tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093113.post6817380897426635699..comments2019-11-15T03:15:38.296-06:00Comments on Spice of Life: Understanding artChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11274660453927949076noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093113.post-58725977671773398102008-04-19T06:57:00.000-05:002008-04-19T06:57:00.000-05:00There are two schools of thought that I've encount...There are two schools of thought that I've encountered in recent history. There's the school of Barthes, which says that writers (artists, whatever) are merely transposing the signs which exist in their world; therefore, the writer has no say on what the message in fact is: only the readers do when they interpret it. The other is the school of Sartre, who insisted that writing is purely a stimulus to action. Broadly speaking, the writer is freeing people from their closely held beliefs.<BR/><BR/>You might argue that neither of these cases takes into account that aesthetic sense, the part of the work which we enjoy. But in a way they do; the aesthetic is what allows the message to be effective. In other words, it's not so much the case that there are two sides to a piece of art, the aesthetic and the rational, but that the two modes are simultaneous, with the rational content being based on and supported by the aesthetic.<BR/><BR/>A reader (or viewer) can still decide to focus on on just one part. Beautiful landscapes do not hold much rational content, but they're still beautiful. And there are many books which try very hard to bring across a specific and important message but are hindered by bad writing. And if much contemporary, abstract, shock art has forgotten that it still needs the aesthetic part to get across its message, it will suffer a similar fate.Emmetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08194499929611680977noreply@blogger.com