I've been wondering a little about how the name of an artwork can affect our perception of it.
Amidst doing some lazy research for my english essay, somehow I remembered Dali's "Hysterical and Aerodynamic Female Nude". It's a sculpture, but to be honest I don't recall much of the structure or anything other than the amazing name it got given by Dali.
A quick search on Google refreshes our memory:
Hysterical and Aerodynamic Feminine Nude - Woman on Rock (1934)
Does the title of an artwork count as part of the form or is it just an agreeable aspect? I suppose if all the artworks in the world were untitled they would lose their grandeur, or in some cases it could be enhanced?
I mentally experimented with Duchamp's famous work:
Marcel Duchamp - Fountain (1917)
Marcel Duchamp - Untitled (1917)
Marcel Duchamp - Nondescript urinal placed on a table and intended to piss off a bunch of uppity art critics. (1917)
After seeing my mental image materialise, it is pretty evident that the title of a work completely sets up the aesthetic experience of it, or does that experience, then, not count as aesthetic, since we've been corrupted by the title?
More often than not, where an artwork doesn't seem to make sense, I find myself scrambling to find the little descriptive card and the information I need to gather a judgment of it. Indeed, I now recall in the readings of an argument put forward that sometimes the viewer needs some empirical experience (e.g. knowledge regarding an art movement, or some specifics about the artist themselves). But Kant is quick to brush that off as 'agreeable'.
I disagree. Don't the specifics help heighten our judgment of the artwork?
Then again, they can lessen the judgment as well. I considered the work of Bacon, and when I saw his magnum opus, I didn't pay that much attention at first because I thought it was just a study. What a mean trick he did, naming his paintings 'Studies'!
I mentally experimented with Duchamp's famous work:
Marcel Duchamp - Fountain (1917)
Marcel Duchamp - Untitled (1917)
Marcel Duchamp - Nondescript urinal placed on a table and intended to piss off a bunch of uppity art critics. (1917)
After seeing my mental image materialise, it is pretty evident that the title of a work completely sets up the aesthetic experience of it, or does that experience, then, not count as aesthetic, since we've been corrupted by the title?
More often than not, where an artwork doesn't seem to make sense, I find myself scrambling to find the little descriptive card and the information I need to gather a judgment of it. Indeed, I now recall in the readings of an argument put forward that sometimes the viewer needs some empirical experience (e.g. knowledge regarding an art movement, or some specifics about the artist themselves). But Kant is quick to brush that off as 'agreeable'.
I disagree. Don't the specifics help heighten our judgment of the artwork?
Then again, they can lessen the judgment as well. I considered the work of Bacon, and when I saw his magnum opus, I didn't pay that much attention at first because I thought it was just a study. What a mean trick he did, naming his paintings 'Studies'!
Study after Velazquez' Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953)
The study was the real thing. But I had, ignorant of Bacon's background, already dismissed it as a predecessor to the 'real' thing. In the end that was his point - we are so affected by the names of the artwork that it clouds our judgment of the object.
Perhaps we'd be better off if all works were named Untitled, but what a pity that would be.
Perhaps we'd be better off if all works were named Untitled, but what a pity that would be.
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