Broadsheet

Two Lady Artists with Bees in Their Bonnets

09 April 2007

Jen Dalton said...: Since I'm not a painter, I think it would be dangerous for me to weigh in on this in any specific way.

But I have been thinking lately about how I can be moved to tears by art in other media (film, music, literature, and yes television but frankly I'm an easy weeper) in a way that fine art rarely affects me. Why is that? Fine art does not seem to inspire the same profound emotion (or is it more likely to be melodrama?) that these other more narrative-based media can elicit....; 12:27 PM
Susan Hamburger said...: I see your point, but I don't think being moved to tears is a measure of greatness. I have certainly seen great works of "static" art that took my breath away and the experience stayed with me for days. And the exception that proves the rule is those people you see sobbing in the Academia the first time they see the David. (ok, maybe that's an art-urban legend...)

But how many times have you seen a movie that made you cry and afterwards felt resentful that you had been so manipulated? I'm just sayin'; 10:14 AM
Anonymous said...: I started crying at an Agnes Martin show. The guard came over to me and when I told him they were just too beautiful, he told me he felt the same.

And when I saw Giotto's crucifixion in Arezzo, I felt awe, undiluted awe.

TV can make me cry but interestingly I don't "see" that moment years later. I do "see" the paintings which have touched me.; 11:23 AM