As I look back on the history of the world, typically I see an array of images. Sometimes these involve wars, plague, hunger and general pain. Other times, I see dancing, hope and a generally growing world community, filled with strength, integrity and exploration. But when I see this in my minds eye, I cannot help but realize that I am looking at the history of our planet through images of Art. Artists have captured these emotions and harnessed the power of these motives in their work for centuries creating a view-finder for the mind to colorfully explore this vast expanse of history. As I see it, Art is what forms us. It is a guiding light for others to follow, while being a beacon and a candle in the dark to the artists who create it. Since the Dawn of Time, Homo Sapiens have used their artistic ability to express ideas through crude pictures or body language and used these techniques to pass on the ability to work together, to bring down big game or build tools or huts or fire and essentially, survive. Cave drawings illustrated the right plants to eat and how to build a stronger domicile during rough winter months or sometimes the cycle of seasons or tribal rituals. As civilization grew and began to form into the style of the “modern” society, and cultures around the world began to form, we can see that this was entirely not possible without the usage of art to understand where they came from and were inevitably allowed to go. So as I see it, in all shapes and sizes, Art has radicalized our existence and allowed for our social and personal evolution.
On another interesting point, I would like to mention Einstein’s E = mc2 theory, as it will come into play later as well. An important scientific work of Art, it allowed the scientific world to understand the massive power harnessed within all objects, and therefore as I see it, in people as well.
As previously stated it was a teaching tool, but as we move past the Renaissance, we begin to see that artists began seeing numerous possibilities in their art forms as the world view was allowing for it. The doors of the mind must be first realized before they can be knocked upon and surely before they will open and grant us access to their treasures. “I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” (Robert Frost) Frost’s famous words coming to us from a male schoolteacher going against the grain of a primarily female teaching society, these words have now become a living testament to the artist and the dreamer. I first heard this in a gifted class when I was seven and the movement it inspired in me then is still alive and well today. A notion that all must find their path in life, no matter how many thorns and brambles we encounter. Understanding this notion to explore the unknown, create expressions of new proportions, and push the mental stratus of mankind, is key to realizing the reasons for the next several styles of Art.
As the world moved into the twentieth century, we see a blossoming of rampant new styles. Modernism as it would be known, showed itself in every form of expression, Literature, Art, Architecture, Music and Dance all coupled with the scientific world guiding its new logic or the absence thereof. Meanwhile, Freud and several other deep thinkers were plotting the other misty, dank and recessed worlds - the channels of the mind. We see art styles move one into the next from Impressionism from Monet, Expressionism from the dark depths of Edward Munch, Cubism from Picasso, Abstraction in the naturally coexisting or minimalistic buildings of Frank lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, and Surrealism from the strange likes of Salvador Dali and Renee Magritte. All of these forms seemed to play leap frog with the next, a playground mentality of seeing where the next will go. It is a stated fact from many of the great artists of the past that they were doing just that. Studying others work, and letting the mind expound on the reactions to new work and how to bring it about in new and self-rewarding ways.
Once the maps of the mind were finally written and the scientists had quietly proven the non-existence of God, their was another tidal wave which breeched society, that of the the free thinkers. These brave individuals were finally wrapping their brains around the deeper issues of being, true existence, self actualization, free intelligence versus ignorance and finding meaning in a meaningless world. “If God didn’t exist, then all things are possible.” (Dostoevsky) The thought process of the existentialist was not released on the mainstream as its depth seemed not able to be reached by many. And in the long run, if we let everyone think that deeply about themselves, nothing will get done and no one would do the remedial tasks of a working society. But in this form of thought, we must create, for that is all there is. No longer are we making beautiful art to appease a god, but now creating art to explain our place and situation herein without. And so this need to create, this desire to leave something behind becomes all encompassing within an artists life, sometimes to the point of an early, premature death or a body of work so large it cannot be fathomed all at once. We also begin to see this shift in Art by the creation of real subtext in artists work. No longer would a piece of art only mean one thing. From now on, art would have to encompass several and sometimes massive issues, albeit quietly, in order to truly be considered art. This is brought on by a more complex and multi-dimensional society at work. So through the combination of the underlying truths now found in art with this new need to create and expound, we begin to now see a bigger shift towards the need for change. And as I have said, this change couldn’t be understood until we as a people had expressed the desire for it.
Because of our new found technology and the realization of the human universe, we also see dictators attempting to control more than is feasible in a modern world and we see two wars which ravage our planet, decimate our world population and threaten to throw us all back to the Stone Age. Artists caught in these struggles showed incredible fortitude and bravery for not following the mainstream or ever getting caught up in the hype. When I heard a Holocaust survivor speak when I was eleven, I was incredibly moved when he told us that “myself and several survivors no longer eat bread, as that was our only survival in the camps. I haven’t eaten a bite of bread since my release 50 years ago.” This quiet sacrifice to all those who never had enough. Also seeing Picasso’s Guernica seems to conjure up images in my mind’s eye of the ridiculousness of such an event. Picasso’s characters therein play interesting parts in that image, acting out the drama with awkward expressions and a cry for a release from reality.
We also see artists begin to react to the crushing forces of the modern world by forgetting any and all original methods of art and reacting entirely on emotion. Here we receive Jackson Polluck’s paint swathed canvases and can feel the emotion pulsing into us when standing next to these modern day monoliths. Their range of emotions only prove the necessity for such work and the power within that it truly allows to shine.
So, with the loss of inhibition coupled with the need to create came the explosion that is modern media. It is at this point we begin to see our social outpourings as a veritable sea of consciousness, consuming us under its deluge and giving us our only rest from the storm when we are sleeping and then even there our image databank is crammed with the thoughts and ideas of others. “The Information Age is essentially image oriented.” (Fiero) and this is largely due to Television and Cinema. Take the award-winning series on TV “Breaking Bad," where a chemistry teacher secretly becomes a PCP chemist in order to pay for his bills and family after he is told he has terminal cancer. The nickname he takes on is Heisenberg. I was amazed to see such subtext go into a new TV Drama. Named for Werner Heisenberg, creator of the Principle of Uncertainty, it is a perfect foreshadow to the style of writing used in the script. There is no way of telling what could happen next as there are too many variables and when one thinks deeply on a possible outcome, they make sure to throw in a detour and lead the characters far from the normal. Sometimes using a quick death, happening where you don’t expect it at all (think back seat in “Pulp Fiction”) or a plane crash or explosive tortoise (really, watch the show...) you never have a chance of predicting it. Like life, like art now too.
The aftermath of this increasingly amazing world is an overwhelming sense of desensitization. This of course had led a large percent of our society to lethargy and apathy. So sad when considering all they are given being alive right now, all the knowledge so many others have begged for or just barely broke the surface on before their deaths, right there at their fingertips. This is where I see E=mc2 making the most sense. This incredible formula has yes, created the atom bomb but that is because that is what it was applied too. Imagine applying this formula for good intentions. A small amount of matter can release a large amount of energy. So there we are, small amounts of matter containing energy and waiting to go off like explosives, destroying the face of all that is around us, ripping the flesh of conformism off the shoulders of the people next door, and covering the land in a shock wave of brutal truth. As stated in the film “Waking life” , we can sit and face ourselves off with either fear or laziness, or we can break the cycle and show a different way. Attempt your own “Theory of Everything” much as Deepak Chopra did, or spend time attempting to free your own self from the confines of your being, anyway will do. But we must as Nike says “Just Do It.” (Nike) For our own sake, because if not, we give up on all there is, life as we know it.
So yes, Art changes us, it taught us, melded us and showed us that it is all we are, and so in knowing this we can see that it will be Art that also either saves us, showing us the new and right way to exist in this modern world we have created, or our downfall, leading us far astray, fragmenting into too many newly created ways, until the "road less traveled by" becomes impassible, clogged with brambles, concealing which path was the right one to take in the first place.
- CMB
No comments:
Post a Comment