It is scary to think about the amount of time in our lives that we, as individuals, family, society, and country, spend on art. Commercial programs on TV and most movies are not 'art' forms, you'd agree. Who is to be blamed for this total cut-off from art in our lives? In my mind the artists form a fair share of the problem.
Once upon a time, hens laid eggs in their cycle. Man waited for this cycle to get eggs. Then came a time when man could not wait. He beat the hen's cycle, injected hormones into it, and created broiler eggs. There is a similarity between hens and artists. Once upon a time, when a life-changing experience or a learning or an inspiration touched the artist, he 'laid an egg', a work of art. This work of art captured for time immemorial the artist's life experience. But, much like the hen, man could not wait for the 'egg'. The artist, instead of pursuing an inside-out journey, started taking hormonal shots of 'commercial pressures' and created many eggs out of the natural cycle.
I once had the rare opportunity of spending time with one of the greatest actors in India. He said, in the 80s we had to act whether or not we liked the story, because 'our meters had to run'. A classic case of broilerisation of artists. The broiler eggs tasted just like the natural eggs, but were far behind in nutrition. Similarly these works of art had the taste, i.e., the entertainment value, but lacked purpose.
Art for the sake of entertainment alone is not art, much like food for taste alone is not 'food'. Taste along with nutrition is the mandate of food. Entertainment with a purpose is the mandate of art. When art strives for entertainment alone, it brings along a set of audience which was never her's in the first place. Whereas an art with a purpose can bring in a robust and deep following.
I think the role of artists in shaping what we do is more relevant in today's times than ever
before. With financial structures crumbling around us, global warming threatening us, and the rage of violence all around us, it is only art that can act as a coolant. Though not researched, I see a direct correlation between art and love, art and compassion, art and education in life. I also see a indirect correlation between art and violence, art and greed, art and absence of introspection.
Can artists create the real eggs than broiler eggs? If that happens, it can, to a great extent, increase our timeshare in art. It can bring art back in our lives.
Can art not be made central to education as a process? If a child can spend 2500 hours at school reading Science or Maths, should the child not be attending 500 hours of arts in early childhood (I'm not saying art in place of science, it's art AND science)
We need art as integral part of early education, not to create artists, but to foster artistic
motives in whatever we do later in life. At the end of the day each system, each structure, each design ends up fostering motives. Should we not give art a chance to do its bit?
It would have been fascinating to know how Bharatiar or Tagore or Shakespeare would have looked at our current world. A Gurudutt or an N S Krishnan - what would have been their take on our world? John Lennon, Theyagaraya, S D Burman - what would have been their impacts today. May be, not knowing answers to these questions is our problem, and knowing these answers are our solutions.
We need a different level of thinking and behaviour to change the world we live in. ART can deliver it, give ART a chance!
John Lennon once famously sang "All we are saying, is give peace a chance". If he was around now, he may have sung "All we are saying, is give ART a chance".
Everyone of us, no matter what professions we are in or what roles we play at home, we can give ART a chance before it is too late. We can attempt to pass on a society enriched with ART. I plan to...
All we are saying, is give ART a chance.
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4 comments:
I think I should do this in point form to do your post some justice. And my comments are a combination of questions and opinions.
1) Your analogy of art as food if taken to its logical conclusion might weaken your case. Art, as it is wont, doesn't have an inherent set of things to offer. More often than not, it's what one takes away from it that matters. Food too suffers from the same predicament. Nutrition is not about just what food has to offer, but depends also on the ability of an individual body to assimilate it.
So I can learn more from a cras B-grade movie on violence than someone can from the Guernica.
2) Your linking of art and entertianiment, or rather the attempt to delink it, I feel, introduces the distinction of high art and popular art, and presumes that it is the exclusive mandate of high art to inspire, and of popular art to entertain. One can do the other depending on the audience (see point 1).
3) The biggest, and the most unfair criticism I am going to level at you is the definition of art you have in mind. While I am aware its a term that defies definiton, when you speak of it as part of curriculum, and as something that needs to be taught and imparted, you need some semblance of a definition. Personally I believe, when spoken about as part of a curriculum or any from educational experience, its better to talk about artistic skills if at all, and not art per se, as the latter is as esoteric as aesthetics and abstract thinking. Such thinks are rarely successfully taught, only hinted at. A perceptive person, or a really good physiological specimen to use the free-range eggs analogy, will take away more from it than a less fortunate person.
4) I am refraining from bringing into the discussion the point about how all art today, whether high or popular is soppy, and people eat it up all the same, only because it is fashionable to do so, and more so in the case of high art.
Thanks Raghu..Have sent you a mail on the same..Gopi
When an artiste CREATES something based on his taste it's what actually is an Art And thus the chances of public appreciating that is dicey. As a true artiste he used not to be bothered about the negative response but to keep going on the few positive responses.
To day the word Art has been replaced by Entertainment since the so called artistes have started MANUFACTURING something, moving out from CREATION, the prime reaons being mass attraction and better monitisation. That is a paradigm shift from "may be heard/seen" to " must heard/seen"
Since Art (Creation) has moved to Entertainment (Manufacturing), do we need to look at integrating Arts with studies... A better option could be integrating Entertainment as a subject!
Vasan
It's true that Arts had messages in the past unlike now.I don't think artistes(hope artistes include script-writers, directors,musicians ect.,)can be blamed for that. Artistes's outputs were just first of its kind then. After sometime, "first of its kind" did suffer due to more expectations from the audience. I also think creativity comes after giving priority to basic needs. When artistes struggle to meet their ends, naturally their output will not be of quality, bcos audience too belong to the same category.Nowadays Creativity is nothing but aspiring for majority of audiences' applause. That is, working on the audience's perception is not that easy without entertainment tag. First Education should enable people to address their basic needs. Then Audience's taste will improve.Creation with a message may happen only after that.
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