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
But before the appreciator can have brought himself to the point of
perception where he is able to respond directly to the significance of
art and to make the artist's emotion a part of his own emotional
experience, he must needs have traveled a long and rather devious
way. Appreciation is not limited to the exercise of the intellect, as in
the recognition of the subject of a work of art and in the interest
which the technically minded spectator takes in the artist's skill. It
does not end with the gratification of the senses, as with the delight
in harmonious color and rhythmic line and ordered mass. Yet the
intellect and the senses, though they are finally but the channel
through which the artist's meaning flows to reach and rouse the
feelings, nevertheless play their part in appreciation. Between the
spirit of the artist and the spirit of the appreciator stands
the individual work of art as the means of expression and
communication. In the work itself emotion is embodied in material
form. The material which art employs for expression constitutes its
language. Certain principles govern the composition of the work,
certain processes are involved in the making of it, and the result
possesses certain qualities and powers. The processes which enter
into the actual fashioning of the work are both intellectual and
physical, requiring the exercise of the artist's mind in the planning of
the work and in the directing of his hand; so far as the appreciator
concerns himself with them, they address themselves to his intellect.
The finished work in its material aspect possesses qualities which
are perceived by the senses and which have a power of sensuous
delight. Upon these processes and these qualities depends in part the
total character of a work of art, and they must be reckoned with in
appreciation.
In his approach to any work of art, therefore, the layman is
confronted first of all with the problem of the language which the
work employs. Architecture uses as its language the structural
capabilities of its material, as wood or stone, bringing all together
into coherent and serviceable form. Poetry is phrased in words.
Painting employs as its medium color and line and mass. At the
outset, in the case of any art, we have some knowledge of the
signification of its terms. Here is a painting of a sower. Out of
previous experience of the world we easily recognize the subject of
the picture. But whence comes the majesty of this rude peasant, the
dignity august of this rough and toil-burdened laborer, his power to
move us? In addition to the common signification of its terms, then,
language seems to have a further expressiveness, a new meaning
imparted to it by the way in which the artist uses it. In a poem we
know the meaning of the words, but the _poetry_ of it, which we
feel rather than know, is the creation of the poet, wrought out of the
familiar words by his cunning manipulation of them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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