Freeland Reading Response
In Cynthia Freeland’s But Is it Art?, chapter 6 is titled “Cognition, creation, comprehension”, which in three words summarizes the main ideas in this section. She discusses the various factors of intent, environment, creator, viewer, and etc that influences the interpretation, and ultimately the enjoyment, of artwork. Two schools of thoughts are introduced in attempt to classify these factors: “Expressive Theory” and “Cognitive Theory.” Freeland continues to describe that art communicates with the observer. Expressive theory captures the essence of how art relates to the viewer through feelings and emotions while cognitive theory focuses on the knowledge that art brings to the viewer. To demonstrate, Freeland elaborates using the Triptych of 1973, by Francis Bacon. This piece is supposedly the perfect example of both theories because it contains “emotions” like laughing and “complex thoughts” like language. This leads her to conclude that both theories are valid and in fact accurate in many artworks; but in the end, interpretations are to help “enable us to see and respond to the work better,” not to “tell us what to think.”
In many ways, Freeland’s thoughts and comments on art interpretation are in line with my rather limited ideas and actually reinforces what I have come to believe in art interpretation. Simply put, art interpretation is an art in itself. We study art and interpret art in order to better understand art, to better enjoy art, and to feel closer to what the artist felt. But because art is created in so many ways, under so many different circumstances, and by so many different people, interpreting art has become an incredibly complex task. With the evolution of new art forms, this is more true now than it has ever been, and will continue to grow more complex in the future. This is best seen by example. Search Amazon.com for recordings of Beethoven’s Symphony #5 and you’ll find over 50 different results. Every recording represents a unique interpretation of this great symphony by that particular conductor and orchestra. Some can be similar, but you’ll find that no two are alike let alone identical. Even more amazing is that even two recordings of the same conductor with the same orchestra can sound drastically different. Since conductors and musicians interpret music, and we call them artists, then we can rightfully conclude that interpreting art is an art.
Chapter 7 shifts gears into a different aspect of art: original vs. reproduction. This is obviously a bigger issue for certain arts than others, but Freeland mentions a few things in particular. First is the “aura” of some artworks that is lost in the many reproductions, causing them to lose the “magic” of the original. She continues to describe that reproductions are more personal and seem less prestigious because they are easy to obtain. This brings up her second topic of art for the masses (democratic art). Here, she discusses the internet, technology, and photography, and how they’ve changed the way many people look at or think about art. Why travel half way around the world to see the Mona Lisa when you can pull it up on your internet browser? Is what we see in reproductions actually close to the real thing? This question leads us to Freeland’s third point of hyperrealism. The main example here is Disneyland, where everything down to the white picket fences create the image of a perfect American town. Here, people can relax and completely immerse themselves into a man-made illusion that perhaps surpasses any real American town today.
What I found most interesting about Freeland’s discussion was the difference between real and hyperreal. Is there always a difference? In some instances, the real version is quite different from the hyperreal, but that certainly isn’t always the case. Once again, my analysis relates to my musical experience. I can say with certainty that live musical performances are in many ways both similar and different from a recording. Recordings are made in the studio with many days of rehearsal, practice, and fine tuning. Any minor mistakes, errors, and excess sounds have been filtered out to ensure that the music is a perfect as possible. Some say that such recordings make certain artists sound much better than in live performance. In such cases, we’d probably say that the recording is hyperreal because it exceeds the quality of a live performance. However, there are times where the recording cannot fully capture the wonderful tone, texture, and beauty of a live performance. Recording techniques have improved greatly in the last century, but even so, one can easily differentiate between a high end speakers system and a real orchestra. Even if such as recording is technically perfect, perhaps more perfect than the live counterpart, can it really be called hyperreal?
3 questions to think (or not think) about:
1. How has art interpretation changed throughout time?
2. How does hyperreal art affect our view of the world?
3. Has democratic art lessened the gap between lower, middle, and upper parts of society?