PROBLEM 0006: On Receiving Advice about Art Appreciation

In which the author thinks about advice given with good intentions. In which advice about art tends to fall flat. In which one’s own, personal methodology is often the best advice. And where the author forgets to mention that once you figure something out, you should take it as its own advice, readymade, and all yours.

Dealing with advice. Best done with analogy. Analogy is like a magic frog that grants wishes, thank you, Kipper the Dog. Everybody loves wishes, so let’s go! Advice analogy ho!

YOUR SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP NEEDS SOME HELP

Okay, so your “special relationship” is going sour. Cue dramatic, wistful music, and close-ups of your face as you do the dishes. You reflect on the “special relationship” as you scrape the crumbs into the garbage can, hating every crumb that you weren’t responsible for. You can’t stand one another’s company, everything you say rubs the other the wrong way, and neither one of you is willing to take the garbage out. It’s piling up high and becoming a literal metaphor for the love you once felt. Maybe one day you decide enough’s enough and you take out the garbage, but it doesn’t help. The pile is born the next day and resentment continues to grow. Resentment is pernicious, breeding insecurity and violent responses. This isn’t good, but nothing is working. You even tried stuff like kinky recreational activities and romantic comedies. 

So you go to somebody for advice. They give it, but it sounds a little hollow, a little too general (“Just be.” “Just listen.” “Just stop hitting.”), but you’ll give anything a shot. Failure. Then more advice from more people, often contradicting the first round of advice (“Just die.” “Just talk.” “Have you tried hitting?”). You try that, too. Why wouldn’t you? This “special relationship” is called “special” for a reason. It’s still important to you. It’s like no other relationship you have. So now you read books of advice, visit a counselor, try random acts of strangeness for your significant other (“Yes, these are chocolate ladybugs.”), but somehow miss all the attempts they are making (“Chocolate covered cherries? You know I don’t like cherries.”). Everything is misinterpreted, everything is exhausting. It’s almost time to call it quits.  

In desperate times, we want other humans with their own experiences to talk with us. Sometimes we want the advice, sometimes we don’t. Ears, words, past lives, future hopes, we’ll take anything as long as it’s sympathetic.

YOUR SPECIAL ART NEEDS SOME HELP

We rarely want advice when it comes to art. It’s almost too personal, in a weird way. It might even be more weirdly personal than the “special relationship” described above. We are hurt (or pained or annoyed) when someone we love doesn’t like something we like (my loved ones are polarized on Mike Leigh’s Naked, but I totally get that one—don’t watch it, mom). We proselytize on behalf of some book/movie that we feel others “must read/see” (good morning, Downton Abbey).

We don’t really want to be alone when experiencing an artwork, probably less so when reliving it or reveling in our memories of it. That’s human nature and it’s what makes art so lovely (at times). If I’m reading a book I love, I can’t help but want to share it with my wife. When she rejects my offering, I’m a little hurt. I know I’ve done the same to others who love me. This stuff is real, regardless how wimpy it is.

The other side of it all is that we still need advice once in a while. Others seem to be doing just fine with art, so maybe they can help.   

THE ADVICE OFTEN LOOKS LIKE THIS:

1. Just feel the artwork

2. Open your mind to what the artwork is saying

3. Just look at the artwork for longer than you normally would

4. Find out as much about the artist as you can ahead of time

5. Research the historical milieu of the artist

6. Learn about the techniques involved in creating the art

7. Compare this artwork to another and discover what distinguishes it

8. Look at the formal qualities of the artwork

9. Think about what the artist was “saying”

10. Keep going until you find something you like

That’s all good advice, but I can’t really relate to any of it anymore. I’ve tried to purposely feel the artwork, and that’s just stupid. I’ve opened my mind, closed my heart, fanned my soles, deodorized, sanitized, and rolled in the mud. I’ve said bad words, nice words, mean words, silly words. I’ve let the art say all those things to me. A lot of the advice is delightfully contradictory and none of it offers the full spectrum of engagement with art. The advice has bits and pieces that might lead you somewhere with the art, and maybe that’s the point: advice isn’t meant to solve a problem. Advice is meant to take you somewhere you haven’t been before. It puts food in your belly so that you can live another day, giving it another shot. 

I’m beginning to suspect, however, that when advice is decided upon before seeing an artwork, these trinkets of advice are simply distractions. 

THE ADVICE I GIVE TO MYSELF

1a. I walk through a museum or gallery and wait for something to catch my eye

OR 1b. I randomly choose a number and have the artwork chosen for me by chance

2. Once the artwork is before me, I clear my head and my mood

3. I stand (or sit) in front of the work for longer than I’m comfortable with

4. I move on without regret

What will certainly happen is one of two things. 

A) I’ll just like it and feel some sort of connection to either the subject, the execution, or the beauty of the piece or 

B) My mind will begin talking to itself about the artwork. 

I personally find the ups and downs of thought to have a more lasting effect later (when I can revisit the experience in my mind), but that doesn’t mean this is the better result. In fact, this “advice” about going to a museum was developed by me and for me, and therefore applies most directly to me. I don’t know if it’s something everyone can learn from, but that’s kinda the point.

All advice should be taken with a grain of salt (even advice on this site). Like a good cliché, it’s intentionally founded in wisdom (one hopes), but it’s quick, generalized wisdom. You are a specific human being. You’ll find what works for your “special relationship” and your engagement with art. And you’ll probably share it with us. That’s what makes us human together. It ain’t all bad.

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