Subject: Re: Daumier-Smith and Empathy
Omlor@aol.com
Date: Sat Jul 28 2001 - 18:08:56 GMT
Suzanne writes,
> And if all of the people die who think something is art, is it no longer
> art? If someone is born later who thinks it's art, is it then art again?
I'm intentionally staying out of this whole discussion because it is much too
much like my job -- and I'm off for the summer and prefer reducing my
handicap to single digits rather than talking shop.
However, I'll just offer one little example that came to mind when I read
Suzanne's question.
Moby Dick
It was a bomb, critically. The "experts" hated it. The public stayed away
in droves, despite Herman having gained some popularity after writing the
adventurous best sellers Typee and Omoo. The Whale languished in obscurity
and was all but forgotten for many decades. It wasn't until well into the
next century that it was dramatically "rediscovered" and "became art."
Of course, if you read Melville's letters to Hawthorne, you see that he knew
what he had done and he both laughed and cried at the reception of his opus.
After bemoaning how the book was delivered stillborn into the world, he
finally got angry and steadfastly and defiantly refused to go back to writing
the easy stuff. He wrote to Hawthorne, "So, now, let us add Moby Dick to our
blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish -- I have
heard of Krakens."
And he gave them one, too. *Pierre* is a tortuous delight with the derisive
fun it pokes at the taste of the pubic and the critics.
Then, long after Herman dies, his Whale becomes "art."
I make no point here, aesthetic or otherwise. I have to teach an aesthetics
course next year and am already faced with the reading, from Plato through
Pope and all the way to this very moment.... Here, now, I just wanted to
offer the example and the observation.
All the best,
--John
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