the purpose of art - part one

8/4/2019 The Purpose of Art - Part One

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Lecture Topic

The purpose of art?Part One


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An ambitious presentation...One potential definition for what art is comes from Russian philosopher VictorShklovsky:

Art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to

make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they areperceived and not as they are known.

This is potentially a useful quote to learn and slip into paragraphs to show your

wide knowledge of the how to book connects to the real world.

This is my go-to definition of art as it serves as a pretty useful breaking off point forwhat, perhaps, art should strive to do. I like that this talks about the way in which art

should aim to create an emotive connection between the viewer and the world they existin. It is about capturing the essence of the world, rather than just re-describing what wereadily see around us.

For the purposes of our discussions around the novel, I think we can validly work aroundthe idea that one of the major purposes of art is to complexify the world we live in - toenrich it by making it more complex, layered, subjective, etc.


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Art as rebellion?

I would argue that almost all modern art (at least when it was at the heightof its modernity) can be seen as an act of rebellion. Huxley lived when thefollowing artists were working or were very prominent:

Pablo Picasso

Rene MagritteClaude MonetUmberto BoccioniPiet MondrianMarcel DuchampWasily Kandinsky

While these names make no immediate impression on you, they (and arange of others) changed the shape of the artistic world with their attitudesto what art should be. Some examples...


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Picasso

Considered the father ofcubism, Picasso

completely revolutionisedthe idea of perspective

with his desire to showmultiple perspectives

within a single image -illustrating the complexityof the subject; a single

perspective could nevercapture the true

complexity of the threedimensional world.


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This is not a pipe

Magritte played with our conception of what art expresses. He talksabout the way in which the painting represents the pipe but cannever capture the essence of the thing itself. To a extent, art thataims to re-present a thing fails. If we think back to Shklovskys

definition, this idea connects nicely - art shouldnt try to present, itshould attempt to help the viewer see the world in a differentmanner.

How can anyone enjoy interpreting symbols? They are 'substitutes'that are only useful to a mind that is incapable of knowing the thingsthemselves. A devotee of interpretation cannot see a bird; he onlysees it as a symbol. Although this manner of knowing the 'world' maybe useful in treating mental illness, it would be silly to confuse it witha mind that can be applied to any kind of thinking at all."


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Monet

A hugely important figure inthe Impressionistmovement. Monet wouldchallenge the idea ofpictorial realism. What ismore honest, the feel andsensation of Monets

brushstrokes, or aphotographical landscapepainting of the samecathedral?


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Boccioni

A criticalfigure in theFuturist

movement.His paintingexploredthe

vibrancy ofnewmechanicalage.


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Mondrian

A key figure in the

De Stijlmovement. Hecompletely

abandonedpictorial

representation,for a geometric

expression of themodern world.

Fitting for a worldbecoming defined

by the hard linesof buildings andhighways.


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Duchamp

An important Dadaartist. He would

become renowned forthe urinal he presentedto the Society ofIndependent Artists

exhibit in 1917 -challenging the notionof what can be art.


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Kandinsky

Straddled manyartistic movements.One period devotedto the desire to finda way for painting tobe able to representsound and music.

Connectionsbetween lines andcolours and specificinstruments and

sounds.


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A major challenge

This is only a taste of the huge artistic shift that was happening during the time ofHuxleys life. He would have been aware of a lot of this stuff going on around him,

and being based in England, would have had access to a lot of the imagery seen inthe previous slides. As a consequence, he was probably fully of aware of the

growing power of art to express deeply personal, humane and universal conceptsthat provided huge insight into the complexity and beauty of the world we live in.

And its also certain that each of these artists was using their art to challenge what

had come before. They were using their art to express other ways in which peoplemight come to terms with the world around them and their own, very personal, innerselves. These paintings helped to challenged the positivity of the growth of industry,

it challenged how we see by getting us to see emotively, it expressed what we couldeven consider art. At the heart of it all is the desire to challenge. To push us to seethe world differently. To express the individual point of view. A far cry from the BraveNew World.

the purpose of art - part one

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