#why art

[why-fruits]

I don’t really like this art, but why not?

How have you been?

[unreflejoazul]

Eleanor Davis, "Why Art?"

[shosei-jutsu]

One day Dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic remark: “Beauty will save the world”. What sort of a statement is that? For a long time I considered it mere words. How could that be possible? When in bloodthirsty history did beauty ever save anyone from anything? Ennobled, uplifted, yes – but whom has it saved? There is, however, a certain peculiarity in the essence of beauty, a peculiarity in the status of art: namely, the convincingness of a true work of art is completely irrefutable and it forces even an opposing heart to surrender. It is possible to compose an outwardly smooth and elegant political speech, a headstrong article, a social program, or a philosophical system on the basis of both a mistake and a lie. What is hidden, what distorted, will not immediately become obvious. Then a contradictory speech, article, program, a differently constructed philosophy rallies in opposition – and all just as elegant and smooth, and once again it works. Which is why such things are both trusted and mistrusted. In vain to reiterate what does not reach the heart. But a work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force – they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them. So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through – then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfil the work of all three? In that case Dostoevsky’s remark, “Beauty will save the world”, was not a careless phrase but a prophecy? After all HE was granted to see much, a man of fantastic illumination. And in that case art, literature might really be able to help the world today?

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, 1970

[art0lies]

Daily Drawing 296: Pineapple!!!

[kirbaesx]

i want to draw a full art piece with landscape/background and perspective and correct anatomy........ but also i want to draw fictional characters floating in space. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[karlymichelle1]

author Jeanette Winterson

Transcript of a section of her speech from the 2010 Edinburgh International Book Festival starting at about 5mins for about 2mins - but seriously - listen to the whole talk.

“That’s why I believe art is such a relief to us because actually it’s the real world. Its the reality that we understand on a deeper level and if you believe, as I do, that life has an inside, as well as an outside and that at present the outside of life is very well catered for and the inside of life, not at all, then we can go back to books or pictures or music, film, theatre and we can find there both some release and some relief, for our inner life, that place where we actually live, the place where we spend so much time, and so when people say to me, as they often do, ‘well art’s a bit of a luxury isn’t it, we’re all on holiday, we all come along to a tent and we spend time here but its not the real world, we’re separate from the real world,’ that’s where I would argue with them, because I would say, because that inner life of ours, whether or not you are religious is irrelevant because we do have an inner life and that inner life needs to have some respect and it needs to have some nourishment for itself and thats why art can never be a luxury because if it is, then being human is a luxury, being who we actually are is luxury. Life can’t be about utility, it has also to be about emotion, it has to be about imagination, it has to be about things for their own sake so that this journey of ours makes sense to us and its not simply something we are rather fretfully trying to get through, another day another week, another month, that pressure we so often feel. I think that reading books really does take your hand, really off that panic button. It allows your breathing to return to normal. It allows you to occupy the space which isn’t ins’t entirely ruled by other people’s demands,by utility, it just slows everything down nicely.

Now because we’re in a gospel tent, have I saved any souls?”

[super-lemon-sama]

here’s a doodle of my old dog holding a mace with her human hands