I'll begin with that quote from Idries Shah that goes like this;
which pretty much sums up the problem of being misled caused by identification. When people use the word 'art' recklessly it becomes an abuse toward the actual entity the word itself represents. And thus it becomes impossible to discern what art is from merely talks and definitions alone. It becomes quite a dilemma for me regarding the Cloud Atlas rating because of this same realization. A realization that I cannot embody what art is versus an actual sensation of whatever I was digesting at that moment that might not be art at all. I can reinterpret it using the words like masterpiece, work of art, sublime but it couldn't be further from the truth in defining the movie itself.
So what is art? The question asks. Well, I'm not entirely sure. I know the word but I have not yet come across an entity that screams at the top of its lung, pierces into my consciousness which allows me to translate unfailingly so that I could utter it aloud, "That's it! That is art!" similar to an image of a cup that translates into me, "Oh, that's a coffee cup." I assumed it could be a problem of perception. Can we still not 'see' art? Can we still not 'feel' art? This is fundamental. The very fact that we do not know art means we cannot speak about art accurately if at all. We were raised into believing that we know things simply if we can 'reason' it out or 'connecting' the dots, through repetition of things, through succession of events. And yet these are mere assumptions and not an understanding of it. We rarely consider that our own tools of perception can be expanded beyond words, beyond sight, beyond definitions and probably one of these tools are better used toward understanding what art really is.
But here we are pretty much trapped in our dogmatic view of art, because we depend so much on secondary affirmations like, for example, the technical aspects present in the visual context, or the composition of a music piece, or the validation from authorities when they talk about art, or the expression aspect which has no concrete ground whatsoever. This is all the skin of it, and pretty much misleading. Design can be an art but art is not necessarily a design. To 'touch' art directly is knowing art. Pretty much an all encompassing phenomenon.
But where does that leave us with all our bickering about concepts and definition, about what's necessary and not in art when we don't even know the essence of it? Are we merely philosophizing with no intent to actually go out there and experience the knowing of art itself? As far as I observe and experience, art is not mere pretty pictures, it does not necessarily require skill, it does not need to convey ideas, it does not need to be morally correct, portraying cultures and history and so on and so forth. It can be as well, but not necessarily. But art is as real as a coffee cup, and the problem is we cannot see it correctly, we cannot hear it correctly, we are underdeveloped for it, or we are already led astray by fakes masking as artists. We might've seen the glimpse of art somewhere sometime in our lives and it left a big enough impact to haunt us our entire adult life. And we were more than perplexed when we've returned to a more deluded state that does not have the capacity to understand art anymore.
The torrent of ideals gushing involving what art should be and should not be can only serve as noise and nothing more. Where the thoughts of a true artist is collected, the thoughts of a philosopher philosophizing about art will vary greatly because he's merely assuming. Quoth Cloud Atlas, "Truth is singular, it's versions, are mistruths." For the one who has experienced truth, why would he or she be bothered as to the definition of it? Maybe we should reconsider our own insistence when it comes to 'our way' of understanding things via mere assumptions, and see things as they are. Maybe then we can truly understand what art really is.
I'm Dr. Hamfik, thanks for reading.
