Category: Form and Content

When viewing a work of art, or listening to one, can we see truth? Can we feel it?

Truth is defined as “the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality” (Merriam Webster Dictionary). Under this definition, truth is something that is universal, there is only one Truth. However, when placed into the context of different human individuals, different people can have conflicting perceptions of realities, and thus, a different personal truth. For example, a person with partial colorblindness might perceive a sweater to be dark grey, when in fact, to people without the disorder, it is red. Within that person’s reality the sweater is grey and “red” doesn’t have a definition. Art is something that is subjective and a person’s reaction to it depends on various factors, with large part in personal tastes. The reaction one person gets from viewing or listening to art is intrapersonal. A person can gain a personal truth from art, but as each person’s perception is individual, a person cannot see a universal Truth.

1. We can all agree that art is abstract. With this in mind, we are forced to recognize that what we see won’t be the same art that everyone else sees. We all have different experiences and will come to different conclusions. However, there is no way to “see” the truth of art. Truth is a concrete, indisputable fact set in reality. You cannot argue that 2 + 2 = 4. It’s impossible. But art is open to interpretation. It’s liberated from the confines of the labels of “true” and “false” because it can be whatever the viewer wants it to be, even if the artist spells out “the truth” within it. Art is free. Because of this, it is possible for art to conjure an emotion from the viewer. While we will never get the truth of the art unless we ask the artist, we may be able to pick up on how s/he was feeling at the time while viewing said art (hearing a sharp strike to a piano, seeing the fluid lines of a painting, watching the quick movement of a dancer). The viewer may also feel something that the artist might not have intended for them to feel at all. But feeling doesn’t depend on anyone but the feeler.The feelings that arise while we view art help add to it’s mystery and can make it an experience.

When seeing or listening to a work of art we can see the truth. Sometimes it may be harder than others. You must focus and pay attention to what the artist is expressing. However, the artists truth maybe be different than your truth and your truth may be different than another’s truth. Feeling the truth however may be a bit more natural. It maybe be closer to the truth that the artist feels. This is because feeling something is much more emotional than seeing it. By feeling the truth, we feel it in our emotions, we may cry, smile, laugh or even become angry. This may be how the artist was feeling before or even during his or her creation

When viewing a work of art, or listening to one, can we see the truth?  Can we feel it?

There is no concrete definition of truth. An absolute truth does not exist. The only truth that does exist, is the truth told from somebody’s perspective, which makes it biased and not necessarily completely truthful. So when viewing, or listening to a work of art, the only truth we can see/ feel is the truth that the artist wants us to know. The truth we feel/ see is only the truth to the artist and to the audience, who are viewing/ listening to a work of art through the artist’s perspective. So yes, we can see A truth, but it is not THE truth. A truth is only true to a certain group of people, THE truth is universal and does not exist.

“Sometimes lies are more dependable than the truth.” – Orson Scott Card

A true artist utilizes lying to communicate truth. The debate on feeling “truth” when viewing a work of art is an argument on the means to achieving a goal. What is the goal of an artist? An artist must express an emotion, an idea, a thought, etc. using a medium of their preference. For example, imagine a war veteran giving an anecdote to an audience on the first time he was required use a firearm. His goal is to simulate and evoke the emotions he felt during that moment of his life. Yes, it is possible for the man to describe the past event as it actually happened and to tell “the truth.” But sometimes, this truth isn’t good enough. If he were to describe the event as it actually happened, he would fail to make the audience feel the same emotions that he once experienced. Therefore, he exaggerates many aspects of his story when talking to the audience. He might even make up a few aspects of the story altogether. He lies in order to effectively communicate his emotions to the audience; he “lies” to tell “the truth.”

Thus, what is truth? Is it the image of fading sunlight over a river seen in a painting? Or is it the raw emotion that the artist wanted to communicate to the viewer? Perhaps the artist saw a waterfall and felt that the emotions would be better translated to the viewer if he had painted a sunset instead. Indeed, the artist would be lying, but he would also be telling the truth. I believe that whenever I view a piece of art, indeed, I am seeing a lie. But when I view the artwork and am able to conjure the same emotion that the artist intended me to feel, I am feeling the truth.

When viewing a work of art, or listening to one, can we see the truth?  Can we feel it?

The truth is something that is different to each person. When two people tell the same story (and neither is making anything up), they both choose to include and exclude different details. While one may emphasize one instance in the story, the other may not see the importance in that instance and instead highlight another part. Both of these people are telling the “truth” and yet their truths are different. In art, the truth is up to interpretation. If the viewer manages to experience any bit of emotion put into the art, then the viewer has essentially seen the truth, or as much as it is possible to see.

Judging from this, the truth is, in fact, virtually nonexistent. Since the artist is not always going to be present to let the viewer know if the emotions felt are correct, there is no real way to tell if the truth has been seen. Thus, whatever each viewer feels is the truth to themselves and that is all that matters.

Art lies. Inspect this human, face contorting, robe rippling, hand rising. The human is stone, not flesh nor life nor gentle give that is the truth of man. Glance down this street, mark the sun creeping over the water between buildings on the left, about half as far as one can see. There is no street, only a lines of pigment and oil brushed on canvas. That house so far away remains four feet from where one stands to look, and that house so near does too. The far house in truth is larger than the near, yet perhaps an inch by two, while the other dominates a foot by half. Listen to the sorrow and the torment of this music. But the instruments and players are without distress. Follow the rise of this leader in his time two thousand fifty eight years before last Wednesday, and watch his fall by night. But this young man is no leader, this dilapidated stage no ancient kingdom, and this fall no longer than a day before another rise. Even when art has truth – a man did rule a kingdom, a soul once suffered loss, a street did stretch into the distance, a sun did rise, a face did cringe – it only lies the better. Mixed with its tricks of perspective and tone, these small truths  merely render the lie more convincing, like a half-truth told to calm an anxious parent. Even now I lie, when I say art, abstract idea it is, may lie or have or do.

Yet art is no half-truth to calm, it is a bold-faced lie to drudge up some part of the soul that hears or sees. It riles and worries and inspires. Great art lies to tell great truth. When a child lies to a mother, he hides something, but when an artist lies, she reveals something. A fraction of the rage, the peace, the pain, the loss humanity has faced in infinite ways, arranged in an elegant composite of one face or phrase, while directly untrue, divulges to the viewer something deeply true about himself.

1. When viewing a work of art, or listening to one, can we see

the truth?  Can we feel it?

Art may or may not represent truth. Even if it does represent ‘truth’, it represents the maker’s truth. For so many things in our lives, there is no one definitive truth. Math and science represent facts and truth; however,  some scientific theories might end up not being true at all, after it is disproved or replaced by another one.

Sometimes an artist’s ‘truth’ may resonate with us as we listen or look at it, then we might be able to feel it. Art can also distort or exaggerate the truth. Just like a caricature may be showing face characteristic the person has, but they are dramatized and even though the overall you will recognize the person in the caricature, he or she will not actually look like that. So whenever we look at any art, we also get the truth but through the eyes of the artist. Several artists may look at the same artist, but each one will also paint it a different way. They might each stress different features of colors of the sunset. Then there is also the interpretation of a work. So the “truth” intended in the art will get distorted several times in the process of creation and interpretation.