how to make "art" more easily "read"...
...or "why do we think that specializing a discipline makes it better?"
In Ways of Seeing, Berger ends his essay claiming that "the masses, thanks to reproductions, can now begin to appreciate art as the cultured minority once did." This statement, along with the whole presuppositions of the essay is that the image of art becomes blurred due to the reproduction of that art. Who is to say that a reproduction of the Virgin of the Rocks is any less of an existant Virgin of the Rocks than the original? I agree with the author on this point. However, we have become so specialized in our definition of "art" that the "masses" are no longer with us in how we define art. To claim to the masses that a reproduction is the same thing as art ostracizes them and isolates us further from attaining a public understanding of art. Although the intentions of the author are good, in my view, I feel like by jumping into such a theoretical debate with the public will not lead to them appreciating art beyond a "traditional" understanding.
I guess I think my question is whether anyone believes that further specializing our field invites the public to better understand art?
posted by wayne.madsen at 8:05 PM
5 Comments:
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1:24 AM
I don't understand what the significance of the 'public' understanding a piece of art is... why does it matter if everyone understands something?
If in general, the pubic doesn't understand the math involved in high level calculus, does it somehow make the information less valuable to those who do understand it? No.
1:26 AM
I don't really think that further specializing our field invites the public to better understand art. Maybe specializing makes everything seems more organized and better to understand. But do the public actually spend a lot of time into understanding each and every detail. Personally, I think specializing kind of pushes people away.
12:55 AM
Is art such a selfish practice that we only expect it to be valuable to the "inner circle" of artists?
6:41 PM
I think maybe specializing art for the masses isn't really the point of art at all. Although it could be argued that an artist is trying to convey a message to the masses via a medium. So perhaps the artist creates a peice with the disire for it to be reproduced in mass quantities.
9:33 PM
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