tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5049414276944858688.post7888736818720920667..comments2024-02-20T21:17:35.156-08:00Comments on Robert Philen's Blog: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and the Experience of Art (Musical and Visual)Robert Philenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09457837427267431889noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5049414276944858688.post-66207584499277924182007-04-20T11:36:00.000-07:002007-04-20T11:36:00.000-07:00Hi,You absolutely did not imply that visual art do...Hi,<BR/><BR/>You absolutely did not imply that visual art does not require active participation. The fault I'm sure lies with me.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps what I'm trying to identify is more of an idiosyncratic anxiety. Or perhaps not.<BR/><BR/>In both visual art and literature, the experience extends beyong the actual reading (or physically looking at the existence.): the memory of it, the decoding of it, etc.<BR/><BR/>But for me there's much more anxiety (is this simply my own pathology regarding sight) when I stop looking at a painting, like O My god, did I take in everything as opposed to when I come to the end of reading a text where it's like I know I can come back to it later...perhaps I need to just think of a my relationship as a more sustained one than im intially thinking of itSteve Fellnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12181155226508233319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5049414276944858688.post-3972272758510790352007-04-20T11:23:00.000-07:002007-04-20T11:23:00.000-07:00Thanks for the comments.I do hope that I did not i...Thanks for the comments.<BR/><BR/>I do hope that I did not imply that visual art couldn't be actively experienced. As I said, one can look or listen actively. You're absolutely right that when actively looking, the work of visual art doesn't signal an end to experience. For myself, though, this isn't particularly different from literature. Most literature is linear, so there is a last word as you say, but to me that's not necessarily an end to experience (experience need not be linear just because the text is). I especially experience poetry in a non-linear fashion, where a good poem compels me to examine further, to re-read passages, to explore particular sounds, rhythms, and word-images, without the poem signalling when to stop any more than a painting does.<BR/><BR/>To my mind, there are at least two key differences between the experiences of reading a piece of literature and viewing a work of visual art. First, the text is experienced as much or more as an interior mental object as an external phenomenon, while visual art is viewed and experienced primarily as an object exterior to the mind and body. <BR/><BR/>Second, reading requires some active participation - I won't have any experience at all of the text if I don't actively pick it up and read it. (I suppose audio books are different -but would also fall under the heading of "listening" more than "reading.") Looking and Listening are different. If I simply pass through an art gallery, I'll experience something of the visual art if it so much as passes through my visual field. Now, if that's all I do, my experience will be superficial (and I might not have stressed that point enough in my post). I'll experience far more if I actively look (and as you point out, there's no clear end to the experience), but I'll experience something of it through nothing more than its enterring my visual field.Robert Philenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09457837427267431889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5049414276944858688.post-57157524541395584962007-04-20T07:32:00.000-07:002007-04-20T07:32:00.000-07:00when you're done reading the last word i meant to ...when you're done reading the last word i meant to say<BR/><BR/>NOT last work<BR/><BR/>:)Steve Fellnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12181155226508233319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5049414276944858688.post-20063365818247825232007-04-20T07:31:00.000-07:002007-04-20T07:31:00.000-07:00Hi,I would actually disagree with you very strongl...Hi,<BR/><BR/>I would actually disagree with you very strongly that visual art requires less participation than literature. I think it actualyl requires so much more: a book announces to its partipants when its over: when you're done reading the last work. But visual art makes the pariticpant decide when to stop looking: there is no definite end: the end is when the particpator decides to stop looking, when she has seen all there is all to see. Because I am a weak man, that is why I do not like painting: it is too much responsibility to decide when to turn my back.Steve Fellnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12181155226508233319noreply@blogger.com