Wednesday 2 March 2011

ABSTRACT CONTEMPLATION

That which is only there to be looked at – say, a beach or country scene – works as a view. That which has particular uses rarely if ever does. Therefore for a satisfactory desktop photo, to take a single example, one needs to avoid the utilitarian in favour of the purely aesthetic. This necessarily excludes women, for instance, insofar as they may exist, in the mind, as sexual objects and not simply as objects to be contemplated, like a seascape or distant mountain. I accept that one can swim in the sea and climb mountains, but that is not necessarily what one would wish to do the way one might wish to make love to a beautiful woman, assuming one is of a romantic disposition. ]

With a picture or photo of a particular woman there will always be a certain unease in the mind that arises from the general concept of women as being more than objects of contemplation. One cannot contemplate that which is fundamentally utile for long without succumbing to this ambivalence over the aesthetic viability of the object of contemplation, and such ambivalence makes for psychological restlessness and a desire to change objects, which, of course, can continue infinitum if one is lacking insight into the underlying cause of such a desire.


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