Art

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.

Parents
  • 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.

  • 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'.

Reply
  • 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'.

Children
  • The reticence that you wrote about strikes a chord with me, and as you say "not just in art". Insinuations that my tastes are merely an affectation or that I'm just deliberately obtuse are no strangers to me, either.

    I would guess that most people would think of me as having very little say, holding few strong opinions, and rarely being passionate about anything. On a good day, I can do a pretty good impression of being an agreeable person; but bland, two-dimensional, a visitor from the uncanny valley (and usually too agreeable; I wouldn't want to slander doormats by comparing myself with one.)

    I don't mind at all anyone holding a different opinion to me, and I can enjoy comparing notes with them, but I bail out as soon as there's any sign of neutral statements being taken for passing judgement; honest questions being taken as asserting a position; taste or emotional reactions being used as shibboleths. Besides which, the conversation will have been driven to pastures new by the time I've run all of the options through my faux-pas filter; so I usually settle for making myself acutely self-conscious by ruminating about how one might convey mild enthusiasm or disapproval without having to say anything.

  • Oh, that's confusing! I've never really had much time for poetry, other than some I find amusing, I put it down to the ones I studied in school being terrible but I'm wondering now whether that was because I couldn't interpret them how I was 'supposed' to? Also I find poetry much easier to listen to aloud when I can, agree with what you say above about the rhythm, I often struggle to work out what that should be when reading it by myself. I tend to spend more time reading descriptions in galleries too than looking at the pictures, mainly so I have something to do instead of just standing around going 'Hmm, I just don't get it'!

    I would love to have contrary opinions on this sort of stuff rather than none at all! I can see how you would find it awkward disagreeing with your family all the time though if they all feel the same way about something and you're the 'odd one out'. 

  • What you said about poetry mirrors my experience of English Literature at A level. I was under the impression that there was no right answer so answered honestly about, in this case, Philip Larkin poems and how I interpreted them. I was told not to be silly and marked incorrectly in exams. Some of those poems really hit me emotionally.