I spent this last Saturday at the Louisiana Museum of Contemporary Art, in Humlebæk, Denmark. It has to be one of my favourite places for those one-day excursions, including this time with the very interesting and well-presented current exhibition of “Green Architecture for the Future”. Apart from looking at society’s current sustainability trend with new eyes, I once again started pondering over what art really is, or what it’s supposed to be.
The way I see it, I “understand” art with the help of three axioms. One claims that everything evolves and has to evolve, the second holds as truth that the human eye is naturally attracted to beauty while the last says that humans are not attracted to something similar to what they have seen before. Also I take for granted that there is nothing more beautiful than something “natural”, be it a human face or a landscape.
Taking off from the second axiom of beauty, I believe that the first forms of art all tried to convey something aesthetic. An effort as big as one could amount to was made to create artifacts of beauty: artists strived to encapsulate what the human eye was attracted to.
But when I visited Rome, and saw the perfected works of Michelangelo and Bernini, I realized that “what other offspring of nature is left to depict as perfectly as this?” Somehow it felt as if art – that imitated nature – simply could not be rendered much better than what was achieved back then in the 16th and 17th century. With regard to my first axiom – what were artists supposed to do? Striving a life-time to master techniques already perfected would contradict my last axiom – they would only produce something already seen.
My own theory is thus that the modern art that can be seen today (for example at Louisiana), which ranges from the simplest dots and lines to wierd and unique styles, is the natural next step ahead from when realistic and beautiful art was perfected. New styles that had never been seen had to be invented, new emotions had to be triggered. When yesterday’s art was a contest of talent and beauty, today it’s more about eccentricity and provocation.
The same trend can be observed within digital art. When software and hardware began to allow an artist to be creative in front of the computer screen, the first forms of benchmarks for “great” digital art were realistic depictions of reality. An example is the rise of as-realistic-as-possible special effects in movies. Some years ago this was achieved, and following the same evolution as “real” art the next step was to find a more “unique” style. Here a proper example are the human characters in a Pixar movie. While Pixar could very well create the most realistic humans for their movies, they still choose to make them look “cartoony” in their own sense.
Personally I’m hoping for a renaissance of the talented artist who produce true beauty. While much of the modern art is really cool and impressive, nothing beats a perfect – but unique! – depiction of nature.
Interesting and valuable points you bring forth dear friend. I enjoyed reading them. We ponder far to little. Art has become like food for the common man: we put it in the mouth and flush it down without actually chewing and tasting it.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder