Vol. 55, No. 8 — August 1974 — What Use is Art?
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Some persons find it difficult to associate
art with such hard-headed facts of life as their daily jobs
and the disorder of domestic and world politics.
If, indeed, the chores and the excitements are poles apart
from the arts, that is not a bad thing. In our present civilization,
mechanization and industrialization make the arts necessary
as a counterpoise if we are to retain our balance, our culture
and our sanity.
Art can take the chaos, the haphazard, the mêlée
of daily life and set it before us in ordered simplicity,
symmetry and perspective. It inserts evidence, as it were,
between the shrieking headlines, that beauty, truth and goodness
are not obsolete.
The arts are not to be judged by the standards of industrial
efficiency, with its absorption in mass production. Unlike
useful things or the tools used to produce them, works of
art are designed to serve no function other than to give enjoyment.
Under the utilitarian code, creation of beautiful things is
looked upon as the pastime of persons who might be employed
in useful labour.
Everyone knows that there are some things which we do because
we must: these are our necessities. There are things we do
because we ought to do them: these are our duties. There are
other things we do because we like to do them: these are our
play, a necessary offset to all the others.
The humanizing influence of art is one of the most positive
forces in the development of a well-balanced mind, helping
us to cope with and to rise above the multitude of mundane
and materialistic affairs that absorb most of our attention
and time.
Some persons are critical of present-day art, and put their
dislike of it forward as a reason for brushing it to one side.
Art cannot be praised or blamed for holding up a mirror
to the society in which it exists. If the reality is chaotic,
so will the reflection be. If the reality is confusing or
difficult, the painter may sublimate it or shroud it in metaphor,
as did one who was painting a landscape. "When a cow came
slouching by," he said, "another artist might have drawn it,
but I always go wrong in the hind legs of quadrupeds, so I
drew the soul of the cow." Behind the mystery of much art
today there are artists trying to draw the soul of society.
What art is
Some people will say that art is real when it shows sound
knowledge, mastered craft, vivid imagination, strong common
sense, truth, and wise meaning. Others will say that the distinguishing
characteristic of a work of art is that it serves no practical
end, but is an end in itself. Or it may be said that if a
painting appeals merely by the story it tells it is not art
but an illustration. The ultimate test of worth is: does it
give pleasure? To arouse the powers of enjoyment, of yielding
to beauty, is the legitimate end of art.
Tolstoy said in his essay on art: "Art is a human activity
consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of
certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has
lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings
and also experience them." This means that art is not an ornamental
addition to life, but an organ of human life translating man's
perception into feeling. Art is not a matter of deftness of
hands only, but the work of the whole spirit of man.
The art described here can be enjoyed by gentle and simple
men and women, by learned and unlearned, if they have a mind
to it.
That the sense of beauty is inherent in most people without
regard to the extent of their education is clearly seen when
we look at the art of primitive people. It is also seen in
the unconsciously aesthetic appreciation which today's man
in the street will betray as he inspects the latest automobile,
or in the presence of any beautiful building or machine which
he is not asked to look at as "a work of art".
Many persons acknowledge that their attitude to art is purely
emotional and inexpert, but nevertheless they enjoy the experience.
If one does not feel deeply stirred in the presence of great
pictures, great sculpture or great music, he can be certain
that he is living a vastly lower and more restricted life
than he could be living. The mechanical world is of our own
making, but the real world is one of deep emotional experience.
Everyone needs beauty
The aesthetic sense should be deliberately and consciously
cultivated in all sections and activities of life. We are
all too likely to become highly developed in one faculty at
the expense of other, more personal, parts of our nature.
Top-notch executives, experts in electronics, designers of
computers: all these have hard intellectual force, but many
of them have not been careful to preserve and develop their
real, their beauty-loving, selves.
Granting that the fine arts are those of which the end is
beauty, the question next arises, what is beauty? It cannot
be digested into general laws for all peoples and all times.
Every person needs to form a philosophy of beauty for himself,
making his own appraisal of what is lovely. Without that he
will be tossed aimlessly on an ebbing and flowing sea of passing
beliefs, emotions and ideas.
There is no absolute and accepted scale of beauty, and some
beauties are more easily discernible by some people than by
others. The delicate carvings in wood of French Canada and
the soap-stone and bone carvings of the Eskimos are more quickly
and easily understandable than the clay figurines of China
in the Royal Ontario Museum, but there is beauty in all of
them.
When thinking of fine art, we can say that any material
object which gives us pleasure in the simple contemplation
of its outward qualities is in some degree beautiful. When
we say that there is beauty in a picture or in a piece of
sculpture, what we really mean is that this particular arrangement
of colours and forms causes a state of mind in us that is
good.
Much of our appraisal of beauty is influenced by the conditions
under which we view the object, and also by our personal make-up.
Some persons who write or think poetically about the redness
of a rose will faint at the sight of the same redness flowing
from a wound.
Down to earth
The fine arts have been brought down from the elevated regions
of the religious and the classical societies, and launched
upon their secular, their democratic, career.
The term "fine arts" is conventionally used to designate
those arts which are concerned with line, colour and form
(painting, sculpture and architecture); with sound (music)
and with the exploitation of words for both their musical
and expressive values (prose and poetry). Architecture, sculpture,
painting, music and poetry are by common consent the five
principal or greater fine arts.
The mechanical arts can be practised by strict adherence
to rule and precept, but the fine arts, though they, too,
have technical foundations which are matters of rule and precept,
can be practised only by following, in a region outside the
reach of rule and precept, the free prompting of some of the
finest faculties of the spirit. They call for imagination:
for, as Aristotle put it, bringing something into existence.
An artist's eye sees the surface of things but also discerns
and interprets the organic structure and the potentiality
that lie underneath. It is when a work of art achieves a synthesis
of these that it becomes a contribution to the viewer's understanding
and opens up a wealth of cultural beauty.
For art to live it must communicate. It needs both form
and meaning. It is not enough that it mean something special
to the artist: it must convey meaning or feeling to the viewer.
The artist painting a landscape is not trying to describe
the visible appearance of the landscape as a photograph would
show it, but to tell us something about it, an original discovery
made by him which he wishes to communicate to us.
This is why looking at fine art is different from looking
at an illustration. We do not seek photographic accuracy but
a portrayal of a slice of life that is intelligible, informative
and perhaps elevating.
"The Last Supper"
The artist groups and co-ordinates a diversity of parts
into a unity, with every part relevant to the whole, in order
to make his point clear. The edges of his canvas form the
boundary of his painting. He must make everything he depicts
relate to the size and shape he has chosen, and every object
must have a definite relationship to the other objects.
This is illustrated in Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper",
probably the most famous painting in the world. It illuminates
a moment of unparalleled human drama, and Leonardo directed
every element of his composition toward communicating it.
He made use of the architectural features of the room: lines
radiating from the rafters of the ceiling meet at the head
of the central figure; the other figures are so disposed,
in a wave-like pattern, as to move the current of excitement
toward the centre of the table where it seems to break against
the serenity of the central figure.
Not all that is optically possible to be seen is to be shown
in every picture. Care must be taken not to emphasize particularities,
for that would be confusing. A painting of a building in which
every brick is reproduced with the greatest fidelity has left
no scope for poetry in the artist's conception of his piece.
Art is a response to the demand for stimulation of our senses
and imagination, and truth enters into it only as it is useful
in arriving at these ends.
Truth in art has almost as many aspects as in morals or
philosophy. The painter may understand it as truth of general
effect, possibly to the neglect of truth of detail. Not everyone
concedes to the artist or the poet the right to subordinate
actuality to his point of view, or to suppress some externals
in order to reveal the deeper, simpler truth as he sees it.
The first Canadian Christmas Carol, for example, adapts
an ancient story to the understanding, environment and way
of life of the Huron Indians of Georgian Bay 300 years ago.
It was written by Father Jean de Brébeuf in the Indian
dialect.
The illustrations for the Carol on slides by the National
Film Board repeat the setting of the words: "a lodge of broken
bark" instead of "a stable"; "a ragged robe of rabbit skin"
instead of "swaddling clothes"; and "gifts of fox and beaver
pelt" instead of "gold and frankincense and myrrh."
What pleases the eye
Fine art addresses itself not only to the eye but also to
the imagination. The eye takes notice of ten different qualities
of objects: light and darkness, colour and substance, form
and position, distance and nearness, movement and rest. It
is through his depiction of these in his painting that the
artist reaches our minds and animates our thoughts.
Many pictures owe their permanent value in art and their
chief charm in our eyes to the artist's excellent feeling
for line, and his facility and skill in draughtsmanship. Others
please us by richness or harmony of colour, or by the delicacy
of their effects of light and shade. The human eye tires of
machine-drawn straight lines. The curve is the line of beauty,
whether in the draperies in portraiture or the profile of
a landscape or ocean waves.
Perhaps in nothing else is the skill of the landscape artist
more put to the test than in his rendering of the effects
of distance. Perspective, said Leonardo, is the bridle and
rudder of painting, but perspective has been renounced by
some abstract artists. They seek to stress the independence
of the world they create from the laws which govern appearance
in the natural world.
Architecture: science and art
The stuff of an artist's dreams is easier to conjure up
in paint on canvas than in bricks and concrete. Architecture
is the greatest and most complex of all the arts, being both
an art and a science. By it are erected and adorned the buildings
raised by man, and we require of these buildings that they
fulfil two kinds of goodness: the doing of their practical
duty well, and their being graceful and pleasing in appearance.
People of today demand practicality in architecture. Were
Pheidias, the celebrated statuary of Athens, commissioned
to supervise the building of a Parthenon to crown Mount Royal
in Montreal, or Signal Hill in St. John's, or Grouse Mountain
at Vancouver, there would be without doubt a demonstration
of citizens asking why he was not engaged on something useful,
like a housing project.
An architect who is creating churches or office buildings
does not use the trimmings taken over from past styles because
they cannot be considered an honest expression of our period.
He must take into account the environment, the purpose of
the building, the style of the other buildings near by, the
climatic conditions, and the cost.
Prettification is avoided. Beauty is cubical and severe.
Square sections are used even for rain-water heads - the sturdy
man-figures supporting rain spouts on St. Mark's Cathedral
in Venice find no place in architecture today.
Yet if it is to remain pleasantly in the memory, a good
building must have a memorable personality, not merely mass
and height. The architect needs to provide focal points and
resting places for the eye, with some arresting intersections.
Besides painting, sculpture and architecture, there are
many other ways of expressing artistic sense. Historically,
pottery is among the first of the arts. It is the most elemental;
it is the most difficult because it is the most abstract.
Pots, to many early races, had souls which cried out and fled
when the pots were broken. The value of the potter's product
was as much in its beauty as in its capacity to hold water
or wine.
In primitive tribes the basket-work and textiles, although
industrial in the sense that they were made to be used, were
none the less the work of craftsmen making the whole object
with reference to beauty as well as to use.
Behind the mechanical industry of the weaver's loom there
is the fine art of the designer who has contrived the pattern.
Medieval tapestries can set the heart a-pounding. These status
symbols of royal personages, in shaded wool or silk and metal
thread, have whimsy and wit. In the Academy of Fine Arts in
Florence there is a tapestry depicting the naming of the animals
by Adam. In front, setting the pace of the parade, are snails;
then come a lion with a haughty look and a lioness with her
head turned toward him with a comical look of affection.
Changing art
The changing art in our time is rather confusing to the
lay observer, as when people from one dream start dribbling
into another dream. Every civilization creates an artistic
style of its own, but bits and pieces from former eras keep
showing up.
Art changes its outlook, just as so many other parts of
life do. It is the expression of an age, perhaps even a revolt
against the civilization of the age. One generation despises
what its predecessor applauded, yet it would be a great mistake
to suppose that the latest is always the best.
What is displayed as the art of today may indeed depict
the churned-up or the squared-off conceptions of life held
by modern man. The artist realizes that life, especially mental
life, exists on two planes, one definite and visible in outline
and detail, like the part of the iceberg above water; the
other, the greater part of life, is submerged, vague and indeterminate.
It is the advanced artist's aim to try to realize some of
the dimensions and characteristics of mankind's submerged
being, and to do this he resorts to various kinds of symbolism.
This presents enormous difficulty to the average lover of
art. Even if one possesses what may be called "a modern point
of view" one must still work oneself slowly into this world
of strange forms.
Perhaps the greatest innovation in modern art occurs when
the painting or sculpture is itself the event, that is, when
there is no object to serve as a model or point of departure.
In some circles this movement has extended almost to a worship
of the meaningless, and this does not appeal to the man in
the street. If the message cannot be deciphered except by
those who hold the key or the code the bulk of the public
is disquieted.
Looking at pictures
Nevertheless, every person who seeks to be cultured and
to understand life needs to become acquainted with the work
of today's artists as well as the work of the great masters
of the past.
It is necessary to approach an exhibition of art with an
open mind. You may not feel in sympathy with every exhibit,
but you will at least appreciate admirable qualities.
Students can learn much of technique by studying, nose to
canvas, the brush strokes of a master, but the essential character
of the artist's operation lies in those parts of it which
fall outside the rules, precepts, measurements, and other
communicable laws or secrets. Rembrandt remarked to someone
who was looking too closely into one of his paintings: "Pictures
are intended to be looked at, not smelled."
Do you have to visit the National Gallery in Ottawa, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Louvre in Paris,
or the Pitti Gallery and the churches in Florence to see and
enjoy art? Not at all.
Art has been brought out of its privacy in palace, cathedral
and gallery into the world for the enjoyment of all. While
simply putting more art in more places will not make aesthetes
of us all, it gives us a chance to enjoy what was once the
privilege of the few.
There are galleries and museums in every province. Commercial
and industrial offices display art pieces, some the product
of Canadian artists and others imported from abroad. Reproductions
of the best of the world's art are to be had at little cost.
We should not approach our adventure into art without some
preparation. It is commonly said that the onlooker sees most
of the game, but it is small benefit to him unless he knows
the rules of the game being played. The acuteness of our perception
and of our judgment depends upon the wealth of our knowledge.
The more comparisons we are able to make, the more qualified
we are to enjoy art and to express our opinions.
In addition to being open minded when appraising art, you
need to be independent. "To know what you prefer," said Robert
Louis Stevenson, "instead of humbly saying 'Amen' to what
the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your
soul alive."
Try self-expression
Nearly everyone has the capability to express himself or
herself in some art form. Perhaps your product will not be
of exhibition class, but its production will give you pleasure
even if you hide it in a clothes closet.
Painting, sculpture, pottery and needlework provide refreshment
of the spirit to many thousands of men and women who do them
seriously enough to take pride in their product. They learn
how to approach life in an original and personally expressive
way.
The necessary technique of an art may be studied in day
or evening classes operated by the continuing education branches
of universities, the Y's, adult education groups and community
associations. The comradeship of an art group in a church
hall, a schoolroom or a home, engaged in sculpture, painting,
ceramics, or some other art, is worthwhile aside from what
a member produces. Here are people of kindred minds, with
similar aspirations, interested in a fascinating activity.
Art is useful because it raises men's minds to a level higher
than merely existing. Here are activities that men and women
put forth not because they need but because they like. In
an age when material things have such prominence and such
a deep influence on people's minds, it is increasingly important
to be able to seek the relief to be found in aesthetic activity.
It releases them from the arbitrariness of life.
One artist follows his star, and another his will-o'-the-wisp.
Both are members of society who are so constituted as to feel
more acutely than others certain classes of pleasures which
all of us can feel in our own degree. Their talents are not
useful in the sense that a plumber's are, or a truck driver's,
or an auto mechanic's, or a computer programmer's. But if
out of their brooding on the sprawling incoherence of life
they produce a coherent expression of normality, they have
performed a service that is very valuable to their own peace
of mind and to that of others.
Their art is not an escape from reality. To ignore the dark
and sometimes terrible side of life would doom the artist
to shallowness. But horridness for the sake of horridness
is anathema to artists who seek to contribute something toward
the redemption of life from brutality.
Appreciation of art releases us from our claustrophobia
and gives us a wider outlook. It helps us to rise above life's
trivialities and to subdue its turbulence. Its purpose is
not to help us to escape from life but to enter into a larger
life.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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