J. W. N. Sullivan on the infinite shades by which art and nature affect us

    As J. W. N. Sullivan reminds us, a specific work of art or experience of nature produces in each of us a specific response:

Man’s capacity of response, as it were, is almost infinite. It is perfectly possible that between certain reactions and stimuli there may be a one to one correspondence. A poem, in its effect on us, may have no equivalent. A dawn or a sunset, a melody or a cry in the night, may evoke in us a reaction which is unique. It is even possible that most of our reactions, both to nature and to art, are unique. Art is no substitute for nature, and the arts are not substitutes for one another. Our commonest experiences, when they recur, recur with a difference. We do not fall in love twice in the same way. Even boredom has its shades. (Quoted from page 24 of Beethoven: His spiritual development, by J. W. N. Sullivan. 1960. Random House reprint of 1927 original.)

    For a brief biography of J. W. N. Sullivan, click here.

Comments

[Rebecca]

You know, this made me think of Manfred Clynes, Daniel Gilbert, and those experiments that involved asking artists in traditional cultures to rank modern art.
The thing those three sources have in common is that they argue pretty persuasively that we actually share most of our reactions with all fellow humans.
Gilbert says that we only think we are special and unique because our experience of our own thought life is so much richer than our experience of other people's thought lives.
Hard to prove, either way.