Art Objects: A Critical Analysis
Jeannette Winterson is on a journey into finding out why a painting jolted such unease in herself. What she sees at first is "a Renaissance Beauty, but the fearful and compelling thing about the picture was it's modernity" (Winterson 3). She can understand books, even when she doesn't know them. What scared Winters is not the juxtaposition of context with modern art, she was uncomfortable with comparing herself to "the kind of ignorance that I despair of in others" (Winterson 4).
With that, Winterson decides to educate herself on Art Objects and climb out of her pit of ignorance. "I was dog-dumb" she writes with self-deprecation, which I find funny and am compelled to root for her in her intrepid vast journey (Winterson 4). And then I start to feel sorry for her, as she pines for "A person dead or alive with whom I could talk things over" (Winterson 5). I get the sense that she is lonely, searching for a mentor to understand art.
"I have to work for art if I want art to work on me." Like finding a therapist, she opens her mind's eye to the writings of Roger Fry who's "unashamed of emotion" is what she needed (Winterson 6). Yes! With openness and honesty. I'm in love with her analogy and success of her self-imposed studentship that performs a figure of eight, as it describes her journey back and forth rather than concentrically honing in on one target.
The circuit of her path of learning changes how she is seeing, as she is learning to relate to art. She becomes annoyed with the superficial presentations of art and incites “Where is the tea-room/ toilet/ gift shop?” (Winterson 7). She is bitching at the lack of willingness to appreciate art by institutionalized pedagogy. She takes a stab at those that call art lovers elitist by paraphrasing art-pessimists “Why can’t they all speak English?”, (Winterson 16) which is a great irony because “a society in denial will not find much use for it. [art]” (Winterson 11) For those that cannot understand art, will not look into the mirror and see what it gives back to them.
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