Expectation and Viewing Art

 

          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.