Throughout history artists have served many functions, but their value and importance to society have remained basically the same. To begin with, artists fulfill practical roles, designing virtually every structure or object that is built or made. Today these activities are largely carried out by artists with specialized training such as industrial designers, architects, and fashion designers. Artists who work with images-painters, sculptors, and photog¬raphers-also fulfill practical roles, along with other roles that are less prac¬tical but perhaps even more valuable.
First, artists record and commemorate. They create images that help us remember the present after it slips into the past, that keep us in mind of our history, and that will speak of our times to the future. Illustrated here is a segment from a long painting that portrays episodes from a Chinese emperor's tour of the southern provinces of his realm in the year 1689 Upon his return to the capital, the emperor commissioned a well-known painter named Wang Hui to oversee a team of court artists in creating a pic-torial record of the trip. The result was a truly monumental work, a set of 12 scrolls, each around 58 feet long, recreating the journey in minute detail. In the segment illustrated here, the emperor (in the foreground beneath the yellow parasol) visits an important local shrine. For the emperor, the scrolls underscored the importance of his visit and served as an official visual record
of it. For us hundreds of years later; the visit has very little importance. Instead, we are enchanted to find the past come to life before our eyes with a wealth of visual detail that no written account could match.
A second function artists perform is to give tangible form to the unknown. They portray what cannot be seen with the eyes or events that can only be imagined. An anonymous Indian sculptor of the 11th century gave tangible form to the Hindu god Shiva in his guise as Nataraja, Lord of the Dance (1.9). Encircled by flames, Shiva dances the destruction and rebirth of the world, the end of one cycle of time and the beginning of another. The figure's four arms communicate the complexity of this cosmic moment. In one hand, Shiva holds the small drum whose beat summons up creation; in another hand, he holds the flame of destruction. A third hand points at his raised foot, beneath which worshipers may seek refuge, while a fourth hand is raised with its palm toward the viewer, a gesture that means "fear not."
Looking at the statue in a museum, we can appreciate the sculptor's skill at handling this complicated pose so gracefully. When the statue was in use, however it would have been almost completely hidden by silks and flowers draped about it-offerings to the deity who was believed to have taken up residence within. It is useful to remember that much of the art we find in museums originally played a direct and vital role in people's lives.
A third function artists perform is to give tangible form to feelings and ideas. These may be the artist's own personal feelings and ideas, but they may also be those of a larger group or culture. The statue of Shiva we just looked at, for example, gives tangible form to ideas about the cyclical nature of time that are part of the religious culture of Hinduism. The artist probably shared those ideas, but we cannot know for sure. Our society has come to place great importance on the individual, and we take it for granted that self-expression is fundamental to artistic creation, but this has not always been so. Throughout much of history, artists have expressed feelings and ideas on behalf of others. In The Starry Night Vincent van Gogh labored to create a visual equivalent for his feelings as he stood on the outskirts of a small village in France and stared up at the stars. Surrounded by halos of radiating light, the stars have an exaggerated, urgent presence, as though each one were a brilliant sun. A great wave or whirlpool rolls across the sky-a cloud, perhaps, or some kind of cosmic energy. The landscape, too, seems to roll on in waves like an ocean. A tree in the foreground writhes upward toward the stars as though answering their call. In the distance, a church spire points upward as well. Everything is in turbulent motion. Nature seems alive, communicating in its own language while the village sleeps.
Fourth and finally, artists enable us to experience a way of seeing different than our own. Through art we can live more than one life, see through more than one pair of eyes. Artists show us something new in the world. Like self-expression, newness and originality are valued very highly today in our thinking about art. Yet artists in other cultures and at other times would not necessarily have understood such ideas. For them, the goal of art was to continue the forms of the past. Newness and originality can make themselves felt in subtle ways as well as obvious ones. John Schabel found newness with a telephoto lens
Standing in an airport lounge on a drizzly day, he zoomed in on distant planes waiting to take off, photographing the passengers on board through the tiny airplane windows. Enlarged, the photographs have a grainy quality, as though they were made of gray mist. We have never quite seen ourselves this way before, so vulnerable and transitory. The technologies of air travel and photography made the view possible, but it took an artist to uncover its newness and to bring it to us.
Have a Story/ Interview tell us and get on the Post
No comments:
Post a Comment