MUSINGS ON ART AND BEAUTY

I love Oscar Wilde but I have to call bullshit on this quote. The artist is the creator of beautiful things? Beautiful to whom? If beauty like they say, lies in the eyes of the beholder, then which set of eyes do we rely on to determine what’s art and what’s not? The critic’s? The artist’s? Using beauty as the standard for judging art reduces art to something to be consumed. It reduces art to a product while totally ignoring the process that births it. The artist is not the creator of beautiful things. The artist is “the creator”. Periodt.

The artist is a visionary; a seer. What makes an artist is the decision to take that first step to nowhere, the commitment to continue and communicate what they see (or don’t see) whether it’s beauty, chaos, despair or laughter. Art is a journey to unknown lands. It’s a groping in the darkness within or without. The artist might not like what they find; they might not like what they bring back but that is the nature of the call

Art is not an item for pleasure. It is an experience; a transaction. Not just between artist and consumer but between the artist and the creative force within them. It is a transaction between the artist, what they see and the medium they choose to communicate with. Art does not owe you beauty. Art does not owe you pleasure. It is a window and a looking glass. If anything, we are the ones with a debt to art. As an artist, to be true to your sight, to master your medium, to keep groping, keep “sifting through the madness” and as a consumer or critic, to open your damned eyes and look; really look.

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