The Science of Art, and Art's Useless Science

This picture is what it feels like to cry. The vision aspect is the same. Up close, all I can see are the tears dripping from my eyelids. Then in the distance, I see the shapes forming illusions of themselves, allowing me my privacy. There's something comforting about crying, the way it builds a wall, the way I can only go inward. Inward is where the comfort is. But then, the cry is disturbing. It must be, otherwise I wouldn't still be smothering myself in my pillow. Who are the shapes in the distance? Are they unknown figures who glance my way, wonder at my story, and go on being glad they're not wearing my stockings? Is it my mother standing in the doorway, stifling her curiousity and about to offer me some dinner (to which I'll say no)? Are they emotional goblins waiting for the precise moment to pounce on me? My immediate future made blurry by teary emotions? Again, I go inward.

All this in a photograph is art. It's not the half-blurry, half-intensely-focused shot that these PhotoJerks always take and feel leads to perfection. No, it is the speculation, and the possibility for interpretation. You, for instance. Before I talked about crying, you may have thought of funerals or of the city or of refreshing spring and life even among death. It is the passion I feel at first glance, and the chest beats that make me slow down some just to look at something so inconsequential, but so important. This is art. I think it was taken by one of my friend's friends over the sea, in Germany. I used to think that creativity was for the distants and the far-offs, the exotics and the paid-wells. Just like the musicians who, if I didn't know them beforehand, must have performed some business-trickery in getting a record deal they didn't deserve, or scoring hits that they paid the radio to spin.

But then, art is not something local. It's not something that everybody in that creative writing class can access. So, what is it?

I might think it's a universal spirit. One must first tame their desire and selfishness in order to access the altruism of pure art. I can reference Ratatouille here: the quote 'Anyone can cook' wants to mean not that any person on the street can cook, but that a great cook can come from anywhere and be any type of person. The same with art.

Revolving around that thought, the 'pure art' thought, the 'universal spirit which must be accessed.' Are we born with the ability, or are we taught. Consider this, also. Many critically acclaimed and popular artists were not even recognized until after their gravestone had dried from the first rain. What kind of drive does it take for a true artist to persevere when their surroundings do not encourage them? This would seem to support that the artist is born and cannot avoid accessing the universal spirit.

As for me. No, I am no artist. I know many artists, though I couldn't exactly claim if they are the cosmically consequential artists or the everyday artists who use it as some lease for their daily struggles.

The entry title, "The Science of Art, and Art's Useless Science" refer to the ancient perception that science is some unattainable exactness, mastered only by the well-educated. For art, I probably lean toward the thought that art (atleast, the deep part of art that inspires to create something genuine and unique to the creator) cannot be taught or learned. The unattainable part of the science definition is what fits here.

And then--what use is art to us? I read an article somewhere talking about how art in recessions and depressions inspire the locals that a better future is up ahead. I might call that the, oh whats it, opiate of the masses? That fits. I think it's more than that. Art is everything. Science used to be an art. Take Leonardi daVinci as the prime example if you wish. All of the great scientists achieved their successes and were able to pass on their knowledge to the future world, us, because they could imagine something larger than what already existed. I consider Galileo and Newton and Kepler and the like all to be the great Romantics. They saw the pre-existent knowledge and rebelled to the greatest height by declaring it as completely false! Who could dare to do that today without receiving scorn from the scientific community, even with the best support? Now that statement is a bit extreme, but it still leads to the conclusion that science has diverged away from its origin.

I like to fantasize sometimes that I'm back in the 1600's, when women were just barely dipping their toes into the science pool, and I wonder if I would have joined them. I look back to the turn of the 20th century, the mid-twenties, and I wonder if I might have agreed with Einstein, or if I would consider it a lofty dream not based in our reality. I yearn for the scientific frontier, as well as rejoining it with the original deviation from the mean.