Deception

Space and Feeling

Our place of participation with the world shapes us. The features of our surroundings contribute to the development of a perceptual system that is key to our intelligence. The initial response to the shapes in the space surrounding us is felt in our bodies and then recognized and named when the feeling gets our attention. There’s a reason we use “I see” and “I understand” interchangeably. The initial feeling of a situation is the intuitive judgement of the whole picture. Feelings are naturally expressed in spatial terms. The meaning is not in the identity of the objects and features but in the relationship between them and in relation to the viewer. Focusing too much attention on specifics leaves out relevant context. When we say we feel confined the contraction is a physical sensation. As walls of responsibility or expectation seem to close in on us the image helps us identify the emotion. Response to art works by the same mechanisms as perception of the physical world. Because art brings out significant relationships looking at art helps us interlace our analytic/critical powers with the intuitive/holistic. The representation of feeling in art is felt in the relationship to the space presented. It stimulates associated ideas and thought finds direction from ideas that emerge. We don’t so much think our ideas as create the conditions that allow them to emerge. Landscape has been a versatile subject for artists, able to convey such a wide range of moods, the more sustained feeling of the unchanging features of a scene. The physical features of where we are influence psychology on an ongoing basis and where we grew up gives familiarity to certain kinds of spaces that may echo emotions associated with them that resonate throughout life. The visual parietal intelligence responds and navigates surroundings with fluid judgments needing little conscious awareness. Unconscious awareness of surroundings is picking up danger, imbalance, overload, scarcity, obstruction, and entanglement is real knowledge acquired through movement that serve equally as metaphors for feeling. Neurologists know that feeling precedes thinking, yet modern culture offers plenty of ways to avoid feeling, a practice that sabotages individual judgement because feeling is the assessment of the whole directing thought processes to what needs attention, the immediate unconscious response to an overall situation. Art cultivates recognition of feeling, shows what matters in the mind of the artist. The art that draws attention reflects the viewer in some way that opens a door to related ideas. The connection of artist and viewer is a kinship of like spirits and reminder that we are all connected as a species.

Bombast

Scale and Proportion

“Math is the only place where truth and beauty mean the same thing” Bertrand Russell In math no one disputes the golden ratio’s most perfect proportions. Nothing else looks right. Mathematical proportions are found throughout nature. And proportion is a term more often used in art, but both can be used interchangeably. What we see is understood by intuitive intelligence. Beauty is the goal of both math and science as well as art. Beauty always depends on right proportions. When something is out-of-scale with its surroundings you don’t have to be an artist to know it’s unsightly, looks wrong, out of place. The projected ballroom overshadows the White House projecting a sense that it’s even more important than the historic building that has been the seat of power for our country. More like a throne room, it is a monstrosity that will never be beautiful but will be acutely visible. And that is the point. Visibility, the human need beneath all the others to be seen. Bigger and flashier gets noticed and maybe for some it’s enough. Likewise, the scale of a data center or an ICE detention center does not harmonize with the look or needs of the surrounding community. That it will use more than its share or energy and water is obvious. The existence of such places at all makes our visual response recoil. The people who say it doesn’t bother them are the ones who don’t look. Harmony s not the goal for those in charge. They want the look of domination. This is not just philosophical. Neurologists have shown that buildings affect our mood and sense of well-being. Out of scale architecture is felt as oppressive. We have specialized neurons for proportions is the hippocampal area. What is out-of-scale for human size makes people feel powerless and depersonalized intentionally, creating an illusion of permanence against the temporary passerby. The ballroom and other massive architectural plans are not just an aesthetic problem but also psychological. Understanding that it is an attack, we should fight the process of building these monstrosities. What we see affects us all the time. Because location is so woven into personal psychology these structures are an assault on our sense of connection to the world designed to emphasize how little we matter against the power of the monarch. Beauty is our guidance toward right relationships. As google’s AI says, “Beauty and rightness are deeply connected concepts… as expressions of moral and spiritual perfection.” It’s a conclusion drawn from all that is written about it on the internet. Looking at art can re-establish our connection to the whole. Artists communicate what it feels like to live in this world more deeply than what we hear and read. The arts can reinforce our sense of beauty as guidance to truth and resist imagery that’s meant to harm us.

Absence

Image Significance

When I did a google search on the two words of the title, the AI summary was gratifying. It said, “Images carry deep significance because they communicate complex ideas, emotions and history instantly without words. They shape human culture, record crucial moments and trigger powerful personal feelings.” Adding later that it makes people connected across distances, AI seemed to be summarizing what I try to communicate in my blog. Awakening feelings is central to my own goals because it’s the beginning of thoughts and memories in the viewer. Paraphrasing something Thomas Carlyle said about books, the chief value of a work of art is that it excites viewers to self-activity. This is my own goal for the work, to have the feelings in the work stimulate another’s ideas and emotions. Becoming more aware of emotions is essential for modern people since we can have no empathy for others if our feelings are hidden and repressed. As Pat Barker wrote about the men fighting in WWI in her powerful antiwar novel, Regeneration, “They’d been trained to identify emotional repression as the essence of manliness.” This is an attitude that’s been slow to fade in many cultures and it’s not hard to see it’s role in cruelty and insensitivity to the plight of others in so much of what we see today. Art has the power to increase self-awareness, and this is not a small personal matter. It’s crucial to the survival of the planet. So much of human culpability is shut out, disregarded, made invisible behind the smokescreen of the ego’s preferences in how to think about ourselves. Those in power today refuse to acknowledge the devouring rapacity of the harm their willful blindness is causing, so hurt and damaged inside they need to cause visible damage in a matching scale. Not only do they not recognize the shameful behavior, they seek to erase the records, to make their shame invisible to others, an act that reveals the hidden judgment. Every artist brings out what they find significant. The viewer then sees what’s shown in the light of the artists feelings, forging a connection and stirring the viewer’s mind with their own connections to that feeling. To follow what happens in the mind when looking at art whether it’s reveling in the amazing colors and textures or resonating with the expression in a portrait, physiologically it enlivens the brain and psychologically it builds awareness of how feeling connects with memory and thought. It broadens our perceptual sensitivity. More art is crucial for bringing so many qualities of human culture, good and bad, to awareness. Amidst so much trivial stimulation art clarifies significance, showing what matters.

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