What Berger and Barnet have done in their writing is challenge us. They have challenged us to reevaluate our notions of what we value in an art form–of such ideas as genius, beauty, realism, idealism–and in doing so have asked us to reconsider how and why we view art as an audience and as individuals.
It would seem that self-reflection and introspection are the qualities Berger and Barnet hope to instill most in their readers. Their focus is on the idea of contexualization–of understanding the art that we see in a sense that is greater than the artist’s intention or the piece’s societal significance. It is striking that what they are asking of us is to view art through the narrow lens of our own experience and self-perceived thoughts when art is something so unequivocally universal. How can it be possible for each of us, with our small minds and small worlds, to understand something as immense and important as a work of art?
Yet just as it is art’s universality that gives it such awe-inspiring depth, it is this same universality that allows us to find a piece of ourselves within every work of art that we encounter. Berger discusses this idea when he says, “We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves” (Berger 9). This line resonates in the sense that art had always been rather abstract to me. It is a concept that I would often struggle to understand, not because I was unable to appreciate or connect with the aesthetic or emotional qualities of the art, but because I would grapple with how to reconcile what I saw and felt with what others claim to have experienced in response to the same work of art. Perhaps a better approach–and the one I will be taking when viewing the Modern Art exhibition at the MoMA in the coming week–would be to set aside any preconceived notions I may have heard about why this or that work of art is so important and consider instead the reasons why the art I see is significant as it relates to me. I should look more deeply into the relationship I share with the work of art rather than worry about how I fit into the relationship the work of art shares with the rest of society.
I wonder then if that is the “true” definition of art. Is it that art is too relevant, too personal, too connected to each of us as individuals that to try to describe it in words would be as invasive and as impossible as trying to describe how a person is feeling when all we can really be is on the outside looking in? What reading Berger and Barnet has taught me is that there is no wrong answer when it comes to looking at art. When I go to the MoMA to view Surrealist art, no one can tell me that it’s wrong if I look at a piece and start sobbing because it touched me so deeply. There should be no anxiety in the viewing and analyzation of art because the worst that can happen is that I will see too far deeply into my self and even then that is still a beautiful thing.
When I see the Modern Art exhibition, I will not be worrying about how my thoughts match up with the artists’ intentions, as Barnet advised against, nor will I be concerned with the art’s economic and societal ramifications, as Berger so adamantly opposed. Barnet quotes Christian Zervos in his writing: “A picture lives a life like a living creature, undergoing the changes imposed on us by our life from day to day” (Barnet 22). Just as we induce these changes in art, so too does art impose these changes on us. We grow because of the art we witness; we grow because art allows us to witness ourselves. I can only hope that in the end I will have grown immensely because I will have seen myself through the medium of art. But, of course, by then I may not even have the words to describe it. Perhaps seeing truly does come before words.
