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Full Idea
Ordinary people have almost no idea of what things really look like, so that the one standard that popular criticism applies to painting (whether it is like nature or not) is the one which most people are prevented frm applying properly.
Gist of Idea
Popular opinion favours realism, yet most people never look closely at anything!
Source
Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.29)
Book Ref
Fry,Roger: 'Vision and Design' [Penguin 1937], p.29
A Reaction
A nice remark, though there is a streak of Bloomsbury artistic snobbery running through Fry. Ordinary people recognise photographic realism, so they can study things closely either in the reality or the picture, should they so choose.
| 20423 | If graphic arts only aim at imitation, their works are only trivial ingenious toys [Fry] |
| 20424 | Imaginative life requires no action, so new kinds of perception and values emerge in art [Fry] |
| 20425 | In the cinema the emotions are weaker, but much clearer than in ordinary life [Fry] |
| 20426 | For pure moralists art must promote right action, and not just be harmless [Fry] |
| 20428 | Popular opinion favours realism, yet most people never look closely at anything! [Fry] |
| 20427 | Everyone reveals an aesthetic attitude, looking at something which only exists to be seen [Fry] |
| 20429 | Most of us are too close to our own motives to understand them [Fry] |
| 20430 | In life we neglect 'cosmic emotion', but it matters, and art brings it to the fore [Fry] |
| 20431 | Art needs a mixture of order and variety in its sensations [Fry] |
| 20433 | 'Beauty' can either mean sensuous charm, or the aesthetic approval of art (which may be ugly) [Fry] |
| 20432 | When viewing art, rather than flowers, we are aware of purpose, and sympathy with its creator [Fry] |