Art, I love art. That’s a fact. I draw. That’s another fact. I paint real life scenarios. That’s also another fact. I express reality through my painting, well that’s a lie. You might be asking yourselves, “If I am painting what I see, what makes my paintings less reliable to express truth?” I have seen various paintings that express certain battles, even the ones that took place during Prophet Mohammed’s era. However, how can I believe that the contents of the paintings are real? How can I know that the person who painted them had the intention of describing the truth rather than picturing what he thinks took place? The problem is that it is almost impossible to determine truth through a simple painting. I can never know if that particular painting insinuates truth or is it what someone thinks the truth was. Almost every artist would admit that art comes from within, and that is actually a fact. One paints his emotions rather than painting an image. That is because by the end, the artist realizes that the image he has created consists of his emotions only, nothing else. Therefore, by integrating emotion and truth, one can draw the ultimate conclusion of that truth can never be told through art.
I agree with your point; it is very difficult to ever know whether or not an artist is trying to convey an actual truth through his paintings or what he thinks is the truth, or maybe not even a truth at all, the artist is perhaps simply trying to express their emotions. It's true that a black-and-white truth is difficult to find through art, but art can help the audience "receiving" this art as a way to discover a truth about something else, be it themselves or something about the world around them.
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree with both your points, true in any form of art there are choices that the painter or musician or artist in general makes. These choices are made by his caudate nucleus, part of the striatum in the brain, an area that he (again) controls. With connections to his deep limbic system, an area in the center of the brain the size of a walnut that controls emotions, they are enticed to incorporate their emotions and hence their bias in their art. Khalid says, 'almost every artist would admit that art comes from within' and it's a fact that this walnut in our brain has every little impact on our art. Now while I agree that plain truth is exceptionally difficult to find in art (especially in art that represent history) it is in every sense useful to us. True, Arritxu you're convinced that 'black-and-white' art is difficult to find, while this is true, we can form that very black-and-white image by examining a 'black' image and a 'white' image together. While there are some cases where there is no 'white' image of the 'same' scene or point in time that the artist is displaying, at least there's something to see. Much like as in Paul Revere's controverse engraving of the Boston massacre in which he made the British soldiers seem more vicious than they actually were by making the colonists look helpless. All in all, I agree with you both, however I still believe its necessary to have art as some sort of truth- from one side at least that is.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting idea I just thought of, why does art seem more admissible and dependable as information than a story told by one of the two sides? We have this cast of mind where images and sounds, anything that stimulates our sensory organs really, is more accurate and legitimate than words. Any ideas?
Whether art comes through language (words) or through sensory experience it is being delivered via some medium from the mind of the artist/writer. Perhaps we have to work harder though to experience literature because we have to engage our emotions and imagination - we have to decode before we can enjoy. Music and painting might have a more direct impact on our sensibilities.
ReplyDeleteI have a question for you and Khalid though... Doesn't Islam forbid pictorial art as blasphemy? I thought this is why Islamic culture has focused on mosaics and calligraphy, and poetry etc?