Subject: Re: Daumier-Smith and Empathy
From: Suzanne Morine (suzannem@dimensional.com)
Date: Sat Jul 28 2001 - 14:55:13 GMT
At 03:14 AM 7/25/2001 -0700, Christopher Robin wrote:
>--- Scottie Bowman <rbowman@indigo.ie> wrote:
> > But only to a very limited extent. A great critic may
> > occasionally be able to stand back & pick out patterns
> > in a man's oeuvre - relating them sometimes, perhaps,
> > it to the known facts of his life. But the smart asses who
> > pontificate confidently about the underlying meanings
> > in a book - through the identification of a lot of clichéd
> > symbols - these guys should be taken out & put up against
> > a wall.
A little tangent about "cliched symbols."
I was once in an art museum tour and while looking at four similar
paintings of a pregnant Mary (you know, blessed mother of the christian
god), I noticed that three of them had a pomegranate in very plain view, in
the foreground. I had recently read that, in that era, fortune tellers
would throw a pomegranate to the ground and interpret the pattern to
predict the future. I really didn't think it was a coincidence in the
paintings. In those times, most people couldn't read and there were all
sorts of mneumonic devices people used in every day life to remember things
and to signify meanings. Artists were probably also as close to educators
as some people had, so it seems feasible that they included the
pomegranates to underline to the viewer: something's coming in the future.
Of course, I don't know, but I found it interesting to speculate.
And I think that we still have symbols. A skateboard could be a symbol of
youthful, fun movement. Isn't the zoom-zoom-zoom commercial calling up
youth and fun movement? They are focusing on skateboarders in a *car*
commercial.
But are commercials art? :-) Maybe the paintings of Mary were a sort of
commercial of their day. :-)
> > Unfortunately, it's a dead easy practice &, so, much favoured
> > by academics. And then reproduced by their students like so
> > many parrots hoping for an extra lump of sugar.
Life's a game, boy. Mr. Spencer knew. He'd laugh at the headmaster's jokes,
"practically kill himself chuckling and smiling and all." (p. 168)
> Im a new "fish" joined up after that bit on NPR I think it was.
Welcome. (Do you live in the Hundred Acre Wood, by any chance?)
> In short, this discussion about readers saying absolutes about
>what an author meant is a worthwhile one, but not to be overdone.
Well now I'll get a little more serious.
What hit me about this discussion is to remember to make observations with
some *diplomacy*. Paul diplomatically used qualifiers like "I think," and I
was not offended by his observations. I found them interesting and nice.
He's certainly entitled to his opinion and lists like this are ideal for
sharing points of view.
I found the *least* diplomatic statements in this discussion were among
those making objections to interpretations. Ironic because I think that the
critics of criticism should be the most diplomatic of all, or as
Christopher said above, "not to be overdone." I've noticed this a lot in
life: people who are offended by other people's having opinions of their
own want to ban books and want to simply say, "shut up." I see censorship
as more offensive than the thing being censorship: an opinion.
> Id say that the "smart asses...up against
>a wall" shouldnt in anyform be put up against a wall, but should
>be taken lightly, after all, every thing that is said is only the
>persons opinion, dont pine over the little bits, just take the
>thought and see if it makes any sense.
Now that has diplomacy *and* a sense of perspective. Yes, I think diplomacy
*and* perspective are important.
> More to the point though, does it truly matter what that author
>was trying to say? Maybe they werent trying to say anything, or
>as Valérie put it, doesnt quite know themselves what was said. So
>long as you can find something and back it up with some grain of
>sanity, good for you.
I think there are so many motivations for art and different aspects, and we
are free to observe with interest any of them and are free to share what we
find. If you are into the craft of it, then you're going to observe about
sentence structure and repetition. If you are interested in hidden meanings
(and I agree with another poster, you might write something completely
unaware of an aspect you were exploring), then that's the sort of
observations you are going to have. If you value the feelings art brings,
then those are the observations you bring. We're all entitled to our points
of view is how I see it.
Phooey on the critics of the existence of criticism.
Suzanne
"Understanding the complaints of people with insight is not easy and it's
simpler to call it whining." Will Hochman
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