The aesthetic emotion we feel before a man-made object - such as the white bird with which I started - is a derivative of the emotion we feel before nature. The white bird is an attempt to translate a message received from a real bird. All the languages of art have been developed as an attempt to transform the instantaneous into the permanent. Art supposes that beauty in not an exception - is not in despite of - but is the basis for an order.
I think that what John Berger is trying to say is that art and nature are the primary basis for what should be utilized for, in our case, design.
I am probably going to have to re-read this one...
2 comments:
Hi Chad,
It's a complex essay - a while since I read it, but if I remember rightly Berger starts off by explaining why he turns down invitations to speak on the subject, which suggests he's aware of the difficulty of explaining what he wants to say.
I think that what Berger is trying to say is that our different traditions of art are all rooted in an act of faith. When faced with a glimpse of beauty in nature, we experience a moment of hope. In that moment, we feel that we are part of something larger than ourselves and that good is stronger than evil. Art, he argues, starts with an attempt to create a more lasting version of nature's fleeting moments of beauty. By doing so, we seem to say that we believe beauty to be more real than the hardships which make up the more obvious face of nature. (Obvious, at least, to those who live close to it.)
I hope that summary is useful - but I'm sure you're right that the best thing to do is re-read the essay! Anyway, thanks for prompting me to refresh my memory of it.
Dougald
Example of thid
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