Dealing with metaphors

KILMAINHAM -- While walking around the Irish Museum of Modern Art, I find myself connecting to some paintings through metaphors. I look at one and it reminds me of something I might have seen before. The visual stimulation is powerful. It causes me to think more about what I have personally experienced before and that leads me to spasms of self-doubt. The doubts stem from my lack of art history, But should the concreteness of a painting stem only from the annals of art? Can't I bring my personal associations to an appreciation of an art work?

Some of my colleagues enrolled on the MAVIS pogramme caution me against reverting to an imaginative but personal framework. For when I do I often see a world of associations well-evolved from the image in front of my nose.

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Julian Schnabel -- C-V.J. Nicknames of Maitre D's & Other Excerpts from life
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