FOREWORD
I remember a while back, when I was faced with a very
pressing situation requiring my instant attention. I was being
interviewed live, on a major television station at prime time, along
with showing a series of my slides in connection to the opening of an
art exhibit. As soon as they wired me up, and situated me on stage, and
only a couple minutes before going live, the very charming gentleman,
who was to interview me, whispered to me the following: "I have no idea
what to ask you, what do you suggest?" I said, no problem, if you ask me
only 3 simple questions, I will handle the rest. He was relieved, and
quickly jotted down the questions. The green light came on, we went on
live, and wrapped up a flawlessly smooth and successful interview. Off
camera, the crew came on the stage with big smiles, and acknowledged
both of us; but they praised the interviewer, for surprising them as an
art connoisseur!
DEFINING AESTHETICS
Aesthetics as a set of
principles and branch of philosophy deals with questions concerning
beauty and artistic experiences. As far as our general understanding of
it is concerned it is a highly nebulous field, subjected to tremendous
degree of misinterpretation, particularly in the field of abstract art.
In any field of humanities where less accurately is known about that
field and its principles have not been precisely formulated, the more
authoritarian the field becomes. In the field of arts, with no exact
fundamentals accurately developed, the techniques and approaches are
wide open for the artists to imagine, explore and create their art.
The
artist is also subjected to the "laws" of commerce, where various
schools of divergent opinions begin to "teach" the artist "how" to be an
artist and paint a certain way, citing the field's critics galore as
she listens with an open jaw in lieu of reason. The "authorities," in
the field of visual arts, most of whom have never painted any paintings
themselves but are very "fluid" and "cultured" by having memorized a few
standard opinions and artistic works and projects of humanitarian
nature, analyze the paintings for the artist every step of the way, each
time the artist presents a piece of her art for a critique, mainly to
discover what's wrong with her art and how she should fix it according
to these "professors's" brand of "expertise."
I admit to a tad of
generalization here for making a point; but does any of this ring a true
bell for you? Can you think of an artist you know who is or has been on
this ship? I lived and survived through it all, trusting and believing
that there had to be a logical and more nurturing way to free
imaginative impulses so that the artist could paint as freely as he
wanted. Something within me, was telling me, that something was
inherently not quite right with the constructive criticisms that were to
"teach" us how to view our own world of art, through the eyes of the
"critics," excuse me, the professors. I had viewed this "school of
thought" as an authoritarian method of teaching that smothered the
thoughts, emotions, or efforts of the artist, but could not quite
articulate the problem I was sensing at the time. I discovered later,
that this mechanism of controlling thought through teaching, was only
one of the elements in our society, which inherently brings about the
suppression of the arts that stifles the creative impulses of the
artists at the expense of the whole culture.
Artists are often
"accused" of having their heads up in the clouds, and living within an
unreal world of imagination. This brings about the necessity of taking a
good and thorough look at just how reality bites. Plowing through
several fields of study in search of a tool to measure the aesthetics
and the creation processes can leave us empty handed, until we splurge
into the field of philosophy to examine our thoughts and reasoning.
THE ART OF THINKING AND REASONING
Thinking
and reasoning is a social activity for most people. They require the
engagement of external forces as the individual is as much a part of
society as the society is a part of the individual. From the moment of
birth, the social labyrinth of customs, beliefs, languages, values,
religions, politics, and other traditional ideas are all well positioned
to mold the child into the image of those who the child is surrounded
with, and it is thoroughly based upon faith and belief. So masterfully
the operation is instilled into the society as social heredity that even
science has often mistaken it as being genetic.
English
philosopher and author Francis Bacon (1561-1626), and another English
philosopher and mathematician Issac Newton (1642-1727), and others have
developed ways of thinking and reasoning that requires a fact in order
to be proven must be measured, sensed or experienced. And when we thrust
this into the realm of mind and spirit we find our willingness reduced
in accepting facts based upon faith or belief.
For this reason, in
appreciating life, and creating anything within it such as art, looking
for answers and solutions exterior to our own sentient qualities,
intellects or experiences is to lose concept of our own truth, values
and individuality. And the artist, very often, bears the brunt of this
philosophy of "independent thinking" and frequently subjected to
criticism by those who have a firm grip on the traditions of status quo.
But
the artist moves on, knowing where the roots of criticism lie, and
reasons that people who resort to "criticism" operate in the absence of
true understanding, and since no knowledge can exist in the absence of
understanding, there we arrive at the presence of "ignorance." Thus,
knowing the basis and the mechanism behind criticism, often serves as a
tremendous source of empowerment and consolation for the artist to
continue with his art on the grounds of certainty and knowledge of her
art and transcend through the highest echelons of culture called:
aesthetics!
Bacon had come to the conclusion that no field of
study by itself is sufficient in the absence of another form of
discipline exterior to it to align and coordinate it in the direction of
its goal. We can elaborate further that it is not possible to walk a
path aright in the absence of defining its destination. Therefore, to
stay clear off the grounds of myths, mysticism and superficial
approaches, we can take a look and see how the arts can be best served
by defining its goal under the broad umbrella of philosophy that
embraces all the arts, sciences and humanities.
Just as it is
impossible to have a full view of a countryside by sitting on one of its
boulders under a tree, every field of endeavor, to be fully understood,
must be viewed and analyzed from a ground much higher than where it
germinates. Thus, in the field of visual art's, we cannot look at an
abstract painting's isolated data out of context without a consideration
of its existence within the scope of a life that contains the art.
Bacon say, that would be to use a candle to light a room that is
illuminated with daylight.
ART IS COMMUNICATION
We all enjoy
and desire a pleasant conversation with our associates, friends and
family. But when we look, and inspect our environment, we notice that
the great majority of our population, have difficulty with
communication. A two way communication takes place, when we can freely
initiate our thoughts or ideas to one another, acknowledge each other
and continue this interaction, back and forth, by continuing with the
sharing of our thoughts and ideas, very much similar to a friendly game
of tennis; where the return of the ball, is dependent upon the quality
of the serve.
There are times when we notice a break in
communication, when either one of the parties, in its turn, fails to
acknowledge and originate a thought or an impulse back, to continue with
the conversation, or to bring about an optimum conclusion.
The
people having these difficulties with origination, are generally
accustomed to prepackaged amusements, such as a weather disaster, or an
incident or story relayed by a coworker. They get very low on
originating communication on their own, inspired by their own
imagination; and they become somewhat vexed, when faced with an
"imaginative conversationalist." This is either through their upbringing
and cultural environment, or their education.
Origination is very
important to bring about a communication. To this degree, these people
communicate mainly regarding subjects that are handed to them by
external sources. They see a news story, they talk about it; they get a
call about a family affair, they talk about it. They wait for an
exterior circumstance to bring about an interaction, otherwise they do
not engage by "creating" a communication. They either have a
compulsively irresistible urge toward doing something, or inhibited and
behave awkward and unnatural in communicating. If they manage to engage,
they often turn sharply, towards derailment of the dialogue, and bring
about a good degree of resentment, ill will and unwanted conclusions.
The
people who do not originate, or do not engage imaginatively, are
inherently dependent upon others to give them primal reasons to engage
in a conversation; this is due to being endowed with very little
imagination. As a result, we can conclude, that a pleasant and engaging
conversation, requires the participation of two imaginative minds, with
similar endowment of creative impulses, to mutually create the art of
communication.
