“Art is not a Mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it”
- Bertold Brecht (1898-1956)
Although I identify with this meaning I find the wording a bit brute. Art is not the reflection of humans but the footprint made with one’s mind using tools to make sense of it. My definition is neither elegant or short. But more me, because I, myself, the recollection of memories and stories I tell, I am the creator and the destroyer of my own life, I am indeed art, the hammer and the mirror.
“Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, the deification of existence”
-Frieddrich Nietzsche (1901)
Surprisingly i agree with this definition too, i feel as though we as humans have the burden of ego: the existential chaos consuming our days; we make sense of it with agendas, and memorabilia, with buildings and taxes, we make sense of our existence with the order we have come to agree on as a pillar of humanity; but deep down inside i think we are the children of chaos too, with our jealousy and anger, we’re children of envy and death, we dance and bounce around between “the good and the bad” that we’re too busy to stop, until we create art. Art is the moment that captures time, it captures humanity in colors and saturations of emotional value, it's the spiritual existence of materials in the ethereal space in our minds that's not busy with existence but with humanity.
“Art is anything you can get away with”
-Marshall Mcluhan
Ok now that's repulsive. But it's also part of humanity to be blunt and abrupt. I feel challenged by art work that is overly simplistic and that has little to no meaning to the artist or the viewer. I struggle with pieces that evoke neither taste or comment, I struggle with art that's 100% meaningless. But i don’t think it's not art, to say that is to contradict myself. Because to love art it requires to be profoundly moved and disgusted, it requires everything and nothing at all. It’s the kind of love one gives to a spiritual being and not to a person or a thing.
