Peter Schjeldahl's
reflections on art under social distancing (and closed museums) offer a
wonderful interpretation of the difference between seeing Velázquez's "Las
Meninas" in December in the Prado and thinking about it now, "from lingering exhilaration to vertiginous
melancholy." But
he begins by dismissing virtual tours as "amorphous disembodiments of
aesthetic experience". This makes art something only for those who are
able to travel to see the originals, when not everyone can travel to Madrid. And
even Schjeldahl's reconsideration of the work now isn't based on an "embodied"
experience of the work anyway. Reception "at a distance" (including
my reception of Velázquez through Schjeldahl) is a necessary part of aesthetic
experience. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 23 April)
See also my
essay on Jan Svenungsson, "Abstract Reception"
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