In my opinion, one of the greatest crimes philosophers have ever committed was splitting the concept of art into two unequal halves. On the one hand they created the concept of pure art, while on the other, they created a plebeian version and called it 'craft'. In the video I am including below, philosopher Roger Scruton credits this event as having triggered the glories Renaissance - and I am in no way about to dis the importance and value of the Renaissance - then goes on to posit that the very same idea of pure art for its own sake has led to the bankruptcy that we see in art and culture today. In many, if not most ways, I agree with the dismay expressed by Mr. Scruton over the banality and ugliness that calls itself art these days (please note that this does not mean I agree with Mr. Scruton on other issues). However, I have a somewhat different idea as to how we got here, and the seriousness of the effect that artistic ugliness has on the human soul and psyche.
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your vision is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your vision is poor, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! Matthew 6:22-23 Berean Study Bible
Ooh! A bible quote! Yes, a bible quote! Now read it this way:
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your vision is filled with beauty, your whole body will be full of beauty. But if your vision is filled with ugliness, your whole body will be full of ugliness. If then the light within you is ugliness, how great is that ugliness!
What we look at, what we surround ourselves with, has an effect on both our inner and outer lives. When you look at a beautiful sunset or sunrise, or an amazing rainbow, you feel somehow uplifted. It is hard to imagine anyone feeling uplifted while looking at someone else's barfed-up spaghetti dinner. Messy, dirty, disorganized surroundings have been proven to have a detrimental effect on people both psychologically and emotionally. The inverse is also true; when we see someone living in filth, we automatically know that something is wrong with that person either mentally or emotionally.
The outside reflects the inside, and the inside is created by what we put into it from the outside. If we intentionally surround ourselves with ugliness, that ugliness will seep into us. On a spiritual level, it poisons our soul and degrades our spirit. On a psychological level, it can lead to depression or other maladies of the psyche. On the level of a person's personality, well, it leads to pretentiousness and artifice.
Yes, saying that is nasty, but the fact is, no normal person will look at a can of Artist's Shit and honestly think it beautiful. It is a counterfeit of beauty. Acknowledging that a can of shit has artistic value requires artifice on the part of the person making the claim. They know, and you know, what it really is: a joke played by the artist on the buyer. The reason it has any value? Well, I would have to say it's a form of fetishism on part of the buyer. They want to own a piece of the artist, not his art, in very much the same way as some hormonal fan might want to own an autographed pair of Madonna's underpants.
Artist's Shit (Merda d'artista) by Piero Manzoni
The human spirit not only craves beauty, but requires it in order to remain sane, healthy and alive. We fill our sights with ugly art and ugly architecture at our own risk. People don't live in concrete jungles and run down tenements because they want to. No, they do it because they don't have the choice of living elsewhere. The second they do, most will flee as fast as they can to places that are less soul-crushing.
Beauty is essential not only in art, but also in our surroundings, and this is where I feel the original error was made by philosophers. In splitting art from craft, they rendered both soulless. Beauty fled from craft, and art lost functionality, and therefore legitimate purpose. Can you imagine a world where a spoon could be a work of art that you can admire while eating your cereal? That is where we might have been if not for the idea that beauty can only attain it's highest heights when divorced from functionality.
I put it to you to look at the ancient world. Magnificent mosaics and murals abounded in public places. Intricate tapestries adorned ancient walls, where they functioned to not only to keep the cold from seeping through the walls and into rooms, but as a source of beauty for the room. And, while plumbing wasn't what it is today, have you ever seen a communal toilet as uplifting as the monk's lavatorium in this photo:
Prior to the Renaissance, beauty was an intricate part of daily life, and the beauty was truly beautiful. Craftsmen were artists who took pride in both the form and functionality of their products. Once we hit the Renaissance, however, beauty becomes overbearing and overdone. It also become intrusive and gaudy, and there is too much of it packed into too few places. It becomes something for the rich to own and secret away from the general public. It becomes elitist. Worst of all, it becomes a status symbol, something not intended for grimy paws of the great unwashed. The great unwashed were therefore cut off from higher things, and restricted to a diet of whatever beauty they could find in less skilled artists and craftsmen.
The end result was the separation of 'high art' and 'pop culture'. Deprived of beauty, they lost the ability to appreciate beauty, and to create anything but shadows of it.
But, the privileged also lost their appreciation of beauty. Art for art's sake became boring. They had to come up with new thrills, mainly of a nature that is completely perverse in relation to true beauty. They have come to the point where beauty bores them, and they'd rather be the butt of an artist's joke than admit that they no longer know what real art is. That is because art without functionality will inevitably become banal.
Wow, this was interessting. You digged really deep into that topic, but I really share your perspectives to some extend.
I really enjoyed your perspective on this topic...and I whole heartily agree..thanks for some common sense input into this a times very " touchy" subject....will watch the video later when I have ever more time..
Thanks for the compliment. The video is quite long, but worth it.
Will give it a shot...thanks
Fantastic critique of what passes as "art" these days. I recall James Joyce once saying something along the line of pornography is that which we want to possess, while didactics is that which we reject. By possessing and hoarding "art," the wealthy turned it into pornography. I did not realize the separation of art and craft due to philisophy; most likely due to resurgent Platonism.
I noticed that following the Reformation, art lost the context and theme in Protestant nations. Rather than portrayal of the Madonna holding Jesus, or depictions of the Crucifixion, the Dutch art emphasized still life and landscapes - empty and meaningless.
The arts used to be something dedicated to whatever gods you worshiped. It gave them soul and beauty. Antonio Stradivari famously gave God the credit for using his hands in order to make the incredible violins that he did - and, strangely no one has been able to replicate their tone even today.
I totally agree with you that "mainly of a nature that is completely perverse in relation to true beauty". I feel the same that nothing can be greatest artist than the nature itself. No a days people finding art in nature only.
Great topic :)
Thank you. I totally agree that nature is the greatest artist. In fact, if you look at art, it is often an attempt to capture the beauty of nature.
This is deep man, I actually had to take a lot of time to re-read everything. Thanks! I'll point with my perspective that everyone has different perspectives but ultimately there really are beautiful things and ones that aren't so. We need to see through all of them to call things, art.
Bingo! There are absolutes in this world, and one of them is what is beautiful and what is rubbish.
Still, if one can make rubbish beautiful, then what we have here is an artist who believes in the possibilities in the impossible.
If the artist can make beauty out of rubbish, then he/she is a real artist. The key is in making beauty out of it, not just more rubbish.
This is a great article my friend, well done. Totally agree.
Thank you.
Fantastic post! I totally agree that our surroundings have a profound effect on our inner world. When I am living in chaos, my world feels like chaos. When I am surrounded by beauty, I feel peace and calm.
PS: OMG Artists Shit?!?! I have never heard of that before.
Dadaism. There is plenty more bad 'art' out there, including a woman who made jewelry out of pubic hair, and expositions of decomposing rabbit carcasses. Then there was the exposition of preserved human corpses... .
All I can say is that we need more beauty in our lives, more public spaces designed to uplift us, and a lot less of what we are seeing now.
Yuck! Some people will do anything the get noticed. I did a photography class and some of the students dragged a dead kangaroo onto the road to photograph. The teacher thought it was brilliant. Definitely not my kind of thing!
Intellectual bankruptcy. That is the only way to describe things these days ;)
I highly suggest you look into the incredible pioneer Elizabeth Hurlock. In one of her studies, she and colleagues observed children drawing and inquired what these works of art meant to the children.
Before there were alphabets and written languages, there were drawings. Humanity expressed the witness of the world through art. Today, we have daft-mongers residing in ivy-covered ivory towers who haven't a clue and spend most of their collective energies preventing anyone from searching and thinking. Art is a profound exercise of the mind and the senses. Furthermore, there is a lot to be said for the starving artist. Passion is the product.
I'll have to look into that, or ask my niece (she's wrapping up her BA in psychology after switching over from social work).
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Sure, go ahead. I will look into your project, too. Thanks for the helping hand.