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| Romare Bearden, Quilting Time (1979) |
Is visual art or any art form meant
for pleasure only? Can artistic
presentations be a venue for the philosophical or the prophetic to emphasize
protest?
These are rhetorical questions to me
since the obvious reply is “Yes!” While
Art for pleasure is not only legitimate but desirable given the need for
delight in lives, I think that audiences satisfied with their own situations
may not accept Art as either philosophical or as prophetic. Why?
Because such Art may nudge an audience in an uncomfortable way as it
pricks the conscience, or even if it just causes people to re-consider another
look at the world; both could be a useless exercise as viewers reject it.
Besides, if one is assured already
of their understanding of the world, why would they want an art presentation
that teaches otherwise? For some it may
be an eye-opener, a revelatory experience of a new outlook. But for others it may be a sharp razor that
cuts without healing—though I should add that healing takes place with
humility. In any case, there will be no
winning of friends and influencing people that way; for an historical reference
think of the plight of either Socrates or Jesus.
Now, there’s no need to place an
artist at the level of famous philosophers and religious teachers (though I
would argue famous artists do inhabit the same heights), but like A
Square in the story Flatland the artist does have the task of trying to
communicate another vision of the world, or a vision of another world. Often that means one is addressing those who
only want the artist to affirm the status quo, and acting to the contrary will
usually translate into some kind of trouble, minor or major. Minor, in that the artist will find it
challenging to help an audience along to a new understanding; major, in that
others may threaten the artist.
Western visual art offers many such
artists. Usually, people think of the
Dada and Surrealist movements of the last century. Going back another hundred or so years, one
sees that Goya and Hogarth opposed conventional values in their work. There are others as the Expressionists after
WW1, but up until the 18th and 19th centuries most visual
art reflects the patronage taste for gods and heroes as artistic forms of all
kinds often were the media of the powerful.
Eventually, a step into the working
classes as a source was a new philosophical look at the world or, at least, new
in the 18th century. Today, we take for granted still life,
landscape, and scenes of people in mundane chores, but that imagery was a break
from the past. Yes, there is a precedent
for it in ancient villas and their decorative wall painting, in small figurines
of workers, but directly confronting the viewer this way after more than a
thousand years of angels, princesses, and knights marked a turn in thought. A protest against the medieval
landscape? In part, yes, and it also was
enthusiasm for the new way of understanding.
So, it continues today in the work
of many artists who react to the unfamiliar ways science informs us about the
world, who watch a population struggle for their independence and rights, and
who attempt to evaluate the cultural role of technology. Big topics, topics that stretch an artist to
the imaginative limit, and then Art becomes either an indicator of values or a
call for change.
