Published on 12, July, 2020
Ok, there's a decent chance this one's just me, but I'm curious.
I don't get art. I understand making it as an outlet, and I can appreciate beauty. However when I look at a painting/sculpture etc, I don't 'feel' anything. Either it looks pretty or it doesn't, it's done with skill or it's not. This seems to span all genres/movements.
As this is a sort of perception thing, and to do with connecting emotionally, I wondered whether it may be ASD related. Does anyone else feel the same? Negative responses welcome as this is just a point of interest, I'm not looking for reassurance.
I have never been able to appreciate art aside from in a "that must have been hard to make" way. If I ever visit a gallery, my favourite paintings are those that most resemble a photograph as it's amazing that anyone could paint so realistically.
I prefer it when there's a description of what the painting is about and what it means. I once went to a gallery with a friend and was completely baffled by the emotions the paintings were evoking in her. I really didn't know what to say as "I feel nothing" would have been creepy!
Equally, I find poetry very hard to understand but it has occasionally moved me, connected with me, even without having the foggiest what it means. I think it's the rhythm and the beat.
Other than spike milligan as a child I've never been into poetry. However a few weeks ago on holiday I was moved to tears by a rendition of The King Of Rome - about a racing pigeon. This has lit a spark within me, and I've recently been indulging in John Cooper Clarke and Don Marquis. I actually found JCC was good at breaking me out of a cycle of ruminating and obsessive thoughts the other day. I think it was the rhythm of the beat. His poems don't move me as such but I find them clever and amusing.
I’ve never got the whole art thing. The only thing I find impressive is also if a painting/drawing resembles the real thing, because it’s amazing someone can produce anything so realistic.
As for poetry, I like the way some poems sound, there’s some poetry audiobooks I’ve tried and I’ll listen to the same couple of poems over and over just because I like the persons voice and sound of the words. But I have no idea what they mean.
I obviously don't always get quite the same emotions experienced by others, with works of art. But I'm more than happy to go along with the idea that each and every listener/observer will come away with their own interpretations, based on their own experience. And that might well include some of us being moved by the difficulty of the creation, or it's realisticality; as in the above post. I find it quite possible to appreciate the highly abstract, that which borders on 'photographic', and the actual photographic. There is surely some sort of 'art' in them all.
FL's comment's on poetry remind me that there is actually quite a lot of poetry that can move me, even when I'm not always too clear about the meaning/s (perhaps) intended by the artist or his/her followers.
I reckon my resistance to some poetry is that I don't have quite the same emotional or romantic thoughts running through my mind as other more obviously creative family members. I imagine that my emotions about (say) a 'family' topic are a bit divergent from their emotions. But in trying not to offend those family members by having a possibly controversial difference of interpretation, I just become lost for words, and not able to express the emotions I personally feel, without losing some face with the rest of the family. In fact, I wonder if they really want to hear my different interpretations at all; and think it likely they will just see it as me being deliberately contrary, as a result of my apparently constant need for 'difference'. This reticence might actually explain quite a lot of things; and not just about 'art'.