What’s what?
The there are two parts to the Behaviorof Art. The 1st part is the creation, and infusion of meaning into the piece thatthe artist is creating. The 2nd part of the behavior of art is done by theviewer; the process of making sense of the pieces message, or figuring out ifthere if there even is a message. Ashumans, our brain is designed to create order from disorder; exactly what ittries to do when confronted with arts. Our brain follows logical patternstrying to fill in the perceived “missing pieces”, like how we fll in the misingletters in words, subtracttt unnessisary letters, fix imprcper spellings andput them into thier proper order when reading qiuckly. Surrealist take advantage of the mentaltendency of ours to express their message, however, it is a double-edged swordwhen it comes to interpreting often faded prehistory art. Like any functioning dyslexic, we mustbe constantly asking, is what we are seeing really what is there. Is ourpersonal past and expectations colouring in the cave walls? Are our cultural metaphors invadingreality?
Ritual,metaphor, and art, are all deeply intertwined with each other. The culturalcontext in which it pieces created how the effects the interpretations that onedraws from a piece of art. Because we'll likely never know the culturallyconstructed mindset of the artists that created prehistoric art, such as cavepaintings, and possible interpretations are limited. Objective interpretationsof cave paintings allows us to go only so far in understanding their meaning.We can count 200 horses, 73 Buffalo, and 6 Wildcats, but what do the numbersmean? Ecological reconstruction allows us see whether or not cave paintings areaccurate representations of the flora and fauna of that time. If the concentrationof the subject matter does not match up with the ecological reconstruction,then we can conclude that the artist were representing something other than thereality, implying a cultural bias, a connection to what was represented; sometype of Tran idea. So, we through that they had abstract thoughts, whichactually makes it harder for us modern people to try to figure out what theywere trying to express!
Prof. Robertson posed to thequestion to us ”should we study prehistoric art? Should we try as hard as we doto understand it?” We willnever have concrete answers; our interpretations will always be subjective.However, such a preponderance of the past instances of such a defining part ofour nature reveals something of ourselves. Almost anything is possible,
I like your metaphor with the dislexic...very interesting to relate our problem of not seeing what's there to a real life situation in the modern era. Have you ever seen that thing where the letters are all jumbled up except for the first letter and the last letter and the vowels? When you glance at it it looks like a bunch of mumbo jumbo but then when you try to read it it makes sense? Pretty neat example of our brains making sense. Do you think that modern art has played with this concept a bit? I mean, sometimes modern artists try to make pieces that don't make sense for exactly that reason.
ReplyDeleteThe letters are mumbled in the first paragraph to give an example of each of the mental corrections mentioned. Did you catch that? Hopefully not because that adds to the main point =]. Personally, I am incredibly dyslexic so these are issues every time I read directions, take a test, or jut doing these assignment. My mind won't let me take what I perceive the world to be for granted.
ReplyDeleteI really do believe that modern art takes full advantage of the mind to manipulate the thoughts and perspective of the viewer. Since so much of modern art is considered subversionary, the use of these tricks helps illustrate the things in which they are speaking out about. Pointing them out, so that the responder will look for tricks in other places and question more of their reality.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good point you brought up about the two parts to the Behaviour of Art. The art can change depending on the context it is presented and the mindset or the viewer. The longer we look at art (or anything for that matter) the more meaning and metaphor we can extract, regardless of whether or not those meanings existed in the artist's/creator's mind. I suppose modern art purposefully makes the viewer question their own perception in a way that parallels the misinterpretation or art and reality.
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