Heroique,
I'm not sure I agree with you about my post leaning heavily toward the Apollonian. I really believe that many of the basic elements of composition and colors of an image along with elements of melody, harmony timbre and rhythm (in the basic metric sense) in music, movement, gesture and pose in dance and vocal timbre in recited poetry and acting are things we respond to instinctively, at the level of the limbic system or even at a more visceral level with untempered emotional responses that are hard-wired into our brains by years of evolution. These responses are common to all humanity, as opposed to the intellectual and cultural elements of "higher" thought. Example: I read the fear, anger or warning in the tone of someone's voice, whether or not I understand the language. Much in music and the visual arts and dance is "wordless" and often relies heavily on our common instinctive responses to things as a means of communication. True, the organization of an image leans toward the Apollonian, as does form in music, but that element in a work of art that causes us to immediately catch our breath and gives us a thrill (say the monumental sweep of St. Peter's, or Beethoven's "three Gs and an E-flat" or the leap through the window at the beginning of Nijinsky's "Invitation to the Dance" choreography) has to be straight from Dionysus. Things like songs, program music, images with specific cultural and literary references, etc. incorporate even more Apollonian elements. Sure, Schubert songs have moving melodies, but one doesn't really get "Gretchen am Spinnrade" or "Erlkönig" until one understands the words.
Thus, a photograph can contain visual elements that immediately evoke a basic emotional response. These are not just things we recognize, but shapes, forms, repetitions of elements (aka "rhythm - more later), colors, etc. to which we instinctively respond. Overlaid on these are the more cultural, conscious and "intellectual" elements in the image: the things we recognize in societal and academic contexts, references to other art works or literature, the printed word, etc. The interplay can be extremely complex and also extremely rewarding.
I tend not to like dividing the world into polarities, however. For me, there are 50 shades of grey between Apollonian and Dionysian, not just a mix of the two pure elements in whatever proportions. We have complex responses that lie between the two extremes. Still, the concepts help us approach our complex responses and actions and are, therefore, useful - as long as we don't really believe that we or the world are really that simple (kind of like the Zone System...).
On to whether static art works have a temporal aspect.
Again, generalizations and oversimplifications make things easier to approach, but end up not being the whole picture. A piece of music, like a dance or a play, unfolds in time. It's elements are presented in a specified order in a calculated temporal juxtaposition to each other. Recapitulation in a symphony wouldn't be one without the exposition coming first; neither would the development be anything at all without the themes being elaborated on having been previously presented. And, that tonic chord at the end certainly doesn't belong anywhere else! The apprehension of musical form depends on our remembering what came before and only becomes perfectly clear when the repetition (or variation) occurs. One loves the opening themes of Beethoven's "Emperor" concerto, but isn't moved by the monumental architecture of the work until somewhere in the end of the last movement, when the whole construct becomes blazingly apparent in one instant of remembered themes from the previous movements. Time is thus an essential organizing element, upon which the composer relies for dramatic effect.
A painting, sculpture, structure or photograph exists in its entirety at a given instant. Sure, it takes time to view and appreciate all the elements in such a work, but, to an overwhelming extent, it is the viewer, not the artist, that is deciding on what to view when, in what order and for how long. We live in a temporal framework and our interaction with anything takes time. That's not really the same as structuring an artistic expression using time. Yes, there can be temporal elements in, say, architecture: you see the outside before the inside, the entrance before the back rooms, etc. but, for me at least, these elements are more spatially organized than temporally.
You ask, "are you saying, for example, that the rationally spaced columns of the Parthenon or the regular ripples in a sand dune or a pond have no temporal organization for the viewer?" I answer that you are confusing the analogous with the equivalent. "Rhythm" in visual art is simply the repetition of some same or similar visual element, be it columns, ripples or trees. But they really don't come one-after-the-other in time; they are all there all at the same time. It is just us that needs time to take them in and recognize the repetition. Music is different: Joe O'Hara said it more succinctly above: in music, "the composer is driving."
Nevertheless, the mere fact that we call such visual and spatial elements "rhythm" tends to support the cross-media connection that started this thread. There is, almost undoubtedly, some kind of connection deep in our minds. How far we want to carry the analogy is a matter of choice
Best,
Doremus
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Originally Posted by Doremus Scudder
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