One of our shticks at A&P (in a good way) has been our interest in learning about perception through findings in neuroscience, psychophysics, and related fields, as well as through introspective observation of our own seeing and art-making. Though this interest is not unique to A&P, it certainly isn’t very common, either. So I was delighted to come across two examples in a day of cognitive science finding mention in current art criticism at a rather higher level of visibility. It was especially nice that these references truly illuminated the discussion of the art viewer, in one case, and the artist, in the second.
Exhibit A is Peter Schjeldahl’s recent New Yorker article on paintings from the Norton Simon collection, now visiting New York (to see the full article requires a free registration, but there’s an open podcast also).
I was pleased to discover, at the Frick, that my mental image of them had been close to photographic. No nuance of the dusky russet shadows and tiny green inflection, in the fruit’s yellow, surprised me. But the other objects registered with a jolt: I didn’t remember and oranges, basket, cup, or rose. My recollection had amputated two-thirds of a tour de force.
Research has confirmed what experience posits: strongly emotional events linger in vivid but narrowly focussed memory, etching certain facts–a gun pointed at you, say–while occluding pretty much everything incidental to them (such as the color of the gunman’s hair, or whether he had any).
Exhibit B is a less recent article (but just discovered by me) from Morgan Meis’ column at The Smart Set. Entitled Painting from Memory, it discusses Pierre Bonnard:
But remember how Bonnard worked. He didn’t go directly from perception to painting. He didn’t set up his easel in the dining room and go to work. Instead, he waited and he pondered. He made pencil sketches of the basket of oranges that might not be there tomorrow, took notes about the way the door was open just so. He’d leave the painting alone for a few years and then go back to it when the time was ripe. Bonnard paints from understanding back into perception. That’s why his work is so often described as “intelligent.” Bonnard is not dealing with the moment of recognition, but with experiences that have been sitting in the brain for a long time. The fact is, we are always working on the images we collect as we move along, living. We’re always going through memories, altering them, adding and subtracting, recreating the crap of our minds to fit the ongoing narrative that makes you, you and me, me. There’s an entire world in our heads. This world corresponds to the one we live in, but not exactly. It has its own rules, its own meaning. Bonnard is painting from that world.
So that’s my haul for the day. Any other examples out there?
I don’t personally like Bonnard, it reminds me of this old nasty woman student in the Fine Art course who used to paint horrible stuff and was obsessed by Bonnard’s work!
There you go, a memory from my past that makes up my decision about some particular subject in my world.
That painting you showing above is impressively painted!
Steve my comments again and with both emails… :-(
Angela
Never had such trouble with Akismet before, maybe it likes Bonnard!
The Zurbarán painting shown reminds me of Hanneke’s fruit, such as
That is indeed a stunning pice by Hanneke, my favourite of all her outstanding work!
Steve,
More food for thought (with bows to Hanneke, of course).
I had read the Schjeldahl article and filed it away for future reference. It combines with Hockney’s theories, Rackstraw Downes’s observations, Wechsler on the Oake (?) twins, and William Fox’s treatises on how we see, particularly from above.
I’m not sure what I make of all these complex and sometimes muddled (at least in my mind) notions of seeing and art-making, but case in point: today I was sketching from a prompt, which was a poem about a man who finds himself shrinking as he stands in a bank (see Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/ )
I’m sketching in pencil, doing some contours in ink with an occasional colored pencil thrown in. Today, as I dealt with the shrinking man in the bank, I found myself drawing ionic columns (the ones with the scrolls on top). They seemed to have little to do with the poem except to indicate that this was a prideful place, but the more I sketched, the more important those ionic columns became. They (and the naked fellow holding the treble clef like a staff) were what my mind and pen kept coming back to.
Like Schjeldahl, I’m startled to find, when I reread the prompt, that nothing within it would call for columns, let alone ionic ones. Is this what surrealism is all about?
As you see, I’m not totally my rational self yet.
June,
For what it’s worth, ionic columns would fit with the sort of Wall Street financial institutions featured rather a lot in recent news.
June:
And do remember that Ionic columns are somewhat iconic.I would certainly want to include such columns in the general environment of my shrinking, as they would loom ever larger in a most satisfactory way. And please post your treble clef guy when you’re finished with him.
Jay,
Well put–just what I was thinking. Unless you’re being ironic?
Steve:
June might claim that I’m being Punic. Or in the given context, potentially puny.
(I Realize this post won’t be posted, but maybe someone interested in perception will take a glance at it)
The Art Critic and Other Con Men
Norman Breslow, M.A., B.F.A., B.A.
nbreslow@aol.com
shmedling.com
SUMMARY: ARTWORK IS A STIMULUS USED BY A CRITIC TO PROJECT HIS PERSONALITY IN
THE FORM OF A CRITIQUE.
His critiques are nothing more than stories he makes up to explain to himself
what he is looking at, and why he feels the way he does about what he is looking
at. His critiques tell us about him, not about the art. Have you ever looked at
a cloud and seen something other than the cloud, like a tree, or a horse, or
part of a car, or a breast, or a zipper, or a schematic of a Pentium chip? I’m
sure you have. Well, maybe not the chip. These images appear because your brain
takes bits of cloud detail, a dark splotch here and a swirl there, and
combines them into something more meaningful to you. Some people organize the
visual information one way, while other people organize the same information in
another way. Psychologists call this organization process “PROJECTION”.
Because each of us has a different personality, each of us is apt to make up, or
see, different objects. To mangle a phrase, different visuals for different
folks. However, while each person’s projections are unique to that person,
people with similar personalities are apt to create similar projections
(visuals).
The understanding that people project different visuals and meanings onto clouds
did not escape psychologists and psychiatrists. In the 1920’s, the Rorschach ink
blot projective test started to be used as a personality test. You are probably
familiar with the Rorschach and similar tests. They usually consist of black
irrigular blots on a white background. They are “mirror images”, that is, the
left side of the blot is the reverse of the right side. (The mirroring is not
necessary, but does help the viewer to rapidly make projections.)
The Rorschach is a “test” because it has been standardized, that is, a lot of
people have told shrinks what they see in the different ink blots, and their
answers have been grouped according to personality types. For example,
pessimists might see a witch in one of the ink blots, while optimists might see
a clown in the same ink blot. Neither the ink blots nor the clouds contain any
objective information. Both are “abstract” or “non objective” as far as their
shapes are concerned. But both can be used to elicit information from the
viewer, such as a picture of a witch or a clown, a horse’s head or a castle.
Other types of “projective tests” exist. While some also rely on non objective
or abstract shapes similar to those found in the ink blots, others use objective
material to elicit a projected response from the viewer. For example, a person
might be shown a series of cartoon like sketches depicting various vague
situations, and the viewer is asked to make up a story about what is happening.
One sketch might show a younger man sitting behind an office desk, while an
older man stands to his side, looking at the younger man. One viewer might
say that the older man is the boss who has stepped into the younger man’s office
to congratulate him on doing a good job, while another viewer might say that the
younger man is the boss who has called the older man into his office to chew him
out. Of course, there is no right or wrong interpretation of the sketch, just as
there is no right or wrong interpretation of an ink blot. Different personality
types will interpret the drawings, or ink blots, differently.
To summarize, the human brain organizes bits and pieces of information into
something that is meaningful to the viewer. Viewers with similar personality
types will see similar objects when looking at non objective material, or create
similar stories when looking at representational material. The objects or
stories do not exist in the stimulus material. They are created by the viewer to
explain, or give a meaning, to the brain’s grouping of the visual data. This is
called projection by psychologists and psychiatrists.
We all project. All the time. The ability and need to project is apparently
hard-wired into our brains. It is part of being human. My personal motto is,
“Life is a projective test”. People project even when looking at material
that does contain meaningful content. To give an example of this point, let’s
consider Siskel and Ebert, the movie critics. They often see the same film,
sometimes in the same theater at the same time, and draw two very different
conclusions about it. Sometimes they disagree so vehemently that one wonders
whether they really saw, and are reviewing, the same film. You have probably
gone to the movies with a friend and come away with very different impressions
of the movie. The difference between you and your friend, and Siskel and
Ebert, is that the latter are professional movie critics who presumably are
using some type of objective criteria to form their opinions, while you and your
friend presumably are not professional reviewers using objective criteria to
form your opinions. You just like or dislike what you see. Siskel and Ebert are
supposed to have objective reasons for liking or disliking what they see. The
truth of the matter is that Siskel and Ebert are humans. They project. Their
projections (opinions) are no more meaningful, or “right”, than any one else’s.
However, they have convinced other people that their opinions are extremely
insightful.
To the reader who asks, “Are you saying that there isn’t any ‘reality’?”, I
reply, “Yes”. A “reality” may exist, of course, but it is filtered through our
brains and personalities, and gets distorted. The mere fact that people
disagree all the time about politics and religion should be a big clue to you
that each of us sees the world in a unique way. Each of us has our own reality.
Each of us projects differently. Interestingly, each of us tends to
tell ourselves that the way we view something is the correct way, and those who
disagree are wrong. Some people have a difficult time dealing with the fluidity
of reality. They want, or need, an absolute reality. If you are that personality
type, fine, just tell yourself that there is one reality, that you see it, and
that anyone who doesn’t see it your way is wrong. For the rest of you who can
accept that we human beings do project our personalities onto every situation we
find ourselves in, the silliness of the pronouncements of the art critics and
art historians should be self-evident by now. After all, their insights are just
stories they make up to explain their brain’s grouping of information, ala
Siskel and Ebert reviews.
The intellectually honest art critic (laughing my ass off at that oxymoron)
would state, at the top of each review, that the review is only his opinion,
based on his personality. He would state that he projected onto each
painting or sculpture or other art piece a meaning, and then made up a story to
explain the projection to himself. He would state that he is now writing down
this story for you to read. But this doesn’t happen.
Instead, the critic tries to give the impression that what he is writing is “The
Truth”. It is “Reality”. If he likes the art, it is because the art is good,
based on objective criteria. If he doesn’t like the art, it is because the art
is bad, based on objective criteria. It is not because he has created a story to
explain his feeling about the art, and that he has a feeling about the art
because the art has elicited a reaction from him, in the same manner
that a cloud or ink blot elicits a reaction from him. The art critic maintains
that his review is factually correct, based on his knowledge of art and his
wonderful insight into the artist’s mind. Instead, his review is based on
his projection, which is a product of his personality (or lack thereof).
Of course, each art critic must make the reader believe that his opinion is both
logical and insightful, if not wise. Look, if a critic copped to the fact that
his review is just an opinion, no more meaningful than any one else’s opinion,
then why should he be chosen to have his musings published. Why should he get
paid for sharing his story? Why should he have people kissing his ass all day
long in hopes he will say something nice about them? Why should he get invited
to the “A” parties? It is only the myth that he is somehow connected
to the truth of the matter, that allows him to have power, which in turns allows
him to get all the goodies.
If you were getting paid to have your critiques published, would you (1) do
everything you could to perpetrate the myth that your story was superior and
meaningful and enlightened, or would you (2) admit that your story was just
a product of projection, and no more meaningful, no more locked into the
“truth” of the matter, than any one else’s story? If you choose the latter,
you are a truly honest person, and also a truly stupid one. Okay, the critic
has a vested interest in having the reader believe that he really knows what
he is talking about, and that his opinions are based on objective reality,
not on a subjective psychopathology. This is why Art Babble was invented.
To make the art critic seem superior. Kind of like the Catholic Priest talking
in Latin. But it is not only the art critic who is guilty of trying to convince others
that his view of art is accurate and “correct”. Art historians share this goal.
Would an art historian get hired to teach art history and would he get his
books and articles published if he said, “This is just the way things seem to
me. I’ve made up a story to explain all the bits and pieces of information my
brain puts together and calls reality. It isn’t the only one ‘True Reality’, it’s just
a nice story that makes sense to me.” No No NO! He would find himself on
the unemployment line.
Art critics and art historians, as groups, have been busted numerous times over
the last hundred years. Some of those artists who couldn’t trade their work for
food when they were alive, who were given rotten reviews by critics (if they
were reviewed at all), had created paintings that sell for millions of dollars
today. Golly gee, some critics must have gotten things wrong, huh? Either those
in the past, or those of today. And art historians who have explained why an
artist painted in a certain style, or used a certain palette, and the importance
of that “look”, have had to regroup from time to time as “new” information
became available, or new techniques in art restoration or new techniques in the
x-raying of art have been developed. It is to the economic benefit of the art
critic and art historian to maintain the myth that they have special knowledge
that is not subjective, but objective, and that they can see the truth that
others miss. In my opinion, they are nothing more than common garden variety con
men. The better they are at running their con, the higher up the art food chain
they climb. Since art critics disagree with other art critics all the time, and
art historians disagree with other art historians all the time, and art
historians disagree with art critics… well, that in itself should be evidence
that art criticism and history is, in essence, a con game.
A final point I want to consider is, “If art criticism is just a person’s
projection, which is not any more meaningful than any one else’s projection, why
does art criticism exist.” (Ah, says you, so you’re a Functionalist! [Sorry, I
couldn’t resist the sociology babble]). Art criticism exists (1) to keep art
buyers from embarrassing themselves, and (2) because someone has to set prices.
Just because someone is rich doesn’t mean that he has self-confidence. Buying a
“bad” painting would get him talked about, as would buying art by an artist who
is currently out of favor/style. Gossip! What would people think! Better be
safe, and buy something that got a good review. A good review tells the sheep
(art buyers about to be fleeced), “It’s all right to buy the art. It’s not only
all right, it’s the right thing to do. And the price will go up in time.”
Naturally, when an artist gets good reviews, his art is worth more than if he
does not get good reviews, or is not reviewed at all. If the artist is called a
genius, his work is very expensive. If he is called the greatest artist of
his century, his work is very very expensive. At least, until someone decides to
write something less flattering about him.
Finally, I’d like to mention bribes. A discussion of whether a critic’s positive
(or conceivably negative) review is sometimes based on a bribe, and not on his
subjective projection elicited by the artwork, is best left to another writer.
Finally finally, there is the issue of whether any given artist is of the right
sex, ethnic group, religion, etc. If an artist isn’t, he or she won’t be
reviewed, which leads us to a completely different view of art, which I try to
address on my web site.
There is a practical point to this article. For those of you interested in
psychology, try using critiques and reviews as a means of analyzing the critic’s
personality. I find Sister Wendy a hoot, and more than just a bit sexually
frustrated, for instance. Of course, your analysis of the critic, is just YOUR
projection of what you hear/see/read, just as my analysis is just a product of
my projection of what I hear/see/read…