On 28/3/06 10:28 AM, "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I don't think I discounted feeling, Alison. I frankly have no idea
> what you're trying to say.
Well, I was answering in a necessary shorthand your assertion that my claim
that what matters most in art is feeling meant that art had nothing to do
with human life. Shorthand because most people mistake this for an argument
against intelligence, or for art as mere self expression.
For the record, I think that in art, feeling and thought are very nearly the
same thing. Note that I do not say that they are the same thing: simply that
one is the necessary condition for the other, that to be aware of feeling
requires thought, to be aware of thought requires feeling. And I truly do
believe that this kind of awareness is what art can articulate better than
any other human activity, and this is where for me its value exists. I also
think that feeling is something embedded in all aspects of human life, since
it is the basis of consciousness itself; so art for me has everything to do
with human life.
This part of the discussion began with a judgment of your part of
"relevance", which is something that to my mind is pretty much a secondary
consideration. But the cry that art must be relevant is a very common way of
making it subordinate to certain other necessities - eg, pedagogies, social
affect, commodity or social status etc. It's the big PR word when people are
trying sell art ("it's relevant!") And the usual result is to minimise or
marginalise what in fact art does, in favour of more easily digestible uses.
I'm not saying that connotation is what you meant, though it's the most
common usage of it in connection to art; but if relevance is the thing that
matters, why bother with Sappho?
Best
A
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
