In Defence of Simple Experiences

“One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.”

– Oscar Wilde

A few days ago, I was chatting with a friend about a painting. My friend, like me, doesn’t have any art background. When we were discussing the beauty of the painting, he told me – with a tone that implied his inferiority – that his partner (she’s an architect) sees a lot more and absorbs a lot more in a painting. According to my friend, his partner sees symbols, histories, hidden messages, etc in a painting therefore her experience is superior. I told my friend that simplicity is a virtue as well, stating the following two reasons.

The first reason is the same reason that Nietzsche criticized Socrates. Nietzsche sees Socrates as a symbol, as a point in time in which Apollo (God of reason and order) overcame Dionysus (God of passion, celebration and chaos). Nietzsche saw Socrates as a point in time in which reason dominated passion and that is the birth of our tragedy! That’s why Nietzsche invites us to embrace Dionysus, to embrace that part of ourselves that loves to dance to rhythms without thinking, that part of ourselves that absorbs beauty as a whole. 

The second reason: the inexplicable beauty in a piece of art. If we look at the phenomenon of observing a piece of art from a Lacanian perspective, there are at least three types of communications or dialectics at work:

• Communication between the consciousness of the observer and the consciousness of the artist
• Communication between the unconscious of the observer and consciousness of the artist (or vice versa)
• Communication between the unconscious of both parties

I want to claim that it is the communication between the unconscious of the artist and the unconscious of the observer that can bring a sense of awe. I’m talking about that enchanting and magical experience of being fully captivated by a piece of art and not being able to put the experience in any words. It is as if the two souls encounter each other, and due to the alchemy between them, something profound, in the context of meaning, is born.