Art and Aesthetics

Recently, a friend asked "What is aesthetics? What is art?" He didn't quite put it like that, but that was the essence of his question. And it is a good question. Is art just a matter of personal taste? Is there anything universal? Can any definition be sufficient?

At its most basic, art can demonstrably be shown to be defined as "anything the artist can convince others is art". The sale is more important than the piece itself. If I make a pile of bricks in my back garden, it is a pile of bricks. Yet, an essentially similar pile of bricks in the Tate is art, at least to those willing to give it floor space and pay large sums of money for it. One woman was heard to remark that "they're not even nice bricks". Clearly, to her this was not art. Is art therefore purely subjective? I don't think its that simple.

Art is, to me, basically a form of communication. The communication can be of ideas, ideologies, emotions, or sensations. The pile of bricks becomes art when we look at it and see something more than the objects actually present. It follows that art can be entirely accidental - a natural landscape can speak to us, and an ordinary item can achieve significance beyond its intended use due to a connection to a personal or historical event. However, accidental art is a less interesting topic for discussion than intentional art - although just as interesting in and of itself.

If art is the personal communication between the object (be it painting, music, or whatever) and the viewer, how can someone hope to set out to create art? Obviously, this is possible - many artists in many media have managed to create what is commonly accepted to be "art". Again, the answer lies in communication. Creating art involves the deliberate creation and manipulation of symbols. Here we can divide art into two forms - traditional and modern. Traditional art uses known symbols, which can be read by those possessed of the correct knowledge. Often this is multi-layered - with obvious symbols (often religious) to speak to the majority of viewers, and more subtle symbols of position, colour, detail which are intended for the intelligentsia of the day. These symbols may be used to educate, manipulate, shock or provoke, but it is intended to communicate the artist's (or his master's) thoughts and beliefs.

Modern art, on the other hand, is about the creation of symbols, often from entirely new cloth. To return once more to the pile of bricks, there is little traditional symbolism here - the bricks themselves, perhaps a certain aesthetic in the lines of the pile. Instead, the context of the bricks and their surroundings serve as an intentionally blank canvas upon which the viewer can project his own symbols and questions. In this aesthetic, the artist abdicates his responsibility to provide symbols that can be interpreted, and instead allows the viewer to seek his own interpretations. At its best, this can lead to new symbols and insights, provoke powerful emotions, and allows the individual to communicate with the art on a more personal level. Too often, however, the result is tired and sterile. The refusal to provide traditional symbols being matched by a lack of sufficient material from which to build a personal interpretation, leaving the "art" as empty as the Emperor's New Wardrobe, achieving little more than vague shock or titillation value.

The hard line I am drawing here between traditional and modern is, of course, far more blurred in reality. The best modern art creates its own symbols, which feed back into the culture, becoming the new traditional. Despite what Jung and his adherents would have us believe, I see little sign of universal symbols in mankind's thinking. Instead, symbols have always been created and evolved. Our ability to adopt and interact with the new has recently accelerated enormously, related to the speed of communication and the ability of the masses to experience the arts. Cinema and television, music and the music video provide us with our most fertile beds of creation now. And the people who work in these media are often influenced by the higher arts. This rapid feedback and evolution of symbols between different media provides us with the fertile and diverse culture that we currently enjoy, arguably one which is more dynamic than any seen before.

For the self-appointed intelligentsia, or at least that part with the money to invest in art, the growth of symbols constitutes a dialogue between artist and patron, via the artwork itself. Patrons buy artwork they feel connected to, artists in turn produce art that communicates to those with the money or gallery to finance the process. New languages can be born this way, often swiftly. Of course, those who simply wish to appear to be a part of this intelligentsia can and do buy art they think they should like, regardless of any merit the piece may have. Which leads to successes like Hirst, in whose work I cannot see anything beyond shock value, and the deliberate and blatant frauds of Warhol. Just because people tell you it's art, doesn't make them right.

This talk of symbols and interpretation is not intended to imply that art needs to be an intellectual pursuit. The best art communicates on a deeper, emotional level. The symbols work on a subconscious level, allowing the viewer an instant connection to the character of the person in the portrait, the emotion of the scene, the grandeur of the landscape. Art is entirely independent of the analysis of art. It is the communication that is, to me, vital.

If art is about communication, a private attribute that can only occur in the context of observed and observer, what lessons can we draw? Primarily, a lesson of tolerance and encouragement. Our culture is built from an amalgam of media, movements, and symbolic languages. An ability to cross these boundaries is desirable, but difficult if not impossible to achieve in practice. Instead, the tastes of others must be given equal precedence with our own. Art must be nurtured outside of the narrow bands of high art snobbery and modern art elitism. The folk ways of the home counties given equal value to the folk ways of the Scottish Islands. Diversity and cross-genre exploration should be aims in their own right - from here will come the mainstream of the future. The new should be encouraged as the old is supported and protected. Human is the animal with culture. Our future relies on the preservation and exploration of our multiple presents and pasts.

Graham Robinson. 16th April 2003.

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