Critical Blog #1 – How Art and Literature Interact in a Person’s Experience

There are various creative outlets in which a person can showcase their insights of their personal experience and the world around them. Art and Literature are two different and distinct examples of this. For literature, it welcomes people to stay in touch with their emotions through words and literary techniques. Words have the power to move an individual greatly, as it’s the universal way in which a lot of us communicate. In saying this, Art showcases a visual form in which meaning can be communicated. Using different mediums such as oil paintings or installations show unconventional ways of communicating emotions or experience. Something to take note of when describing the purposes of both Art and Literature is that they’re both entail a high degree of creativity and have the ability to project different meanings to different people. Both forms can be taken subjectively, inviting more than one perspective to be projected onto them.

We often forget that every individual has a different and unique configuration of their psyche. No two minds are the same, nor can they have the same processing mechanisms. When an author writes, they’re very much aware that the work they produce may have several different meanings in comparison to the one it was intended for. I personally see more individuality in the literary form of poetry, due to the open ended structure it usually carries. The same applies for Art; an artists intention of producing work is for the viewer to find their own meaning, based off different aspects of the medium they may be viewing. What does this mean for a Person’s Experience?

Whether you’re walking through an art gallery or a bookstore, usually an individual’s intention is to immerse themselves with the stories and feelings of others. We often do this because it reassures us that we’re very much in touch with our emotions and memories; not alone in our thoughts. Both Art and Literature show a deeper perspective of life, sometimes displaying an augmented reality which cannot be tangible. It opens the flood gates of feelings, allowing oneself to be immersed in a whole new realm of emotion and thought. Although we don’t know authors and artists personally, it is something about the way in which they represent their work that makes it feel so personal to us. We as the readers and viewers draw onto our own personal experiences and create an appetite of closeness to someone else’s story. In essence, it’s a moving experience to read or analyse something that has no attachments to your life, and yet you can read in-between the lines, pull apart at the words or color choices and reveal a connection to your life.

Both Art and Literature are two surreal ways of unifying individuals within society. Although two different means of communicating, they both can make experiences so personal and yet have a sense of togetherness with the wider community. Time cannot alter the affects of Art and Literature, as they’ve been around for centuries and prove to touch the personal lives of spectators for years to come.