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
In his effort to understand for his own purposes of appreciation what
the artist has accomplished by his technique, the layman may first of
all distinguish between processes and results. A landscape in nature
is beautiful to the beholder because he perceives in it some harmony
of color and form which through the eye appeals to the emotions.
His vision does not transmit every fact in the landscape;
instinctively his eye in its sweep over meadow and trees and hill
selects those details that compose. By this act of _integration_ he is
for himself in so far forth an artist. If he were a painter he would
know what elements in the landscape to put upon his canvas. But he
has no skill in the actual practice of drawing and of handling the
brush, no knowledge of mixing colors and matching tones; he
understands nothing of perspective and "values" and the relations of
light and shade. He knows only what he sees, that the landscape as
he sees it is beautiful; and equally he recognizes as beautiful the
presentment of it upon canvas. He is ignorant of the technical
problems with which the painter in practice has had to contend in
order to reach this result; it is the result only that is of concern to
him in so far as it is or is not what he desires. The painter's color is
significant to him, not because he knows how to mix the color for
himself, but because that color in nature has spoken to him
unutterable things and he has responded to it. The layman cannot
make a sunset and he cannot paint a picture; but he can enjoy both.
So he cares, then, rather for what the painter has done than for how
he has done it, because the processes do not enter into his own
experience. The picture has a meaning for him in the measure that it
expresses what he perceives and feels, and that is the beauty of the
landscape.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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