Similarly with philosophy or art: only a comparative "handful" of people are acculturated enough to know what "apperception" or "fauvism" mean.
I understand the overall point, but I think it needs to be said at this juncture that the study of art, as many other studies, has become sufficiently divorced from either the practice or the appreciation of art to be almost entirely irrelevant outside the small and rather masturbatory community of scholars.
If Caravaggio, say, were alive today, do you think he'd give a damn about apperception or fauvism? I doubt it. I suspect that he'd be too busy painting, getting in fights, and getting laid to give a damn.
Similarly, I'm not sure that the scholar gets any more from a painting of Caravaggio's than a lay person who walks into a gallery, stares for ten minutes, transfixed, and can think of no more articulate comment than "holy shit, that guy was GOOD!"
Ideas are like flour. Sometimes if you refine them too much, the nutritive value drips away. Nice pretty white color, though.
Please note the "sometimes" in the previous paragraph. You have to trust your gut instinct to tell you when it's time. |
