It’s been a while since my college art history class, which I found memorable in part, but disappointingly dry, and not especially relevant to my own life as a vulnerable and confused college kid. But as I gradually started to evolve more and more into a working artist, arts appreciator, and eventually arts “ambassador,” I’ve come to an ever deeper and more personal sense of just how important art is and can be – to myself and to everyone.
Now I believe that everyone can benefit mightily from making art, experiencing art, learning about art and sharing art throughout their lives. Let’s consider why this would be a good idea, leaving all positive and negative assumptions aside for a moment, and just looking at what art does. Art investigates the human condition. Art expresses relatable personal emotional experiences. Art reflects and examines our context. In oppressive cultures, art serves as a whistleblower, and in cultures in transition, art asks us to examine transitional conflicts. Art also invites us to experience wonder, which can lead to inspiration, and to explore imagination, which can lead to innovation. Art helps us cope, it helps us mourn, it reminds us of who we are, and it gives us hope.
So why, then, is art not experienced, explored, and extolled more prominently? Firstly, mercenary or oppressive cultural systems prefer not to support any cultural forms that may call attention to such aspects of these systems. Secondly, as cultures have become larger and more complex, their art must reflect them in broader and more complex ways. Unlike examining the efficacy of a daily spoken and written language, there are few prescribed social/cultural structures in place for examining art language, given that it’s more complex and nuanced than daily spoken and written language, and can be variously coded: intellectual, emotional, didactic, representational, evocative, open-ended, random, intentional, personal, political.
These kinds of factors are likely what is contributing to what I’m increasing becoming aware of as an art perception “divide” between art that’s perceived as simply “entertaining” and/or affecting, and art that’s perceived as inexplicable and therefore pointless, which then keeps the average art appreciator stuck in a set of limited subjective tastes, and reserves deeper and more objective arts analyses solely for other artists who are working in comparable fields. Potential arts audiences get arts recommendations from various sources, experience the art form for themselves, and finally “evaluate” it simply based on whether or not it made a positive impression for them on that occasion.
I’ve observed further that art engagement now seems to be divided up into four different systems:
- A minority of people in their 20s and 30s engage actively with art via specialization, branding, marketing/promoting, grant applications, pursuing arts degrees, and collaboration via social networking — mainly with peer groups who are engaged in the same specialty — thus conveying the message that it’s mainly energetic, socially active young people who are interested in capitalizing on trends who are most directly practicing art;
- A minority of people in their 30s-50s engage supportively but more passively with art via the “Sunday painter” syndrome, or by becoming art therapists, teachers, sellers, dealers, promoters or patrons, thus conveying the message that dedicated artwork should only be practiced long-term by more “talented people;” i.e., people who have received a sufficient amount or degree of socially valued rewards and/or accolades;
- The majority of adults engage passively with art via perceiving it either as too esoteric (visual art, dance, theater and literature) or as something more accessible that’s based on a star system (music and film), thus conveying the message that artists comprise only a small minority of lucky people who somehow manage to become famous.
- Lastly, young children engage with art actively via creative play, collaboration with anyone, and cross-pollination regarding media/genre, thus conveying the message that art is fun, limitless, social and something for everyone.
The messaging behind first three systems continues to keep the arts stifled and limited, while it is only the messaging behind the last one that leaves the door open to make the arts permanently accessible, enriching, growing and ever-expanding.
The sad story summary here is that we all have fun fingerpainting for a while, but in due course give up that sort of thing to settle into some kind of money-making career, some of us doing “crafts” in our free time as a form of personal therapy, or if we’re lucky, marshalling our creative talents into some kind of trendy or populist cash cow. The more stubborn among us may persist against all odds in continuing to make the kind of art that answers our personal calling, eking out some kind of existence through “day jobs,” a deliberately low-income lifestyle, or whatever kind of financial support we can cobble together. It’s assumed that artists don’t need to get paid much if at all because art isn’t seen as a necessary commodity, and most artists are perceived as making art for their own therapeutic reasons anyway. But this assumption ignores the fact that if there were no art, people would sorely miss it, and furthermore, that whether or not it’s therapeutic, it’s actually so necessary that people will inevitably find ways to make it, no matter the constrictions or restraints.
Alas, rearranging the world so that art can be experienced, explored, and extolled more prominently is beyond even my fantastic imagination, but I do have some ideas about how more people could experience and learn about it in ways that might then lead to better ways of sharing and making it. Here’s one possible approach for examining just one piece of artwork or art experience:
- Note the form [visual art, dance, theater, literature, music, film], keeping in mind the specific elements that that particular form is best at expressing. (Some arts use dual or hybrid forms.)
- Identify the genre or style, keeping in mind the specific elements that that particular genre or style is best at expressing. (Some arts use dual or hybrid genres.)
- Attempt to ascertain the artist’s intent, ideally by researching the arti
- Determine how consistent the artwork is. Does the whole thing hold together as an entity, or are there missing parts, contradictory parts, or confusing parts? (Note: Absence, contradiction, and confusion can sometimes be deliberate, so try to ascertain whether or not such things are part of the intent.)
- Determine to what extent the artist succeeded in carrying out their intent. (Note: Even random art language has an intent.)
- Determine how original the artwork is. Is the artist saying something new, or approaching an old thing in a new way? This may entail looking at similar works by comparable artists.
During this process, there’s no need to dismiss a subjective emotional response, but for a deeper awareness of the artwork: 1) put such a response to one side as you’re evaluating the work, and 2) ask yourself what subjective elements in your own life might cause you to have this response.
Sound tough? Then just pick one of these things. Then add in or re-choose some of the others.
This kind of experiential list would have been more helpful to me than my dry course of “Art History 101” that forced me to haul around the big Janson book that could have been used as a doorstop. Words, pictures, stories and ideas have been threaded into human consciousness before the first cave paintings. It’s exciting to think that this kind of energy is still (relentlessly!) going on.
