Imagination is an amazing thing. It is an intangible but it manifests itself everywhere. A person designed practically everything I use and see. That keyboard, the computer, even the office chair I am sitting in all started with just an idea. Someone first imagined it before it became reality. With so many man-made objects in my live, it isn't often that something jumps out and stops me in my tracks to say, "Look here. I'm beautiful." The last time this happened, I stopped the car to take a photo of an old antique yellow truck parked on the street around the corner from me. I was impressed with the sweeping fenders, extravagant front grill and decorative hood ornament. Someone designed this amazing machine to be mass-produced and to provide transportation. Wow!
Maybe because of the holidays and looking for gifts to buy, I started thinking about that beautiful old truck and making some comparisons. I looked around at the latest gadgets that I had bought. They seemed blank, unimaginative, boring. I looked at the apartment building being built down the street and thought it looked like a glorified storage unit. I thought, "When was the last time my imagination was inspired by something new?" It seems to me that today's products are designed to be invisible. They are geared to provide a service and be useful but not to be beautiful. Where is the passion for beauty in design that once was the hallmark of American ingenuity? Where is the imagination to design something amazing instead of just to produce something cheap? Form can follow function and still be beautiful.
My thoughts made me realize that as artists, we have a unique opportunity to produce objects that are designed to inspire. How amazing to make something with only the idea of producing an object of beauty for beauty's sake. Artists could be the last stronghold to preserve the concept of beauty.
Love the paint.
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10 comments:
Hey Sharon,
I know I already commented your similar post earlier on your blog but I was going to come back to comment again when I saw the recent BBC U TUBE video by Roger Scruton being shared on FB called "Why Beauty Matters". It reminded me of your original post and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.
Perhaps you saw it too??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiajXQUppYYandfeature=share
You both highlight important points.
Marian
Brian Sherwin
Art -- or at least the skills/methods involved in creating art -- are the backbone of all we see from civilization. As you point all... everything we see that is 'man-made' started out as an idea -- and likely was sketched out during those early workings of the idea. True, the design of the item may not be inspiring... but the link to art -- or at least the skills/methods associated with art -- is there. To me that is powerful no matter how simple the product.
Thank you for commenting Marian and Brian. You can single out specific items which are created with flair and beauty but they are few and far between. It is true that thought is given to every product but the quality of thought varies drastically from item to item. The public is being numbed to accept universal mediocrity.
Marian
I just had a chance to view the BBC link "Why Beauty Matters" and wanted to thank you for sharing the link. It was very interesting, containing wonderful quotes and insights.
The difficulty of beauty for beauty's sake is determining the definition of beauty and what is considered beautiful. When we make something we consider beautiful we run into the problem as to what is actually beautiful. Are we not imposing beauty onto this thing. It's the same problem as trying to get a consensus on the question as to what is art. Humankind is so varied and unique while their experiences so multiple, what one finds beautiful, another may merely consider...just nice. Of course there is general agreement on many tings beautiful, but doesn't that limit the field? Especially for artist's
Consider the expression - "a face only a mother can love!"
We, as artists, can only portray things we find beautiful and hope to find a consensus.
Is it even possible to paint without regard to inherent beauty at all?
The more important issue for me is to not make a judgment on beauty and paint with an open mind. If that is at all possible.
Hi Rick
Thanks for your thought provoking comment. You state that "Are we not imposing beauty onto this thing?" Yes, of course we are, but isn't that one of the qualities that as a professional artist, I am supposed to be an expert in. The idea of beauty is not as abstract as all that. The BBC show listed above is a wonderful look into the idea of beauty. I think it is "politically" correct not to judge other peoples taste but I do not subscribe to this view. Without standards of beauty there would be no masterpieces? Without someone making a judgment on quality everything becomes mediocre. My cousin is a teacher and she told me that her students tell her they do not feel there is any reason to try because everyone is equal. The idea that no individual can be better than another has left them adrift, to be forever mediocre. That is what is happening to the quality of art. Because no one criticizes the quality, mediocrity has become the accepted norm. Your blog actually argues this point. I paint representational art but my sense of beauty is easily transferred when judging abstract, conceptual or other modern art. Perhaps we are really saying the same thing but it is our definition of "beauty" that is different.
"Without standards of beauty there would be no masterpieces? Without someone making a judgment on quality everything becomes mediocre." S.W
I concede the point that artists should see and paint what is beautiful.
My point is "what is considered -beautiful? So called masterpieces cmoe from a subjective point of view.
Guarnica by Picasso, to some is grotesque while others find Flight into Egypt by Annibale Carracci for plebeian tastes.
The trust of my argument; which I didn't state; is all things in nature are beautiful. It's up to artists to see and portray that beauty without the influence of conventionally conceived, acceptable beauty.
Rick, you are right, defining beauty is as tricky as defining art. Perhaps that is why discussions about this subject are always filled with such varied opinions. Thanks for commenting.
I love a discussion with other artists.
My concern is many settle for convention and don't bother to see past these " conditioned beauty" boundries we impose on ourselves.
Personally I feel artists should expand the ideal of what is considered beauty. We only have to look to history and see the changes that took place in conventional beauty of past times.
What is difficult is convincing the establishment that sells our work on the changing ideas of beauty.
Thanks for responding.
After viewing the BBC documentary on Why Beauty Matters, I feel even more secure in my thinking.
Part four in particular mentions Rembrandt's portraits of Nicolaes Ruts, Aechje Claesdr and his mother reading. Three portraits of people where Rembrandt shows the beauty beneath our unconventional ideas of such.
This goes to the heart of what I intend. Rembrandt, to quote Roger Scruton, "shows us beauty is an ordinary every day kind of thing. It's all around us. We need only the eyes to see it and the heart to feel. The most ordinary event can be made beautiful by a painter"
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