Try it sometime. You’re not just looking at a pretty picture, you’re looking at something someone poured emotion into and intended to draw out various emotions in you, either with colour choice, aggression or softness, framing, and so on.
For some, unfortunately, all of what you just said might be summarized as woo or mysticism because it isn't measured in a beaker in a lab.
Logical positivism, the philosophical roots of much of that arrogance, can't itself be measured in a beaker in a lab either but it keeps showing up like a recurring wart anyway.
It is woo but that doesn't make it not real? We are emotional animals and all of the above are emotional experiences. If they really wanted to break it down into some sort of laboratory understanding of the process it is a bunch of synapses firing off in the brain mixed with all the bodily chemicals and hormones and organs elsewhere in the body firing off their various influences and also being influenced by those synapses. It's real to the extent that it's an emotional reaction and experience we are capable of having to art, to history, to colour, to writing, even to specific arrangements of textures.
I've seen a few of Rothko's paintings up close and what struck me when I was standing and taking them in were the textures, these are not just images they are 3d objects and everything about them from the speed of a brush stroke to the layers imparts different feelings, you can see a fast aggressive stroke, you can see thick layered up mountains of paint, licks and crevices and blobs as much as 1 to 2cms deep at times. Your brain starts building patterns, trying to understand the image in front of it, you experience so much more than just "pretty picture".
One of the things many people need is to have this taught to them, I think part of being able to understand and engage with art is being able to take this in. For some they simply do not have the thought, they can't engage with the art at an experiential level because they've never been shown how, because ultimately doing so is an inward thing engaged by a thought process. The viewer needs to fire off the first synapses to get the entire system firing correctly.
For some, unfortunately, all of what you just said might be summarized as woo or mysticism because it isn't measured in a beaker in a lab.
Logical positivism, the philosophical roots of much of that arrogance, can't itself be measured in a beaker in a lab either but it keeps showing up like a recurring wart anyway.
It is woo but that doesn't make it not real? We are emotional animals and all of the above are emotional experiences. If they really wanted to break it down into some sort of laboratory understanding of the process it is a bunch of synapses firing off in the brain mixed with all the bodily chemicals and hormones and organs elsewhere in the body firing off their various influences and also being influenced by those synapses. It's real to the extent that it's an emotional reaction and experience we are capable of having to art, to history, to colour, to writing, even to specific arrangements of textures.
I've seen a few of Rothko's paintings up close and what struck me when I was standing and taking them in were the textures, these are not just images they are 3d objects and everything about them from the speed of a brush stroke to the layers imparts different feelings, you can see a fast aggressive stroke, you can see thick layered up mountains of paint, licks and crevices and blobs as much as 1 to 2cms deep at times. Your brain starts building patterns, trying to understand the image in front of it, you experience so much more than just "pretty picture".
One of the things many people need is to have this taught to them, I think part of being able to understand and engage with art is being able to take this in. For some they simply do not have the thought, they can't engage with the art at an experiential level because they've never been shown how, because ultimately doing so is an inward thing engaged by a thought process. The viewer needs to fire off the first synapses to get the entire system firing correctly.