revisions about art

the first question in art

Did the person who made the piece make something that is an ideal for them or did they make something as a commentary on the ideals or lifestyle of others?

It's strange to think how much art (probably better called entertainment) is based upon finding the characters to be cool or them being something you want to be. The Matrix, Tarantino movies, Kevin Smith, Oceans 11, not to mention video games which are mostly this.... plus super-hero movies which are same things but for kids minds (though many adults could relate).

also related... at first interest in art comes directly from what is popular or what is passed on by the parents. Many people will betray what their parents gave them because it isn't popular when they are in school but then they will go back to it after they graduate and begin to feel closer to their parents then friends. But what interests me is neither of these instances because art isn't important to these people -- life is. What interests me is when a person decides they no longer like popular music, when they meet some 'non-conformists' and get excited on the prospect of being able to set themselves apart from the popular music fans and say they lack taste, complexity, etc... they attach themselves to some sub-culture and hold their cataogue to be the relevant one. However this game can still go on. When such a person meets other people who admire a similar sub-culture then from there he will begin a process of either saying that he likes some popular music and he's not really fully in the sub-culture or getting deeper into the fringe acts of the sub-culture (he can say that other people in the sub-culture like the 'popular' music of that sub-culture).

the second question in art

Does the artist present us with opposites or does he give us a something manifold?
Ascending art represents the manifold that the artist has tapped into (think Tarkovsky and Fellini and the world they give us). Opposites (good and evil, hero and villian, etc.) are more interesting in a certain sense because it offers to a riddle to be solved, why can't the artist overcome the contrasts he presents us (don't say the world is really that way because there is always a higer perspective from which the elements can synthesize). In this way art imitates life because the average person who is sick is more interesting than the healthy person who is the exception (though this value hardly redeems them in comparison).


Also related... when you can see that the person must make the painting, or film, or song about the exception and something rare that it's an idea of difference and not feeling different at work. The bad artist has to paint the rarest landscape while the real artist can paint something normal (almost cliche) and tease out all the subtlety.