Insight - Art

So I've decided I'm going to take my blog in a a slightly new direction. I decided it needs more than just poetry and music and I've been encouraged lately to share some of the thoughts that go on in my mind. I'm going to start up a new regular spiel called "Insight". I figured it might a little something to make my page here more interesting, varied, and personalized. I'd appreciate it if you guys would comment below or even talk to me face to face if you want to talk about any of this stuff. For my first shot at this, I'm going to share my final Theory of Knowledge paper. Now I know this paper is a beast; read the first and last paragraphs if anything. We were given ten topics to choose from. Here was the prompt I chose:

"Art is a lie that brings us nearer to the truth" -Pablo Picasso. Evaluate this claim in relation to a specific art form.

Art is an unbridled force, backed by endless creativity and unmatched passion, that is continually growing more powerful in terms of the amount of people it reaches, the amount of people endeavoring to further it, and the more-than-ever variations of it that people are now pursuing. The incredibly, sometimes incomprehensibly, compelling nature of art has an undeniable presence in the world today, but the basis of its existence as a prevalent part of nearly every individual’s life is more difficult to understand. An actor shrouds himself with a false identity. An artist portrays impossible scenes. A musician manipulates unnatural sounds. A writer creates outlandish worlds and scenarios. All of these examples serve to persuade the mind that art, even with any efforts artists might make to follow reality, is ultimately fake and, as some would suppose, useless. The fact that the word ‘art’ shares the letters of and the ideas behind the word ‘artificial’, which means ‘lacking naturalness’ and is synonymous with terms such as counterfeit, false, and unreal, seems the simplest and most inarguable evidence available to support the first half of Picasso’s statement that art is a lie. This point seems to have the majority of individuals in concurrence. Art, in essence, is all that is not real or, if one would venture to say so, not true.

Picasso’s second opinion, that art brings us nearer to the truth, is generally a more difficult concept to understand and feel comfortable about. Many philosophical thinkers argue that with the introduction of a greater amount of artwork, along with a growing variety of forms, comes a more cluttered, doubt-filled reality. These are the people that advocate the ideas that counter Picasso’s aforementioned viewpoint. These people that say art is pulling humanity further from the truth. These people say that the imagination behind the art is distracting us from the important things in life. These people say that the pursuit of art is entirely vain. Through much experience with viewing, analyzing, and creating art, I, along with much of the people close to me as well as those from across the globe, firmly stand against these people. The extreme passion, deep thought, and insatiable wonder that art is often capable of inciting both within the creator and the witness are indescribable. Though art is often heavily reliant upon language and emotion as conduits of the expression of ideas, or knowledge, it seems to go above and beyond these methods when finding its way to the observer. Art, in a mysterious way that perhaps nothing but a human could ever understand, is a convincing force that can be impossible to discount. What it is that art attempts to convince the viewer of, however, is open for interpretation. Someone in an art museum might recognize the immense beauty of a rose for the first time when looking at a painted, perhaps unrealistic, depiction of the flower. The flower has, of course, always existed, but we can assume that without the artist’s emphasis and glorification of the simple rose, which is, in essence, a lie, changed the way this individual views flowers. The antagonists would argue that the artist’s unreal rendition of the flower has tricked the person into believing something that isn’t true. This perspective usually stems from pessimists or from those who are overly reliant on logic, or, in other words, poor knowers. Therefore, it is both safer and more reasonable to conclude that the artist’s painting of the rose has brought its beholder “nearer to the truth”, not further from it. Upon analyzing this scenario and many other similar cases, it becomes clear that art, which is a lie because of the way in which it veers away from or alters reality, does, in fact, bring one nearer to the truth.

Drawing from my experiences as an avid music maker and an aspiring novelist, I’ve seen the influence that art can have both upon my fellow artists and upon my onlookers. Most artists consider themselves more knowledgeable individuals than they were before they embraced and succeeded to practice and excel in the field of art. There is, of course, much logic behind music. There is a mathematical system to the arrangement of musical notes. There is a science to how well certain colors appear when placed together. There is a structure of vocabulary and grammar in place for writers to follow. This definitive, undeniably truthful information is beneficial as part of one’s mental arsenal and can be reasonably considered at equal with any mathematical equation, scientific theory, or historical account, but it is rarely the most prevalent part of art from the perspective of the artist. Art, by its own nature, permits the creator to break these logical rules. Logic doesn’t always have a place in artwork, and even when it does, it is rarely the root of an artist’s inspiration. It is not why artists consider themselves more learned or more sophisticated after experimenting with art. It is not necessarily what “brings [them] nearer to the truth”.

Creativity and passion are the primary driving forces behind this supposed acquisition of knowledge. The vast majority of artists would insist that imagination, fascination, and emotion are the powers that cause them to do what they do, that make them what they are, that have them constantly clinging to the false, which most of them would actually consider the truth. Rarely does one write a song mainly to learn the patterns that guide musical composition. People write songs to incite feelings within themselves or the listeners, to learn about their capabilities, or sometimes just to discover something new or lay claim to something that has never been done before. Visual artists, computer animators, sculptors, actors, dancers, film creators, clothes designers, and beauticians all tend to follow these approaches. Imagination, it seems, will forever be endless. Scientists tend to believe that there is a definite number of laws that dictate every aspect of the universe and they are devoted to discovering each and every one of these rules until all truth has been documented. It is easy to understand that artists, though their intangible, but comparable universe of images, ideas, and feelings is seen by most as infinite, are similarly searching their world for truths. The spherical nature of the Earth wasn’t considered truth until it was proven. Likewise, “The Messiah” wasn’t a part of reality until Handel created, or perhaps ‘found’ or ‘discovered’ it. The difference between the sphere and the choral/orchestral masterpiece is that the Earth has always been a sphere and the “The Messiah” hasn’t always been a musical piece – or perhaps it has. Perhaps all pieces of art have always existed. Perhaps those not yet created are just waiting to be discovered. Perhaps there is only a slight difference between scientific truths and artistic “truths”. This case would imply that art and science are more closely related than believed by most individuals, who tend to place science and art on opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum, and is, therefore, contrary to reality and tradition. Still, neither argument can be thoroughly proven.

To further prospect the relation between art and truth, I’ll turn to my personal experiences. I have established myself as a skilled player, experienced creator, and devout listener of music. The viola and the bass guitar, two extremely different instruments from two time periods separated by centuries of musical development, are my two specialties. Their existence relative to one another, with the viola representing classical music and the bass guitar symbolizing the more modern rock and roll, illustrates an interesting truth behind music and art in general. Classical music became popular around five centuries ago. At the time, is was a new endeavor, exalted as divine by some and heavily criticized as blasphemous by others. It created sounds and rhythms that could never exist naturally and was, in a way, bending reality. In the world today, classical music is simply there. It plays a large part in society. It is in our concert halls, in our theatres, in our homes. Though it is a lie, it has established a new truth. Only about fifty years ago, a new type of music emerged: rock and roll. This form of music took art’s nature as a lie to the next level. It not only created sounds more unnatural than any heard before, it blasted them to volumes previously unimaginable. This ‘lie’ gave people a further understanding of the impressive variety of sounds our ears and minds could register, many of which must have seemed impossible. Even more recently, electronic sounds have gained a foothold in the world of music. It makes art seem like even more of a lie by creating sounds not only unnatural, but unplayable by any physical object. Still, all three of these types of music, which almost seem unrelated, coexist. Together, they constitute the lie that is music. At the same time, they allow listeners, performers, and composers to better comprehend the possibility of sound, the truth of sound.

The more information scientists discover, the closer they are to knowing the truths behind the existence of the universe. An artist likewise explores and discovers within the world of creativity and passion in order to more fully understand the scope and power of what is possible. Because this information doesn’t seem to exist prior to ‘discovery’, it can be considered a lie. It does, however, serve as a vessel to the destination that is truth simply by existing, by grasping an undeniable presence. After analyzing the purpose and achievements of art, Picasso’s viewpoint becomes clearly well justified.