***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Sat, 6 Nov 1999 22:27:23 +0200
   [From]: "Ami Isseroff" <ami_iss@netvision.net.il>
     [To]: "Cultural Exchange via Internet" <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Re: [forum1] Re: Berlin

Dear all,
Susan wrote:
"If I can understand what the artist is attempting to say in their work, then I will want to see more work, and go on supporting their work, as a result. "

I confess that I am too stupid and phillistine to understand what the artist
is attempting to say in many cases, and I think most people in the world
may be as stupid as I am.
In cases where I can understand, it is often because the statement is
simple minded and political ("A Cantata for Stalin's Birthday" "Waiting
for Lefty" ) and my support or lack threreof will not be based on
that understanding.  (withhold rock throwing until at least after act II
please!).
I am not sure that the original viewers of Shakespeare's plays all equally 
understood the classic allusions etc. I am not sure that Renoir's audience understood what he was trying to say - or that many of us do - but we can recognize that something remarkable, pleasing, original and great is before us. That is very illogical I know - but I think it is true. Great art is recognizable by non-experts (though not necessarily immediately) and is not always understood by all those who appreciate it.

RE Test of time - It is true that we read Shakespeare or Milton or view Greek sculpture outside the context of their times and it is even true that sometimes what we see and hear is nothing like what the artist intended. The Brandenburg Concertos were originally played on quite different instruments - and sounded nothing like what we hear when they are played by a modern orchestra. We are not hearing what Back or Pachelbel or Handel or Telemann intended. The Greek statues and temples, we are told, were originally painted in garish colors, rather than appearing in "pristine" ivory simplicity.
People are often quite surprised at the results of restorations of great paintings...  The restoration looks nothing like the "revered" original. Raphael 
turns out to be quite a different fellow from what we might have imagined.

Etruscan statues are exquisite to modern eyes, but it is very likely that Etruscans saw them much differently than we do.

I do not know what conclusion we can reach from the above - but it is a fact that we are not viewing or hearing the same work as the artist made. Again it is illogical - but it seems to me undeniably true. Is there some metaphysical "essence" that is preserved beyond the mechanics of sight and sound?

It is not true, however, that works that continue to attract attention after an 
artist dies are simply something "left over" from the artist by accident. They are, in a way, the essence of the artist. There is a piece of Hemigway - a big piece, in each of his books,  there is a piece of Salvadore Dali in each of his paintings and there must be a piece of James Joyce in each thing he wrote and so on.

I do not draw any dogmatic conclusions from the above, but offer it for consideration.
Ami Isseroff