Obviously much too broad of a topic for a blog post, but it's fun to briefly consider anyway.  As an art history prof of mine once said: "It's art if you call it art."  That's a pretty big umbrella and yet who doesn't sometimes feel that the "art world" has been hijacked by critics and collectors who tend towards the conceptual and provocative to the exclusion of the emotional and evocative. Isn't there room enough for both under the moniker: Art?

One could make the argument that it is those latter qualities which inspired the first artists to express themselves in ways that may have been considered impractical, at least with respect to survival.  Somehow, though, these efforts struck a chord with others and we were off to the races.

Fast forward 80 thousand generations and we find the "art world" is now seemingly divorced from everyday life. So skewed has this perspective become that today if you were to ask your fellow shoppers in Stop & Shop about art they are likely to say: "I don't understand art." Seems a shame that the qualities of emotion and beauty have been relegated to pop songs and, dare I say it, Thomas Kinkade paintings.  Whatever one thinks of Kinkade, I know many people who find his work speaks to them, though they may not be able to articulate why.

Here for your consideration are some additional thoughts on the subject:

"…there is almost always a gap in time — however infinitesimal it may seem — between seeing and comprehending. That moment just before we file a perception away into a conventional category, when our senses and minds are fully alert to what lies before us — that is the sweet spot of art."

Ken Johnson, NEW YORK TIMES on photography

"A couple weeks ago I watched a tenor in a gondolier's outfit stride out on a stage and sing to an immense outdoor crowd "O Sole Mio" and "Torna a Sorrento" and "Finiculi-Finicula," three old cheeseballs that no serious singer does nowadays, and when he hit the big money note at the end of "O Sole Mio," that crowd jumped up as if bitten by badgers and yelled and whooped and whistled. I loved that. Serious artists seek to create challenging work that leaves the audience stunned, thoughtful, even angry, but what we the audience want is the pure joy of a man aiming at a very high note and hitting it squarely and us jumping up and yelling. A simple reflex, same as when the opposition hits into a double play in the ninth inning with one out and the winning run on third."

Garrison Kiellor

I just finished a wonderful piece in the TIMES about Edward Weston's photographs of Point Lobos, on the California coast (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/29/travel/20090329-weston.html)

For those who are not familiar with Weston, he was a contemporary of Ansel Adams and a founding member of the f/64 group of photographers who wanted to distance themselves from romantic imagery and achieve a more clear-eyed look at whatever subject they chose to photograph.

Weston is probably best known for the images he made of peppers and of his toilet bowl – infusing both with a sensual beauty that transcended the subject.

 

What struck me most about the article, however, was the brief description of his simple workflow: he used a basic view camera, developed the film in a darkroom the size of a walk-in closet, and made his prints sans enlarger, instead using a bare, frosted bulb to make contact prints directly from his negatives.

When one considers all the bells and whistles on todays cameras, and the expense and knowledge required to work with digital files on a computer, it seems that, although these new tools allow us to achieve results never before possible, we may be paying a price, literally and figuratively.

My sense from leading workshops and from speaking with people who visit the gallery, is that many of us view cameras, and photography in general, as tremendously complicated – almost akin to magic.

There is indeed something magical about what can be achieved using a computer and digital files, but what we often forget is that the physics of photography hasn't changed since Niepce: light is admitted through a hole in a lens (aperture) by the shutter to the film or sensor – that's all. 

What is especially disconcerting is photographers who are convinced (persuaded by advertising?) that the latest expensive gadget is going to allow them to somehow become better photographers.  While that may be true in a few cases, I think Ansel Adams had it right when, recalling the work of some of his workshop participants he commented that he had "seen a lot of sharp photos and fuzzy concepts."

I've been reading Denis Dutton's book: "The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution" and have found that it's not as convincing as I'd hoped it would be.  Having the good fortune to photograph in an area that was frequented in the mid to late 1800's by artists of the Hudson Valley School, I was hoping that Dutton would help explain why some of my images are almost an exact match to scenes painted by these artists 150 years ago.

I've posted a painting done by Sanford Gifford in 1864 and some photographs of mine taken from the same spot he must have sketched from.

What is it that makes a landscape compelling across generations?  One would think that cultural influence alone would not be a sufficient explanation, since the culture of post-Civil War America – when these paintings were done – seems very different from today's culture.

I began to think that perhaps we are "wired" in a particular way so that certain landscapes could strike a chord in a very diverse population of viewers. I was familiar in passing with Jung's notion of "archetypes"  –components of a collective unconscious that inform human behavior – and wondered if that might explain this phenomenon.

When I heard Dutton as a guest on the Colbert Report describing his thesis, namely that evolutionary forces can explain the drive that humans have to express themselves artistically and likewise respond to art, I purchased the book.

So far, the argument he makes is interesting but unconvincing.  I'll see if the latter part of the book makes a more compelling case.