Begin forwarded message:

From: Ronnie Seagren <ronnie.seagren@gmail.com>

Subject: Susanne Langer quote attribution

Date: December 29, 2016 at 10:11:24 AM EST

To: Jo Nelson <jnelson@ica-associates.ca>

You have to take the work of art seriously by observing carefully what's there, and what's not. Then you have to look just as seriously at what is going on inside you as you observe the art to see how you are reacting, what repels you, what delights you. You have to peel back layers of awareness so that you can begin to ask what it means to you. You must work to create your own meaning from an artwork, or a conversation.

-  Susanne K. Langer

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Needs a footnote with credit. Not sure if it’s from Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (1942), or Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art (1953), or Problems of Art: Ten Philosophical Lectures, (1957). There’s a reference copy of the last one in the downtown library; nothing of hers circulates anymore, and Google Books doesn’t have enough of her books online to find the quotes.

A better source might be the archives in Chicago; I bet someone there has it because I’m pretty sure one of her books was in the briefcase library. Part of this quote is in the intro to The Art of Focused Conversation, but doesn’t even use her name! Ouch!

 Ronnie