Can visual art present an image that is not dramatic, or
must it be dramatic? I ask because it
appears that many people view visual art expecting a dramatic meaning
even when it is clear that the artist had other intentions.
For instance, someone looking
at a work by Red Grooms and scrutinizing it for deeper meaning other than the
humor may be on to something…and may likely not. Granted, Grooms’ works often do have a
meaning a bit beyond the humor, but why isn’t the humor enough? Humor can have depth as any comedian or
satirist knows.
Another example is that of the
performing arts; is every play going to be a drama? Imagine a theater world where there were only
dramas or, even better, imagine someone who attended plays always expecting a
drama when a play is not. They’re going
to be both disappointed and puzzled. I
suppose they even may be upset, angry, that the play did not meet their
expectations and blame the playwright for botching it, telling others that the
play simply did not make sense.
Apply this to any other
artistic venues as music, and it’s the same problem regardless of the
genre. If one anticipates a romantic
ballad and hears a Bartok string quartet, or vice-versa, the music will come
off as a dud. Audience expectation also can
be an issue as consider children, who may expect to hear Peter and the Wolf,
and instead have to sit through a Mahler symphony for 1.5 hours. I’m sure they won’t be pleased, just as the
adult audience expecting a Mahler symphony will not be excited about Peter
and the Wolf as a substitute.
But back to the visual
arts. Magritte’s painting of floating
baguettes and wine glasses may point to a Christian eucharistic symbolism, but
more likely it is about Magritte trying to show the common as uncommon. Reading into the loaves and liquid as a metaphysical
transformation of the mundane into the supernatural is a misdirected
interpretation regardless of the relation of seeing the ordinary in an extraordinary
way.
So, this is the obstacle for
many people who presume a dramatic understanding of visual art; they need to
clear that out of their perceptive field of play. Why? Because visual art, as any of the arts, may
be dramatic, yes, but it also may be comedic, sad, romantic, mysterious, and
even absurd. It may be for the strictly
formal aesthetic pleasure too. Reading
one’s expectation into art, however, will simply be a constraint on the viewer’s
experience.
