Monday, August 06, 2007

The Aesthetic Emotion

The aesthetic emotion that one feels is difficult to explain. In the reading "The White Bird" this emotion is defined as the emotion we feel before nature. I find this especially true. I am always drawn to nature and objects that represent it. A building that blends into it's site, looking as though it evolved from the site, is especially beautiful to me. Natural beauty is something that I strive to find as I look at my surroundings. This beauty is what gives meaning and order.
This reading goes on to say that the language of art has been developed in an attempt to transform the instantaneous into the permanent. With so many brief moments in nature, it is wonderful to see the beauty of a flower represented in the cold of winter or the color of the desert when you are seated at the sea. Art is able to evoke emotions from all of us. I believe that nature can evoke deeper emotions. Nature is something that is universal, it is the language of art.

4 comments:

enno said...

Thank you Annie for sharing your thoughts! I hope you will be able to find and describe the beauty, meaning and order in the "urban landscape" of the site, which, if one extends Berger's argument, would already be a response to the beauty of nature.

Keep reading on the with other texts, which shed a different light on the the idea of permanence and especially on perception. I suppose that Irwin would claim that the essence of art is not "nature", but our perception. It is not that one concept is better or truer than the other, but that we get exposed to the different modes of thinking and take our position with the design project.

annie j kemp said...

As I read what I wrote, I realize I must have been half asleep already. That last sentence is not what I meant. I wanted to look at exploring the idea of nature as the basis for the language of art. Such as latin is the base for many languages all around the world. Each language communicates differently but everyone has the same orgin. I see nature as working in the same role. We all see similar sites throughout nature and it is those similarites that connect us. Nature is a starting point for the many perceptions. Languages will have similar words for the same thing but rarely have the exact same word. These differences allow different perceptions, different adaptations and different emotions.

enno said...

I like your language analogy and I am curious how, if so, you will expand on this relative to the urban setting. This might be a good starting point for your on site observations!

Peter said...

I agree with your position that nature is a good basis for a commonality of a language of art. But, what i wonder about is how much commonality there is within the language from region to region.

Would the art of say a region where nature provides idealic living conditions be much different as opposed to a region where conditions are hard and it is a struggle to survive. I think Berger points the way there, that the more idealic the living conditions the more elaborate the art inferred from nature. And, that the harsher the conditions, the more simplistic the art inferred. Sort of like it might take a field of flowers to induce a reflection of beauty in an ideal space, but a single simple flower would be all that is needed in the harsh spaces. And, odds are that if a person from the harsh region were to see the field of flowers they would be overwhelmed, and a person from the ideal region would probably not even notice the single flower.