Re[2]: [Leica] Good Pitchurs

[Peterson_Art@hq.navsea.navy.mil]

     Thomas Kachadurian wrote that "As a neophyte I love Bach's Concerto in 
     A & D for the way it moves me.  Another might identify it's mastery 
     for the technical achievement, or deconstruct it to find it's place in 
     history, but I am closer to the music."
     
     Then Jeff Moore asked, "You're closer to the music for understanding 
     it less completely?  Do you contend that an appreciation of the 
     nuances of a piece's internal construction can necessarily never add 
     to the pleasure of a listener?...I'd contend that you appreciate these 
     pieces as you do because you carry within you things you learned... 
     about...Western music...So you're saying...things can only truly be 
     appreciated when you know just enough but not too much about their 
     field of endeavor?"
     
     I cannot speak for Mr. Kachadurian (who, in any case, speaks perfectly 
     well for himself), but I would like to suggest that this is a question 
     not of quantity of knowledge but rather type of knowledge.  Obviously 
     it is not true that "things can ONLY...be appreciated when you know 
     just enough but not too much" [emphasis added].  A work of art (piece 
     of music in this case) communicates something which the artist cannot 
     communicate in any other way---as someone once observed, "Art is not 
     superfluous"---and we, the audience, appreciate the work when we get 
     that communication.  If we don't get the communication, then the work, 
     no matter how technically accomplished it may be, is lost on us.  It 
     leaves us "cold," as exemplified by those many photographs and other 
     works railed against so vociferously on the LUG in recent days.  Thus 
     technical considerations are superfluous to aesthetic appreciation, as 
     is also historical knowledge.  They may (or may not) be interesting 
     matters in and of themselves, but they are not necessary for the art 
     to serve its purpose---communication.  One can fully appreciate Bach's 
     music without analyzing the chord structure or being informed of the 
     composer's historical debt to, say, the music of Dietrich Buxtehude, 
     but rather by simply listening to it.  One can fully appreciate Ansel 
     Adams's photographs without understanding anything about cameras, film 
     types, or the zone system, but rather simply by looking at them.  Art 
     that requires technical or historical knowledge for appreciation does 
     so because it fails communicate as it should.  So it is deficient and, 
     aesthetically speaking, unsuccessful as art (and its creators may be 
     either charlatans or just plain bad artists).
     
     One may appreciate artists' techniques by studying technical matters, 
     and art history by studying historical facts, but one appreciates art 
     itself simply by experiencing it (and, yes, ONLY by experiencing it).
     
     (And apologies all around for my long-windedness!  I'll try to shut up 
     for a while.)
     
     Art Peterson