the purpose of art - part two

8/4/2019 The Purpose of Art - Part Two

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Lecture Topic

The Purpose of Art?Part Two



Last time...

• A brief look at a definition of art and the way in whichone of its purposes might be seen as the creation of amore emotive connection to world and to ourselves.

• A look at a handful of examples of the modern artthat Huxley would probably been aware of as he wasgrowing as an artist.

• Some thoughts about what these different piecesmight represent in terms of a general attitude towardswhat art can do.



Lots of Modernisms

All of the previous examples can be seen as examples of Modernism, orModernisms. They are all connected by this modern desire to challenge,break down, disrupt, destroy, etc. traditional forms and find modes that betterrepresent modern society, the modern psyche and the modern situation of a

humanity that was becoming utterly disconnected from traditional spirituality.

And so what ended up happening was that all of these “schools” of thought

started popping up. These “schools” were generally based around differing

thoughts about what art should be trying to achieve and what the best ways

of going about achieving that was - through painting, poetry, theatre, etc. It

was one of the liveliest times in artistic history in terms of the number ofdifferent movements that appeared within such a small space of time - assoon as something established itself, something else popped up to challenge

those „established‟ beliefs.



What did this do?

It‟s difficult to say that these shifting beliefs

about art „did‟ anything. However, what could be

argued is that all of this debate about artchallenged and shaped the ways in which wesee. The way I see it is that modern art openedup different ways of seeing - abstract ways oflooking at the world and existence through arange of different lenses.



Futurism helped people to see the fundamental beauty of progress and themachine, while allowing these artists to express their beliefs about progress,

technology, etc.



Impressionism was a way of seeing emotively. It helps people to seebeyond the physical nature of the things they see and to examine their

perception of them - the idea that seeing is bound in emotion.



Surrealists got us seeing

the truth in the dream andhelped us to see profound

meaning in the initially

incongruous.



The necessity of difference

The reason why all of this was possible is because schools challengedeach other. Where the Impressionists often saw the purpose of art asthe emotive connection to natural surroundings, the Futurists saw the

purpose of art to revel in speed and the machine. By reacting,sometime violently (the Futurists were well-known for causing fights inpublic places and throwing their manifestos at people), to the art theysaw around them, we get progress, we get alternative ways of seeing,we get a rich culture full of different windows to see the world through.

If the Impressionists didn‟t react against Realism, we may never havehad the chance to reflect on the possibility of seeing emotively, or ofseeing by perception rather than by maths or science. Through theirpoint of difference, we are offered the chance to see differently.



Wildly individual

So, what I‟m hoping to express, is that this time that Huxley

was writing was such a rich time of independent andindividual thought - especially in the art world (all arts, not

just painting). The art was liberating and I think it enrichednot only the artists (in terms of their ability to expressthemselves) but the viewer too as they became better ableto understand, appreciate and see their world by looking at itthrough the unique vision of these modern artists.

It‟s not surprising to me that art is such a big deal in Brave

New World - especially if John is to represent Huxleythroughout this text.

the purpose of art - part two

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