In the introduction to “The Quiet Eye”, a small compilation of artwork and words spanning cultures and centuries, Sylvia Shaw Judson offers some thouht-provoking words. I thought I’d share some…
“Kant defines art as ‘the communication of a state of mind’. Plato holds that a work of art exists in its own right: ‘not images of beauty, but realities’. These two premises are the basis of the division of art today into the schools of Realism and Abstraction. But one need not necessarily choose between them. A work in either idoim can evoke the same state of mind, or it can be visually satisfying without reference to its meaning. ”
She goes on to speak of works that ‘communicate a sense of affirmation, of wonder, of trust’…”This is a spirit alien to much of the art of our insecure time, but one which I am confident will some day return.”
“Much of the art of our own time is an art of symbol which is in danger of becoming etherialized quite out of this world. I suppose the one reason for this id discouragement with ourselves as human beings, due to the current confusion and distress in the world, or a sense of our unimportance in the face of the incredible extension of our natural horizons. It is also a yearning to speak a universal language. Sometimes an abstract work achieves this aim, but we remain human beings just the same, and living subjects still hold warmth and immediacy for us.
Contemporary artists are most frequently concerned with change and movement, just as our philosophers are concerned with relative values. In the world of Francis Thompson: ‘To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; clung to the whistling name of every wind.’ But cannot quiet and serenity be recognized as well as movement? And cannot the validity of relative values be accepted without rejecting those absolute values realized by the great mystics and artists alike in a still moment of overpowering grace? We know that we are creatures, limited by time and space, but we also know that truth, beauty and tenderness are aspects of the absolute.”
Thoughts?
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