Browsing through an art gallery (I know its hard to believe) with my brother-in-law on Saturday, I came across this quote by an artist, Michael Flohr: “I want to show that a painting doesn't have to be challenging. It can just be something that pleases your eye. It doesn't have to have a
meaning. You don't have to dissect it. Enjoy its beauty and what it
brings to you.”
I get his heart here. Many are hyper-analytical and look for deep paradoxical meaning behind every work of art. “What does this aspect mean? What did you mean by using this color?” Flohr is asking people to take deep breath, step back, and just soak it in. I love that.
But instead of analyzing his art (of which I am the least qualified) I want to think about his statement. It stirred in me throughout the day. Can something truly beautiful, be meaningless at the same time? That is an interesting question. By meaningless he isn't saying it cannot speak to you profoundly. By meaningless he means there is not an objectively intended meaning. So his answer to the question will have to be: Yes, there is ‘meaningless’ beauty because in this sense we understand beauty to simply be a subjective experience. But if you are inclined to think that beauty is some objective reality of the actual painting, meaningless beauty is a category mistake.
I guess I find myself disappointed by an artist ready to say yes to this question. Artists that relegate beauty to the whims of perception... are like judges who relegate justice to any moral whims of a plaintiff. They are like doctors who relegate health to whatever his patient perceives health to be. They are like trial witnesses who relegate truth –which they swear to tell– to his own subjective preferences. This is class A, perennial, postmodernism. It is a book with no object. A story with no theme. This is a world incredulous toward meta-narratives (as Lyotard would say), nauseated if asked to discuss ‘real’ meaning.
If this is all justice or health or truth really amount to, whats the point of any of them? And if this is all beauty really amounts to, Mr. Flohr, how is art anything more than a sub-genre of the entertainment industry? –something created to amuse the masses, like a roller coaster. It is not something created for life-shaping profundity like, well, a work of art.
I get his heart here. Many are hyper-analytical and look for deep paradoxical meaning behind every work of art. “What does this aspect mean? What did you mean by using this color?” Flohr is asking people to take deep breath, step back, and just soak it in. I love that.
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| Michael Flohr |
But instead of analyzing his art (of which I am the least qualified) I want to think about his statement. It stirred in me throughout the day. Can something truly beautiful, be meaningless at the same time? That is an interesting question. By meaningless he isn't saying it cannot speak to you profoundly. By meaningless he means there is not an objectively intended meaning. So his answer to the question will have to be: Yes, there is ‘meaningless’ beauty because in this sense we understand beauty to simply be a subjective experience. But if you are inclined to think that beauty is some objective reality of the actual painting, meaningless beauty is a category mistake.
I guess I find myself disappointed by an artist ready to say yes to this question. Artists that relegate beauty to the whims of perception... are like judges who relegate justice to any moral whims of a plaintiff. They are like doctors who relegate health to whatever his patient perceives health to be. They are like trial witnesses who relegate truth –which they swear to tell– to his own subjective preferences. This is class A, perennial, postmodernism. It is a book with no object. A story with no theme. This is a world incredulous toward meta-narratives (as Lyotard would say), nauseated if asked to discuss ‘real’ meaning.
If this is all justice or health or truth really amount to, whats the point of any of them? And if this is all beauty really amounts to, Mr. Flohr, how is art anything more than a sub-genre of the entertainment industry? –something created to amuse the masses, like a roller coaster. It is not something created for life-shaping profundity like, well, a work of art.
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