I was just reading a post by a friend over at Wordpress about the difficulty involved in the discernment of the origin of art. As I worked on my response, bringing up the concept of empathic recognition due to the expression of an assimilated archetype of the collective unconscious, I realized that I am not entirely content with this paradigm of interpreting the virtue or quality or property of art.
I agree that the mimetic nature of art is potentially best explained by this paradigm, but I also believe that another necessary property of art is that it must not only inspire its author and its perceiver, but also affect within both a change defined as a positive evolution. This is the reason that I would claim that true art must not only be mimetic in nature, it must be prophetic as well.
I was reminded during the construction of this thought of my experience of reading Thus Spake Zarathustra. I am fairly certain of the fact that I have never encountered a work of art as magnificent as this one small collection of parables. I was also reminded of my studies of the Bible, particularly Ezekiel, and of certain portions of the Upanishads. Likewise, some music also seems to carry a prophetic tone to it. I will never forget listening to my former school's orchestra and chorale perform the entirety of Handel's Messiah.
This is simply an observation of the moment, but definitely something I think I should devote more thought to.
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Awesome. Your comment over there and this is really helping me ask more questions, and probe farther. I'll read over all of it again in the next few days, try to make sense of it all, and respond. And, very interesting you should make mention of the Messiah-because my favorite quote and philosophy of all time concerning my own art comes from it-and not in the way you might think. I'll elaborate soon.
ReplyDeleteinteresting...
ReplyDeletewell yeah, cool :)