It's Halloween and, as has become our custom, we take a break from our normal commentary to stop and reflect on the holiday. Our long-suffering readers know that our reflections run deeper than just the holiday in question and tend to poke around at the innards of our society. We like to throw in some philosophy for good measure. Why do we feel compelled to write these diatribes? Probably because we like to question the
status quo, we feel it's healthy to think for ourselves. So while the rest of the world is content with a simple "Happy Halloween", we present you with our following commentary on Halloween, Gentlemen and Art . . . and how modern society tries to degrade them into mere shadows of their former selves.
We've noticed a trend in modern society, dear artists. We, as a people, have a way of taking things...good and bad...and hollowing them out. Like a man carving a Jack-O-Lantern, we take the meat out of the pumpkin and we're left with nothing but a pretty (or ugly) face on top of an empty shell.
Take the word "gentleman" for example. The word has lost it's meaning. Today, of course, we think of a "gentleman" as a "nice guy." But, it once was a word to describe a man who had a title and owned land...but, ironically, such a man could be a complete ass and still be considered a "gentleman."
We see this "hollowing out" in art too. As enlightened artists, you of course understand that "art" means something. For something to be "art", it must accomplish something. It must be "good" or "beautiful" ... at least if it's to be good or beautiful art. But society has tried to tell us that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"...that art is "subjective"....that it's all "relative."
But, that doesn't seem quite right to us who really "get" art. Because if art is "subjective" then there really can't be a concept of "better." And once you throw out the concept of one piece being "better" than another, then it really wouldn't matter any more what you do with your art. If there's no "better", then every brush stroke you make would be equally as "good" as another.
And, if that were true, as
Paul Graham points out then, "You could just go out and buy a ready-made blank canvas. If there's no such thing as good, that would be just as great an achievment as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel."
Halloween, in it's modern-day incarnation, is sort of the "gentleman" of holidays. We don't stop to wonder what we're doing or why. We just do it because everyone else is. It's sort-of lost it's true meaning, although it seems it was derived from many different types of celebrations. So, in essence, Halloween is the empty shell of several old celebrations....some good, some bad.
In the western world, the most-probable parent of Halloween would be "All Saints Day." That would have been a celebration of Christian "saints." We're not naive enough to believe that the celebrated "saints" were all saintly all the time, after all they were real people. But that's the point, "All Saints Day" stands for something REAL ... real people with sins and failures alongside their goodness and triumphs.
As
Bill Bonner writes, "...regardless of your views on the afterlife, All Saints' requires at least some reflection...on the lives of our forebears, on the challenges they faced and perhaps the lessons that could be learned from them."
But Halloween has become "subjective", just like the powers-that-be would have us think about art. It has become a day that is not "good" or "bad" - just a day that we confuse our kids and tell them that today . . . unlike the other 364 days a year . . . it's OK to take candy from strangers.
We think that the underlying "motivation" that causes this "hollowing out" effect is a desire to avoid the ugly or the bad. People prefer the word "gentleman" to mean a "nice guy" because then one doesn't have to acknowledge that a "gentleman" can be a real ass. And in art, why have to admit that some "art" really does stink? It's much more positive to simply say it's "subjective" and that "we're all winners." And why have to muck up the works on Halloween by talking about the shortcomings and failures of real people? It's much more fun to dress up and go get some candy!
The problem is, of course, that you can't really have good without bad....or, more specifically, you can't have
amazingly beautiful without the
real stinkers. You need both ends of the spectrum to truly appreciate those on the "amazingly beautiful" side.
So, you can't truly appreciate a nice guy until you've after you've met a few real asses, the skill of Michaelangelo becomes apparent when put his works next to the childish dribblings of a "modernist."
And on, "All Saints Day", celebrating the lives of real people, with with real shortcomings make apparent the amazing beauty of the Creator and the glimpses of His beauty that occasionally...just occasionally peek through in all of us.
Sincerely,
Clint Watson
Software Craftsman and Art Fanatic
PS - We forgot to tell you, "Happy Halloween!"
Related Pages and Posts:
How Art Can be Good (Paul Graham)
It's All Saints Day (Bill Bonner/DailyReckoning)
ron fritts wrote:
Your article on Creative Intelligence was one of the most inspiring. For over 40 years as an art instructor and having incorporated Howard Gardner’s work on the seven intelligences,I never gave thought to creative intelligence. I wonder what Mr. Gardner would say. In short I have added your concepts to my lecture classes to broaden the horizon of the students and have them understand the choices one must make in the processes of creating. However, I have always taught my college students that everyone is born with a creative impulse. Everyone wants to make something! Walter Hoving from the Metropolitan Museum of Art once defined Art as ‘bringing into existence something that was not there before and with a deliberate statement’. His insight into deliberate might coincide with creative intelligence. All of this is a little different from suggesting the development of a creative intelligence. Some continue to follow their creative impulse with encouragement from outside sources, and others drop off along the way mainly because our elementary and secondary education systems in this country shy away from creative thinking. The result is the whiplash of atrocious radicalism being experienced with our youth today. But that is another story. As far as Art goes , if one has been able to bridge the gap between creativity and art then the horizon is clearer and everyone would have to agree with your emphasis on discipline and the process and all the choices therein. I particularly find your comment, “Creative intelligence also involves the simultaneous use of mind and spirit.”, is great advice and as mentioned above I will incorporate your concepts into my lectures.
Thank you.
Ron Fritts, www.ronfritts.com a fine art studio on line artist.
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