My philosopher friend in California, the one who was a psychologist, is also a sculptor. In our last conversation we were talking about art. I mentioned Iris Murdoch's views of art as a route to thinking about ethics and about the way in which our aesthetic values can be cognitively laden.
I wish, though, that I had recorded what he said.
He explained to me that when he was making something out of clay, there would come a point where he had the sense that he was trying to capture a kind of ideal form that the clay 'wanted' to express. The very material felt as though it was directing the artist, wishing itself into shape and texture through his hands. This reminds me on Michelangelo's claim that every rock has a statue inside seeking to be exposed.
So I said, but he - Michelangelo - was expressing an accurate representation of human form, and abstract art is different - where did this come from and how do we, who cannot compare it with an 'ideal' that exists in life (the model's body, for example) to judge it? And what is it 'saying'?
Richard told me that Greek and Roman statues - which were painted to look like people, rosy cheeks and black pubic hair - were simulacra of the gods and goddesses. They were there to make people feel that they were in the presence of these divine persons. They were religious symbols, not art for art's sake. Yet they were art, of course, as well - and influenced a whole tradition. But over time, and slowly, artists wanted to express, to put it as I understand it, not just what is, but what the world suggests to a certain mind in a certain cultural and historical setting. They wanted to express how the world manifests itself to their creative consciousness. It might be form or colour, composition or tone. The work doesn't have to be 'about' anything or 'of' anything anymore - the paint itself is speaking, the colours themselves are the point and the purpose. The work of art is 'about' itself.
I think this is where many of us struggle. We find it hard to let go of the idea that things are always about something. That stories have a moral and that art has an original which is being represented. Every moment in our darn lives has to be of use or filled up with distraction. We can't just let an hour be an hour; let a scene be itself; let a painting be a painting. We seek, always, to fill it up with context; we insist on loading it with cognitive content; we force the narrative out of the random and the meaning out of the purely coincidental. We want to impose a frame of reference on everything. We can't allow it to be just itself or to be uncertain, ambiguous, slippery, free. We must define it and label it and put it neatly in its box. (On this, check out an earlier post about Mary Midgley.)
I mentioned that I had visited the Monet Museum in Paris. The 'best' Monets are not there, as they're in exhibitions around the world. But in one room were a selection of studies for the water lilies paintings. There were five or six, maybe more, huge canvases, and I mean HUGE. Maybe 5 foot by 5 foot. Several had just one or two lilies on them. It was like he thought, 'Oh, WOW! Today, in this light, with that added growth, it looks different, that lily! I just have to paint it!'
Richard told me that the painter was just in love with the garden. Monet was impassioned by what he saw. Then Richard told me about the haystacks series. He said that Monet had maybe four canvases on the go simultaneously. As the clouds came across, he'd rush to the shaded one; then back to the full sunlight one when the sky cleared. Maybe one for morning light, one for the evening. Every changing second was precious. And it was just a damn haystack. Not a goddess or a king, not a scene from history or myth. A boring old haystack. But not boring to Monet. And what we get from knowing this and from seeing the work is the privileged glimpse through the eyes of another. We see his impression of that haystack in that light and feel the inspiration and the glory of that ordinary moment.
This is valuable. Indeed, we could see it as a practice in perspective taking. Iris Murdoch did not, I think, talk about this aspect of art, but those of us who read fine poetry or great novels can feel that we are being granted a view of the world through the eyes of the characters, the narrator and even the writer herself. We can get a sense of what maters to them, what themes fascinate them, what inspires them and what pains them. We develop the skill of seeing through another's eyes - I've mentioned this before as a quality of literature - but with the visual arts, we are that much closer to seeing through their eyes! we a gifted the chance to see as someone else sees. It allows us to expand in understanding, in insight, in empathy. It prevents us thinking that our blinkers, our lenses, give us the only possible view of the world. It enhances humility. It opens our minds. And, of course, there's wonder at the magic of it all too.
And then Richard explained that it is from this that conceptual art evolved. Say there are three huge sections of a vast tree trunk laid in a white gallery room. They're just there. You walk in and are faced with three giant logs. Now, you could say, 'That's not art!' and walk out. Because you have a 'conception of art' that these three bits of wood don't meet. You think, 'I could see that in a forest or at a lumber yard. How stupid. What a waste of money!' Another person might wonder if this were a political statement about felling trees... but there's nothing to suggest that. She would then wonder, 'Well, what am I supposed to think?' and just walk out, vaguely dissatisfied. Or you go in. See three bits of tree. Stop thinking and start looking. Notice the colours and the texture. The flakes of bark on the carpet. The scent of the wood. The majesty of the scale and the sense of loss, maybe. You notice how the bark is like skin. Or a mountain range. You notice that the concentric rings aren't even. You just start to see, for God's sake. You take off the lenses and see the wood for the wood for the wood. For the first time, perhaps. Then you may think other things, about forests and scent-memories and how long this tree lived and what the world was like when it was a sapling. Your mind opens, breaks away from its habitual preoccupations. No longer seeking distraction, you are drawn into a fresh experience that you are, for once, really having.
OPEN YOUR MIND! It's saying. LOOK! Take some notice and experience something outside your preconceived expectations. Pay attention. Please. For once. Attend to life.
One last thing. Richard described a piece of conceptual art outside the Los Angeles County Museum. You walk down a trench, lined in concrete, in the middle of a quarter of an acre of gravel. It slopes down and at the deepest point, balanced above you is a boulder the size of a semi detached house. The boulder was brought from the desert - an engineering feat in its own right. And the experience of walking under it - this monolith that stands tall above the earth's surface - is, apparently, disorienting and perspective changing. This article suggests that the boulder makes the surrounding city look temporary and fragile.
As we were talking, I mentioned my theory about the little tags of positive and negative that are 'attached' to every thought and sensory experience. It seems to me that we can get so habituated to our environment and our patterns of reaction that we cease to notice that everything is imbued with value. I think that depression is the loss of recognition of these tags. That novel experiences can sharpen them up by forcing us into 'noticing', to paying attention. It can get us out of a rut. Richard laughed, 'Yes - after the boulder, you come up out of the trench into open space. I hadn't thought of that.' Nor had I. Not consciously. But the ideas emerge and coalesce and re-form.
I told all this to another friend, Sarah, a wide and insightful therapist. As I was telling her about moving the rock, she said, 'I'm tearing up. I feel sadness and grief - it's that space in the desert where the boulder isn't.' For a moment I thought, that's not the point! (And when I told my father, that's exactly what he thought - he burst out laughing, 'Yes, what a waste moving that poor boulder at all that expense!' He doesn't like modern art at all. Thinks it's stupid. But, consider this - the stones for Stonehenge were moved 140 miles from Pembrokeshire to Salisbury Plain some 4000 years ago. Is that more pointless? Or do we just respect that because it happened so long ago and is part of 'our heritage'? And what does Stonehenge 'represent'?) But Sarah said, 'I feel filled up by the space that is empty. This is... it's what I needed today. It's giving me an emotional insight.' I waited. She went on, 'When someone dies, they are not there. They are just not there. But with this, I know the boulder was moved for a valuable reason and is in another place, I know that and that's consoling and important. And the space feels filled with its absence.' She explained further, 'When you look at the sun and close your eyes, you still see the glare of the sun? But when someone dies, they don't seem there in the same way. Now though, I am feeling absence in a different way. I can see this desert with the absent boulder, the space, so clearly. I want to sit with this. I needed this. Thank you. It's a gift.'
I emailed Richard. Told him how his wonderful words - he'd been educating and inspiring me with generosity and eloquence - carried on creating ripples of insight. I feel he's opened a door for me, and a different one for Sarah, who in turn showed me something new... There is magic in the world. It's just not what we think it is.
NOTES
Added 2nd August 2020: I told my friend Julia this whole story about the boulder, and now she keeps thinking of that space. So then, when I spoke to Sarah again, I communicated to her how her interpretation of my depiction of Richard's description of the boulder had inspired Julia, and Sarah says she uses it, as a meditative aid. She said that it feels like she has this space, just for her, empty but not empty, shimmering with possibilities. I love that.
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