Art!

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

It is only a matter of acknowledging, also, if you are talking to somebody else, in which terms he or she is thinking now, so that one of you does not end up saying "oh, look how the chariot of the Sun descends today" and the other, mistaking the poetic language used by the other for lack of education (and seriously worried that his companion had missed several centuries of scientific discoveries), shouting "no, what are you saying, this is a big ball of hydrogen and helium!"

This makes me think of a part of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books about her young life as a pioneer. After her sister has gone blind and Laura is acting as her "eyes to the world," they go out for a walk on the prairie one fine spring day and nibble on some wild sorrel. Laura says that it "tastes like springtime," and her sister corrects her, saying that it really tastes a bit like lemon flavoring, and that people must always say precisely what they mean. Things like this occur more than once when Laura tries to describe something using words that convey more of what she feels about something she sees than give an accurate description of what is before her -- and she often doesn't know how to explain to her sister what she's trying to say.

That, I think, is rather like the difference between appreciating a work of art for the feelings it evokes in one rather than looking for the artist's intent. One is emotional; the other is intellectual. They can co-exist (despite Mary Ingalls' opinion ), and can, I believe, enhance one another. Not all artists have a specific intent in creating a work, beyond a desire to put an idea or image in their head into a form where others can see it, and thus can share it, but all Art does have something of its creator in it, even if it's merely in word choice or brush strokes. The worst stories and paintings and such are ones that follow an external formula for "how to write a story" or "how to make a painting" and have little of the artist's own feelings and thoughts in the work. There is a great deal of Tolkien's beliefs and feelings in his work, and there always has been. It can be appreciated on both thinking and feeling levels because he was a thinking and feeling person who wrote to appease his own sense of Art and not a predefined formula for how to write a book. If one wants to appreciate the beauty of the words without looking behind them for a larger meaning or intent, that's fine; and if one wants to go delving to see Tolkien the Author and his thoughts and beliefs peeping out through his words, that's fine, too.