ARTMARKS
What is art?
Our senses are so
open to all kinds of impressions and so interwoven one with
another, that there is no simple answer to the question: What is
art? All that can be said is that common to all works
of art is something we call form. The form of a work of art is the
shape it has taken. It does not matter whether it is a building, or
a statue, or a picture, a poem or a sonata–all these things
have taken on a particular or 'specialized' shape, and that shape
is the form of the work of art. Artists are all people who
give shape to something. The best works of art are the works
with the best form, and one form is better than another because it
satisfies certain conditions. Generally, of course, they are
the conditions which give our senses the most pleasure, and by that
we mean the conditions which give pleasure, not only to one sense
at a time, but also to two or more senses working together, and
finally to that reservoir of all our senses which is our
mind.
However, what
pleases one person does not necessarily please another. What
we have to find, therefore, is some touchstone outside the
individual peculiarities of human beings, and the only touchstone
which exists is nature. By nature is meant the
whole organic process of life and movement which goes on in the
universe, a process which includes human beings, but which is
indifferent to our generic idiosyncrasies, subjective reactions,
and temperamental variations.
Art in nature
But nature is so
immense and multiform that at first sight it would seem to be quite
impossible to select any general or universal features which we
could then take as the touchstone for the form of things we are to
make. And actually, of course, artists have not usually sought for
such a touchstone. They have sensed it: they have
found it instinctively in the elementary forms in nature which
artists have given to their works of art. They are present in
the vast interstellar spaces of the universe as well as in the most
microscopic cells and molecules of matter. A scientist will make an
image to show, for example, the orderly arrangement of atoms inside
a crystal of diamond. We then see that the atoms form a regular
pattern, a pattern which the scientist himself will describe as
'beautiful'. The image is a is a man-made structure derived from a
formal arrangement of light and shade which he recorded on a
photographic plate. An astrologer will make an image in which
the movements of the planets are gauged against the fixed
background of the zodiac.
If we are to compare
art and nature, we can simply begin with what the human eye sees in
its daily activity, but ignoring, of course, all that has been
formed by human hands. Our eyes then feast upon the accidental
forms of nature. Rocks thrown up in volcanic eruptions, trees
blasted by lightning, valleys carved out by ice. Although
these are not universal or absolute forms, particularly pleasing
arrangements of mass are easily perceived and remembered,
photographed or drawn.
The other category
of natural forms are the universal shapes all unimpeded growth
assumes: the growth of crystals, the growth of vegetation, of
shells and bones and flesh. All these processes of growth take on
definite shapes and proportions, and if we can find general laws
which govern these shapes and proportions, then we shall have found
in nature a touchstone of form which we can apply to works of
art.
Plato and Pythagoras
found in number the clue to the nature of the
universe and to the mystery of beauty. Science and philosophy have
undergone many transformations since that time, but the final
result is the same, and goes to show that number, in the sense of
mathematical law, is the basis of all the forms which matter
assumes, whether organic or inorganic in kind. Moreover, we do not
find a mathematical chaos, as might be the case if every form had
its own mathematical equation: the truth is rather that the
innumerable forms, of lifeless substance no less than of living
things, obey a definite number of comparatively simple laws. That
is to say, the growth of particular things into particular shapes
is determined by forces acting in accordance with certain
inevitable mathematical or mechanical laws.
Expression of individuality
We are essentially
human when we use graphic ways of portraying other realities, and
the Paleolithic artist deep in a cave, or balancing on a rocky
mountain-side, was expressing a mind identical to our own in order
to serve his community.
An equally powerful
biological imperative is to promote 'self'. In the sense of the
'selfish gene' scenario, any behavioural characteristic that gives
one's own genetic endowment an advantage in passing to the next
generation is subject to natural selection. From this aspect, art
is also one of many behavioural expressions that allows an
individual to be distinguished from the crowd. Piet Mondrian put it
this way:
"Although art is fundamentally everywhere and
always the same, nevertheless two main human inclinations,
diametrically opposed to each other, appear in its many and varied
expressions. One aims at the direct creation of universal beauty,
the other at the aesthetic expression of oneself, in other words,
of that which one thinks and experiences. The first aims at
representing reality objectively, the second subjectively".
The advantages of
contributing to group identity by reinforcing the contemporary
norms of representation (subscribing to locally agreed icons of
beauty and meaning), and the cultivation of an individual output
are not opposing principles of artistic creativity. They represent
primeval skills of being able to help highlight group identity
through mapping one's social unit, and having the ability to
produce new ideas about the environment which improve one's own
survival.
