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I would very much appreciate it if someone could explain to me the appeal of this art form. I understand that many people enjoy experiencing it and discussing i

by mojoe 10y ago

I would very much appreciate it if someone could explain to me the appeal of this art form. I understand that many people enjoy experiencing it and discussing it, but I don't feel like I have the context to understand why. Is it just the joy of an intellectual exercise wherein there is no right answer? Is it one of those things where people are having fun being a part of something that others don't understand? I would guess it's a mixture of many motivations, and if someone who enjoys this art form is willing to explain it to me I'd be very happy to listen!

GuiA 10y ago
I mean... it's art, right? Different forms resonate with different people. Usually, trying to justify why results in either fairly personal statements that either apply to you (in which case they probably don't teach you much) or don't (in which case they don't get you any closer to understanding the appeal), or in very verbose and dense academic justifications that don't do much for the vast majority of people. I get the historical, linguistical, etc significance of Shakespeare, but I still find his plays painful to read/sir through and much prefer 20th century theater. These things also change with age. As you experience various life events, works that didn't appeal to you in the past suddenly hold much more interest; and similarly, things that once seemed deep and insightful seem trite and superficial. That being said, studying a bit of art history elevated my understanding of it all; understanding that pretty much all art is a dialog that the creator has with past works was a big key. To reuse my previous example, I still can't stand Shakespeare but at least now I get why his work is pretty significant.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "understanding that pretty much all art is a dialog that the creator has with past works was a big key" I'm not sure I quite see it that way. I mean, yes, you can view art as a progression where one artist is transforming the art of the past into new forms, but art goes beyond that. I think it'll be easier to elaborate by sticking to the musical arts rather than the visual arts. Consider any piece of music you enjoy. Sure, you can trace the origins of its style to earlier pieces of music, but to truly appreciate music you don't need to know that history, the music works as a standalone piece. It's the same with visual art, the greatest pieces require very little prior knowledge to appreciate, they instead can stand on their own merits as something that evokes emotion and/or reflection.
orthoganol 10y ago
If this helps illuminate, freshman year of college some friends and I started an informal Dada society from our dorm. The real motivation was because it was amusing, and was tied in with other amusing post modern genres like Theater of the Absurd, or post modern authors like David Ives and Italo Calvino (I guess in our minds it was all sort of on the same spectrum of "amusing post modern works"). We got together and read, and then sat around and had very random, improvised conversations with unusual moments of repetition, usually while drinking Sangria or something random like that. It was definitely part of the fun/ random stuff you do in college, but the other half was also a belief that there was this new world of post modern interpretations, philosophy, literature that we had almost no exposure to before in high school, so it had its "seeing the Matrix" moments. I think it's a relic of the interwar years and that it would have resonated more back then, almost 100 years ago. Now I'm chalking it up to just an interesting, amusing, exploratory phase you go through if you study philosophy and literature.
m0llusk 10y ago
Once one has taken the obvious step of speaking truth to power there remains the more subtle and challenging business of speaking wierdness to truth.
HSO 10y ago
> I would very much appreciate it if someone could explain to me the appeal of this art form I think you might be expecting a bit much from an internet comment :-) May I recommend you Ernst Gombrich's (more general) Story of Art instead, a standard and quite beautiful introduction to art history? I feel it's especially well-suited to provide the high-level "context" you were asking for. https://www.amazon.com/Story-Art-E-H-Gombrich/dp/1439508747 https://www.amazon.com/Story-Art-E-H-Gombrich/dp/1439508747
Poorboyrise 10y ago
Art ? So there goes my day... anecdotic - Today there was a farmers- and thanksgivingmarket - much crafted stuff, not real far away and it was a sunny day, so... There is a saying: "You have to imagine Art to your power of judgement, equal standing next to a babbling baby." I won't sound offending, but is it "proffessional skill" - Yours...

by mojoe 10y ago

GuiA 10y ago

I mean... it's art, right? Different forms resonate with different people. Usually, trying to justify why results in either fairly personal statements that either apply to you (in which case they probably don't teach you much) or don't (in which case they don't get you any closer to understanding the appeal), or in very verbose and dense academic justifications that don't do much for the vast majority of people. I get the historical, linguistical, etc significance of Shakespeare, but I still find his plays painful to read/sir through and much prefer 20th century theater. These things also change with age. As you experience various life events, works that didn't appeal to you in the past suddenly hold much more interest; and similarly, things that once seemed deep and insightful seem trite and superficial. That being said, studying a bit of art history elevated my understanding of it all; understanding that pretty much all art is a dialog that the creator has with past works was a big key. To reuse my previous example, I still can't stand Shakespeare but at least now I get why his work is pretty significant.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "understanding that pretty much all art is a dialog that the creator has with past works was a big key" I'm not sure I quite see it that way. I mean, yes, you can view art as a progression where one artist is transforming the art of the past into new forms, but art goes beyond that. I think it'll be easier to elaborate by sticking to the musical arts rather than the visual arts. Consider any piece of music you enjoy. Sure, you can trace the origins of its style to earlier pieces of music, but to truly appreciate music you don't need to know that history, the music works as a standalone piece. It's the same with visual art, the greatest pieces require very little prior knowledge to appreciate, they instead can stand on their own merits as something that evokes emotion and/or reflection.

orthoganol 10y ago

If this helps illuminate, freshman year of college some friends and I started an informal Dada society from our dorm. The real motivation was because it was amusing, and was tied in with other amusing post modern genres like Theater of the Absurd, or post modern authors like David Ives and Italo Calvino (I guess in our minds it was all sort of on the same spectrum of "amusing post modern works"). We got together and read, and then sat around and had very random, improvised conversations with unusual moments of repetition, usually while drinking Sangria or something random like that. It was definitely part of the fun/ random stuff you do in college, but the other half was also a belief that there was this new world of post modern interpretations, philosophy, literature that we had almost no exposure to before in high school, so it had its "seeing the Matrix" moments. I think it's a relic of the interwar years and that it would have resonated more back then, almost 100 years ago. Now I'm chalking it up to just an interesting, amusing, exploratory phase you go through if you study philosophy and literature.

m0llusk 10y ago

Once one has taken the obvious step of speaking truth to power there remains the more subtle and challenging business of speaking wierdness to truth.

HSO 10y ago

> I would very much appreciate it if someone could explain to me the appeal of this art form I think you might be expecting a bit much from an internet comment :-) May I recommend you Ernst Gombrich's (more general) Story of Art instead, a standard and quite beautiful introduction to art history? I feel it's especially well-suited to provide the high-level "context" you were asking for. https://www.amazon.com/Story-Art-E-H-Gombrich/dp/1439508747 https://www.amazon.com/Story-Art-E-H-Gombrich/dp/1439508747

Poorboyrise 10y ago

Art ? So there goes my day... anecdotic - Today there was a farmers- and thanksgivingmarket - much crafted stuff, not real far away and it was a sunny day, so... There is a saying: "You have to imagine Art to your power of judgement, equal standing next to a babbling baby." I won't sound offending, but is it "proffessional skill" - Yours...