Creation and Appreciation

I'm returning to my post Read This! Which was an exhortation to read an article in The New Republic titled:
On the Asymmetry of Creation and Appreciation

If you are at all interested in nature and the appreciation of it, you should read the article just to hear the author's descriptions of her delight in a visit to the botanical gardens. If you are philosophically inclined, it conjures interesting juxtapositions of creation and appreciation of works of art (and nature), if you just like good stories than I think this is one. There is much more in this article, which is why I liked it so much. Lots of blog fodder there.

This post won't be heavy on theology, simply because I feel like writing but have no particular inspiration. I suspect this will be meandering and obtuse, but at the very least read the above article and make your own impressions.

The first thing that grabbed me was the idea that an artist often spends much more time creating something than a single person spends appreciating it. For most artists this is true - I suspect there are artists that simply create for the joy of it. I know that I tend to create because I enjoy creating. If others enjoy it, even better , but often it is only I that appreciate the work.

For more famous artists, the appreciation of a work by a single person rarely matches the intensity, time and effort put into the creation. I think, however, about the collective enjoyment or appreciation of that work and come to the conclusion that the inverse is true. Surely the collective amount of time and appreciation of, say, Mozart's Requiem far outstrips Mozart's input - at least his quantifiable input. Whether anyone truly "gets" what Mozart intended is another question. As the author of the article posits, the appreciation and understanding can only be a shadow of the true intention of the artist. The meaning is diluted or lost, simply because we cannot be in that place of creative ecstacy, of divine inspiration, of myriad ideas coalescing into a final piece.

I think of God understanding His plan for His creation. As He creatively speaks it into being (and it was good) He enjoys the process, but He knows that He wants others to appreciate it and He wants others to share with Him. So humans are created and Adam tends the garden and marvels at what is around Him, Eve is created and Adam is enamoured. Together, they walk with God in that perfect place in the beginning (and it was very good).

This path leads me to consider the collective nature of appreciation and enjoyment. I may come across something beautiful or engaging, but rarely will I keep that to myself - I must share it (consider the above article!) How much better is enjoying something beautiful, interesting, great with others rather than alone? I suspect that is why we as humans are drawn to perform for others and attend those performances. Think about concerts, plays, movies - even books and television are collective experiences. Mass publishing for mass audiences. Enjoying something together profoundly changes the experience - it is deeper, more complex.

I suspect that the effect is bidirectional as well. Somehow our viewing of the Mona Lisa changes it from what Da Vinci painted into what we imagine he painted. Is the Mona Lisa even the same painting? Perhaps this is one measure of a great creation - it is living. It affects those around it and in turn is affected. It may be physically unchanged, yet its meaning grows and moves. Perhaps it has the same effect on its observers throughout time, but that effect is manifested differently.

At this point I'm simply guessing, wondering, rambling. But it does seem to indicate that a qualitative measure of something must not only be in the thing itself, but in those that the thing affects. I wonder - if someone created the greatest work of art ever and no one ever saw it, would the work actually be great? Granted, there's a built in tautology here, but conceptually, you get the idea.

I'm out of time, but you can make the connections to quantum physics (observing something causes it to be, reducing the number of possible states from infinite to one) and anything else that strikes your fancy. There's more to be said for sure. Read the article - see what you think.