Why is the view that the arts
and humanities are not as respectable as the sciences accepted as a fact of
life by so many people? Where does this lack of respect come from? My opinion
is that this is because the arts, in many societies, is generally viewed as
frivolous. Of course, there will be many people willing to talk about the
importance of ‘culture’ and how the arts are ‘chicken soup for the soul’, but
few can actually discuss the valuable skills that the arts can equip us with,
and what the importance of the arts really is in a society. One of the main
reasons art is deemed as frivolous is because our artistic discourse, both on
the part of the audience and artist, is made up largely of emotionalism, a
pattern that emerged in art history from the Romantic era onwards.
As human beings, we are greatly
emotional creatures. When an object is presented to us, our instinctive
reaction is emotional: our subconscious first tries to detect how we feel about
this object before we formulate a train of thought - and so it is with
artworks. We thus tend to discuss the emotional and aesthetic impact of artwork
before discussing what makes the artwork so pleasing and moving. This is not a
problem in itself - we are, after all, always more interested in the final
product of a project than the process. What becomes a problem is when the
discussion does not move beyond emotions and aesthetics. We must understand
that when, for example, a poem moves us, it is not solely because the
outpouring of the poet’s heartache comes from the depths of his or her soul.
The poem is moving not because it deals with an issue we feel strongly about;
it is moving because it captures and describes accurately what we are feeling
or if it introduces new perspectives. We forget that the poet’s emotions and personal
experiences merely provides the content and inspiration, but what truly makes
the poem effective is the manipulation and creative usage of words. This will
be accomplished through the careful selection of words and the structure
employed - and that is where the training matters. Artists realize but hardly
mentioned in explicit terms, that producing artwork is a science. Compare
artists to that of an effective public speaker: what truly makes their speeches
stand out is not whether the topic is close to their hearts, but it is their
choice of words and the structure of their speech which enables their listeners
to pick up passion and sincerity and be moved and swayed by it.
Our generation of artists,
however, belongs to a period where our distinction between the sciences and the
arts is shaped by the increased division of labor across societies. To this day
we occupy ourselves with the debate on the line between the arts and the
sciences - a debate I have stopped engaging in for it is based on the false
illusion that the arts and sciences are traditionally mutually exclusive, an
illusion shaped by university degrees and future career paths. Indeed, many
tend to think the arts and humanities are not scientific just because it does
not have the word ‘science’ in it or because there is not talk of molecules or
chemical processes! (Note that there is a very big difference between the terms
‘the sciences’, ‘science’, and ‘scientific’.) I would even argue that
there are some fundamental skills that are shared between those who pursue the
arts and those who pursue the sciences. An example would be: to be able to do
vectors, architectural design, and painting a life-like landscape, you would
need to have a sense of spatial awareness, be able to visualize vividly and
consistently in your mind and engage with that mental image. We are also
probably aware of the strong correlation between the ability to study music and
the ability to do mathematics.
Furthermore, our conception of
art is borne at a time where ideas about art have drastically changed and are
more flexible, and this makes the production of art seemingly less
disciplined. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century art emphasize less on realistic
portrayals and place more importance on interpreting experiences. Artists
educated in this century are thus even more encouraged to talk more about the
emotional experiences of their works rather than discuss the processes and the
behind-the-scenes that goes on during production. The end result is to create
the impression that all artists have to do to produce their works is to indulge
in their joys and sorrows - when in reality the road to production is a
combination of mental blocks, intensive research, practice, planning,
organizing, restarting everything from scratch, willingness to adjust your
current assumptions and perspectives - all the challenges you might face if you
were working in a research laboratory.
The main task of this article
has been to propose a brief history and explanation of why there is a lack of
respect for the arts (and humanities). The final message of this article is
that if local artists want to be respected, to be funded, and supported,
not simply within their circles but by society at large, they not only have to
create good and promising works, which they already do, but they must be
equally eager to talk about their training and the hard work that goes into it.
They must present their works as rational, logical works and not simply as
purely emotional expressions. A lot of artists love saying that ‘art is
everything’ or ‘everything is art’ - which I strongly dispute (but that is a
different story for a different day). The more accurate thing to say is
‘anything CAN be art, but not everything IS art - we have scientific standards
as well’. As I said earlier, I am not saying emotionalism are bad things in
themselves; I am merely trying to explain why emotions instead of the scientific
processes behind production inform the bulk of our artistic discourse. Artists
are, like anyone else, a product of their time. But, as I have said, in excess,
it takes attention away from the hard work of production, and portrays
production of art as a purely emotional - and therefore frivolous - endeavor,
and thus loses the respect of those who are not trained in the arts. (That
being said, I have even been in contact with people trained in the arts who
have very little respect for the arts.)
The various social media
accounts promoting a discussion of the local art scene are not only great
opportunities to promote festivals, zines, and other events, but a great public
platform for artists to discuss amongst themselves on the knowledge, expertise,
and struggle that goes into doing what they do and doing it well. I currently
study in the United Kingdom, and it is enviable just how much importance their
mainstream society place on taking care of their local art scene (indeed, woe
betide on any government or institution which tries to cut funding for the arts
and humanities). They value the arts because regardless of whether they are
personally keen on the arts or not, they do take the field seriously and
recognize that it has made considerable contributions to their history and
development. But if you want people to support you and to be on your side on a
long-term and more concerted scale, then you have to give people a good reason
to support you and to be on your side, and the good reason is that your
audience, listeners, whoever should not feel that they are supporting mere
fluff.
*This article was first
written and published in #ProjekZineSENI Issue 1
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