Art

The domain of Art was once populated by visual material that provided a rousing experience to the senses. The movement of blood to the head went up. The body felt generally excited and active. But artistic experiences are not just formulated just in the body. The body has an aura and auras have different states which can be appreciated. Some auras are coloured warmly and some auras are coloured coolly. Auras have fixed energy-fields — one way or the other. Colour theory doesn’t dictate the real world — it is made by humans to mimic what already happens in the real world. It is a set of rules made by framing what happens naturally. We are not here to talk about how the body has a sensorial experience triggered by Art. We are here to say that Art is partly sensorial, partly intellectual, and partly philosophical. Our body has an aura which undergoes changes by being exposed to Art. These changes are shown by the aura in each of these three ways in the form of layers. Talk of this layered aura is not mystical. It is a fact. A fact that should be digested well enough. The fact might not agree with other beliefs that we might hold. But slowly it will.

Art makes an impression on us. An impression that is expressed through a layered aura. The impression that Art makes on us cannot be measured in any other way. The colour-intensity of each of the three layers of the aura needs to be checked. Sometimes the intensity is low, sometimes it is high. Sometimes we can check, sometimes we cannot. When we can check and we do, we find out that Art in this time has lost sense of the elements that give it its vital strength. Much like media and entertainment, Art in this time has gained a lightness of touch and a certain disregard for values that we claim to hold broadly as a society. We claim to hold these values but we surely don’t. We are just driven by the desire to accumulate and gratify. This desire is always partially unfulfilled. We do not have the drive to actually fulfil ourselves. Because it is very difficult to do so. It is simpler to live in want, incompletion and pursuit. When we let our senses cloud over our entirety with these three, things are calm. Art does not enter our field of view. Want, incompletion and pursuit can never leave our side because in truth how could they? We have woven poetry around these three. All our poetry is full of pathos. We are in pathos because we do not know how to rise higher with emptiness within us.

Pathos - emptiness - want - incompletion and pursuit go together. In times such as these we find ourselves in want, in pursuit of parts that will complete us. So which parts are these? And being incomplete how do we know which pieces will complete us? Isn’t it like knowing the future? As difficult and as impossible as doing so? But knowing the future is inherent in doing Art. If we are painting, placing one brushstroke after another without knowing what is the final picture that we are competing. We are talking about taking one step after another without knowing where we going eventually. The moment we start walking, we know what we are walking towards. Only after fixing a goal-post, can we perform actions to fulfil our goals. Fulfilling goals is pleasurable for multiple reasons. It connects the present to the future. The process of doing so is slightly prophetic. Because amongst multiple futures, we are choosing one. We do not declare a reason for this because we do not have one. Choosing one location for placing/fixing our temporal goal-post from many probable locations is a kind of bluffing. The bluffing might work or also it might not. So, Art is a kind of bluffing and so it works sometimes and doesn’t at others. Sometimes it hits its mark, sometimes it doesn’t. Viewers of Art are in a wondrous or bored state of mind. Once we find out if it is one or the other (or in rare conditions a third), we know how and which Art to target them with.
Bluffing can be learnt. But it needs a mixed culture of different types to thrive. This mixed culture includes skills, showmanship, crime, advocacy and entrepreneurship. It is the base layer from which artistry emerges. Not all cultures need all elements in the mix. Sometimes some elements are missing and sometimes some new elements are found. The motivation to make Art comes from an urges sometimes arising from a unique ability to do something, showing-off this skill, advocate certain social, political or cultural change, commit crime of some sort or entrepreneurly grow the value of something for personal or communal gain. Each of these motivations combined with the ability to bluff without being caught leads to the emergence of an Artist.