Communication Through Art

Nature Forms Gasp. Georgia O'Keeffe.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.
-Georgia O'Keeffe

In the final chapter of Grace and Necessity, Rowan Williams briefly touches on a subject which caught my attention. He discusses the how the reality of the world, and human perception of it, is fleeting and temporary. The human mind, in all its complexity, goes through a process of generation. This is not to say that the brain creates something from nothing, but rather that it communicates through a continuous reflection, which is reworked and shaped over time. Our interpretations are subject to constant reinterpretation. In the midst of this constant cycle of perception, interpretation, and reinterpretation, how can the truth be found?

Williams says that truth can be found in the sum of our lives and individual perceptions, stating:

“But truthfulness unfolds - it does not happen at once - and makes possible different levels of appropriating or sharing the activity that is the world. Basic to all this is - though it is not quite the conclusion that Hofstadter himself would want to arrive at - a sense of the real as active rather than static, a mobile pattern whose best analogy is indeed musical, not mechanical.”

Blue Nude. Pablo Picasso.

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all
over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap
of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.
-Pablo Picasso

Therefore, our perceptions and understanding are a dynamic and constant occurrence. From this comes truth. Truth is discovered through interpersonal sharing and communicating. We draw on our experiences, our past, our knowledge, and through our collective understanding we can arrive at truth. While Hofstadter might not want to conclude that the real is active rather than static, he does conclude that communication is best executed when it includes a personal narrative. In his book I Am A Strange Loop, he writes,

“And one of my firmest conclusions is that we always think by seeking and drawing parallels to things we know from our past, and that we therefore communicate best when we exploit examples, analogies, and metaphors galore, when we avoid abstract generalities, when we use very down-to-earth, concrete, and simple language, and when we talk directly about our own experience.” 

We can conclude that communication is an extremely important component of understanding reality and truth. But what does this mean for the visual arts? Art, at its core, is a form of communication. While Williams and Hofstadter discuss the expression of perception and truth in terms of language, art presents an entirely new medium through which to communicate. Our language, with its limited vocabulary, reduces our understanding to symbols. We are limited by our words so that which is conveyed through speech could be interpreted in a thousand different ways. Our language can fail us, especially in our quest for truth. The visual can capture things which words fail to convey, and perhaps aid the journey. Art is a instrument through which the artist has a way to express truth in a plane bound only by the laws of the physical, with a myriad of solutions. Our truth, our perception, should not be confined to ourselves - it demands to be expressed. 

"Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in." -Amy Lowell

30 sec. Figure Study. Kirsten Hallenbeck.

 Some of my own artistic expression/perception. 

Completed at a Hipbone Studio live drawing session.

Sources
Grace and Necessity by Rowan Williams
I Am A Strange Loop by Hofstadter
Picasso On Art: A Selection of Views from Da Capo Press 

Truth in Art: Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor

In the third section of his book Grace and Necessity, Rowan Williams takes time to discuss the art and philosophy behind the literary work of Flannery O’Connor. Regarded as one of America’s greatest fiction writers, her work wrestles with what she refers to as the “stinking mad shadow of Jesus.” The daughter of Georgia’s two oldest and most devout Roman Catholic families, O’Connor became a strong apologist for Roman Catholicism throughout the twentieth century. 

Writers of faith encounter questions and struggles unique to their beliefs. In the art of writing, how much should the author impose their own beliefs and moral convictions upon their characters? O’Connor’s writings hold up a mirror to her own spiritual journeys; often contemplating the “search for God and the quest for the holy.” However, her spiritual connection does not seem to be a limitation. On the contrary, O’Connor’s work centers predominantly on fundamentalist Protestants, whom she commended for their search for Truth. For O’Connor, it is not a matter of writing about character and action, but rather speaking with character and action. She goes into this at length, stating;

"This means that [the work] must carry its meaning inside it. It means that any abstractly expressed compassion or piety or morality in a piece of fiction is only a statement added to it. It means that you can't make an inadequate dramatic action complete by putting a statement of meaning on the end of it or in the middle of it or at the beginning of it. It means that when you write fiction you are speaking with character and action, not about character and action."

Williams goes so far as to say that in regards to the work, to question the moral consequences of creating is to interrupt integrity. Williams says,

“The paradoxical point is that if the writer urgently wants to lay bare a moral universe or a dogmatic structure, she has to do so exclusively in the terms of the work itself, not by introducing a moral excursus or by holding back because of possible undesirable results in a venerable reader.”

A self portrait by O'Connor.

So, therefore, the writer must let go of their need for self-expression and search for the central necessity of the work at hand. The author must act as narrator, but within the work of fiction - as a character. In this way, all personal presuppositions and opinions of truth, morality, and religion are shed so that the work may speak for itself. It is easy for artists to fall into a mindset that they cater solely to their audience, and can edit work beyond recognition in an attempt to please the crowd. But this, as discussed by O’Connor and Williams, is not portraying truth nor being honest in the work. 

Artists do not wake one day and decide that they will be an artist. The inherent need to create is something which an individual is born into - they depend upon it. They create because they must, and the process of creation is something which the artist serves. When inspiration strikes and a work demands to be brought into existence, the artist must be true to their revelation. To impress one’s own beliefs upon a work is to compromise its integrity - to compromise the truth.

In a letter O’Connor sent to a friend, she writes;

“Strangle the word dreams. You don’t dream up a form and put the truth in it. The truth creates its own form. Form is necessity in the work of art." 

Sources

Gordon, Sarah. "Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 29 September 2014. Web. 20 October 2014.

Webb, Charles Harper. "The Art of Sentence: Flannery O'Connor." Tin House. 3 April 2012. Web. 20 October 2014.

Grace and Necessity by Rowan Williams

Life As Art

From the beginning of time, man has been inextricably tied to the physical - what we know as real. We possess within us a deep connection, a bond, which allows us to perceive and understand the physical. This tangible world is a medium through which man can communicate. In his book Grace and Necessity, Rowan Williams goes into detail about this relationship between man and reality. To Williams, communication through the physical is a gift which each individual must experience for themselves. He explains this, saying,

"...the whole notion of sign implies the sacred - the real as good, the good as supremely real, and thus as laying on us an obligation, a binding. If the stuff of the world can be a medium of communication, the exploration of the possible meanings of what is given becomes a listening for something like a gift, the bestowing on us of a share in a reality that is for our flourishing."

As we artists (or poets, or even military strategists, for that matter) shape and develop our forms, we work within our own conviction that the real is good. Each individual who encounters some creation must discover or “listen” for themselves - to receive their own understanding which enriches and encourages their reality. 

Bulls in the Lascaux Caves

Because of this wedding between the material and the imagination, humanity cannot ignore the need to communicate visually. Since the beginning of time, man has been painting, sculpting, and expressing. A brief romp through art history shows us that from the caves of Lascaux to Duchamp, man has found a voice in art. But, then, what is art? Are we limited to that which can be marked on a cave or affixed to a gallery wall? 

Maritain offers a unique perspective with his philosophy that art is simply creating. Art is “not copying, not free-wheeling or expressing an inner selfhood, but producing a material thing.” While Maritain’s view is exhilarating and empowering to the artist - can this concept be pushed further? 

David Jones argues yes. 

As an artist and poet, Jones is familiar with the entwined nature of life and creation. His writing and visual artist work stemed from his time serving in the military during World War I, and his later conversion to Catholicism. This relates strongly to his view on life as art, as described by Williams in Grace and Necessity, 

"Jones implies that the life of 'prudence,' a life lived in a consciously moral context, however exactly understood, is itself an act of gratuitous sign-making; moral behavior is the construction of a life that can be 'read', that reveals something in the world and uncovers mystery."

So then, life becomes art. This new and intriguing concept suggests that behavior becomes a means to reveal the interconnectedness of physical existence. The everyday choices based on individual moral conviction is displayed as a comprehensible creation. And with this comes a great challenge; what will you create with your waking, your breathing - your existence? 

Epiphany by David Jones

Sources
-Grace and Necessity by Rowan Williams-"Jones, David" A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art by Ian Chilvers and John Glaves-Smith. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
-Wilson, Andrew. "David Jones 1895–1974." Tate. Oxford University Press, Grove Art Online. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

Beauty in the Process

"True artists are almost the only men
who do their work for pleasure."
-Auguste Rodin

I must begin this conversation with a simple question; why create? Why make art? Some artists claim that the beauty of art is in the concept, and not the physical. Others claim that they create merely for beauty itself. For the physical alone. Still others create for the sake of creation itself; the process. This is where Rowan Williams begins his dialogue on the relationship between art and beauty in his book Grace and Necessity.

  

Saint Thomas defined the beautiful as that which pleases; id quod visum placet. Or, intuitive knowledge, and a delight. Therefore, the beautiful gives delight in the act of knowing. Maritain summarizes this point in his book Art and Scholasticism, stating that 

“If a thing exalts and delights the soul by the very fact that it is given to the soul’s intuition, it is good to apprehend, it is beautiful.”

However, creating beauty cannot be the ultimate goal for the artist. An artist who strives to attain aesthetics alone will change and tweak the work until they have compromised the spirit of the piece in an attempt at beauty. Williams argues that instead of this vain path, an artist should create honestly - and that the transparency in the creation will lend itself to beauty. In the Mellon Lectures, Maritain discusses that the problems with contemporary art lie in emotionalism and intellectualism. Our current culture, centralized around functionalism, judges a work’s success merely by it’s ability to stimulate emotions or communicate what was on the artist’s mind. Appreciation for the power of the creative process has been lost and replaced by a rationalized version; the art cannot be successful unless it can be explained.

Many artist’s feel that their calling is to change the world with their art, in agreement with their own personal vision. But this “magical fallacy” is preventing the production of true, beautiful art. First and foremost, the artist must let go of their desires and find joy simply in creating, in the process. Therefore, art is essentially opposed to the will power of the individual. Beauty cannot be achieved by a conscious decision and intellectualism. Creativity and the production of beauty is a spontaneous, organic process which no person can deliberately choose.

"The artist is not called on to love God or the world or humanity, but to love what he or she is doing. In a rather extended sense, the activity of the artist does have a serious moral character simply because it pushes aside the ego and the desire of the artist as individual.” 
- Grace and Necessity, Rowan Williams

As an artist and creator myself, I find Williams dialogue on this subject matter to hold truth and comfort. With one foot in the world of academia, and the other in the realm of contemporary art, I often find that the joy of creation has been lost. I find I can let go of the joy of creating myself. But isn’t that the reason most of us began making art in the first place? I feel that often the modern art world tells us that the process is not enough - that the work must be intellectualized until the soul has been wrenched out of it. I have a lot of empty pieces in my studio. Not empty in the sense that they are blank, or unfinished, but in that they lack conviction. They lack the joy of the process. And how is the viewer supposed to find joy in a work if the artist themselves did not? 

A glimpse into my own creative process.

As I grow and progress as an artist, I am learning that my creativity comes from the process. While some artists plan and conceptualize, I find that my best and most beautiful work comes from getting my hands dirty - diving into the physical working - letting my hands tell that which my conscious thought and language does not know how to communicate. 

"The artist therefore is engaged in an intelligent making of a poem or other art form, seeking not Beauty nor to lay bare the underlying relations in the material nor any other program other than to make the material yield up, via the canons of artistic creation, its patterns discerned within the artist’s self. While propaganda or pornography or even philosophical ideas can be expressed artistically, these never yield art per se. And the artist seeking to make these is failing to be an artist, and the product, however artful, cannot be beautiful."
-Rt. Rev. Pierre W. Whalon, D.D., in review of Grace and Necessity

References

Grace and Necessity by Rowan Williams

Art and Scholasticism by Jacques Maritain

Grace and Necessity as reviewed by Rt. Rev. Pierre W. Whalon, D.D

(http://anglicansonline.org/resources/essays/whalon/GraceNecessityReview.html)