Perception of Genius: Does Context Make Art?
Washington, DC, Metro StationOn a cold, January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces in the Washington, DC, Metro Station. Two thousand people, most on their way to work, walked through the station.
After 3 minutes, a middle aged man noticed there was a musician wearing a baseball cap near the door, playing his violin, with his open case on the floor begging for tips. He slowed his pace for a few seconds but then hurried off to meet his busy day.
Four minutes later, a woman walked by without stopping and threw a dollar in the violin case. Six minutes later, a young man leaned against the wall, listened briefly, looked at his watch, then walked away. Ten minutes later, a 3-year-old boy stopped but his mother tugged at him impatiently, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist again. The mother pushed the little guy, forcing him to walk. He walked, but he turned his head back to watch the whole time. Several other children did the same thing. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to keep walking.
For 60 minutes the musician played...continuously...and only six people stopped and listened for a short time. Approximately 20 dropped money in the case but continued to walk at a normal pace. The man collected $32.17. When he finished playing, there was only the sound of feet echoing. No one noticed he had concluded his concert. No applause. No recognition.
Joshua Bell, one of the world's greatest musicians, had just played a one-hour free concert for the commuters, including one of the most intricate Bach pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Just two days before, Joshua Bell sold out a Boston theater where the average seat cost $100.
This true story of Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post for one of their staff writers, Gene Weingarten, as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities.
It begs the questions: Is art indistinguishable by its context? Is beauty imperceptible without an appropriate environment? And do our immediate priorities veil our perceptions from recognizing genius? I think the answers are all probably and unfortunately "yes." But the biggest question is, what else are we missing?
Gene Weingarten, the writer of the piece, admitted in a Q & A published later, "I missed Elvis Costello in 1978, in a small coffeehouse in Chicago, because I didn't know who he was, and was unwilling to wait an hour and a half for the show to start. Haunts me, still."
Genius and beauty are all around us. I also believe that at any moment in time, any one of us can have genius and produce beautiful art. Some us may only have a few of those moments. And they may be experienced in solitude. But I don't want to miss these moments.
I try (and sometimes fail) to read what a writer has written as if the writing will be an expression of genius as beautiful art. Of course, I'm often disappointed. But I believe if I approach a book or a short piece of writing any other way, I am sinking it to contextually inferior perceptions. If I hang Van Gogh's masterpiece "Irises" on the wall of a Jack-in-the-Box fast food restaurant, I'll bet no one would recognize it. If it's hung in someone's home, it might get attention. But it's beauty and genius aren't ignored hanging in the Getty gallery. But think about the hundreds of people who probably walked by Vincent as he painted it. Did they stop? Did they notice his genius? Absolutely not.
I want to find the genius and beauty in art, especially in the written word. It's there in the most inappropriate places. It might be in some guy's blog. It might be in a self-published book. It might be on the wall of the bathroom stall at Jack-in-the-Box, for cryin' out loud.
What sticks with me about the Weingarten piece most is the children. The children have not developed prejudicial context. They all recognized the beauty of Bell's music, because it didn't matter that it was being played by a guy in regular clothes, wearing a baseball hat, in a metro station, begging for change.
Great post! I love these experiments. I worked with a man who had a horrible (everyone who has seen it will back me up) piece of art on his wall in his ad agency. He always points it out to first time visitors and some how he slips in the HUGE amount of money he paid for it. I always wondered if he was doing an experiment of this kind. After I had worked on a few projects with him I realized that he definitely thought it was great art because of what he had been ripped off... oops I mean paid for the painting.
Reply to this
Oh my God, Tom. That piece not only gave me goose bumps, it made me cry. We simply must develop our awareness to far, far beyond what it currently is for most (excepting children). It's just so sadly true that it moved me.
Reply to this