“Nature” keeps astounding us. We’re romantics, really, that is, romantics in the sense of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century poets and painters. Sunsets can mesmerize even the most hardened of individuals with varied skies of pinks, oranges, blues, whites, purples, and rainbows that follow the passing of an evening squall line.
A magnificent sky isn’t new for any of us, so why are we so caught up when we see one? The answer is twofold (at least): however similar they might be, no two magnificent skies are the same, and brain chemistry turns on at the sights. In the days between exceptionally mesmerizing skies we forget the wonder as we focus on the details of our ground-based lives.
As brilliant as we all like to think we are, we are, as we look at the sky, like Benjy in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury or like some dog, trying to understand what we see. For mentally-challenged Benjy, “The moonlight came down the cellar stairs.” The sky appears; we had nothing to do with its appearance, its fading, or its disappearance. It envelopes us, cascades upon us. Independent of any of our actions or thoughts, an amazing sky appears, fades, and disappears. It teases us briefly, gives the brain an amusement-park ride, and then as unexpectedly and inexplicably as it “came down the cellar stairs,” it leaves. In its absence, we tend to the ordinary, often monochromatic dullness of everydayness.
So, we are re-astounded by the show that occasionally comes to us from the sky. Experience tells us that we can’t, save by photograph or art, capture the moment in all its glory in our otherwise occupied minds. We never see those representations the same way we see the original.
What are we to do with all representations? Art of any kind an effort to capture the elusive and temporary. But it never quite does that. There’s always a difference between real sunset and a photo or painting of it, always something missing in representation. To escape the disparity between representation and reality, some simply immerse themselves in the former. For some, art is the reality.
Maybe we long for the totally immersive art of a Disney-World ride, for movement, smells, and aspersions as we sit before films like those of Disney's Flight of Passage or Soarin’. Amusement park engineer/artists have attempted to capture that kind of reality since the rise of kinetic art. Yes, such moving art enthralls us for the moment, but we always exit by saying “It was so much like reality.” The caveat being “like reality” or “like being there.” But we know that unless we dissociate our reason from our emotion that it isn’t really like reality. Something is always missing. The reality of representation is never the reality of reality.
Unlike knowing where or when we will experience a similitude, knowing where or when a sunset might astound us is impossible. The wonder we find in a particular sky is unpredictable and peculiar to a place and time not of our choosing. That might indicate that unexpectedness is a key to stimulating the brain and forcing wonder on the mind. It might also indicate that even in seeing something similar, we marvel at differences within a similarity. Does that strike a chord with you when you consider times you have rediscovered friendship, desire, or love?
Certainly, none of us wants to think of ourselves as mere biochemical machines; yet, we can’t deny the Sunset Effect in our lives. We find ourselves re-astounded by Nature, certainly; we find ourselves re-astounded by those we love. We can’t predict when or where astonishment and wonder will occur, and that’s why that beautiful sky or that familiar person for a moment seems to transcend any effort at representative capture. No art form can capture rapture.
A magnificent sky isn’t new for any of us, so why are we so caught up when we see one? The answer is twofold (at least): however similar they might be, no two magnificent skies are the same, and brain chemistry turns on at the sights. In the days between exceptionally mesmerizing skies we forget the wonder as we focus on the details of our ground-based lives.
As brilliant as we all like to think we are, we are, as we look at the sky, like Benjy in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury or like some dog, trying to understand what we see. For mentally-challenged Benjy, “The moonlight came down the cellar stairs.” The sky appears; we had nothing to do with its appearance, its fading, or its disappearance. It envelopes us, cascades upon us. Independent of any of our actions or thoughts, an amazing sky appears, fades, and disappears. It teases us briefly, gives the brain an amusement-park ride, and then as unexpectedly and inexplicably as it “came down the cellar stairs,” it leaves. In its absence, we tend to the ordinary, often monochromatic dullness of everydayness.
So, we are re-astounded by the show that occasionally comes to us from the sky. Experience tells us that we can’t, save by photograph or art, capture the moment in all its glory in our otherwise occupied minds. We never see those representations the same way we see the original.
What are we to do with all representations? Art of any kind an effort to capture the elusive and temporary. But it never quite does that. There’s always a difference between real sunset and a photo or painting of it, always something missing in representation. To escape the disparity between representation and reality, some simply immerse themselves in the former. For some, art is the reality.
Maybe we long for the totally immersive art of a Disney-World ride, for movement, smells, and aspersions as we sit before films like those of Disney's Flight of Passage or Soarin’. Amusement park engineer/artists have attempted to capture that kind of reality since the rise of kinetic art. Yes, such moving art enthralls us for the moment, but we always exit by saying “It was so much like reality.” The caveat being “like reality” or “like being there.” But we know that unless we dissociate our reason from our emotion that it isn’t really like reality. Something is always missing. The reality of representation is never the reality of reality.
Unlike knowing where or when we will experience a similitude, knowing where or when a sunset might astound us is impossible. The wonder we find in a particular sky is unpredictable and peculiar to a place and time not of our choosing. That might indicate that unexpectedness is a key to stimulating the brain and forcing wonder on the mind. It might also indicate that even in seeing something similar, we marvel at differences within a similarity. Does that strike a chord with you when you consider times you have rediscovered friendship, desire, or love?
Certainly, none of us wants to think of ourselves as mere biochemical machines; yet, we can’t deny the Sunset Effect in our lives. We find ourselves re-astounded by Nature, certainly; we find ourselves re-astounded by those we love. We can’t predict when or where astonishment and wonder will occur, and that’s why that beautiful sky or that familiar person for a moment seems to transcend any effort at representative capture. No art form can capture rapture.
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