M'aidez, cry the Masters of Old

Here's more pedantic verbosity about art & stuff.

DISCUSSION #13:
Professor:
A question for this week's discussion: Do you think we are likely ever again to see the level of profound and transcendent quality of painting as embodied by the artists here displayed?

(we were given examples by Vermeer, Van Eyck, and Holbein The Younger)

I look forward to reading your opinions, and answering any questions about the paintings.

Robert

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(my response, partially in response to a student who stated "I truly believe that great artists are continually born into this world.  The advent of new technologies have through the years increasingly eroded the motivation of artists to create such splendid photo realism.  The camera was first such invention to rob a great number of artists of the motivation to create realism." - Ben is one of my most thoughtful classmates, a great guy with whom to discuss ideas)

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Me:
It's interesting that you chose "photo realism" to describe paintings that existed long before photography.  Or Photoshop, certainly.

I'm sure that it's true, that advances in technology and technique have diluted the mastery available to the world.  There are some transcendent and unbelievable artists at work in this day and age, in many media, but imagine how many more artists there are right now than there were when Holbein and Van Eyck were at the top!  Just mathematically, given how many more humans are alive in the present day, but also thinking of all of the possibilities for artists in the film and publishing industries, and all of the aspiring amateurs out there on the internet - I feel certain that there are Rembrandts being born every day.  Perhaps they will never reach that sort of height though - perhaps all potential is wasted potential in a world where media and distraction and escapism is so readily available.  Think of what went into making a Master, in the Renaissance, or the Dutch Golden Age.  The years, even decades of apprenticeship and journeyman(ship?  ism?), the pigments ground by hand, the sweat and toil and effort.

I want badly to defend my digitalism here, but I can't deny the truth of the idea that it's just not the same as squinting into the sun, turpentine poisoning the blood of my fingers, trying to force the canvas to yield light and form and mass through sheer effort of will.  It's not the same when you can publish your fumblings to thousands of people in seconds, and have dozens of them press "like" and you're instantly validated.   None of us will know what it's like to be denied entrance into L'Academie, or to earn the displeasure of the Pope, or to be beaten with a stick by Roberto da Florczak for mixing the lapis lazuli with the wrong amount of linseed.  I know how hard I've had to work to force art into my head and my hands, being a person born for words and numbers and facts, but I know it's nothing like as hard as becoming one of the Masters of old.  Those guys didn't have online tutorials, or how-to books, or the extra centuries of art to study.  The difficulty makes the mastery, to some degree. 


With all that said (and realizing I should have quit there, to avoid being beaten with a stick), I also want to mention, though, that potential need know no ceiling.  New generations of artists, if they can learn that their position is one of precarious balance upon the shoulders of giants, can build upon the wealth of available knowledge.  They can take inspiration from previous perspiration.  Old things can be combined and dissected into new things.  I don't like to think that we peaked as a species with the Industrial Revolution, or that artists can never, ever make art as important or beautiful as the fine gentlemen of the past again.  It's a different world, to be sure - and most of us will become "masters" for the price of a student loan, without ever paying the price of calloused fingers that came from tearing Art for the first time from the raw firmament of the cosmos.  I get a pretty sore neck from bending over my Wacom tablet, but hardly anyone ever whips me when I forget to let the canvas dry properly before I lay down a new glaze.  I share the nostalgia of the way things were before Digital Man diluted everything, but I wash it away with the hope that a progressing species will find new ways to transcend.

Enrichment and Elevation of Society. Whatever.

In my "Drawing from Imagination" class, each week we're assigned a Discussion Topic to show that we really think about art and have critical skills of some kind.  I tend to have a lot of fun with these, and I'm just obnoxious enough to want to share.

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DISCUSSION TOPIC #12:

Professor:
Would you say it is more important for artists to produce their work for the enrichment and elevation society, even if remaining anonymous, or that society has a duty to recognize artists and acknowledge their personal "statements"?

Please no "both are important" answers!

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Dustin Resch:

Both are important!  Oh, wait...

As a working artist, it's hard to deny the importance of recognition.  Commercial viability depends on marketability; marketability depends on recognition.  We can't eat if we don't get noticed.  We don't feel loved if we don't get attention.  We can't go home on Thanksgiving and make our parents proud if we don't get a few hundred Facebook Likes on a new illustration.  But these are selfish desires, even the ones about eating and paying rent.  It's not a duty of society to notice us - society owing anything to artists isn't part of the unspoken contract.  If we want to get noticed, we need to make art that pleases people - or shocks or surprises people - or entertains them, or turns them on, or offends them.  That part is our responsibility, not theirs.  We're the ones that have to hire agents, or pound the pavement, or send out endless portfolios.  It's the same for fine artists as for commercial artists, though their ambitions may be more lofty than ours - they're still holding up a mirror to society, and begging society to look in that mirror.  If society walks by without making eye contact, that's not failure to meet an obligation.  That's just the mechanics of attention.

Taking a wider perspective, as a human and a cog in the machinery of history, it's more important that I make some kind of contribution to society.  Even an empty, fluffy contribution, entertainment for entertainment's sake - I've made a few kids smile, or a few puritans blush. I don't take an altruistic responsibility to "change the world for the better" necessarily, although I hope I push a few molecules of air in a positive direction, in the balance of things.  The groundbreaking pioneers that painted the animals at Lascaux... they made it possible to be what we are, and we'll never know their names, if they even had names.  I love that there are academics working hard to know more about them, but their contributions have long outlived the individuals that wielded the brushes.  Van Gogh contributed far more to the understanding of light and the techniques of emotion than he ever received recognition for in his lifetime, and that's sad for him - but to the benefit of humanity nonetheless.

Enrichment and elevation of society.  Those words are awfully noble, and I don't know how to be certain if I'm even pointing in the right direction.  For centuries, the only enrichment or elevation art was allowed to aspire to was dictated by the Church.  Michaelangelo and Fra Filippo definitely enriched society with the art they created, but whether or not there was elevation depends on how you feel about the underlying faith and philosophy.  I think that the great artists of history (and the mediocre and unknown ones too) always hoped to enrich and elevate mankind in some way, although one suspects that they often also craved recognition and fame - or at least the avoidance of excommunication or execution.

For myself, I will be satisfied if my art lifts the moods of some people, inspires some other artists, provokes some thought, and maybe continues to do those things after I'm gone.  But if it sells some books, wins some awards, makes some house payments, and gets me a few hundred Facebook Likes, that's okay with me too.