Art, Purpose, and Worth

WHILE VISITING the nelson art gallery in kansas city, a friend and i stood before a painting by picasso, which consisted on only a few careless looking abstract brush strokes on a rather small canvas. My friend said "I just don't understand. I coulda done that."

My reply was: "that's the point. You didn't do it, he did." what else could I say? But still, i understand what my friend meant. I also understand that the art world is a free market, and that anyone who wishes to jump in is perfectly welcome to do so, and that the world will soon enough let any artist know how it feels about any artist, or artwork.

the idea behind art for centuries was that the object of any painting was to render as great a likeness as possible to the "real world", almost in the manner of a photograph. Whether in portraits or landscapes or city scapes or whatever, the purpose was to render "reality", to make the art look just like the object being depicted.

then came the twentieth century, and the question arose: "what, preciesly is 'reality', and who's to say that it is the same for everyone?"...and from there, the question became "why must all art attempt to accurately reflect reality, to the exclusion of all other concepts and purposes?

the invention of the camera in 1840 led to the questions above being asked, since now photography gave the art of painting pictures a new, and unbeatable competitor. So, art turned in other directions, toward surrealism, impressionism, which are but subjective expressive distortions of reality, to symbolism, toward abstraction, with various styles, one of which, cubism, was picasso's attempt at tearing reality apart, and putting it back together subjectively.

And thus we have modern art, which often seems to consist of paint smeared haphazardly across a canvas. Abstract art, in short, attempts to represent nothing excecpt itself. Look at a painting by jackson pollock. He was actually influenced by thomas hart benton, which is a fact of art history seemingly incomprehensible, owing to their obviously vast differences in style. But I am sure pollock could have explained the exact nature of benton's influence.

the next time you're standing in a world class art museum, looking at some red or yellow stain on a canvas, it might be helpful to consider that all forms of art are, above all else, an attmept by the artist to give the world something new, different, and, so hopes the artist, worthwhile.