A central issue in any craft that aspires to art is the rhetoric, which is the means of communicating a thought or feeling that is more an experience than a thought. Generally speaking, rhetoric in art deals with the structure of the work. In music, for example, random sounds do not communicate anything; at minimum there must be change over time. What kind of change over what period of time determines the rules to be followed. No communication will take place if no one else is around who cares to decipher the regulated sounds. Even if someone does care, if the rules impose a completely foreign pattern to the sounds, no communication will take place. This is why during the flowering of instrumental music in Baroque Era composers looked to the spoken language as a place to begin the conversation: Musica Poetica was born; the studied interrelationship of music, rhetoric, and oratory.
If expanded to a more general application, this idea, that art must have sufficient structure to communicate whatever it is the artist is trying to communicate, is relevant to all fields of art. Regardless of the type of art being considered, whether a composition is “formal” or not communicates a certain range of possible ideas. Combined with some common experience it might suggest elevation of the common to the formal or ridicule of the formal–more knowledge is needed to determine the true intent of the artist. Nonetheless, the structure has allowed the conversation to begin.
Art is more than a logical conversation, nonetheless, the rhetoric of the art can form the scaffolding on which better appreciation of the work can be obtained and enjoyed. Where the artist honors his wider audience, he chooses a rhetoric that is more available to it, where he wishes it to be more exclusive he will make it more complex and theoretical. Hence most people find Classical Era music more accessible than Baroque, which they likely find more accessible that most Twentieth Century Concert music. The situation is similar in photography; the more background information one needs to enjoy a photograph the less accessible it will be. For example, a Cindy Sherman “portrait” requires more awareness of Postmodern photography than an Ansel Adams’ photograph requires knowledge of Modernist Photography because Modernist Photography’s aesthetic is intentionally more accessible. Regardless, understanding the rhetoric of a work of Art opens doors, minds and hearts.
No. 45: The Scaffolding of Art
A central issue in any craft that aspires to art is the rhetoric, which is the means of communicating a thought or feeling that is more an experience than a thought. Generally speaking, rhetoric in art deals with the structure of the work. In music, for example, random sounds do not communicate anything; at minimum there must be change over time. What kind of change over what period of time determines the rules to be followed. No communication will take place if no one else is around who cares to decipher the regulated sounds. Even if someone does care, if the rules impose a completely foreign pattern to the sounds, no communication will take place. This is why during the flowering of instrumental music in Baroque Era composers looked to the spoken language as a place to begin the conversation: Musica Poetica was born; the studied interrelationship of music, rhetoric, and oratory.
If expanded to a more general application, this idea, that art must have sufficient structure to communicate whatever it is the artist is trying to communicate, is relevant to all fields of art. Regardless of the type of art being considered, whether a composition is “formal” or not communicates a certain range of possible ideas. Combined with some common experience it might suggest elevation of the common to the formal or ridicule of the formal–more knowledge is needed to determine the true intent of the artist. Nonetheless, the structure has allowed the conversation to begin.
Art is more than a logical conversation, nonetheless, the rhetoric of the art can form the scaffolding on which better appreciation of the work can be obtained and enjoyed. Where the artist honors his wider audience, he chooses a rhetoric that is more available to it, where he wishes it to be more exclusive he will make it more complex and theoretical. Hence most people find Classical Era music more accessible than Baroque, which they likely find more accessible that most Twentieth Century Concert music. The situation is similar in photography; the more background information one needs to enjoy a photograph the less accessible it will be. For example, a Cindy Sherman “portrait” requires more awareness of Postmodern photography than an Ansel Adams’ photograph requires knowledge of Modernist Photography because Modernist Photography’s aesthetic is intentionally more accessible. Regardless, understanding the rhetoric of a work of Art opens doors, minds and hearts.