For my blog this week, I chose to work out of Chapter 6, The Importance Of Feeling. Reading through the chapter, I really got attached to the quote by Francis Bacon “...the world is inferior to the soul. The acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfies the mind of man. Poesie endueth Action and Events with more rareness and more unexpected variations.”
The way I took this quote is that a piece of art can really make a difference to someone, or it can do nothing. It really depends on how extraordinary it is to them. Like the book says, humans have a need for both ordinary, and extraordinary; for order and disorder. One artist that this really reminded me of is Salvador Dali, all of his work is based off of ordinary, turned into something extraordinary. For example, the picture below is of animals with exaggerated legs, exaggerated buildings and exaggerated figures. All of these details make the picture more extraordinary and more unique.
Another piece of extraordinary art i found was a sculpture made only by forks by Matthew Bartik. By taking something so ordinary as a fork and creating a sculpture so exquisite, Bartik demonstrates the act of making something so simple extraordinary.As humans, we strive for a chance to escape the world were in. Personally, I believe that art, as the pieces i showed you, can really suppress that need and help us experience something were not use to, something extraordinary.
I find it fascinating that one of the things we as a culture hold so highly is art, despite our enforcement that art (from a biological standpoint) is useless, by this I mean that it is a want ans not a need. This makes me wonder if at any point in the far future art will work it's way into our evolution as a need, contributing to psychological advancement and health and a way for physically altering the human mind.
ReplyDeleteI thought the direction you took the importance of feeling was interesting because you focused on the the dichotomy of the fantastical and the extraordinary from the ordinary. The pictures you put in were a nice touch.
ReplyDeleteI love both of your examples of art that you used to support your topic. The dragon made out of forks is amazing. I wish I would have thought of that, genius. And Salvador Dali always blows me away. Every time I look at a Dali piece I wish I knew him. He seems like a complex yet entertaining person to know in life. His paintings are works that you can always find something new every time you view them.
ReplyDeleteI feel you have chosen a really intriguing piece of artwork as an example for your post. The Dali painting, as you mentioned has quite exaggerated features, but what I found most interesting was the man in the foreground who is brandishing a cross as if in an attempt to ward off the fantastical scene in front of him. I feel it is an interesting relationship between the expression of the fantastical and society's often negative view of indulgence of this escape.
ReplyDeleteWe strive to escape and at the same time understand the world we are in. Isn't it amazing that one behavior can fill both those desires at once?Salvador Dali seems to be a master of doing so. Great use of artwork.
ReplyDeleteAnthrowyn: I think it has already begun to. =)