{"id":45,"date":"2011-07-08T21:03:38","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T21:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=45"},"modified":"2011-07-11T11:20:54","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T11:20:54","slug":"painting-offers-its-own-apprehension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=45","title":{"rendered":"Pour connaitre; contre savoir"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"tower<\/a>

Brueghel's Tower of Babel<\/p><\/div>\n

Gazing at a great painting for the first time feels a lot like introducing myself to someone fascinating and a little mysterious. Actually, that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s going on. In a sense, I\u2019m becoming friends with the person who created it, and a great painting\u00a0 conceals and reveals itself, as an object of appreciation and understanding, the way its creator would. And what you “learn” from it is analogous to what you learn by becoming friends with someone. It’s more complicated than “knowing.” If the painter\u00a0 has managed to subconsciously fuse his or her life into the work\u2014in other words, insofar as it\u2019s actually a work of art\u2014the painting becomes a portal into who that person is. What it literally<\/em> represents is beside the point. If the work\u2019s purpose is to illustrate some conscious notion the artist holds\u2014the sordid and oppressive nature of the male gaze, the hegemony of European culture over the Southern hemisphere, the emptiness of celebrity, what have you\u2014it will do what it was meant to do, if it’s good. But it won’t be doing what painting is uniquely qualified to do. Once you get the message, why look twice? <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a genius, like Brueghel, you can paint an image with a distinct, historical or social purpose\u2014to subvert the Spanish occupation of the Low Countries, say, (aim big, right?), or offer a vision of a Biblical parable\u2014and yet your abilities overflow the task at hand, and you create images far more mysterious and powerful than their intent. They reward long, repeated looking. They reward your friendship. Mostly, though, when the medium is just a message, that\u2019s all you get. It\u2019s an illustration. Blake said that the work of the imagination takes less time than the heart requires to beat once. A great painting conveys itself to a viewer before a single thought can arise about what\u2019s being shown and seen. And then, as you continue to look, you see more and more, without really knowing what you see in the sense that you know the time of day or who won the Super Bowl. You get closer and closer to the painting, knowing it in a way the French mean by connaitre<\/em>, rather than savoir<\/em>. You develop a complex emotional and perceptual relationship with it. If you can get to know your little three-year-old, Emily, by deconstructing her, well then, that should work just fine for you with, say, a Sisley. But you can\u2019t and it won\u2019t. Painting is about apprehending the wholeness of a world, of a human being. You don’t get there by thinking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gazing at a great painting for the first time feels a lot like introducing myself to someone fascinating and a little mysterious. Actually, that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s going on. In a sense, I\u2019m becoming friends with the person who created it, and a great painting\u00a0 conceals and reveals itself, as an object of appreciation and understanding, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPour connaitre; contre savoir - represent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=45\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pour connaitre; contre savoir - represent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gazing at a great painting for the first time feels a lot like introducing myself to someone fascinating and a little mysterious. 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