Feelings Archives

How Green is Your Garden?

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Michael Stiefel

Sitting in my garden, seeing all the different shades of green, reminds me of the poverty of language to describe our feelings. The green of the evergreen trees is not Continue ReadingHow Green is Your Garden?→

Understanding Art is Difficult: A Picture is Not Worth a Thousand Words

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Michael Stiefel

Seeing this in a museum what would you think it was? Seeing it while driving, you would immediately watch for an intersection ahead. If you never saw a car in Continue ReadingUnderstanding Art is Difficult: A Picture is Not Worth a Thousand Words→

Why I Hate Most Art Criticism: Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament and Music

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Michael Stiefel

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions…” David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature Emotions first, cognition second is the best way to perceive art, Continue ReadingWhy I Hate Most Art Criticism: Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament and Music→

Nietzsche, “Beyond Good and Evil”

"…just as little do we see a tree exactly and completely, in terms of leaves, twigs, color and form; it is so very much easier for us simply to improvise some approximation of a tree. Even in the midst of the strangest experiences we still do the same: we make up the major part of the experience, and can scarcely be forced not to contemplate some event as its “inventors”. All this means: from time immemorial we are – accustomed to lying. Or to put it more virtuously and hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly: one is much more of an artist than one knows."

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