about automobiles while the average joe or jane does not?" The answers we seek are tangled up in questions like that.
But in my original long winded post about the accuracy of the why children gravitate towards repetition was really to map out that phenomena as a dynamic of bias and embracing of an experience rather than it being a retreat from a different experience. From current scientific knowledge, it is safe to say that biological systems (and cognitive ones as well) are more likely to be based on dynamics of positive feedback. A plant grows towards light, not away from shadow. Again, I know this seems like minutia, but these underlying axioms can inform the intuition and the conclusions one makes when examining these rather esoteric aspects of self. (For example, remember that at one point scholars knew that light was involved in vision...but some hypothesized that this radiation actually originates in the eye itself. Emitter vs. collector. Similar devices, but very different implications!)
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a baseball game to get back to. Go White Sox! Woot!
I think the point here is not whether a work satisfies either (a) conceptual qualities or (b)beauty. Rather, it's the complexity of either or both, and the ability for said aesthetic/conceptual viewing experience to necessitate and thus deepen with repeated encounters, hopefully shedding some light on the mystery that is the complex cluster-fuck we call human existence.
This can be summed up nicely in a little alleghory I like to call 'the candy bar versus the stinky cheese.' I realize Wyeth's work isn't exactly a candy bar, maybe it should be called 'peppermint schnapps versus scotch' or 'the cheeseburger versus filet mignon.' I'm not just referring to a difference in quality, but the latter's ability to be more fully appreciated with repeated consumption. What I mean is this: when standing before even the most expertly executed sentimental painting (such as Wyeth's), I've never been too perplexed as to why I'm supposed to like it. I'm not challenged to understand its meaning, or made to change my way of thinking or perception. All I get is a warm feeling in my belly as I submit to its seductive beauty. All of which, don't get me wrong, can be pretty damn enjoyable, but lasts for a very short while, leaving me unchanged and ultimately unsatisfied. It's an EASY pleasure.
The guilt from such an easy pleasure is something like after masturbation (which also has its merits): a quick thrill that's over way too quickly and pales in comparison to the real thing. Maybe it isn't the best example, but I don't think it's elitist to think that sex is better than jerking off. Oddly enough, Roberta Smith has the last word (from her most recent review of T. Hirschhorn at Boston):
"[Hirschhorn's best work] change(s) your notion
of the possibilities of both art and life, a
reminder that the main role of an artwork is to
raise consciousness through form."
Now show me some guilty-pleasure sentimental eye-candy that can do that!
Depth is the dividing line, Joe, I'd agree. This pretty much nails it:
All I get is a warm feeling in my belly as I submit to its seductive beauty. All of which, don't get me wrong, can be pretty damn enjoyable, but lasts for a very short while, leaving me unchanged and ultimately unsatisfied.
That warm feeling needn't be absent, but if that's all there is eventually it fades and we're left with pointless pretty morsels, whereas with richer work, we're always discovering it.
As I've noted before I actually like work I consider over my head somewhat...work I can grow into, so to speak. So long as there's some entry point, I'm happy to be patient and work at it (this is how I feel about "Finnigan's Wake" or other great, but nebulous, texts as well...I have the rest of my life to study and keep discovering these...what would I do if was bored with them now? take up golf, I guess...)
the main role of an artwork is to raise consciousness through form
God but I hate declarations like this. I see why they're useful, but I agree with Peter Schejdahl who claimed that making art is "a task no one assigned."
Talking about art's "main role" implies a practicality that then leads to perhaps usefulness that then could lead to society placing demands for more of this usefulness, etc. etc. until artists are being assigned tasks.
Art is totally a take it or leave it venture. You seek it out if you want to / need to, or you live alongside it oblivious or even restentful. But a "main role" implies that some body (critics, art historians, etc, perhaps) have concluded its good for you and then you're one step away from some color-coded system of recomendations and warnings, etc. etc.
I could go on, but I'm rambling now...
nice comment Joe.
If we're to associate Mr Wyeth with masterbation, I think he's at least worthy of blow-up doll status. I might even suggest a wig.
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