The Foundation for Sacred Arts

I want to point out that I added a new recommended link,
The Foundation for Sacred Arts. Check them out!

An Affirmation: great art is inherently public and involves a community between artist and audience

A few days ago I listened to a podcast of a lecture delivered in June, 2009, by David M. Whalen, Professor of English at Hillsdale College, titled "Richard Weaver: The Language of Conservatism." [available in the online lecture library of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a valuable free resource]

I was pleasantly surprised to find in this lecture a strong affirmation of certain elements of my own thinking about the nature of art and the artistic process. I am referring here to my two earlier posts, Art is Inherently Public, and, Art Needs the Engagement of Artist and Audience Both.

In the former post I remarked that artists, if they are to create great art, should not engage in the creative process in an overly self-enclosed way, as though walled-off from the world beyond themselves. To quote myself, I wrote, "art is created for the sake of being seen (or heard) by someone." The artist must continue to care about the world of his audience even as he explores his own unique, inner vision.

In the latter post I commented that the audience as well must be open to the artist and what the artist is communicating through his art. I wrote, "And so the audience also has to engage. They have to be receptive, open, willing to work to discover what the art has to say."

I attempted to sum up these complementary ideas, saying, "considering the whole context in which art truly serves as art including the creation, presentation, and reception by an audience . . . art, when it is fruitful . . . when it succeeds as art-- is endowed with a concurring spirit of openness and receptivity . . . in both the artist and the audience."

So, with this brief review, let us turn to the above lecture by Professor Whalen. His talk used the thinking of 20th century intellectual Richard Weaver as a starting point, especially as found in Weaver's 1948 book, Ideas Have Consquences. Several minutes into the lecture Whalen addressed ideas pertaining to the creation and reception of art. He explained that Weaver had lamented how our modern, industrialized Western culture was becoming less and less civilized. I transcribed the following from Whalen's talk:

Central to [Richard Weaver’s] work and thought, is the argument that a late medieval rejection of transcendentals or universals renders the idea of knowing anything not immediately perceived by the senses impossible.

[. . .] This is part of the gradual orientation toward endless stimulation and the exaltation of the purely imminent. Sensation itself, it seems, has taken the place formerly held by reflection. In modern art, we see the confluence of this tyrannical egotism on the one hand, and the primacy of comfort and transitory, material, or sensual pleasure, on the other. The thesis that somewhere in the past few centuries all forms of art came to be understood as exalted self-expression is hardly novel or terribly controversial. . . . Bereft of ordering concepts that give definition to the human person and to the idea of communities, art is left to express the self in isolation. Ideals pertaining to heroism, or the family, or the city or community, the good life, or even ideals pertaining to artistic form, genre, or type, traditionally animate artistic production. Attenuated by modernity’s turn from abstract ideals these animating principles fade from view, leaving the artist stranded.

Of course, this can be felt as an intoxicating freedom at first . . . no longer does the individual with talent have to deal with tradition. But the absence of ideals is critically compounded in its effects by the simultaneous isolation of the artist. That is, a tradition also is a kind of community. . . Untune that string, and hark what discord follows. The artist is free to express himself, yes. But, he does so in a vacuum; he expresses himself, to himself. Not only ideals are absent, but so is an intelligible audience or community. No longer does Demoticus [sp?], Homer’s bard, sit at the feast and sing his epics to a wondering audience. He sits alone, instead, or perhaps before a lifeless microphone, and chants faint hymns to the cold, fruitless moon.

The egotism of this self-expression in isolation has a corollary at the other end, so-to-speak, of artistic production. How is art received? “Egotism,” says Weaver, “in work and art, is the flowering after long growth of a heresy of human destiny. The heresy . . . is that man’s destiny in the world is not to perfect himself, but to lean back in sensual enjoyment.” In other words, while the artist expresses himself to himself in isolation, the receiver of art, if I may say so, looks to amuse himself in isolation. . . . The essential observation is that what one does as a receiver of art [in contemporary society] is merely or purely sensual enjoyment rather than that same enjoyment in the course of participation in a public affirmation of a human ideal.

It seems to me that these remarks harmonize well with the ideas I put forth in my two blog posts about the artistic process. A pleasant affirmation!

And I would like to note that professor Whalen, via Weaver, explains why modern artists have tended to create art in an isolated, self-absorbed mode--and likewise why modern audiences have tended to look to art merely for an an experience of the imminent and for immediate pleasure. Sadly, our respect for the traditions and values of the past has diminished. The habit of self-reflection in light of perennial ideals has become devalued. The primacy of the immediate moment and the experience of pleasure has become dominant. This, for art, is a dual curse--to become detached from the values of one's culture while simultaneously becoming excessively preoccupied with self.

How can we contribute to establishing a culture that once again is capable of fostering and appreciating great art? Somehow, we need to relearn--reconnecting with our past, reaching out of ourselves toward others, and putting the merely pleasurable and immediate in its proper place--how to engage in art in a more fully and truly human mode. Connecting with transcendent reality is essential. This is a challenge which everyone, not only art producers, must strive to meet. If we make progress, perhaps once again we may be blessed by living in a community of persons in which the experience of art, for artists and audiences both, is a genuine "participation in a public affirmation of a human ideal."

Art Needs the Engagement of Artist and Audience Both

Following up from my post yesterday with some thoughts about art and the artistic process. . .

Just as being true to one's calling as an artist requires the artist to have a generous mindfulness of his (or her) audience during the creative process (yet still maintaining his own special vision and insight), so too the audience taking in a work of art needs to be open to the artwork and what it might communicate to them. There needs to be a relationship of sorts between the artwork and the audience, an open interchange of spirits transcending isolated selves, in order for art to serve as art.

I could walk into an art museum and wander around looking at great works of art, yet not have an experience of the greatness of the art. I might be closed up within myself--my heart, mind, and soul hardened, preoccupied, stale. Or, perhaps I were simply lazy and gazed around without any effort to see what was there to be seen. It is possible to look upon even great artworks and, because of something going on (or not going on) in ourselves, not be able to receive what they have to say. Art is not a static thing. It involves a real spiritual dynamism, a reaching-out of persons, an intersection of lives.

And so the audience also has to engage. They have to be receptive, open, willing to work to discover what the art has to say.

Together with what I wrote yesterday, and considering the whole context in which art truly serves as art including the creation, presentation, and reception by an audience, this means that the dynamism of the phenomenon of art, when it is fruitful--when it brings the audience into an experience of lasting meaningfulness, of real depth and poignancy--when it succeeds as art--is endowed with a concurring spirit of openness and receptivity to each other in both the artist and the audience. The interchange is human: personal, somewhat mysterious, unpretentious.

A gifted artist may assist the audience to awaken from any sort of self-enclosure; he may invite them with his artwork to open up their spirits. But he may not force them. They remain free, as does the artist remain free himself, to hold themselves (himself) in solipsism. But when art and audience are both as they should be, cor ad cor loquitur (heart speaks to heart).

[This post again reflects insights shared with me by my friend Rachel]

Art is Inherently Public

Being someone who was very involved with the arts as a teen (music primarily, but photography as well), I remain very interested in art (in the summer after my freshman year I actually switched my college major to photography but switched again to biology before the semester started) and I like to ponder how the big questions of life intersect with the world of the arts. Art and philosophy seem to have a certain natural affinity with each other. (Aesthetics is considered a branch of philosophy.)

Here is a statement that I would claim is true about any form of art, if it is truly to serve as art: art is inherently public.

This statement probably either strikes you as obvious, or, you wonder what I mean.

Simply, I mean that art is created for the sake of being seen (or heard) by someone. The finished creation exists 'for' a public other--someone other than the artist himself.

Who has heard of a composer who writes music never intending any of it to be heard only so that he can play it to himself in his own mind? I am referring in this post to a person who has a vocation to be an artist, who understands art to be his (or her) primary work in life. Sure, an amateur may create something as a hobby or simply for his own enjoyment never intending it to be seen by others. But I am speaking here about the artist who works as a professional. Or, at least, someone who has genuine gifts of artistic talent which he develops seriously whether or not it becomes his main source of income.

My reason for stating that art is inherently public and what I mean by this is primarily to get to this: there are significant consequences for the process of artistic creativity that follow upon the fact that it is in the nature of art to be created for others--for a public to see/hear.

What are these consequences? There are probably several, but I would like to try to shed some light on at least one. The process of creating a work of art is both highly personal (in a way very particular to the individual artist), and, generous. Generous meaning selfless, humble before and deliberately mindful of the multifarious realities of the artist's (and his intended audience's) own culture, time, and place. Both he and his audience approach any work of art with a background. The artist and his society have a history with artworks of the past and communicate within a certain culturally influenced context of signs and symbols. There is a base of literary, historical, and traditional influences that significantly form the mental and spiritual world of the communities of which the artist is a part. If his art is to have enduring power and meaning for anyone other than himself, the artist must keep in mind this background as he creates. He must care about the world of his audience. In this sense, the vocation of a good artist, while remaining very personal, requires a certain ability to step outside of self and take upon himself the eyes of his "people," whomever they may be.

Why do I write about this? Because I think that the art world, at least that of Western societies, has over the course of the last century or so lost sight of this. Artists, it seems, are encouraged (or, perhaps they do this on their own) to create art in a way that cares only for the self. Some art, at least, seems to have lost any regard for the audience. Some art seems to be an exercise in solipsism--totally and exclusively wrapped up in the interior world of the artist and thus highly self-indulgent. Art that is made in this solipsistic mode does not make the effort of being interested in the cultural context of the viewing public. It is analogous to the artist talking to himself in a mirror in his own unique language; there is an onlooker to the side (the audience), but the artist doesn't care for he is interested in talking only to himself. If others want to look on, fine, but he is not concerned for whether they gain anything by it. An artist with real talent who makes this mistake does great injustice to his calling as an artist.

Some art (music as well as the visual arts, theater and dance) made in the Western world of the last century or so has this unfortunate quality of being essentially an exercise in solipsism--of the artist interacting solely with himself. When this happens, I would claim, genuine art is not being made. Because, as I said above, I don't think art is truly art, and cannot serve the inherently public role of art, if it is not made with the common inner world of some public--of some community beyond the artist himself--in mind. The genius of a great artist is displayed, in part, in how he can creatively and generously weave the interior world of the public 'for whom' he creates together with his own unique inner world. In so doing, he can make art that communicates something meaningful to the public. He may thus produce something which endures, which might be accessible to the minds and souls not only of the people of his era, but for generations to come.

This is harder than simply "being true to oneself" (a euphemism for self-indulgence). Art is supposed to communicate something meaningful to other people. To do this, you have to have something in the medium of communication that the audience can understand on some level. In other words, in the history of art (until recent times, anyways), art has never been understood primarily as a means of self-therapy for the artist. It may be this secondarily--but not primarily.

I have hope that there is positive development on this front. But the development is slow.

I conclude with a quote from the 19th century English artist (and socialist!), William Morris, which captures the spirit of what I am getting at:

I do not believe in the possibility of keeping art vigorously alive by the action, however energetic, of a few groups of specially gifted men and their small circle of admirers amidst a general public incapable of understanding and enjoying their work. I hold firmly to the opinion that all worthy schools of art must be in the future, as they have been in the past, the outcome of the aspirations of the people towards the beauty and true pleasure of life.
[as quoted in, "When art Was by and for the people," by John Robson, 6/20/09, mercatornet.com]

[Thank you, Rachel! Our recent conversation inspired this post.]