What do Stars and Stripes Forever, the Mona Lisa, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” all have in common? Well, for one thing, they’re some of the familiar workhorses of our culture: things that lots of people automatically think of when they hear the word “art.” Another thing they have in common is their striking and immediately obvious accessibility. Both a toe-tapping march and the first four ominous notes of Beethoven’s Fifth are riveting, unambiguous, and above all memorable. If people don’t know the title of the painting “American Gothic” they nevertheless recognize Wood’s regionalist portrait of a dour man holding a pitchfork standing beside his daughter.
…It’s tempting, and, I dare say, natural, for an audience to favor the familiar and accessible over the unknown. Even the most seasoned patron has certain works that he loves to hear performed, or certain paintings or sculptures to which she goes immediately upon entering the museum. If anything exploits this tendency, it’s Hollywood. The predilection of studios for sequels, not having to make the audience learn new characters—sometimes not even a new plot—is an extreme form of this. It hints at the way our broader culture subtly pushes us to slide art over into the pure entertainment column, or further still, into mere distraction.
The way many people seem to think of movies is that if we’re not being entertained and distracted, and more over, in a way that’s immediately comprehensible, well then we’re not being served. “Thinking is boring,” a New York Times film critic wrote sarcastically a couple of years ago in a condemnation of a typical formulaic Hollywood blockbuster, the hallmark of the summer movie season that is indeed upon us now.
As an antidote to this attitude we have art. All art need not be familiar. In fact, it should not be: it doesn’t work that way. Art’s purpose is to open us to something, not make us closed off and complacent. When dealing with a work of art that’s unfamiliar to you, author C.S. Lewis proffers this advice: “Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears. Take in what is there and give no thought to what might have been there or what is somewhere else.” A shade bossy, perhaps. While I might have tried to phrase it a bit differently, it’s nevertheless a pretty good course of action. Give no thought to what might have been there or what is somewhere else, just have a honest reaction to that which is in front of you. And, as critic Peter Schjeldahl says, then hang around and have another.