Creative Writing as Dialectical Interplay: Multiple Viewings of a Painting

Abstract

As teach creative writing, attempt to have my students draw upon their own experiences, imaginations, memory, dreams, conversations, close friends, relatives, as well as their aesthetic environment for literary source material. For one two-week period, had my upper school students view a single painting, Picnic by Kier, and complete a rather elaborate process of literary transformation from brainstorming to final draft. hoped that all of their perceptions, as expressed in their writings, would add to depth and complexity of painting's being. wanted painting, as a result of their multiple viewings, to become as real and as close to them as a friend or relative might be. My approach to viewing a painting been influenced by aesthetic philosophy of Mikel Dufrenne. A brief summary of some of his terms and ideas, as elaborated in his massive book, The phenomenology of aesthetic experience, follows as a necessary background for discussion of my students' creative writing based on single painting. Dufrenne makes a distinction between a work of art and an aesthetic object. It is only as work is transformed through of spectator that becomes an aesthetic object. The spectator, I, initiates this transformation by approaching work of art with adherent reflection, submit myself to work instead of submitting to my jurisdiction, and allow work to deposit its meaning within (Dufrenne, 1973, p. 393). The spectator and work of art are inextricably bound to each other: the aesthetic object does not really belong to me unless belong to it (Dufrenne, p. 404). The aesthetic experience derived from of perception (Dufrenne, p. 92) has depth not only because unifies (me) but also because opens (me) up (Dufrenne, p. 405). The work of art can only be known as an aesthetic object, according to Dufrenne, through continuous dialectical interplay, that is, through a movement back and forth between 'critical' (shapes, colors, light, proportion: analytic) and 'adherent' (immersion, participation, emotion, feelings: nonanalytic) viewings. Through such a process, spectator transforms work of art into an aesthetic object. wanted students to experience painting, to move back and forth between their 'critical' and 'adherent' viewings, to put their thoughts down, at first, quickly and impulsively, and through a process of literary transformation culminating in their poems, to complete aesthetic cycle or journey that Dufrenne so elaborately talks about. Through their own dialectical interplay, they would transform work of art into an aesthetic object. wanted them to feel as if they had had an important role as co-creators with painter in actual painting of Picnic. wanted students to adhere to work, to submit to through their multiple viewings, to pay tribute to in their own poems, and finally, to experience freedom and openness possible through such a transformation. Through dialectical interplay, they, as spectators, became inextricably bound to work of art and original creator, painter. The products of that process, poems, when read and shared, enriched and extended students' own separate moments of epiphany, setting in motion infinite possibilities for other spectators, future readers of their poems, to experience their own dialectical interplay and also become creators. The following poems are students' tributes to painting. am convinced that all these perceptions and images add to depth and complexity of painting. Through their writing, students brought about a metamorphosis in painting and themselves; they achieved authenticity or aesthetic experience. They found that through their creative poems, painting became close to them as a friend, enemy, or relative. Because they recognized painting as being, would be forever open to further examination, probing, and questioning. It would never cease to grow, develop, and change as long as they viewed and paid tribute to it. One girl began her poem, I am standing in a gallery, alone, painting and me. Certainly, an existential presencing. A second girl attempted to pay tribute to painting of a naked woman hesitantly reaching for a bowl of red plums or apples by accurately describing psychological uncertainty expressed in visual portrayal of woman's face, hand, and body when tempted by fruit.