IS IT REALLY ART?

I love this discussion. It can get almost as heated as a good political discussion. No, I can almost rate it as better than a good political discussion because these days, a good political discussion is hard to find - in my world that is. Either people are too afraid, too ignorant or too entrenched in their righteousness to discuss politics. (I, for one, have never been guilty of this!)

But the question of whether something is really 'art' can be a lot of fun. I am going to use painting as my example. We all know that most art was religious for almost forever. Scan backwards mentally from cave paintings to 'primitive' masks, to pyramid paintings to Greek gods, to Renaissance Catholic paintings..the whole shooting match. I tend to think the greatest art came before the masses caught up with what was going on. I think the art was leading the way to changes in consciousness.

Now in the US we don't have a standard measure, a pope, or pharaoh to cast his approval and demands. We have the marketplace. Somehow appropriate to this time in history. That being said, I think that art should add something to what is already mine. If a painter makes a painting, it needs to give me a new or deeper way of perceiving. For me to call it 'art' it has to have a add on. It has to lead me to more than I have already. And it has to be something I could see anew. Inspiration. Breath of the Gods.

The rest of the stuff I see and certainly the stuff I have painted, falls into the category of crafts or decorative stuff or art school project. No problem with that. My theory is that you know real art when you meet it. It makes sense that the marketplace is the judge today. Perfect sense. And some people are ahead of the rest of us in the department of recognizing what is coming and what is enduring. And I suppose "I hate that work" is as good a measure as "I love that work."

I get very uncomfortable viewing "Guernica". I dislike that painting. But, I can not mistake the power in it. What do you consider art? Is seeing new stuff uncomfortable for you? Do you trust the marketplace? Can you read the history of consciousness through art? Can you feel the presence of genius in some work, even a truly disturbed genius? Is the disturbed, messed up hand necessary to break from convention and point us to the future? A lot of artist friends think my thinking is immature on this subject. It could be. Quien sabe?