The article below is a partial excerpt from an article with the same title in the (still mostly unedited) manuscript of my upcoming book, Be Extraordinary: Philosophical Advice for Photographic (and Other) Artists, now available for pre-order.
What usually destroys the experience of a photograph is to start criticizing it.
—Minor White
Critics have always been people less susceptible than other men to the contagion of art. For the most part they are able writers, educated and clever, but with their capacity of being infected by art quite perverted or atrophied. And therefore their writings have always largely contributed, and still contribute, to the perversion of the taste of that public which reads them and trusts them.
—Leo Tolstoy
In the age of social media, it has become a habit among artists, especially photographers, to view artworks (their own and others’) with the mindset of critics. Instead of aiming to behold art with the goal of experiencing elevated, reverent feelings: to find meaning or solace in it, or to become liberated by it from mundane preoccupations, viewers instead become preoccupied with things like subject matter, whether or not certain “rules” were followed, flawed or commendable use of certain techniques. Some intuitively want to know what tools the artist used, or whether the rendition matches “real” appearances, before (or without) first opening themselves to the work’s emotional effect.
While these aspects of the work may be considered important in some contexts, often missed by such attitudes is the one most important context: the inner, emotional, cognitive experience of engaging fully with the artwork for its primary function, which is (paraphrasing the lyrical characterization of music, according to Berthold Auerbach), to “wash away from the soul, the dust of everyday life.”
If you look at any work of art with the primary interest of analyzing it objectively as a critic would, you unwittingly and ironically deny yourself the greatest benefit that you may gain from it: the subjective experience of becoming, as Susan Sontag put it, “involved with a work of art,” which she described further as “the experience of detaching oneself from the world.” This detachment results not only in an emotional experience as we behold the work, but also (again in Sontag’s words) “returns us to the world in some way more open and enriched.”
My advice: make yourself conscious of the temptation to analyze works of art before first experiencing them intuitively and emotionally and assimilating their meaning and effect. Don’t allow your attention to be hijacked by irrelevant details and technical minutiae that may deny you the deeper rewards of experiencing an artwork as a source of meaning: as an aesthetic experience. As philosopher Roger Scruton put it (expressing the essence of what Kant meant by disinterestedness): “What demarcates aesthetic interest from other sorts is that it involves the appreciation of something for its own sake.”
Becoming mired in technical aspects of an artwork may serve you well in your early attempts at making your own art: during the (hopefully short) period when honing your own skills may legitimately take precedence over aesthetic experience. However, for the sake of your own joy in experiencing art, strive to move beyond this stage as quickly as possible.
“There is no greater obstacle to the enjoyment of great works of art than our unwillingness to discard habits and prejudices,” wrote art historian E.H. Gombrich. Another historian, Renaissance scholar Walter Pater, wrote, “For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.” If viewing art does not reward your moments with such high qualities, perhaps it may be time to discard some habits and prejudices.
