It might be well-argued that every art form is about seeing.  In photography and video, or any visual arts for that matter, the connection to sight is obvious.  The photograph is the medium and the message, containing the objects that the artist chose to see, as well as reflecting the inner vision that guided the impulse to frame the objects.  Other art forms contain these elements as well, where the writer is engaged in a process of painting a very selective version of reality, where what is contained is as essential as what is left out.

This is more apparent in the work of some artists than it is in others.  Some filmmakers, like Godard and the French New Wave, were entirely conscious of how the camera selects and negates, where the film is a relic of everything and nothing all at the same time.  Likewise, photographers like Diane Arbus force the viewer to consider why this particular reality is being considered above all others.  Well-constructed works of art always cause a shift in the vision of the viewer, where the world beyond the moviehouse or the gallery can’t be seen in the same way, not quite, at least for a little while.

Giacometti was one of the great modernist artists, who opened up the notion of seeing in an entirely new way.  His haunting sculptures of lean figures suggest an imminent mortality, depicting human beings in the middle of a precarious journey.  These figures, although they certainly bear resemblance to images of people in the midst of the greatest sufferings of the 20^th century, are not meant to comment on the events of the time.  He was engaged in trying to depict things as they were seen, and focused his obsessive gaze on the act of seeing.  Their thinness, then, comes as a result of his capture of their movements as caught by a mortal eye, and in these acts, they become immortal.

The act of seeing, then, is always something that approaches the sublime.  At a purely anatomical level, it is simply the reflection of light and color playing against the muscles of the eye.  On a deeper level, however, there is always something else present.  The root of vision is connected to sight just as much as it is connected to knowing.  This means that the artist capturing the object, whether on film, or in words, or in a movement, is engaged with something they know, or something that makes them curious, and the art object is a remnant of this process, inviting the viewer to see, and to know, in the same way.

Related posts:

1. Damrong Wong-Uparaj: Thai Artist-Philosopher

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 19th, 2011 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.