For some time, this blog has used the concept of ‘the interesting’ as a pivot. The subject of art, I have argued, is ‘the interesting’. In the previous instalment I touched on a possible definition of what constitutes the interesting – we are interested in the human condition and in how other people think. I am going to use this posting to further explore these ideas.
First of all, it needs to be noted that the two statements in the definition above are diametrically opposed. To say that art conveys ideas about the human condition is to imply that these ideas are shared by both the artist and his audience. The human condition becomes a unified, eternal ideal that transcends artist and audience. The second conception, by contrast, emphasizes difference: the artist’s perspective is unlike our own and we appreciate his work because, through it, we encounter the Other. Both conceptions are appealing. Sometimes a part of the enjoyment we feel is based on the thrill of recognition when an artwork evokes something we have felt or experienced, and this thrill can easily be explained by supposing a shared human condition. Sometimes, by contrast, the pleasure we feel is based on a sense that we are being granted access to the inner sanctum of the artist’s life; it is the personality of the artist, as he reveals it to us through his artwork, that we find interesting.
Before we get carried away, however, we should take care. The ‘human condition’ is a myth. We need to substitute for the idea of some timeless, eternal set of truths, the notion of ideology. An ideology can be defined as a person’s set of beliefs, the beliefs that enable him to make sense of the world into which he is thrown. An ideology is socially constructed, and will vary among cultures and periods, and even indeed among individuals. For example, in Te Papa there is a painting (I have forgotten its name) of a house set against a mountainous backdrop. The way in which this painting is rendered suggests the impermanence of human settlement in New Zealand compared with the permanence of the landscape, an idea of New Zealand society captured by Alan Curnow when he talks of “a land of settlers with never a soul at home”. This belief, which was widely felt by Pakeha at the time that Curnow was writing and the painting created, is felt no longer by modern generations of New Zealanders. The ‘truth’ that the painting conveys is no longer valid. Another painting (I have again forgotten its name, though I think it can be found in the Auckland Art Gallery) depicts a group of Maori on a vessel, wracked by storm, at the moment one of them spots land. This painting presents an idea that was common well into the twentieth century, that Maori discovered New Zealand accidentally. This painting legitimises British control of New Zealand by presenting Maori as primitive, and hints at another idea common at the time, that Maori were doomed to extinction. Neither of these beliefs is any longer current: we now know that Maori were skilled mariners who actively sought out new lands, and the Maori show no sign of dying out. Again the ‘truths’ of the painting are no longer valid.
Nevertheless, these painting retain great aesthetic power. To me this suggests that artworks need not convey eternal truths, it suffices simply that they be meaningful. Every brushstroke must contribute to the message, feeling or tone that the painting conveys. However, the painter cannot force his meaning on his audience. The viewer must reach out and create what he finds in the painting, and it is this I think that creates aesthetic pleasure. Does this suggest that, ultimately, it does not matter what an artwork is about so long as it possesses meaning? I am undecided about this at the moment.
A final point. In discussing these paintings I have neglected one extremely important aspect. Both pieces are highly ambiguous. The house in the first painting is simultaneously impermanent and monumental; the Maori in the second are poised between salvation and disaster. I shall discuss ambiguity later, with reference to the work “Seven Types of Ambiguity” by William Empson.