I reserve the term “pretty” to mean something easy to grasp and familiar. A pretty picture may well demonstrate high craft and in fact may be even beautiful, however, rather than representing a new perspective, a pretty picture merely duplicates past representations of reality; it is a photograph replicating other photographs conventionally thought to be “pretty”, e.g., a photograph simply documenting a beautiful sunset at the Grand Canyon from the south side. A pretty photograph may be technically difficult of course, but if it does not reflect a new perspective on reality, it is not Art, it is art.
Being creative is difficult, and the more creative one is trying to be, the harder it is because to be creative is to stretch or even break the current paradigm of the artist’s world. Listen to a symphony by Mozart, and then listen to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to see what I mean: a new world has opened up. This isn’t to denigrate Mozart or the art of previous generations more generally as unevolved; it’s just to say that an artist like Beethoven is all about breaking down the old paradigm because for some reason he had something to say that the old paradigm would not let him say.
Great artists don’t even have to destroy the existing paradigm directly or intentionally, they can do it indirectly and unintentionally as well. Bach is a good example of a great artist who so perfected the existing paradigm that there was no space left, and someone like Haydn had to create a new paradigm to stretch his wings. Times change and so do paradigms. Thus, when an image is thought “pretty” it is usually a sign that the cultural paradigm it speaks to is becoming decadent. I hope my images are not “pretty” in this sense. I hope it takes a minute to recognize the subject, and in that minute to realize that a new way has been found to see an ordinary subject.
In the end, we create Art for ourselves. There was a nice editorial piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day by Michael Judge. He quoted a fellow student, Phillip Pace, writing about artful writing:
Let’s try, though it’s hard, to just deal with how the little piece feels to us when we’re done with it…that’s the root purpose anyway…we can drive ourselves crazy with Hollywood dreams but in the end what the writing really seems meant for is to keep us, in this way and that, strong enough to survive the new harsh dawn of another grim mundane February day…
No. 36 Pure Reason is Death
As post-Enlightenment moderns we worship reason based on empirically discovered data, consciously not emotion. The marvels of science and technology have only enhanced its reputation since the 18th Century rejection of traditional authority that was the Enlightenment. But pure reason is death.
Think about what it would mean to be purely rational; to conduct one’s life absent emotion would involve purely utilitarian calculations. If I asked why someone got up in the morning, and I would do so only because I had a logical reason to do so, I would be restricted to utilitarian reasons such as a need to earn money or at least eat something nourishing to permit life at all; I could not respond by saying I enjoyed the quiet of the morning or because my work was interesting and worthwhile. If I asked why someone chose to promise to live with a particular member of the opposite sex I might be told to ensure procreation or to share expenses or seek a tax advantage; the responses I could not give would be say because I loved the person, or enjoyed sex, or because I simply enjoyed the company.
If one were to drain the emotion from life, I would point out that there would be no need to procreate because children would simply be an economic burden. Life-long relationships would have little value because they would not serve utilitarian purposes. Ask yourself: Absent emotion why would I get up in the morning? What would I fight or die for since any cause would simply relate to existence. Physical comfort would not suffice, since it involves pleasure or the absence of pain, which is to say emotions. A woman in China died? One’s mother died? It would all be the same. Reason cannot supply a reason for living, only our humanity can, in all its confusion and conflict.
Art is important because, while it certainly may have a rational component, essentially it celebrates the mystery of life, satisfies a longing for meaning and the need to express the otherwise inexpressible truth of the human experience. 20th Century art was less than it could have been to the extent it tried to become a mere rational exercise, e.g., Cubism; in fact it often reflected the victory of art criticism over art; the autopsy of the dead rather than an expression of the living.