[An Essay from My Heart]

How to Remain Human Before a Work of Art

— On the Meaning of Writing About Art

When standing before a work of art, people instinctively reach for words.
 “Beautiful.”
 “Unique.”
 “Powerful.”

Yet such words often sound less like understanding than like a defense against an uncomfortable silence.
Speech is quick; seeing is always slow.

In A Short Guide to Writing About Art, the American scholar Sylvan Barnet (1926–2016) defines the starting point of art criticism with striking clarity:
Do not judge—describe first.
This is advice about writing technique, but it is also a demand for a way of perceiving.
For Barnet, writing about art is not the listing of emotions, but a discipline—training oneself to verify precisely what stands before one’s eyes.

In this sense, Barnet’s approach to art writing is thoroughly modern and rigorously exacting.
All interpretation must rest on concrete grounds: form, composition, material, and space.
He regarded unfounded praise and vague impressions not as criticism, but as a form of evasion.

Yet this attitude is not exclusive to Western art criticism.
Choi Rip (崔岦, 1539–1612)—a mid-Joseon writer, thinker, and diplomat—also placed the origin of writing not in emotion, but in gwan (觀), and more deeply, in jeong-gwan (靜觀).
Jeong-gwan, literally “quiet observation,” refers to looking without agitation—an attitude of thinking first through silence rather than through speech.

For Choi Rip, gwan was not simply the act of seeing.
It was an ethical posture: slowing one’s own words before the object, and an intellectual restraint that suspends premature interpretation.
In his prose and poetry, one rarely finds the marks of hastily drawn conclusions.
Instead, there remain what might be called quiet traces—the residue of someone who stayed long enough before leaving.

Barnet’s call for “observation” and Choi Rip’s practice of “contemplative seeing” arise from different traditions, yet they converge on a single question:

Are we truly seeing?

This question becomes all the more urgent in the age of artificial intelligence.
AI already analyzes images and artworks faster and more accurately than humans.
Within seconds, it can identify form, style, artistic movements, and comparable works.
Yet AI does not remain silent before art.
It does not know how to stop speaking.

The enduring significance of human writing lies precisely in this capacity for silence:
the ability to recognize moments when nothing needs to be said,
and the strength to endure that time.
If Barnet’s training cultivates precision in language,
Choi Rip’s attitude teaches restraint before language itself.

To write about art is not merely to explain a work;
it is, first of all, to examine one’s own impatience.
How easily do we attach meaning?
How quickly do we rush to conclusions?
The artwork does not change,
but the human attitude standing before it is constantly put to the test.

Ultimately, writing about art is not an act of objectifying the work,
but an act of revealing oneself.
What remains is not so much what we saw,
but how we saw.

Sylvan Barnet sought to cultivate people who speak accurately.
Choi Rip sought to leave behind people who know how to swallow their words.
At first glance, the distance between them seems vast,
yet the direction they point to is remarkably similar.

Before art,
‘a human being who can slow down speech,’
‘a human being who is not ashamed of silence.’

Perhaps that is why,
even in the age of AI,
we still have reason to write.

January 12, 2026
At Sungsunjae (崇善齋)

{Solti}

한국어 번역: https://www.ktown1st.com/blog/VALover/348209