The Gate of Appreciation: Studies in the Relation of Art to LifeNoyes, Carleton Eldredge
Philosophy
The Gate of Appreciation: Studies in the Relation of Art to Life
Noyes, Carleton Eldredge
Aesthetics; Art appreciation; Art criticism
Thus art links itself with life. The message of art to the individual
defines itself according to his individual needs. Life rises with each
man, to him a new opportunity and a new destiny. We create our
own world; and life means to us what we are in ourselves. In art we
are seeking to find ourselves expressed more fully. The works that
we care for, if we consider it a moment, are the works we
understand; and we understand them because they phrase for us our
own experience. Life and the truth of life are relative. Truth is not in
the object but in our relation to it. What is true for me may or may
not be true for another. This much is true for me, namely, whatever
tallies with my experience and reveals to me more of the underlying
purpose of the universe. We are all, each in his own way, seeking
the meaning of life; and that meaning is special and personal to the
individual, each man deciding for himself. By selection here, by
rejection there, we are trying to work toward harmony. The details
of life become increasingly complex with the years, but living grows
simpler because we gradually fix a selecting and unifying principle.
When we have truly found ourselves, we come to feel that the
external incidents do not signify; which chance happens, whether
this or that, is indifferent. It is the spirit in which the life is lived
that determines its quality and value. The perception of purpose in the
parts brings them into order and gives them meaning. A man's life is
an expanding circle, the circumference of which is drawn around an
order or interplay and adjustment of part with part. Whatever lies
without the circle does not pertain to the individual--as yet. So soon
as any experience reveals its meaning to us and we feel that it takes
its place in our life, then it belongs to us. Whatever serves to bring
details, before scattering and unrelated, into order, is for that
moment true. Art has a message for us as it tallies with what we
already know about life; and, quickening our perceptions, disclosing
depths of feeling, it carries us into new ranges of experience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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