Do you not, in your daily life, try to understand the people who create the events that you interact with?

Huh?  People create events I interact with?  I interact with people, and no, I don't go around analyzing them.  I am interested in what they have to say.  I have some fascinating conversations that way and I learn a lot.  I have yet to meet anyone who remotely resembles what "psychology" tells me they are about.

Originally written by Liliana Boladz-Nekipelov on December 17, 2008 9:27 PM When I look at Picasso, I like to look as his shapes, his lines, his shades. I do not want to think how many women he bullied, or what his ego was like. In fact, he is one of my most favourite artists. I love the movement of his lines, not necessarily what they might represent in him, I would not even, probably, want to know.

Ditto except for the last part, i.e., when I come across an article of the kind I have quoted, and I am outside the museum, I also like to read that sort of analysis. But that's more part of my anthropological than aesthetic interests.

Jacek

David, the artist Freud refered to in this thread is not Sigmund, and he is not a psychiatrist.  The person analyzing his art was from a rival school with different artistic values.  Psychology is not involved, except perhaps that of the critic.

... but also his suppressed issues.

Supposedly.  Or maybe it was little elves that painted the work for him when he wasn't looking.  Or maybe he was exploring the concept of realism during the time period when that genre and thought held sway under the influence of the school and mentor that helped form his craft.

Maxi

I like to look for symbols in art, symbols used by different cultures for generations, but I do not like to psychoanalyze things.

Originally written by Dina Elsayed Imam on December 17, 2008 People have enjoyed art work well before there was any theories of Aesthetic or criticism (aesthetic theories began to formulate during the 18th century and everybody knows how new analytic psychology is) . Using it for extra knowladge is ok, but saying that art can't be appreciated without it, is just not true.

I certainly agree that people enjoyed art work well before there was a theory of aesthetics, just as people were pulled to the earth by gravity before Isaac Newton posited the theory of gravitation.  Theories of aesthetics are much older than you suggest, however; the Greeks had well-developed theories of aesthetics (see, for example, Artistotle's "Poetics.")  I am sure that prehistoric man enjoyed art before any formal theory of it was presented, however.

There is a bit of a semantics problem here.  If aesthetics is understood to be the science of beauty, or the appreciation of beauty, then by definiton the appreciation of beauty is an aesthetic exercise.  It is certainly true that art can be appreciated at different levels, and a formal understanding of aesthetic properties is not necessary to appreciate it at some levels, but an appreciation that does not take into account all levels is, by definition, incomplete.

Hi everyone...sorry for the delay

Hi David, I have to say that I agree with you on everything you wrote except one thing , which is that I don't believe there is a complete way of art appreciation . I agree that there are different levels of appreciation , one might call it a hierarchy with the experts on its top ( I wouldn't trust a critic or an art historian who didn't know all there is to know about the subject) , but it's a different case when we talk about any art viewer like liliana for inistence who doesn't like to phsycoanalyze art and who has the right and the freedom to do so... because I think it's a matter of taste.  And quoting Clemente Greenberg whom I happen to agree with on this particular subject :

.. TASTE is a word that became compromised during the 19th century. It was in good standing in the 18th, when a philosopher like Kant, and English philosophers of aesthetics took for granted that that's the faculty you exerted in experiencing art and experiencing anything aesthetically.  And then in the 19th century it wore down into something that had to do with food, clothes, furniture, decoration, and so forth, and became very much compromised. Now I think it's a much handier word than aesthetic judgement or faculty of taste, faculty, and that it should be rehabilitated, if only because, while we can't define it, we recognize it. And it's got a nice old-fashioned flavor to it that I particularly like. And one other thing, taste is intuitive and nobody yet knows what goes on in intuition. The psychologists haven't been able to take intuition apart, nor have the philosophers. Well, by the same token, nobody yet has been able to take apart art or aesthetic experience. Well, there is talk, especially nowadays, about swings of taste, turns of taste, and so forth. True taste doesn't swing, doesn't veer. The very notion of taste swinging is anomalous. True taste, genuine taste, develops, expands, grows. It changes only insofar as it corrects itself, true taste. And it doesn't do that temperamentally, but as part of the process of its growth. Growth means increasing openness, catholicity, inclusion more than exclusion. As you go along, get older and look at more and more art you find yourself liking more and more art, without having to lower your standards. Taste refines itself; it's true. It discriminates more as it develops, and yet at the same time, paradoxically, it becomes opener. Open in this way: that you look at Hindu sculpture, say, in the same way, by and large, as you look at contemporary art or the art of the old masters or any other kind of art. And you look, it's hoped, with the same honesty.

 One of the afflictions of art and of taste is the untruth you may tell yourself about the operations of your taste, or let's say, the results of your taste and the untruth you may tell to others. You're told that Raphael was a great painter and you can't see it yourself, but since you've been told it, you've read it everywhere and so forth, you look at a Raphael and you may look at a failed one and say, "well, it's got to be good because Raphael is so famous, the authorities say he's so good." That's one of the worst ways in which to begin or to continue looking at art. On the other hand, when the authorities do say that someone's good and you can't see it for yourself, it does help, it's almost essential, that you go back and look again, and again. You may still decide that this particular Raphael is no good, but, at least, you've tried and you've been honest, and with yourself above all. I've known collectors who owned Picassos who really preferred Norman Rockwell. If only they had owned up to it, it would have been way better for the life of art, and not that I think Rockwell is so negligible, I have to use his name because everybody knows it. He wasn't that bad of a painter, incidentally, but there are people who lie to themselves that way, and I don't think that that helps art, in general.

www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/taste.html

from another angle personal experiences unrelated to aethetics can play a very effective role in the process of art appreciation , for example an ecnounter with someone, watching the sun set , or even noticing an apple falling from a tree due to gravity can alter one's perceptions . I had a few of those , where I gained some better understanding of art works due to simple life experiences. I think all of us had some of those enlightments if I may say.

As I see it everybody has a unique way of art appreciation , and as long as the one in question is not an information source I don't think there is an obligation.it's just a matter of taste.

How could it happen?

Surely the systematic cruelty visited upon hundreds of thousands of children incarcerated in state institutions …. would have been prevented if enough right-thinking people had been aware of what was going on? Well, no. Because everyone knew.

I have heard no one address the question of what it means, in this context, to know. Human beings — human beings everywhere, not just in Ireland — have a remarkable ability to entertain simultaneously any number of contradictory propositions. Perfectly decent people can know a thing and at the same time not know it. Think of Turkey and the Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century, think of Germany and the Jews in the 1940s, think of Bosnia and Rwanda in our own time. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/opinion/23banville.html?_r=1

Here's how:

Cognitive dissonance is a communication theory adopted from social psychology. ... Cognitive dissonance is the psychological conflict from holding two or more incompatible beliefs simultaneously. Cognitive dissonance is a relatively straightforward social psychology theory that has enjoyed wide acceptance in a variety of disciplines including communication. The theory replaces previous conditioning or reinforcement theories by viewing individuals as more purposeful decision makers; they strive for balance in their beliefs. If presented with decisions or information that create dissonance, they use dissonance-reduction strategies to regain equilibrium, especially if the dissonance affects their self-esteem. The theory suggests that 1) dissonance is psychologically uncomfortable enough to motivate people to achieve consonance, and 2) in a state of dissonance, people will avoid information and situations that might increase the dissonance. How dissonance arises is easy to imagine: It may be unavoidable in an information rich-society. How people deal with it is more difficult.