Art and The Meaning of Life?

This evening I was eating a quick dinner at my desk and watching some artist videos on YouTube and I came across one that got me to thinking.  It wasn't the art or the artist themselves, but the opening of the video that did it.  It opened with a quote from Antoni Tapies that said, "Art should startle the viewer into thinking about the meaning of life."  I really only had one reaction to that quote and it was just one word.  Why?


First off I guess we would need to ask Mr. Tapies what he considers to be art, because I can think of a ton of art that wouldn't get me to thinking about the meaning of life in any way.  And having stopped by a gallery of some of Mr. Tapies' art I can say without hesitation that his art didn't get me to pondering any deep meanings of life either.


I would never criticize another artist or their art in the negative because I feel that there will always be someone out there that will appreciate it.  I may not, but someone will.  However, I will question an all-encompassing idea that art should be one thing or it should be another, no matter who was making the comment.  Even if Da Vinci had made that same comment I would feel just as negatively towards it.


I have seen incredible paintings of roses that I would consider great art, but they don't evoke a search for the meaning of life in my heart.  Drawings by my children and hung on the refrigerator when they were young were considered by myself to be art, but I don't look for those pieces to be hanging in the Louvre anytime soon.


Sometimes when I see art that looks like the artist was trying too hard to make a statement, I am left with nothing more than a desire to move on to the next piece.  Some artists are born to stir up the hearts of the viewers, causing feelings of deep uncertainty, while others are moved to paint something of beauty that will be pleasurable to look at.  It might just be a simple bowl of fruit or a portait of one's cat.


Some of the great artists of history have created art that evoked such responses and then the next week produced a piece that was just a fine piece of art.  Van Gogh could create a painting like Starry Night that caused people to write songs about it and then turn around and paint a vase full of sunflowers.  A painting of a vase of sunflowers by Van Gogh, while pleasing to the eye won't get me to thinking about my existence.

I think art is whatever the artist decides it is and when their work finds an accepting viewer then the artist has done their job.  If it evokes feelings of the majesty of our lives, then so be it.  If it just gets us to stop for a few minutes and admire the beauty of the artwork and maybe even pull out our wallets to buy it, then the artist has done just as valid a job.

Enjoy art for what it is.  Not for what it isn't.

Blog Action Day '09 - Climate Change

October 15th was what was called Blog Action Day '9 and it was to deal with the subject of climate change.  It seems everyone has an opinion about this and I am no different.  

 I am solidly in the middle on the subject of global warming.  Yes, I do believe that there is a bit of warming going on, but I also believe that it is the natural state of things.  Cooling and warming trends have been happening since this planet was created and they will continue to happen long after we humans have been stupid enough to kill ourselves off.

Do we need to clean up what we've done to the environment?  Sure we do, just as we should clean up our rooms and wash the dishes.  It isn't healthy, physically or emotionally, to live in squalor and that's what we are doing right now as a human race.  But, to think that we are that significant to this planet that we can affect the climate on a global scale, at least to the point of annihilation, is ridiculous and arrogant on our part.

And who's to say that these "solutions" that are being bandied about by the climate change PACs aren't going to make things worse?  If these people truly think that we can bring the Earth's temperature back down, then what's to stop us from going too far and causing the next ice age?

The solution is to clean up our acts, develop new energy sources that are emission neutral and let the Earth take care of herself.  She's been doing it for 4 billion years, so I think she can do a much better job of it than we can.

A Live and Learn Moment

Sometimes being an artist is a trial and error experience. We try things and sometimes it's a fabulous success and other times it's an abject failure. Then sometimes it falls somewhere in between, as with this drawing.

My drawing of Lance is finished, but there was a problem that kind of caught me off-guard. I like to tape my larger pieces of drawing paper down to my clipboard and I've been doing it for quite some time. I just use a regular masking tape and have not had any problems with doing this.

The problem that came up this time was that when I started the Lance drawing I was just a few days away from moving to a new house. So the unfinished drawing stayed taped to the clipboard for almost three months. When I finished the drawing last night and peeled the tape off, well, you guess it. The adhesive on the tape had become one with the paper and now there was a sticky residue all around the outside of the paper.

Being as how I hadn't sprayed the drawing at that point, there was plenty of loose graphite to go around and some of it ended up in the sticky white border of the paper. Which obviously caused a real mess, making the drawing unsaleable in its present condition.

I took it to Aaron Brothers this afternoon to see if they would cut the white portion off, but they wouldn't do it. So the solution we came up with was in the mat. I had them cut the opening in the mat to cover the white portion of the paper, thus covering up the sticky, dirty part of the paper.

After coming home and placing the mat and drawing in the frame I have to say that I think it looks pretty darn good. So, without further ado, I present His Lanceness. Graphite drawing on 14x17 80# drawing paper.

©2009 Dave Casey
HIS LANCENESS
Graphite pencil on paper, 17 x 14"
Available WITH frame at my Etsy store or my ArtFire store - $89.99
DG Casey's World of Art - Etsy
DG Casey's World of Art - ArtFire
Also available as a print at my Red Bubble store - from $14.25
DG Casey's World of Art - Red Bubble