Nelson, depending on the art form, I most probably respond like you. I seek to appreciate the rendering or engagement with art. This is however not true in specific cases:

1. Literature, either high or low, where I seek to lose myself in empathy with the characters and contexts.

2. Accidentally, when viewing, watching, contemplating, sometimes, for unknown reasons I am swamped in an empathic reaction to a piece of art. Retrospective analysis either can or can't explain why.

I was a professional dancer in my previous life. Perhaps this indicates the need for engagement with art. The physicality of the artform perhaps leads one to a appreciation of the rendering.

As to which is right, wrong, good, bad, better, worse, true, false. For me this aspect of the question is irrelevant. Contemplation and analysis followed by acceptance of the difference is all that matters.

To answer such a complex-in-demands question, I think we should re-read Plato and his student, Aristotle--for a start!

Dear Nelson,

Let me start by a philosophical answer: We enjoy those things that manage to touch our heart. It does not sometimes matter whether you understand how it has been made, what techniques have been used, even who is the artist!! I am sure you must have thoroughly enjoyed watching the Sunrise or cuckoo-like cooing of a newborn baby. Do we really understand the or even know who the 'artist' is? do we know what rhythm, beat or color that he used. You just stand there seeing or listening and something inside you is suddenly at peace. Actually, we LIVE those moments. So much for philosophy!

When we look at a piece of art, we actually are looking at, unconsciously, the creative hand of the artist. There is something in a particular stroke or hue or the picture in front that makes us feel that we KNOW it. It vibrates and relates to some indefinable thing inside us and we get what you call enjoyment! With reference to music, I would go one step further and say that it actually does not matter whether you are a trained musician or singer; it just resonates from within and you 'feel' it that way. That is why sometimes when you hear music of some tribal people in a remote corner of the world, you feel like dancing!

Enjoying a piece of art has nothing to do with education, Nelson. It has everything to do with your heart. Since both of you enjoy it, I would conclude on a sentimental line: perhaps, you both are made for each other. Just enjoy!

Postscript: Dear Mark, I am really bemused. How do you 'know' that you were a professional dancer in your previous birth?

Srinavasan, thanks for your deeply felt reply. Philosophically speaking, there are philosophers-- Kant, for instance-- who argue that we enjoy by means of contemplation of the esthetic object, not through the heart. Yes, I enjoy with the heart non-artistic beings like the sunrise or my newborn grandchildren. We do not understand who the artist is, I agree, but we can try to understand the object of art-- the passage of music, the painter´s brushstroke.

When I listen even to the most sophisticated dances (like Ravel´s "Valses nobles et sentimentales"), I feel like dancing. But this feeling is not my truly esthetic enjoyment, which comes from passing my attention over the contours of the melody and appraising the rhythm.

A postscript: my wife and I are approaching our 50th wedding anniversary in two years. Perhaps our marriage has lasted so long because we enjoy the esthetic differences of opinion we each hold and find each other more interesting!

Thank you for sharing, Nelson. My parents have entered their 54th year and I find that they have become more 'together' even in their differences. Perhaps, as you said, we must learn to enjoy the esthetic differences by mutual respect and love. I am just above the half way mark when compared to you. We both reciprocate your lines!

You have added another interesting dimension to the discussion - Knowing the contours of the melody and appraising the rhythm. I do understand because some times when I am actually 'done and out', I pick up a law book or listen to choice 'gazals' (Hindustani songs that are deep in philosophy ) and my wife as well as friends say, "how can you do that? you must do something 'light' so that you will come over your blues!"

But then since I understand both of these to a fair extent, I just loose my self in them and the resultant contemplation rejuvenates me. You enjoy because your knowledge helps you to appreciate the nuances. Sorry to have sounded a bit personal. I understand and endorse what you said.

Srinivasan, I was a dancer in a previous life not birth, I guess I have defined my 'lives' by the main paradigm by which I lived. I have had 3 lives by this definition. 1. Scientist, 2. Dancer, 3. Teacher of science.

I was a professional scientist by job from 18 to 23, a professional dancer till I was about 26, there was an overlap of some time, while i trained, then gave it up because my wife and I started having children and the lifestyle, while very enjoyable was not what I wanted for them. So I became a teacher which I think is my main life. I am grateful for this choice as it has made me a much better person than I think I would have been.

Nelson, sorry to use your question space to respond.

Thanks Mark, for a second thought may be you were talking about earlier births. As that is another topic that deeply interests me (courtesy reading Dr Brian Weiss), I asked. I stand clarified.

Mark, you´re more than forgiven for using this space to respond to Srinivasan. Few can boast of having led 3 lives like Herbert Philbrick. But you as a scientist and a dancer and a teacher have led more surprisingly varied lives than he. One wonders how you reconciled the three: did you make a science of choreography and did your scientific discoveries dance from your mind?

Srinivasan, I have to make a confession to you. Some of my musical preferences are for what musicians call "schmaltz," or excessive sentimentality. I remember telling my music history professor, James Sykes at Dartmouth College, that I loved the music of Sergei Rachmaninov. He was absolutely scandalized that I could appreciate so emotional a composer. Nonetheless, I still love Rachmaninov (as does my wife).

Dear Nelson,

We do live our lives in different dimensions. Some of us learn through them, connect constantly with our lessons as we go through one stage to another and in the process attempt to achieve an equilibrium that is within us, in any way! I meant a genuine appreciation for Mark, and I still mean it.

In the half century plus that I have been around, I have gone through different phases too. I lived with people who were in stark poverty, trying to teach them to better their lives; then I went on to the glossy world of management consultancy where I rubbed shoulders with some who lived 'in the glitz' of their money; for the past three decades I live over sixteen hours a day in trying to get people to work together, as a HRM person. Incidentally, I have groomed over 1600 'students' and managed over six schools. I am not an educationist. I just enjoy what I do and God has been kind to give the kind of opportunities where I could express my self.

And it is in this process that I learnt to enjoy the 'good' side of life. Unlike some, I have no understanding of the nuances of music or poetry or any other fine art. But when I hear or read or see, something that I have been connected with in these fifty years pops up, and I just let myself go.

My regards to you and Mark. Sorry, if I have sounded a bit sentimental. May be I should be writing all this in email, not RG. Hope they bear with me!

To be honest, I think that the sentiments expressed in these comments is part and parcel of this question, though told in a different genre, through the stories we related. For me the aesthetic appreciation with which Nelson began is much broader than just the high arts. I think that we have just shown an aesthetic appreciation for life stories or life trajectories. I would suggest that part of the appreciation is of the content of the stories and part is in the rendering and the context, and hence open mindedness if this context. And Srinivasan, no apologies needed. I love the combination of thoughtfulness and personality that RG allows.

Totally right, Mark. Although my question focused on art, seeing where the discussion has gone leads me to believe that it should take into account all objects able to offer esthetic enjoyment: like sunsets, babies, memories. Besides, these autobiographical sketches enrich everyone. So keep them coming.

Dear Nelson Orringer,

I want to thank for your question and in particular for your love to the great Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov. I'm a professional programmer, my area of interest is Combinatorial Optimization

( http://www.fedulov.ge ), but I'm a musician (as pianist) too. Sergei Rachmaninov is my love composer, in particular the Second Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. This is genius production. In my opinion, to better understand and feel any classical production it is necessary to be a musician himself. I play the Second Concerto as I can at home and each time I get a huge enjoyment. The first eight chords is the brilliant start that demonstrate the Russion bells. As to me, my opinion is that any live playing on musical instrument can give many times more enjoyment than listening genius playing Vladimir Horowitz, in particular the Third Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Please, have a look on my preferencies on the link https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_music_be_an_agent_for_change_in_society

Thank you for your question again

Dear Gennady Fedulov,

Rachmaninov´s Second and Third Concerti are my favorite compositions by that moving composer, although I also love the "Variations on a Theme by Paganini." I agree with you that listening to a live performance affords much more pleasure than any recording. Music is essentially performance, and every other rendering is secondary and derivative. Whether you listen to "feel good" or to appreciate the forms of the music, having the composition acquire reality in front of you is like no other musical experience.

So you are a pianist? It is an honor to meet you. My late mother was also a pianist, and raised me on Rachmaninov preludes!

Dear Nelson Orringer,

I thank you again for raising this topic.

I want to observe that the great American pianist Van Cliburn loved Sergei Rachmaninov ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huu-nir6RNw ) thanks to his great teacher Rozina Levina from Russia. I like to play Rachmaninov's preludes 1, 6 (in particular), and 8. But I'm not a professional pianist, it is my hobby only. Nonetheless I like to play many classical works. I think as before that own performance on the piano is the best way to understand a composer's production and get a huge enjoyment too.

Dear Gennady Fedulov,

The performer enjoys the piece the most (especially if he does not have a large audience). The listener must perform too, but in his mental ear. This is like reading poetry: you must sound out the poem in your mental ear to appreciate it. I am reading Lévy-Strauss, who writes that music is like mythology, in sounds not in words. Music is an adventure which gives happiness to the listener in a shorter time than a lived adventure.