Art is both a discovery and a realization. It is a medium through which we, as humans can come to realize who we are, and why we are, as well as a means by which we can discover reason and purpose in the world, and ourselves, both in it and of it. People create art today for the same reason that people have always created art.
The only thing that has changed throughout the ages and the cultures is the society in which the art was created. Their outwards motives for creation, their reasons for being depend on the culture in which they were created. In this way, one looks at a Lascaux cave painting, and then looks at a Warhol print, and they wonder, how are the two even comparable? They may even go further, and will say that one of them can’t be art. Is, then, art a product of its culture, or is culture a product of its art.
In the reading by Sporre, as well as in the BBC film, we learn about how the purpose of the ancient cave paintings was not for simple documentation, or copying down what they saw. Nor were they painted so as to ensure future game or crops. Rather, they were painted for spiritual, proto-religious reasons. How art has since changed from such cosmic beginnings to reality-based still-life can be traced to our recent history, of the last few hundred years. Virtually all of the art before that had some sort of religious or spiritual meaning, reason, or connection. What happened then?
What happened in the art world is similar to what happened in the story-telling world upon the onset of the alphabet (though less consequently catalytic). Throughout the Middle Ages, and in fact for many centuries before, and all over the world, art was stylistic and symbolic. It was a deeply symbol-based lifestyle, and the art reflected that. Then the renaissance came, with its new-found science, and other such left-brained labelled modes of thinking. With it first came highly realistic paintings of Greek and Roman myths. These, whilst still religion-based, were not that of the painters, who were overwhelmingly Christian. This advancement is similar to when the alphabet moved from hieroglyphs to a phonetic-based alphabet. They still held in them their connection to the earthly counterpart, but at a more abstract level. The next advancement in painting was then the abandonment of any religious symbolism, and the creation of the still-life; you paint what you see. This is akin to when the alphabet, when used with other languages, lost any former relation with its roots of creation. Painting had developed a schema, technique, and school. Art had become left-brained. Of course, art did not stay this way, as anyone can see from the past hundred years, as we grew tired with painting realistically, and began to experiment with meaning and purpose again.
Through this transformation came both a realization and a discovery. We discovered new styles to paint, and how to paint realistically. Yet we also realized that the true reason for art is not quite what it looks like, but what it is for. People create art today for the same reason that people have always created art.
I heartily agree with you that art is a means to explore purpose and emotion. But I wonder, does the ever-evolving nature of art make past pieces any less meaningful or awe-inspiring? I would like to think that it does not; that people can take each work of art on its own terms, for its own purpose. But people cannot help but let their previous knowledge affect their judgment. Even I, determined to view each piece as separate from the other art I have seen, find myself comparing rendering skill, use of color, and even subject matter and mentally organizing pieces into categories such as "good", "okay" and "completely uninteresting". I do experience awe for art from other time periods, which tells me that I am not completely fixated on the present generation. But really, I wonder: how many people become so set in their ideas that they fail to see the value in different perspectives?
ReplyDeleteI really like your connection between writing becoming left-brained and art doing the same. You say that there was not as much meaning or symbolism in this realistic art, so would you say it was less of art? Meaning, would you say it had less value than the abstract art prior to the Greco-Roman art? The introduction of technique and the idea that there is a wrong and a right way to create--does that make the art less genuine? I would like the input and thought of any artist on this, because as a class we seem to be mourning the downfall of the right brain. So is the introduction of the left brain in art create less pure meaning and emotion?
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