SUBJECT AND ETHICS

as Rand pointed out in her essay ART AND SENSE OF LIFE, 'two distinct, but interrelated elements of a work of Art are the crucial means of projecting its sense of life: the SUBJECT and the STYLE - WHAT an artist chooses to present and HOW he presents it...the subject of an art work expresses a view of a man's existance, while the style expresses a view of a man's consciousness... it is the subject [qualified by the theme] that projects an art work"s view of man's place in the universe... the theme of an art work is the link uniting the subject and its style...' in choosing a subject, there are unlimited possibilities... a lot, I think, depends on the diversity of the interests that the particular artist has... a lot also depends on one's understanding of ethics - and this is where I think lies a most important underlying element to Art... in one of her more controversial statements, she proclaimed that 'Art is the indespensible medium for the communication of a moral ideal...'... she further stated that while 'moral values are inextricably involved in Art,' it is 'only as a consequence, NOT a causal determinant.'... Art is '...the concretization of a moral ideal,' she argued, 'not a textbook on how to become one'... but which ethics? the one pandered to over the centuries, causing countless deaths and disillusions? the one whose virtues are of the tribal/taking syndrone?

THEMING

all renderings, by their nature, contain themes... most artists, however, having only that 'sense of life' to guide them in deciding what is to be produced, are generally not consciously aware of just what it is that is the theme... it is, therefore, usually treated as if it were a consequence, an underlining intuitiveness that comes out, if at all consciously, AFTER the fact... indeed, it is usually the result of some emotional reaction to the 'scene'... Art, however, is NOT concerned with actual events or occurences per se - it is concerned with their metaphysical or fundamental significance to [properly] the rational being...

I am a themescapist because I CONSCIOUSLY choose the theme, and it is thru the use of metaphors that i peruse the showing of my view of the world... I take abstract ideas and render visualizations of them... like a novelist who chooses a title for his/her book which CRYSTALIZES THE ESSENCE of that work [or should], so, too, I take what I call a 'theme/title' and work with it, figuring ut the best way to render it - how complex, how big the work is to be, whether it is to be a collection of objects as a still-life or landscape of some kind, and so forth...

CONNOTATIONS

in literature, there are several ways of intensifying connotative usage... there's, basically, imagery, metaphor, similie, personification, synecdoche, metonymy, symbolism, allegory, paradox, overstatement or hyperbole, understatement, irony and allusion... obviously not all are applicable to rendering... some overlap - synecdoche and metonymy are almost alike, and not particularly adaptable to rendering, at least not in a primary or major way... same, too, with similie, which is an explicit version of metaphor... hyperbole and understatement might best work with style rather than with fundamemtal substance... the same with irony and allusion, which is a form of symbolism, as is also allegory... paradox and personification might work, but better as secondary rather than primary... this leaves three as primary means - imagery, symbolism, and metaphor... as a rendering is itself an imaging, there is therefore no separate dealing with imagery in a painting... because a rendering is a SELECTIVEness in its creation, EVERY object within it is automatically a symbol to some greater or lesser degree...  this leaves the metaphor - which is a comparison between objects or things which at first glance seem essentially UNlike...

POETRY AND ITS NATURE

poetry is the closest in the literary arena to a painting in its approach... indeed, a painting could be considered as a logical, even inevitable outgrowth of poetry - the ULTIMATE in 'saying more and saying it more intensely', with the saying being completely visual, completely synthesized into the SHOWING more and more intensely... in achieving this, it is instructive to remember the distinction between DENOTATION and CONNOTATION - which applies as readily to an object chosen for rendering as it does to a word in a poem... a 'denotation' is the specific concept which the word is a symbol of or for - the dictionary definition... a 'connotation' is an associated meaning attatched to an object or word thru contextual usage... connotation is very important to an artist because it is one of the ways in which meaning can be concentrated or enriched, and there are often several connotations to a specific concept or word or object... by the same token, just as a word or object often has a variety of connotations, so, too, it can have several denotations - and this allows also for an enrichment to the rendering... it's thru connotations, however, that I have found a solution to the problem of what to render - and why...

NATURE OF GUIDANCE

one of the criticisms leveled against Rand' s view of Art was that she did not provide an abundance of examples to illustrate her contentions on various aspects of Art, and because she used literature [ the most developed of the Arts ] as her primary in examples... because it was not so obvious - especially to those NOT in the respective fields ] how it might apply to the other arenas, it was presumed by many that she errored, and that her notions were not, really, applicable to all of the Arts... I have long held that this is not only an uninaginative and very concrete-bound viewing, but very wrong as well... a guide is not a textbook, but an INDICATION of certain directions... it is also a hallmark of reality that everything is not all known, and that there are in many areas a lot of work to be done in gaining understanding... there are lots of theoretical work which do not see immediate application , and that show immense needs of learning on how to practicalize... if the principles hold true, however, then the fact that understanding how to apply the theories being at present lacking does in no way discredit the theories... it is merely a recognition that further work is needed in that area of thought... a final note of thought - just as most artists are not philosophers, so most philosophers are not artists, and practicalizing an aspect of abstraction in a field not particularly familiar to them may well leave them with a dearth of creativity, however much this may be displayed in their own fields...

CONCISENESS

the literary arena of Art has been around since the beginning of language... as such, it is the most developed, conceptually... in this development of presenting a person's view of the world, including the sensory experience of being in the world - what of it that was known - to others, and the necessity of finding ways to remember these views - especially at a time when the written word had not yet been devised - the results became poetry... poetry's aim was not to just present events [tho that may very well have been its initial usage, or coincided initially], but - as indicated - to present EXPERIENCES...indeed, this became its prime purpose...

but you can only hold so much in your mind at any one time... consequently, forms had to be devised to encapsule as much in as minimal space as possible, yet be retainable as maximally as possible... poetry, therefore, says MORE and says it MORE INTENSELY than does ordinary language... this is so even when the spoken language became more permanent with the written language...

as a means of finding ways to make a better rendering, I have found it very instructive to take a look at the various forms which have been utilized in poetry, and seeing where these may, if possible, be adapted to the painter's end... I say this because I maintain that the fundamental principles alluded to in Rand's essays on Art hold true in ALL the arenas of Art...

THEMESCAPING

I am a themescapist... I consider it the ultimate rational purposefulness of the artist... why might I have come to this conclusion, and what is the consequence of this?

to begin with, it has never been my interest in just being a 'scenerist', one who does landscapes, cityscapes, seascapes, and so on,whether real or imagined... these are in effect recorder modes, outdated largely by the invention of photography... this attitude became even more so after being exposed to the works of the philosopher Ayn Rand, who pointed out the true nature of Art, and how important a field of endeavor it really is... nor did it seem enough to continue with just a sense of life about my works - especially since the 'wisdom of life' brought me to a fully integrated non-contradictory view of reality... of course, when I say that, I do not mean that there then would be an absence of the 'sense of life'... what I mean is that this sense of life becomes thereby non-contradictory in structure... as consequence, too, I do not expect the viewers of my works to grasp all of the multitudes of implications and delicacies of the works at first viewing... Art's purpose, remember, is for contrmplation, and contemplation requires SEVERAL viewings and thinkings on these works... to get the viewers' attention, therefore, to garner the most impact, would need the use of the cognitive effort - thru, that is, achieving a 'wisdom of life' approach to Art...

however, the only thing I had to go on, as far as I could see, in my attempt to achieve this were examples from the field of literature - even tho a painting, for instance, is a one-shot deal... in a painting, obviously, one must seek to have it put all together in a single view... a literary work, on the other hand, even the most concise one of a poem, makes use of many words, and as much length as is considered required to make the proper presentation... tho the principles remain the same, the artist has a far grater challenge in seeking to achieve the same DEGREE of precision of showing that view of existance [assuming that degree of precision is even desired in the context of the presentation]...

UNETHICALNESS IN ART

in the field of Art, there are two ways the unethicalness can show... the first is by having a work passed off as if it were a work of Art - either deliberately as in the case of 'abstract art', or thru misunderstanding of the nature of what Art is, as in the case of photography... the second is by presenting in a work of Art a false view of existance...

a work of Art, as Rand pointed out, provides a visualization for contemplating being in one's own ideal world... since a person lives by altering his/her physical background - the given world he/she is in - to serve that person's purpose, that person must first define and then create that person's own values... but to best do so, that person need a visualization of those values - the experience of sensing being in a universe in which those values have been successfully achieved...Art, in effect, is a 'metaphysical mirror of the person"s soul,' as Rand wrote, 'an expression of the sense of life'... properly, she then went on to state, 'what should be reflected is in the nature of a salute'... if it does not show this, the work may be a work of Art, but it may be unethical in that it shows a fraudulant view of existance...

how, then, does one go about this visualization? Rand said that the closer an artist comes to a CONCEPTUAL method of functioning, visually, the greater the work... this is because it is thru concepts that a person functions in the world - and it is thru the visualization of concepts that a person transmits intelligibility... this is the crux of defining what is or is not a work of Art... to be a work of Art, it MUST BE INTELLIGIBLE - and intelligible means being a re-presentational work... if it is not intelligible, if one cannot know what it is that is being presented, it ceases to be a work of Art... that is why, for instance, so-called 'abstract art' or 'non-representational art' is properly NOT Art... at best it may be a glorification of aspects of the decorative arts, a subset of aesthetics embodied in the Crafts, as a sort of simulated texture - but NOT Art...

ETHICALS AND ART

the consequence of having a correct view of reality, of recognising the primacy of existance, is that it allows one to KNOW what is Art - and what is NOT Art... what is true, and what is false - and WHY...

earlier, mention was made about the importance of values in the showing aspect of a work of Art, and that a value is what you act to gain and/or keep... ethics is the science of values... a value, however, is not the same as an importance... importance in a work of Art is what is involved in that 'selective re-presentation... of aspects of reality' of the definition... the ethics is involved in that aspect of how the artist selects, being that '...according to the artist's fundamental view of reality', what Rand referred to as 'metaphysical value-judgments'...

the primary values in ethics are what are called moral values - guides or philosophical roadmaps that aid in achieving our goals in life according to our nature as human beings... these primary values are the CHOSEN, as they must be values UNDERSTOOD instead of being merely commanded, based on the objective recognition of what is required, man qua man [as Rand would say ], for survival AS HUMAN BEINGS...

a TRUE 'wisdom of life' is a NON-CONTRADICTORILY integrated view of existance... there are, tho, other values besides the primary ones... these are values hierarchially arrayed according to CONTEXTUAL importance - in line with the primary values... the more non-contradictory these lesser values are, the more integrated they will be in the ethical structuring... the greater the understanding of the inter-relationship of the values, the more consistant is the acting to achieving those goals in life... because of the immense variation in the individuation of persons, because of the differences in the specific enviromental influences [internal as well as external ] to the persons, there is a variable perimeter to the ranges of these lesser values, culminating in the immense variety of individuals - all who could act rationally in achieving an uncountable number of goals... real values, as such, ENHANCE human life, while false values are frauds which seek to undercut human life enhancement...

THE ISSUE OF INTEGRATION

most artists, however, are not philosophers... most, indeed, are not even aware of the importance philosophy has on their field of endeavor... they are, therefore, left with just their sense of life to guide themselves...but, because we are cognitive beings, we HAVE to have a philosophy, SOME sort of integrated view of existance - there is no choice in this, since it is in our nature... the only choice we do have is whether to consciously choose that philosophy, integrating it according to the facts of reality, in a NON-CONTRADICTORY manner - or to acquire it according to a collection of assumptions, traditional notions, myths, with a few facts thrown in [since it is impossible to totally avoid dealing with reality], creating a contradictory-laden view which does not allow you to know which parts are for real and which are false, and which are down-right harmful [which is to say how most persons hold their philosophy, even if they are not really aware of it as being a philosophy, and call it something else - say, a religion]...

WHAT, THEN, DEFINES ART?

as said before, the purpose of a work of Art - any work of Art - is to show, to present to the world what the artist considers of fundamental importance... but if the work is to be of any worth for contemplation, it must reflect VALUES... Rand defined a value as 'what you act to gain and/or keep'... in order for a person to be able to figure out which values are best desired - and why [that is, to be able to cognitively justify them], there is this need of having an all-inclusive view of existance... furthermore, there is a need to be able to figure out which of these world viewpoints is correct - because a value, to be of any usefulness, must reflect reality, not fantasy...

but this all-inclusive view is so vast that no person could possibly be able to hold it within conscious awareness... there is just too much of it - way too much of it - for the conscious mind... yet, in order to provide yourself with a groundbase for placing your values by which you guide yourself, for INTEGRATING these specifics into the sum and whole, it is essential that you have SOME means of being able to bring this all-inclusiveness to your conscious attention...
that is what Art is all about - and THAT is the nature and true importance in being an artist... it is also what allows for a complete definition of Art, an objective, all-inclusive definition based on the nature of a human being:

Art is a selective re-presentation by the artist of aspects of reality according to how the artist fundamentally views reality...

this is why it is important to have a correct view of reality, of existance - the correct metaphysics [which is simply the term used for studying the fundamental nature of reality]... to do less is to be doing a grave dis-service to yourself as an artist, and to your viewers who seek from you examples of affirming their sense of life... as Rand pointed out, Art takes the abstractions of metaphysics and makes them into specifics, the concretes - presenting them as images... in other words, it brings the immense concept of metaphysics to the perceptual level of your consciousness, allowing you [and the viewer] to comprehend them AS IF THEY THEMSELVES WERE PERCEPTS... a faulty view of existance, therefore, a faulty metaphysics, would bring forth false images of viewing the world - including the notion that images are not needed at all...