For art to be reality, the whole sensuous being must be caught up in the experience.
Interpretation
Art must engage all of our senses to be truly experienced as reality.
Margaret Mead's quote emphasizes the importance of a holistic sensory engagement in the experience of art. She suggests that art transcends mere visual representation and requires the involvement of the entire sensuous being—highlighting the idea that true understanding and appreciation of art is a multifaceted experience that encompasses emotions, sensations, and perceptions.
In practice
In a discussion on the importance of immersive art installations, one might quote Mead to emphasize sensory engagement.
Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous communication through space.
Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, doesn't pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.
EARTH DAY uses one of humanity's great discoveries, the discovery of anniversaries by which, throughout time, human beings have kept their sorrows and their joys, their victories, their revelations and their obligations alive, for re-celebration and re-dedication another year, another decade, another century, another eon.
American society is very like a fish society. . . . Among certain species of fish, the only thing which determines order of dominance is length of time in the fishbowl. The oldest resident picks on the newest resident, and if the newest resident is removed to a new bowl, he, as oldest resident, will pick on the newcomers.
I like using animals because they help suspend my reader's disbelief. We have certain ideas about dentists. We don't have many ideas about rhinoceros dentists.
Through art alone are we able to emerge from ourselves, to know what another person sees of a universe which is not the same as our own and of which, without art, the landscapes would remain as unknown to us as those that may exist on the moon.
I think of myself as a serious professor who, during the weekend, writes novels.
I try with my pictures to raise a question, to provoke a debate, so that we can discuss problems together and come up with solutions.
Even when I'm writing plays I enjoy having company and mentally I think of that company as the company I'm writing for.
Any work of architecture that has with it some discussion, some polemic, I think is good. It shows that people are interested, people are involved.
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