A visual work of art does never produce its entire effect all at once.
First there is a general, global impression created into the mind of the
audience, an aesthetic reflex. Even before we can understand the whole
picture, we can sense a certain presence and a certain action beyond the
visible realm.
Painting has its special kind of emotions. There is a certain impression
resulting from a certain specific arrangement of colors, of lights, of
shadows, etc. It is what we might actually call the music of the
painting. Even before knowing what the painting
represents, we get caught into this magical accord. Baudelaire used to
say about Delacroix that from a distance that is too long for us to be
able to analyze and decipher the subject, a Delacroix painting has
already made its wonderful impression on us, be it happy or melancholy.
Maurice Denis also draws our attention upon the fact that when we enter a
beautiful cathedral we feel overwhelmed by an irresistible excitement
even before studying its architecture, its harmonious assemble made of
windows, good proportions, ornaments, height, well-chosen colors, etc.
We are all familiar with the privileged freshness and the fascinating
power of the very first glance. A singing voice can touch us before our
fully perceiving the melody or the musical details of the piece of art.
And poetry also touches us quite in a similar way, if we consider the
fact that it starts by a musical impression, by plunging us into an
atmosphere of rhythm and sonority. We usually search for the meaning of
this rhythmical movement and composition, to which we like to abandon
ourselves. And we look for the development of its meaning in the
presentation that is given to our voice and ears. Each stage of this
psycho-sensorial display seems to contain all the others so that in the
end, we may find the whole work of art standing there in front of us.
Delacroix says that this can be most true if the poem touches us deeply.
The lyrical poet can suggest to us his attitude by means of his
composition, by the choice and processing of his rhythms and sonorities,
so that all of a sudden, we find ourselves where we ought to be. Or at
least that is the feeling we have. Time and space are strongly related
and they are simultaneously displayed in front of the consciousness they
are carried by, since time implies the differentiation of its own
moments. So the time of art’s aesthetic contemplation is the time which
is built, stylized, the docile, rhymed, spiritual kind of time. Art
begins to liberate us from the confused time, from the anguish and
boredom of time, always too short, always too long.
Art can also open up to us extraordinary depths. Time and space grow
deeper; the feeling of existence is intensified by art. In certain
almost supernatural spiritual states of mind, the deepness of life is
revealed to us through the show displayed before our eyes, hence the
impression of time standing still, of eternity. Delacroix asserts the
idea that eternity is the time of ecstasy. When we have an overwhelming
artistic perception, we can lose any notion of time and space, they do
not matter anymore, all that counts are the beatitude and supremacy of
the moments of perceiving such amazing work of art. Thus, art can do the
miracle of setting us free from time and space limitations imposed to
us by life itself.
Maine de Biran once said that a bunch of violets contains the fragrance
of several springs. Beauty is self-sustaining but it is also rich in
elements that are a stranger to its essence, to its nature. A beautiful
work of art has no limits of meaning. It is surrounded by all that it
used to be, all that it ought to be and all the "ghosts" of what it
could have been but which the strict, limiting form calls forth and
chases away at the same time. Delacroix stresses the idea that the
aesthetic impression is always emotionally overcharged and
multidetermined. But a powerful spiritual presence is not necessarily a
declaration of identity.
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