Art and Desire

"The text you write must prove to me that it desires me. This proof exists: it is writing. Writing is: the science of the various blisses of language, its Kama Sutra (this science has but one treatise: writing itself).”
- Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text

On some level I suspect that all successful art has this component of evoking the feeling of being desired. The viewer feels wanted and pulled in through experiencing the art. Perhaps a strange concept, but worth pondering. I kind of "get" it. Barthes' words desire me, and I will give them time by pondering the meaning.

Edgar Allan Poe's words desire me:

"Sometimes I'm terrified
of my heart; of its constant
hunger for whatever it is
it wants. The way it stops
and starts."

Barthes again:

“I am interested in language because it wounds or seduces me.”
-Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text

The Mission: Gabriel's Obo and The Fall by Yo-Yo Ma wound and desire me. So does Cinema Paradiso: Looking for You from Giuseppe Tornatore Suite and Giuseppe Tornatore Suite: Malena and Philip Glass' Satyagraha: Evening Song. I suspect that music which touches me in a sensate way and which I have described for years as "so beautiful it hurts" is music that wounds and desires me.

And visual art? Oh my, so many works of color, texture, line, depth give me a feeling of being seduced and desired.  I cannot begin to name them all, but Starry Night by van Gogh not only seduces and desires me, it owns a piece of my heart.  Remember?

In the same vein, Barthes said:

“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.”

Do colors tremble with desire?  I think so.  Greens and blues whisper to each other and merge into the brilliance of turquoise.  Lines flirt until they connect or seductively avoid. Textures smile and wink when they "work together" in art. 

What art desires you? Have any works wounded or seduced you lately?

Comments

[plumbing fittings]

Art is one way of expressing ones idea and emotion. I can say that this can't be done without passion and artistic mind.

[Jan Neal]

I absolutely agree with you!