#idk I just like art and also got handed phenomenology and existentialism as a 19 year old

[h0neyfreak]

this might be dropkicking a hornet’s nest but I don’t think “ah but this art made you experience an Emotion” is actually a useful or clever take on modern (or any) art and kind of maybe misunderstands what it means to say “Art makes you think about/feel things.”

Like. My experience with (visual) art is honestly kind of universal regardless of the emotional or aesthetic veneer and at the risk of outing myself as a phenomenologist, it really is the experience of seeing and the art becoming art in front of you. Rothko’s paintings work in person because it pulls you in and the more you stare at it and really look the more layers you see and the more the medium shows itself to you and it becomes an oil painting and also colors and also canvas and pigment and linseed oil and wax and also an infinite number of things. And this isn’t any different across mediums/styles/movements. Staring at a tramp art box and seeing every knife cut and the faded logos and careful joinery from another life; staring at the old Dutch master portraits and being in a room with someone you can’t stop looking at; jumping at a tromp l’oeil before realizing it’s a painting; seeing a quilt and understanding the neat rows of stitches diving into the batting; gazing up at a giant marble statue and seeing the ancient scaffolding waver and blend into the impossibly smooth curves.

I could fill every empty page in my apartment with similar descriptions but I think it makes the most sense if you’ve ever watched a meteor shower. You have to let your eyes adjust to the darkness and you think every flicker of light is a shooting star until suddenly you can see and something burns across the sky and you realize you’ve seen it and everything prior was something else.

Idk I think a side effect of “getting” art is not being able to see anything without wondering how it got here and who is responsible for it existing and why. “I could make that” is an astronomically annoying way to interact with the world but it’s a step closer to something genuine than “ooo you’re angry and that means it’s working!”