The idea of “story” seems at first to be fairly straightforward. The story is a way of human communication. What began as sign language or simple oral tradition has evolved into a myriad of avenues of expression using all of our senses. Our culture now is flooded with myths, religion, superstitions, fiction, politics, information and misinformation, and so much more, including art, of course. But I would like to break out a piece of “story” and take a closer look. This piece is the inner story that each of us tells ourselves.
We all carry in our brains a model of reality. It usually is almost identical to reality, but it is incomplete and contains errors. How did we get this model? Mainly through our senses. We see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the world around us and then pass that information to our model to file away. This flow of information is virtually constant and happens whether or not we are conscious of it. It is happening to you at this moment.
I should stop at this point to say I am not a psychologist, or any other type of scientist, for that matter. I am limited to the aspects of how we react to art, and to this idea of model and story to affect the making and appreciation of art.
Our evolutionary history gave us the ability to receive information and quickly process it, at first to evade danger, find food and water, shelter, and reproduce. That has not been lost, but has expanded to include our science, history, spirituality, and culture. Our models have become large.
I would like to define “culture” at this point to mean the sum of human expression. We are sorting these expressions into our model (“this is dangerous, that is boring, I want more of those”). And then I would like to drill down farther to sorting out art (“I don’t like jazz, I love romance novels, that new TV series is interesting”) and then to look at how we sort into our model when confronted with something new. It is easiest for me to use painting as an example, but it applies to other art as well. How do we react when our brains receive the visual information of a painting that we are seeing for the first time? Although we “know” that we are in the safe environment of a gallery or museum, we look for danger or pleasure (fight or flight). Then we start sorting. What is it and how does it fit into our model? What does it resemble that we already have in the model? Are we repelled or are we intrigued? Or bored? If we cannot sort it out immediately there may be tension created in our subconscious (“I see a face, that might be a cloud, why is she smiling?”). As these tensions are resolved to the satisfaction of our model, we are expanding the story we are telling ourselves about the painting. This may be simple or complex. We may then try to see through the eyes of the painter, the “teller” of the original story, and try to figure out connections. In the end, we experience emotions, good or bad, and perhaps a greater appreciation of human expression.