College: art history 23rd January

Interesting session today with Jo Kear on our emotional responses to art.  Much of this was influenced by the work of James Elkins in his book Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings, (New York, Routledge, 2004).

Why do people clap at concerts and theatre performances, but not at galleries?  Why do people so rarely weep in front of paintings and other forms of art, but quite often at the cinema?  We talked about our own experiences and why these phenomena should be so.  Looking at art is a static, private thing (in spite of the crowds at big galleries), and the artist is generally not present. We do not witness the actual creation, the business of performance.  So there is no individual present to receive our applause, to be congratulated - whereas in a concert, the performers are there, and we are able to show our reaction immediately to them.

But there are some people for whom art makes no impact at all - and Elkins quotes Mark Twain who remarked, caustically, on seeing Leonardo's Last Supper (1495-97/98, at the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan)

"We don't know any more about pictures than a kangaroo does about metaphysics, but we decided to go anyway" but was then disappointed with the painting: "It is battered and scarred in every direction and stained and discoloured by time, and Napoleon's horses kicked the legs off most of the disciples when they were stabled there... So what is left of the once miraculous picture?  Simon looks seedy, John looks sick, and half the other blurred and damaged apostles have a general expression of discouragement about them"...."You wander through ... a mile of picture galleries and stare stupidly at ghastly old nightmares done in lampblack and lightning, and listen to the ecstatic encomiums of the guides".  

(From a letter written by Twain in 1867 and later adapted for his novel Innocents Abroad, 1869, quoted in Elkins, p 52, and reproduced in Jo Kear's lecture notes for us).

This sounds very philistine, but perhaps only because we value Leonardo's work in a particular way, and forgive the ageing and wear-and-tear that a mural of this kind has suffered,  In 1867 people were perhaps a bit more literal about their expectations.  And it is true that the picture has been damaged so much that the images are not clear.  Perhaps Twain was hoping for something more photographic.

But his reaction is not so very different to that of very many people when confronted with art which they either don't understand, or which may seem old and unfashionable.  I'm not that keen on Constable, for instance - but I can appreciate that others find his paintings almost overwhelmingly beautiful, and I can recognise their technical merit, and appreciate the historical significance of their subject-matter an their place in the broader history of painting.  I don't have to like things, but I think it is appropriate to acknowledge and respect the value of artwork, even those one doesn't much like.

But there are also some pieces of contemporary art which, to my mind,  don't make sense and have little or no aesthetic appeal.   Quite a lot of conceptual art which is, to the 'informed' art world, established modern classics, don't make much sense to the 'person on the Clapham omnibus" (or to The Sun).

Is that ok?  Yes, of course.  We have differing tastes and differing perspectives, and everyone's view is valid.  The trick comes in being able to explain and justify one's likes and dislikes, while respecting the diversity of opinions about art (as about everything else).