Okay..we just see it differently. . .

"okay..we just see it differently from our perspectives.." Someone said that in a discussion today and it just has haunted me through the day. 

One's line of sight changes with ones perspective. In short, look at a landscape from one perspective and move 100 feet closer or farther away from what it is you are looking at, and the perspective will change. Too close and you cannot see it, too far and you again cannot see it. All of that is pretty much accepted. 

All of that information, however, can be shared. I mean you can describe what you see up close, in the middle and far away. and assuming your vision is good or at least functioning, most will agree with you. Occasionally, you might get a report that is unique. Someone might know the history of that landscape, or have some interesting insights on the trees or flowers being viewed, or the architecture. Someone might come at night and put on a pair of night-vision goggles. Even in reports involving such, they start with what is seen. Unique reports typically inform the viewer(s) on what they are seeing, what they are looking at. 

Art, it is said, is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Is that really true? Perhaps in regard to people. You view someone for the first time and fall in love. It happens. Jaap van Zweden, the new Musical Director of the New York Philharmonic explained to Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes tonight that that is exactly what happened with him and his wife. So it does happen.

Going back to art, however, most people typically will have a response to art. They will like it, sometimes love it, sometimes not. On occasion, it might happen that those who are not familiar with art may not be engaged, or they just do not see something as art. One can imagine that happening with a work done by Jackson Pollock perhaps, or with Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain".

So there are pieces people do not get. There are likewise pieces that people get immediately. People are engaged by certain pieces of art. We could call this the 'aesthetics of selection'. There are pieces of art that provoke us and others that leave us unaffected.

It is at this point that we can appeal to our original quote, "okay..we just see it differently from our perspectives.." Two viewers picking out two pieces of art that most impress them, it happens routinely. I like Vincent van Gogh and you like Michelangelo. Now perspective is to where you are viewing, I might see why you arrive at that conclusion. It could be as simple as the van Gogh I am looking at is in fact behind you and likewise the Michelangelo is behind me.  We are looking at opposite walls of the same room. Or it could be that you have studied Renaissance art, focusing on Florence. And myself, I just like the yellows and blues van Gogh often used. 

We have gone from where one stands to one's personal history. A few items regarding where one is coming from is often times informative and explains one's decisions, even in art. Now what of the person who just likes a certain painting, such as van Gogh's Starry Night. Imagine I bring my brother over to check out this painting by van Gogh, and he knows nothing of the piece nor the artist. Yet he is just in awe of it. The color just grabs him. Yet, he is unable to tell me what he likes about it. He is just struck by it. 

Is it the case that we often do not know why we like something? Do we routinely not know why we respond to something. Is that true? Do we really not know why we like stuff? It is commonly accepted that one's taste regarding the arts is subjective. Is subjectivity the same as our "perspective" above? Is the subjective the same as simply not knowing why one likes something? I would argue that the answer to each of these is yes. 

Let us switch to pizza for a moment. I love pepperoni pizza. Do I really know why? You or I might have an answer but we probably have never sat down and formulated it. Perhaps those who make a good pepperoni pizza have but those consuming it. . . probably not. The same is true for many of us regarding art. We have not analyzed our responses. We have not studied the paintings and the traditions, the artists who make up those traditions, their methods, and so forth. So what we attribute to different perspectives and what we often claim is subjective, what is often unique to our individual taste, is just unknown. We might have a certain taste for art, but how we arrived there is often unknown.

The next question is whether such unknown items are unknowable? Is the reason for our selection of a certain piece of art unknowable? Traditionally, with the idea of art being subjective, there is a suggestion that it is unknowable. The thought is that it is just not possible for one to climb into another's head and see through their eyes what they are seeing. Obviously, one can't know what another is seeing. Your experience of red or blue or a painting could very well be different from mine. 

We are entering into theories of perception now, discussions of qualia. Let's keep this at the level of art and aesthetics, taste. Let us go back to the pizza. There are people who can share and discuss the dynamics of a good pepperoni pie. The guy next to the oven at the pizza shop, making them, might have some idea. You just need to get him talking. Perhaps the owner of the shop can assist. And then you have yourself and your sister who is much more interested in the mushroom pie and loves to cook.

Through such a process, we start to understand the dynamics of what is so good there. Perhaps the same can be said of art and painting. Perhaps, we can understand what the expressionists were exploring in their paintings versus the realists before them. Perhaps we can see what van Gogh was exploring in his use of the blue and yellow. All of this informing our view of his art and others. Ultimately, all of this might allow us to qualify what we do and do not like, and acknowledge and share what it is we see differently. Such things I suggest are not unknowable nor beyond expression. 

Granted, this essay might. . .