[saturday] true art
"Real art has the capacity to make us nervous." -Susan Sontag
Yes, "real" art has the capacity to make us nervous. I might even push forward and say "anxious", or "terrified", or "disturbed". Real art--as real as such a subjective term can be, anyways--should make a man weary of himself and his nature. It should plumb the depths of his consciousness, his soul, and remind him of everything horrific that lies in wait beneath the flesh of mankind. It should bring tears; joy; terror. It should provoke question and insight and leave a room thick with silence. What else defines art but the stirring of emotion, the shaking of thought?
Of all the philosophers with something to say on the subject of what actually defines art, Tolstoy has come the closest. In his estimation, art is simply one man utilizing any one of an infinite number of mediums to express something to another; I, however, might take it a step further and posit that art is merely a man's expression through a medium, without necessarily requiring that it be intended to communicate said expression. After all, though I detest her and find her work boring, can anyone say that Emily Dickinson's poetry was not art until it was discovered in the wake of her death? Were they not an expression when they were yet-undiscovered? Were they not the same poems, constructed with the same care and emotions? So why, then, must Tolstoy require a receiving party? What if Picasso or Waterhouse or Dali made a point of hiding the pieces of which they were fondest so that no one in the world could ever even know of their existence--would such pieces no longer be art, since they are expression without audience?
If my career as an artist has taught me anything, it's this: the best pieces are those which unearth incredible, often uncomfortable, emotion. These same best pieces are often those wrenched from the very spirit of their creators, and just as often they are so controversial, so disconcerting, that the artist must make a choice: he must keep it to himself, or sacrifice the credit. It is the duty of the artist to share, however, and so Tolstoy's definition was correct; but he was defining the wrong term. He should have sought to define an artist: not art itself. Art does not need to be shared in order to be what it is, but the artist must express and share to be what he is. Dickinson's poems may have been art even stuffed beneath her floorboards, but she was not an artist until her death.
So therefore the artist releases his creation--however horrific and controversial--into the world, and watches the results from afar. He listens and reads about meanings derived, and rests knowing that the credit he so rightly deserves may not be his for ages to come, if ever. It is this sacrifice of gratification--this spiritual and cultural donation, if you will--that separates the important artists from the influential. (And when I say 'influential', I do not mean just to the world of art. I mean to the world itself.)
True art, created by a true artist, stays in the heart of its audience like a splinter beneath skin. First the sharp burst of pain, then the dull pang to which one finally grows accustomed--and then the burst again when the splinter is jarred, so very much like the first time it made itself at home in one's flesh. That is true art: it is not just capable of making its audience nervous, but also of lurking in the back of their skulls and truly changing the way in which they experience the world.
Yes, "real" art has the capacity to make us nervous. I might even push forward and say "anxious", or "terrified", or "disturbed". Real art--as real as such a subjective term can be, anyways--should make a man weary of himself and his nature. It should plumb the depths of his consciousness, his soul, and remind him of everything horrific that lies in wait beneath the flesh of mankind. It should bring tears; joy; terror. It should provoke question and insight and leave a room thick with silence. What else defines art but the stirring of emotion, the shaking of thought?
Of all the philosophers with something to say on the subject of what actually defines art, Tolstoy has come the closest. In his estimation, art is simply one man utilizing any one of an infinite number of mediums to express something to another; I, however, might take it a step further and posit that art is merely a man's expression through a medium, without necessarily requiring that it be intended to communicate said expression. After all, though I detest her and find her work boring, can anyone say that Emily Dickinson's poetry was not art until it was discovered in the wake of her death? Were they not an expression when they were yet-undiscovered? Were they not the same poems, constructed with the same care and emotions? So why, then, must Tolstoy require a receiving party? What if Picasso or Waterhouse or Dali made a point of hiding the pieces of which they were fondest so that no one in the world could ever even know of their existence--would such pieces no longer be art, since they are expression without audience?
If my career as an artist has taught me anything, it's this: the best pieces are those which unearth incredible, often uncomfortable, emotion. These same best pieces are often those wrenched from the very spirit of their creators, and just as often they are so controversial, so disconcerting, that the artist must make a choice: he must keep it to himself, or sacrifice the credit. It is the duty of the artist to share, however, and so Tolstoy's definition was correct; but he was defining the wrong term. He should have sought to define an artist: not art itself. Art does not need to be shared in order to be what it is, but the artist must express and share to be what he is. Dickinson's poems may have been art even stuffed beneath her floorboards, but she was not an artist until her death.
So therefore the artist releases his creation--however horrific and controversial--into the world, and watches the results from afar. He listens and reads about meanings derived, and rests knowing that the credit he so rightly deserves may not be his for ages to come, if ever. It is this sacrifice of gratification--this spiritual and cultural donation, if you will--that separates the important artists from the influential. (And when I say 'influential', I do not mean just to the world of art. I mean to the world itself.)
True art, created by a true artist, stays in the heart of its audience like a splinter beneath skin. First the sharp burst of pain, then the dull pang to which one finally grows accustomed--and then the burst again when the splinter is jarred, so very much like the first time it made itself at home in one's flesh. That is true art: it is not just capable of making its audience nervous, but also of lurking in the back of their skulls and truly changing the way in which they experience the world.