Beauty Matters Be A Radical Aesthete

Inspire -  |inˈspī(ə)r| verb 

1 fill (someone) with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. • create (a feeling, especially a positive one) in a person • (inspire someone with) animate someone with (such a feeling give rise to.)

2 breathe in (air); inhale.(Please keep this word in mind when reading my little rant.  And note that when I say Art I am extending that definition to all modalities ie. Music, visual, literature, poetry etc.)

Have you ever seen something or heard something that made your skin react with goosebumps? Goosebumps are a physiological phenomenon caused by a contraction of mini muscles that are attached to each hair. The contraction causes the hair to stand up. 

Neurobiologist, Dr. Jaak Panksepp,  believes that individuals when encountering music, art, nature or something beautiful can feel acute feelings like fear, sadness, passion, and joy. In feeling these strong emotions the body releases the same chemicals that tell the skin to form goosebumps. Interestingly, the goosebump signals start in the “sympathetic” nervous system. When you feel these powerful emotions the hypothalamus sends a message via your nerves to the muscles to tighten up, hence the bumps. 

Recently a friend sent me an email with a link attached to a video I found very interesting. You can find it here if you are interested. The gist of the hour-long video outlines the importance of beauty in life. The claim: “Without beauty in life we are most certainly in danger of losing the meaning of life.” Roger Scruton. 

Beauty is as important a value as truth, kindness, and integrity.  However, in the last century beauty in art, any kind of art, has been regarded as trite and valueless. Relegated to the realm of aesthetics and not to be taken seriously. According to Roger Scruton, the creator and speaker in the video, beauty has been replaced by originality and concept.  Personally speaking, if a concept needs to have a dissertation to explain what it is trying to communicate, and nothing can be inspired from its by-product, the art, then it has failed to do its primary job. Connect with the viewer!

Piss Christ by Andres Serrano

Art has become increasingly about disturbing and upending traditional values at any cost.  It has become about disrupting moral taboos, consider Piss Christ by Andres Serrano. Beauty is losing in the race against ideas.  In addition, its lost favor among the elites, the intellects and art critics of our times. There is a vast divide between the creators and buyers of art and this upper theoretical cultural elite that determines what is good or not.  

Let me be clear, works of art need not be beautiful for us to consider them important or that they need to be beautiful to be art. Look at Guernica by Picasso. What I’m grappling to understand is why have we collectively allowed ourselves to be manipulated and denigrated to think that Beauty and its accompanying result, inspiration inspəˈrāSH(ə)n, is not as intense a value as the idea and deemed it frivolous.  “Their” contention is that Beauty isn't important for CRITICAL analysis when undertaking to comprehend the ethics, politics, history, and merits of human societies over past and present. 

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

The perception of beauty is a subconscious process for knowing and exploring our world. It is an intangible quality that is felt and goosebumps validate our collective reaction. 

I contend we absolutely are in danger of losing the meaning of life.  Beauty allows us to come in connection with the divine. In other words, we get to commune with GOD. This I believe is what makes art compelling and why when beauty or the perception of that beauty ( let us not forget beauty is in the eye of the beholder) we get goosebumps. And it is a universal experience. Life is complicated, difficult and perplexing, human beings need INSPIRATION, LIKE THEY NEED FOOD AND WATER, it is life sustaining.   In my humble opinion, and for some time this has been one of the primary roles of ART.

Jo Baer, Primary Light Group:Red Green Blue 

In closing, I want to encourage you to buck the system ravaging the art world today. A system where art needs an explanation to comprehend  the meaning.   Search out things that mean something to you.  Search for the beauty in all things. You will be either moved to try to create it or to own it. Don’t concern yourself with its value in 50 or 100 years. Don’t concern yourself with whether the artist is well known. Do ask yourself if the work is compelling? Does it take you on a journey? Does it inspire you? ( even if you purchase it to put above your couch or fireplace) The consummate aesthete Oscar Wilde once said: “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.” 

Be a Radical Aesthete.

Drop me a comment and visit the website www.carolinartstudio.com