UFRGS 2019

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There really is no such thing as Art. There are
only artists. Once these were men who took
coloured earth and roughed out the forms of
a bison on the wall of a cave; today some buy
[5] their paints, and design posters for hoardings;
they did and do many other things. There is
no harm in calling all these activities art ……..
we keep in mind that such a word may mean
very different things in different times and
[10] places, and as long as we realize that Art with
a capital A has no existence. ……… Art with a
capital A has come to be something of a
bogey and a fetish. You may crush an artist
by telling him that what he has just done may
[15] be quite good in its own way, only it is not
'Art'. And you may confound anyone enjoying
a picture by declaring that what he liked in it
was not the Art ……… something different.
Actually I do not think that there are any
[20] wrong reasons for liking a statue or a picture.
Someone may like a landscape painting
because it reminds him of home, or a portrait
because it reminds him of a friend. There is
nothing wrong with that. All of us, when we
[25] see a painting, are bound to be reminded of a
hundred-and-one things which influence our
likes and dislikes. As long as these memories
help us to enjoy what we see, we need not
worry. It is only when some irrelevant
[30] memory makes us prejudiced, when we
instinctively turn away from a magnificent
picture of an alpine scene because we dislike
climbing, that we should search our mind for
the reason for the aversion which spoils a
[35] pleasure we might otherwise have had. There
are wrong reasons for disliking a work of art.
Most people like to see in pictures what they
would also like to see in reality. This is quite a
natural preference. We all like beauty in
[40] nature, and are grateful to the artists who
have preserved it in their works. Nor would
these artists themselves have rebuffed us for
our taste. When the great Flemish painter
Rubens made a drawing of his little boy, he
[45] was surely proud of his good looks. He
wanted us, too, to admire the child. But this
bias for the pretty and engaging subject is apt
to become a stumbling-block if it leads us to
reject works which represent a less appealing
[50] subject. The great German painter Albrecht
Dürer certainly drew his aging mother with as
much devotion and love as Rubens felt for his
chubby child. His truthful study of careworn
old age may give us a shock which makes us
[55] turn away from it — and yet, if we fight
against our first repugnance we may be richly
rewarded, for Dürer's drawing in its
tremendous sincerity is a great work. In fact,
we shall soon discover that the beauty of a
[60] picture does not really lie in the beauty of its
subject-matter.

Adaptado de: GOMBRICH, E. H. The Story of Art. London / New York: Phaidon, 2007. p. 15-18.