An interesting trend–in the last few days artists have used words like ‘move’ (Jen Meanley) or ‘transports’ (Caleb Weintraub) to describe their experience of other artist’s paintings. I think, also, that this is one of the themes of the ‘Figurative Fictions’ show in Dayton: how paintings act to move the viewer into a state of being different from said viewer’s typical operating procedures, even if only for that moment standing in front of the painting. So, I’d love to hear some people talk about their own experiences in the comments section of this post. Are you moved or transported by paintings? If so, how? When? Where? Would you describe it as a spiritual or physiological phenomenom? Anyone got any great Stendhal Syndrome stories? Is the effect of art on its audience lesser than the effect of music, or just different? Is it all just a load of crap? You tell me. As always, you don’t have to write a novella, I’d even just be curious to see where the consensus lies. Thanks. UPDATE: Let’s throw in the word ‘haunt’ as well.
And, oh yeah, shown above is Color field paintings loosely inspired by color I see during orgasm, 2007, by Kansas City based artist Matt Wycoff.
i usually conceive of my paintings as attempts at creating a “relational conduit” – this is a term i’ve found myself using over and over again over the last 6 or 7 years. in this idea of conduit the notion of moving or transporting is pretty key. i use the word relational in the sense that formal phenomena and subject-matter can often set up a situation where the viewer passes through those concerns into an arena of content. i’m most interested in works that cause me to do this and i’m most interested in developing works that do this. i think i try to do these things at a number of different levels, perhaps beginning at creating points of simple contemplation to presenting more moral or philosophically-articulated ideas through layered symbologies or coding.
as for my experience of moving or transport in others’ works, well, i feel like art – at least for me – is distinctly and primarily about what is evocative. the very idea of evocation is related to a kind of compulsive responding on the part of the reader, viewer, listener, maker, etc. the sense in which i literally move in my conception or emotion because of a work of art is, at least for me, directly related to those elements i mentioned above (formal issues and subject matter) and how those elements cause that (literally evoke) that movement from a state of non-affect or non-interest into one of contemplation, exaltation, etc, etc, etc.
and the list would go on and on if i were to try to both enumerate the works that have brought me to a place of convulsive or compulsive movement – from non-emotion to emotion, from disinterest to intense contemplation, from mundane concerns to deep, almost rapturous excitement about philosophical or spiritual ideas – but it would have representatives of many forms and times. from von trier’s “dancer in the dark” to nabokov’s “ada” to greene’s “the elegant universe” to pontormo’s “deposition” to so many others… my whole life is centered around those moments of movement caused by evocative experiences…
i could be painting right now. instead i am responding to a blog. i am bored…looking for distraction.
same reason i like to look at art that ‘moves me’. not so sure it is spiritual…secularly spiritual possibly…another term for what? lust (maybe).
i like it for the same reasons people like to do the following: drink/use drugs/have sex/listen to music/watch movies etc. transportative (pleasant) diversions.
the last time it happened to me was in rome with bernini’s Apollo Chasing Daphne. i clearly remember the sequence of events (all within 5 minutes) 1. i developed a huge crush 2. fell a little bit in love 3. i began to resent all the other tourists for just being in the room and for syphoning off of my experience. 4. i began plotting to steal the thing and take it home with me.
for goodness sake…all this over a piece of rock. how self-indulgent. (knowing this does not prevent the behavior)
That’s good stuff. I hope more people will chime in. I think part of why I even ask is that I’m a little curious about what it means to be moved by a work of art. I know that I’ve laughed out loud, felt my pulse quicken, even my pores open in front of Bellini, Caravaggio, Guston. But is that being moved? Melanie (my wife, for any readers outside my little social circle) once had nightmares about Courbet’s Preparation of the Dead Girl from Smith College’s collection (do you know the painting, Jen?). That sounds more like being moved than my experiences.
I will describe a recent experience, maybe someone else can weigh in on whether I was moved or not: last Saturday at the Kemper Museum in Kansas City there was a small tondo by Takashi Murakami up–flowers with smiling faces that were drawn in a way to make the illusion that they were on the face of a sphere. I did actually laugh out loud when I saw it—got some strange looks from the guards. Generally, I’m not a fan of Murakami. I think I’m generally a sophisticated enough person that smiley-face flowers and optical illusions aren’t any big-time “Wow!” Still I did have a reaction that I have to describe as overcoming an previously held opinion and as an authentic emotional experience. Is that being moved?
Frequently, people feel the need to somehow ‘manage’ their emotional experiences/responses.
Or, to put it another way, we often have mixed reactions, where we’re not completely swept off our feet, but we can’t just leave the thing alone, either.
Show of hands: How many people in the room have had an argument/discussion about John Currin? Jeff Koons? Damien Hirst?
you’re making a good point sam – i have. particularly with currin and koons. and the funny thing is that koons is an artist that’s recently “converted” me. i listened to a talk he gave at yale while i was home over the break, and it really made me reassess what i felt about his work. and i have to admit that, upon analysis afterward, it really seems to come down to the fact that he just seems like a nice guy and that his ideas have a resonance in the world. so there is that intangible instinct that came in when i heard him talking and interacting with the audience.
i wonder – is this “personal” touch just another level of complication for the issues chris was bringing up? i have powerful memories of interacting with bill viola at the art institute when he was there setting up his retrospective (they allowed students in to talk with him while he was overseeing the installation). while i loved the work beforehand, afterward i retain a kind of warmth toward his work that seems to be coming from outside my artistic analysis. so i’m just throwing that out there, too.
as for the experience chris had with the murakami, i feel that sort of thing all the time. as in, i’m not all that convinced about the work but one piece in particular really engages me and makes me get over myself a bit. i want to get to that point more often – just to get over my own assumptions more and more so i can experience more…
I liked that bit about Melanie’s dream. I have seen that Courbet several times. I think though, that the image seems pretty benign until you read the title…it really adds the creepy factor.
back to what constitutes being ‘moved’ by something. for me, being moved and being affected are two different things. most anything can affect me on some sort of brain-level…if i take the time to cultivate an opinion. but, being ‘moved’ doesn’t require much work and i always think of this experience as being sort of euphoric (even when the thing ‘moving’ me isn’t necessarily pleasant or happy).
usually it comes down to some sort of impossible sense of beauty (pretty-beauty (bellini) ugly-beauty (goya/el greco). by impossible, i mean that i sense that it is much larger than my own ability to grasp the extent of the painting -that it is beyond my own intellectual and emotional capacity-
images that i know innately, even if i were given 100 years, i could never ever make myself or even completely understand. i like to sense the artist on the other side of the thing: the implicit searching of the artist. so, i guess there is the envy factor laced into it as well as the desire for mystery.
So apparently we’ve determined that the phenomenom of being ‘moved’ or ‘transported’ by a work of art only happens to folks associated with the MFA Painting program at Indiana University-Bloomington…maybe it’s all just a reaction to the combination of PCB-laced drinking water and the smell of Sunnyside turpentine…
i always liked to spray a little cloud of aerosol-fix in the air and walk through it…you know, just for good measure.
Don’t forget to light a cigarette (if you were a BFA).
El Greco’s a good one. That was another recent encounter. I was standing in front of this painting in Kansas City (look here) and felt the familiar pulse quickening, etc. and also realized that I was holding back a subtle but insistent urge to reach up and touch Magdelene’s cheek. And it’s a painting that I’ve looked at a lot over the years, and now that I think about, I think I’ve felt (and not yet given in to) that urge to touch every time I’m in front of it.
Hey, what if I add the word haunt into the equation? Are there any paintings that haunt any of you?
hhmmm, haunt…
some wyeth, some desiderio, some dickinson, and others… there’s an awesome cecco de caravaggio (caravaggio’s famous model was himself a fantastic painter) “resurrection” at the art institute of chicago that i’ve loved for a long time and always visit while there. here’s a link http://briggl.com/images/chicago/caravaggio.jpg
another piece that sticks in my mind and constantly comes up to me is maillol’s “Ile de France
…i take haunt to mean something that is always a kind of pressure on me, something that i almost have to respond to, almost have to constantly be aware of…
Paintings that ‘haunt’ me……Works by Ensor and Goya usually do. George Inness is another one.
Hi all,
I am new here. I found this blog and I have to say there are a lot of interesting discussion threads. Unfortunately I am italian (but living in Spain) and english is not first language so I have I loose something of what you say here and there. Anyway I surely get the general sense.
This issue (being “moved” by an artwork) is very interesting and the same you said here could be valid not only for visual arts but also for music for example (I am a musician as well).
My personal opinion is that things are much simpler. Just take the meaning of the word: “move” – if I am moved by something mean just that it moves me inside… which is “emotion” (“motion”). How does it moves me? This is another issue.
Getting back to “move”… in spanish and italian the verbe is almos the same (“conmover” in spanish, “commuovere” in italian). “con” means “with” so if something “me conmueve” (moves me) means that “I move WITH it”.
So that’s just it, it’s just emotion and being emotion it’s not rational (at least at first, then I can bring it to “reason” like we are doing here).
Each artwork has it’s “dynamic” behind which reflects the “being” of the artist in the moment he/she painted the work, and this has nothing to do with the “content” of the work or the cultural model to which it belongs, . The artwork returns this dynamic to the viewers and that’s what move.
How it moves? On my opinion this can be “good” or “bad” to say it simply. If an artwork gives me nightmares I cannot consider it a masterpiece even if Caravaggio or the most acclaimed artist painted it. It gives me nightmares! That’s its dynamic, that’s what it returns.
Well I hope I have been able to express what I had in mind 🙂
Gian
No worries, Gian. Your English is quite good. We get it! Thanks.
Matt, interesting that the works you list as haunting are pretty much all tonal works. My own list would include a lot of tonal paintings as well–although the painting that made me think of that part of the question is another decidedly not-tonal painting by Lester Goldman, Four Daughters Dreaming, Four Bells Being.
We are getting a lot of Google hits to this post from people actually wondering about the symptoms listed in the title. To those folks: I hope you’re feeling okay. If you’re not I hope it is just Stendhal Syndrome, which is never fatal or long-lasting. Maybe you should think about going to see a doctor?