The Death of Art

It is with a measure of a feeling of futility in which one views what path I had chosen for myself some years ago. It is rather too late for regret, and I know little else about other livelihoods, if not that I have less passion for anything else, despite these following thoughts that call to my attention from the trenches of my brain, coursing through as echoes of echoes; whispered, but nonetheless irritating. I have something like two years ahead of me (one year supposedly, but something came up just recently and it got extended) in this field. No turning back. And I don't think I would if I could, come to think about it.

By profession, we would call ourselves artists. A respected professor of mine said that we no longer had the privilege of calling ourselves that, or rather the opposite of it: we do not have to. We were creators, and it would the highest title we can think of for ourselves. Artists is what your followers will call you, and it would be not to your credit. The very name has been bastardized by having been applied too thinly over too many, unfortunately. You can call anyone artist, anyone can call themselves artists. A true artist is an oxymoron in a time where art is within anyone, if most would have you believe it. This is because art is no longer caused and a cause for beauty, but an expression.

Art is everything, and if everything is everything, it is worthless, and is nothing. My Logic professor would kill me if he can just hear what I have said. I forget his term for this error. But even if the reason is wrong, I hope I did make sense. Most paradoxes and irrationalities appeal in such a manner.

Formally, postmodernism killed art. I heard from a man who was an apologist for Christendom--and an excellent apologist he was, or is, if he still is alive (Raavi Zachariah, I think, is his name)--that postmodernism was like making an edifice with a foundation whose purpose was to crumble, if not to get destroyed by its creator. What it did was to strip art of its being, and see what is left of it. Of course, what would remain is simply the structure of the entirety, sometimes even less. The movie Art School Confidential (albeit quite, hem, forgettable) tried to get this point across in the scene where the protagonist and his class was to do self-portraits. The former made a good representation of his physical self, but he was derided for very odd reasons, in my opinion: that he was too much of a machine for "copying" from reality too much. Enter a classmate, who had but a furious scribble on his papaer, and it was this that garnered lauds from his colleagues, because it exposed the process of the drawing. Yet what is a process if the end could not be seen? Say that you made a man by taking a man and turning him into a kid. Informally, though, it would be freedom that undid art. The freedom that anyone could call a creation art is something one has mixed feelings about. Precisely what one had appreciated in the first place it is it being limited to the few that one found beauty in. But with such a subjective criterion, I guess it was already on the road to its end the moment it was begun.

Another argument takes place starting with the opinion that art was a construction of the elite: their criteria was aesthetics, its credibility found in which was framed and hung in lofty galleries and museums. And as much as I hate the free-for-all of expression, so do I hate this disdainful exclusivity, ESPECIALLY the latter. Despite the desire of some that art ought to remain as pure as it was from the moment it was completed in the hands of its maker, it meant that your being an artist depended on whom you know. The bureaucracy and politics of galleries was made apparent to me when I had ventured to wonder loudly the possibility of applying for a reservation in our college's gallery. The same professor who had pointed out to me the difference of creator and artist was also the one who answered my wondering. Don't, he said. Even if you were good, it seems that you have to appeal to the tastes of the committee first before being allowed. And, knowing where their tastes were inclined, it followed that it was a hopeless venture. Expressing my dismay that I could not, I spoke of how it would be better for me professionally if I had a few exhibitions to my name, and then it occured to me how far I had fallen.

Two arguments. Both going nowhere, as many things in this world does.Fools are we who would call ourselves artists. At some point of writing this entry, I would agree that it is a construct, and that it is too subjective, and thus moribund.

Hereon, one's dreams of being acknowledged by my peers and the disciples of this field in the morrow is safely stored, sealed with a sigh and a shrug. It doesn't matter anymore. I will continue what I have started, wherever it would lead me, with my knight errant in shabby armour beside me. He is in this field too. He believes in beauty still, as the old masters did. I would not call him artist. He is far worth more than that jaded title. He is an illustrator. It is what he does, illustrate. And that is praise enough, to have skill to enliven stories told by the paper and the tongue. We dream of making pictures and tales for little children that would not really follow what has been said of their capacity to understand beauty (if anything, they are an underrated audience). If the children perceive it to be wonderful, then I would believe them, more than what the older ones could say of beauty, for they have not been tainted by this selfish world, and would be rightfully content of thinking ourselves in the company of masters.