Response to Gina: Journey or Final Destination?

Gina asked, "Is art about the journey more than the final destination?"  I think the answer to this depends on who is being asked. 
Ask the actor, and she will say that it is about both, but more about the journey.  She works for weeks/months delving into the depths of a character's psyche, reading and rereading the play, picking apart her character's lines, determining her motivations, exploring nuances of tone and gesture.  Ask the choreographer, and he will give a similar answer.  Every movement he invents or selects is carefully chosen to express a song, theme, story or emotion.  Ask the author and she will tell you about the revision process.  Ask the director and he may tell you about the scenes on the cutting room floor.  Ask the visual artist and she will talk about all of the initial ideas that led to her masterpiece.  The process is often carried out with an end result in mind, but the process itself is the important part.
Ask the observer, and he will tell you that the final destination, the finished product, is the only thing of importance that he can see. 
None of them are wrong (though I might be).

Response to Samantha: Limits of Perception

In her last blog entry, Samantha Chase asks several intriguing questions. 
"Does every piece of art have the ability to elicit many perceptions based on the viewer?"
I would say yes.  Whether a piece of art is classical or modern and abstract, there are aspects and hints that can mean different things to different people.  Whether or not the artist intended to elicit these various perceptions in her audience doesn't matter; people are individuals who think subjectively as well as objectively and it is entirely possible for us to arrive at different conclusions regarding part or all of a piece of art.
"Can art encompass multiple qualities, some of which can only be seen by the 'educated,' 'experienced,' or perceptually aware?"
Again, I think the answer is yes, depending on how complex the artist intended the end result to be, as well as what was going on the artist's life/mind at the time the art was being produced.  In the case of intended complexity, there can be symbolism that is seen and recognized by the general public as well as the elite.  More complex symbolism may be more likely to be interpreted correctly by the educated.  In the case of unintended qualities in a piece of art, these may be recognized by anyone who relates to the artist's state of mind or is going through a situation similar to the one in which the artist was involved.
"Is the is of artistic identification a set point?  Or is it what it is to who is experiencing it?"
I would say that it is a set point; that's what we're trying to get at in this class, isn't it?  A set definition of art, a way to say, "That, regardless of whether or not I like it or what I perceive in it, is art?"  But I think there will always be ways of interpreting or looking at a piece of art, other than the one accepted by "the artworld."

Which brings me to a question of my own: Who makes up the artworld?

"As I please, in words."

This is part of a line belonging to Katharina from Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew."  The full excerpt is typed out in the "About Me" on the side of this page.  I've been saying these lines to myself, to my director, and to my fellow actors for a couple of months now, and I've had a while to think about them.  Theatre is an interesting thing; it's an art form collaborated upon by both a writer and a performer, and the writer might have done his part in the endeavor hundreds of years before the performer even exists.  I have to wonder what Shakespeare was thinking when he wrote these words.  "The Taming of the Shrew" is a fairly controversial play nowadays, and is often seen as antifeminist.  The text certainly seems to point to that, but then why would Katharina, or Kate, have so much potential to be such a rich character?  The people around her dismiss her as a shrew, but is that all there is to the play and the character?  She is outspoken and brash and quick-witted, doesn't let anyone keep her down, at least until Petruchio enters the scene.  There are a few ways to play out this character arc.  One: Petruchio succeeds in "taming" her, and she is forever obedient.  Two: He holds no sway over her by the end of the play, and her entire ending monologue (with lines like "A woman moved is like a fountain troubled/ Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty" and "And place your hand below your husband's foot") is delivered with palpable sarcasm.  Three: She truly loves her husband by the end, but she hasn't necessarily been "tamed" and is still her own person.  This last one especially may be just a modern construct sewn up with wishful thinking, but the potential is there.  Whether or not Shakespeare meant Kate to be tamed by the end of the play, whether or not he was "that sexist" (as I've heard someone say), the potential is there for her to keep her strength and fire.  The words are the frame, but the performer and director don't have to mind the edges.  An individual performance can fill the space provided in countless subtle ways and even twine around the framework itself.  Thus, theatre is a true collaboration, though one of the collaborators doesn't always know where it ends up.

This is not art

I've noticed that a lot of the time in class, we tend to use the terms "art" and "painting" interchangeably, as in "If that painting is used as a rug, is it still a painting?"  Sorry if I'm being too picky here, but I just wanted to define painting as being separate from art.  A painting is an image set down on some surface in paint that is presumably intended to be art; it is not necessarily art.  So the aforementioned example sentence might read, "If that painting is used as a rug, can it still be art?"
It occurs to me now, though, that the example sentence I chose is not the best.  Goodman places high emphasis on identifying things by their function, and if a painting is spread on the floor for people to walk on at their discretion, perhaps he doesn't care whether or not it is an image set down on some surface in paint.  Perhaps the materials used to make it are irrelevent compared with its new function, and he would stop calling it a painting and start calling it a rug.
Have I written in a circle here?  Maybe.  I still want to stay away from assuming that painting = art.
But what do you think?  Do you think that the function of an object outweighs not only the preconceived notions attached to that object, but also the materials that make up that object?

Representation/Exemplification

Goodman claims that there is a difference between representation and exemplification.  What is this difference? 
The difference is in how the material is presented.  A representation involves conveying something more directly, while exemplification offers a more abstract conveyance.  So something like this:

would be considered representation, while this:

would be closer to exemplification. 
And because I just can't leave it alone, I'm bringing "Ashes" back into this.  The expression on the woman's face is a representation of distress, as is the man's pose, to an extent.  The barren trees in the background and drab colors are an exemplification of distress.
But as to the second image in this post, do you think that this is a good exemplification of sadness?  The less direct approach of exemplification, after all, has the side effect of being possibly misinterpreted.  The artist may have intended to convey sadness, but I also see loneliness. 
Which do you think is more valuable/effective, representation or exemplification?

Second image: sadness by zaana on deviantart.com

Distractions

I think I could call myself an expert on distraction (I'm presumptuous like that).  Right now I'm staring at a gorgeous desktop background on a friend's computer and listening to energetic music.  I have eight tabs open in Internet Explorer, plus iTunes, email, and two assignments in Word.  I am constantly clicking between this window, Facebook, and Youtube to see what song is playing at any given moment (right now it's Tattoos Fade by World/Inferno Friendship Society).  I am young, sleep-deprived, and probably self-absorbed.  I would be considered rather unfit to judge art by Hume's standards.  However, I actually enjoy many works that are accepted by the art world.  I suppose that means I'm not entirely beyond hope.  But I suppose anyone who listens to, say, Lady Gaga (to go off a common class theme) would be considered too distracted.  It doesn't matter what a person "does right," if they like something "frivolous," there is something wrong with their judgment.  I wonder whether or not Hume ever liked any (art)works that another critic considered frivolous.

Mystery: Response to Brycen

Brycen recently asked whether people are so attracted to art because it is mysterious without a definition.  I'm not sure that that's the only reason people are attracted to art, but it's an interesting thought.  An air of mystery is usually seen as an attractive quality in general.  I hate to seem like I'm saying the same thing two entries in a row, but I think Edvard Munch's painting, Ashes, has a beautiful quality of mystery to it.  What is the source of the figures' distress?  What happened before this scene?  When I look at this image, I take in the picture as a whole, and then the details, and my mind starts trying to answer the questions it asks.  I want to know the artist's intention, but I also want to keep it a mystery.  There is a part of me, I think, that wants to fill in the blanks myself; there is a part of me that cannot help doing just that.  Maybe that is why people are attracted to art: the mystery seems to leave room for the observer to see herself in the artwork. 
Do you think people enjoy art more when they can relate to it?