JAMIE NIVER

The presentation on Cognitivism talks a lot of symbolism and art’s ability to reveal something and make sense of the world. I’ve always found one of the most compelling things about art is the work’s ability to portray the artist’s emotion. The art can depict a particular mood that is very easily grasped by the viewer. However, I do feel at times the symbolism may go over a lot of the viewers’ heads and without proper research, many of these symbols won’t reach the audience. I suppose this can happen in all forms of art and design. For example, in architecture there are a lot of buildings with a highly symbolic concept that overlooked most of the time. This poses the question of how much is the work for communicating to others and how much of it is for the artist’s own cognitive exploration? In architecture, symbolism is often used to sell and justify the project to the client but art doesn’t undergo the same process.