A second attempt in deconstructing Attractiveness

James Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, 1875

"...In 1877 the critic John Ruskin denounced Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875; Detroit Institute of Arts), accusing him of "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face", and Whistler sued him for libel the following year. He won the action, but the awarding of only a farthing's damages with no costs was in effect a justification for Ruskin. Potential patrons were repelled by the negative publicity surrounding the case, and the expense of the trial led to Whistler's bankruptcy in 1879..."

Heh, what a loser.

Anyway, to me, the painting looks like a depiction of a campfire, with burning embers floating in the twilight. I wonder how many different inter-subjective perspectives are out 'there' for a viewer to interpret. I can't see it through any other perspectives though. In such situations, I wonder if it is the content of the art that has become the central value, or if it is the unique relationship between the gazer and the gazed that has become the centrality of the aesthetic substance, or maybe the gazer is just plain myopic and boring, or maybe the sweetness and the lightness of the gazed is astoundingly deep, mysterious and beautiful. It is quite comforting to stand there looking at the same painting for eons though, other paintings just ain't aesthetic or meaningful enough. This is either a cause for joy or a cause for misery, or maybe it is a bit of both. In the words of Soren Kierkegaard, the conflation of joy and misery, in the prolonged agony of standing firm in his aesthetic faith, has consequently transformed the gazer into the "knight of infinite resignation". In my own words, he is therefore a hero or a real loser.

Hmmm... ha, I think I should stick with writing ps essays, writing essays on art just isn't my cup of tea.