(embiggenable) • iPhone
(embiggenable) • iPhone
(embiggenable) • iPhone
APPARENTLY PATRICK KAVANAGH DID NOT HAVE a very high opinion of Irish policemen or at least of their artistic sensibilities....
"There is something wrong with a work of art if it can be understood by a policeman." ~ Patrick Kavanagh*
Policeman aside, I believe I get the point Kavanah was trying to make....everyone does not "understand" art. And, I might add, I am somewhat sympathetic to his POV inasmuch as I subscribe to the idea that 50% of the planet's human population is, in fact, below average. A de facto condition which explains a lot of questionable goings on. However ....
....when it comes to "understanding" art, there is, iMo, a lot of room to move cuz even a confirmed dimwit squating amongst the classroom rubble of lunch buckets, golashes and spent spitballs can "appreciate" a piece of art based upon his/her simple "understanding" that he/she likes the color red or cute puppies or whatever. And, in that same classroom, an Academic Lunatic Fringe twit can put his/her "appreciatiation" and "understanding" into a 10,000 word blather composed of obtuse artspeak, flapdoodle and green paint. A writing that no one can understand.
Personally, I have always considered photographs to be a sort of Rorschach test, a belief which was reenforced by the words of the Rock Man (a character from the movie The Point):
"Say, babe, there ain’t nothing pointless about this gig. The thing is you see what you want to see and you hear what you want to hear. You dig?
Then, of course, Susan Sontag had/has a few words to add to the conversation:
"Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy... The very muteness of what is, hypothetically, comprehensible in photographs is what constitutes their attraction and provocativeness....Standing alone, photographs promise an understanding they cannot deliver. In the company of words, they take on meaning, but they slough off one meaning and take on another with alarming ease."
All of that written, my thoughts on the idea of "understanding" art, or specific piece of art, is that there is little to understand. What, iMo, is more important is how a particular piece of art makes a viewer feel. And, hopefully, if that viewer is a curious and thoughtful human being, he/she might strive to understand / identify how and why a particular piece of art instigates that experienced feeling.
* Irish poet and novelist, 1904-1967