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.