Essentializing art? Some thoughts on appreciating art
We took a walk on the city connector trail near our house to a neighborhood burger joint for lunch, as our main activity for a lazy cloudy Sunday. We walked by a sign that promoted a local artist’s garage-style art show, as I am always interested to see art anytime anywhere, so we stopped to take a look. Without knowing what the artist did for living before retirement, I quickly noticed that most paintings on display largely comprised of straight lines, angles, geometric shapes, and structural blocks. There were also some landscape and figurative paintings on display, in which the use of lines and brushwork were careful deliberate and delicate. When the lady in charge of the space mentioned that the artist was an architect, I nodded and smiled, as she had just confirmed my guess. The old gentleman artist had reminded me of a architect-turned-artist friend of mine, whose work shares similar attributes as the old architect’s. In her use of impeccably clean lines, shapes, patterns and her application of disciplined, often subdued tones of colors, I could detect her regimented training over countless draftings she had done before painting creatively. Even when her main subject matter is about the hustle and bustle of urban living, her portrayal often comes with a sense of induced reason, restraint and almost a grid-like predictability. In the retired old man and my friend, I see that acquired habits, perspective, and preference as architect are an indelibly part of them, and the influence is shown through their artwork.
Of course, artists make art utilize vast different resources for a wide range of variegated purposes: to reflect, to provoke, to communicate, to express themselves, to show who they are, and the list goes on. But I can’t help but wonder, do artists often pigeon-hole or self-essentialise their art and themselves as artist? In another words, do they feel compelled to communicate certain subject or to paint in a certain style in order to be “authentic”? And for art-appreciators, as audience, do we essentialise art and artists as well?
One thing that makes art and artist interesting and inspiring for me is that qualities and elements of their life experienced get reflected in their work, either through choice or subconsciously. These are the attributes that make art and artist unique, one of a kind. In fact, when I encounter an artwork, the first thing I often find myself doing is to look for the idea or context behind the creation, which is reasonable, but the second thing I would do soon after is to find out about the artist’s background. Am I essentializing? Maybe I am guilty of that to some extent, but I also find having all these information gathered under my belt enhances my appreciation of the work and artist. It is greatly inspiring to share a glimpse of truth or a moment of transcendence in art as seen through its creator, the artist, as a fellow human being.
Sometimes, this precious sense of truth in art is accentuated by the truth’s fleeting and fragile nature. The “essence” that makes up the “essential” part of an artwork may only be “true” for this moment in time. As everything is moving in constant flux, its creator, the artist, is not a fixed being either but one that is being informed constantly by multiplicity of evolving experiences, ideas, perspective, sense of identity, memory, and others. In a sense, the artwork that is created captures and freezes a moment in time and space and holds a potential for eternity for its viewers. To me, this is priceless.
Just a few days ago, I chanced upon a couple of my boy Jonathan’s doodles as I cleaned up kids study area. I was immediately drawn to drawings. One is a drawing of a big fat crow with huge eyeballs, standing feathers on its head, coupled with a huge orange beak and big “feet”. Mostly using crayons to color, Jonathan left the bulging body and drooping wings on both sides of the crow simply outlined boldly with pencil lines. The crow, unlike the much more aggressive crows perching on trees and quacking noisily in my backyard, exudes an air of child-like innocence and it is slightly amusing with his out of proportioned beak, body and posture. The other drawing is a vivid half-length portrait of a shark with menacingly opened mouth, emerging from waters. Right away I knew Jonathan was portraying his beloved soft toy shark that he lovingly named Douglas. Again with forth-coming application of crayons and pencil lines, Jonathan’s shark come to life with a sense of unrestrained simplicity and child-like purity. I immensely enjoyed these drawings, not only because they showcased the child’s creative energy, but also because they displayed a precious manifestation of the young child’s simple, playful yet genuine sense of of the world in that sparkled moment, which reminded me, the audience, where we once were and what we could still be.
Maybe essentializing or self-essentializing art and artist are not so problematic, so long as we do it with a mindful understanding that nothing stays fixed and unchanging. Not artist, not what informs artist, and therefore not artwork produced by artists. In the flux nature of things, instead of worrying wether we compartmentalize art and artist, maybe we should focus on appreciating art for its truth and beauty in that moment in time, its authenticity brought forth by its creator, and being inspired by art’s potential to transcend us.
