Monday, 13 October 2008

Get It Together

Somehow, a creative product must give a sense of reconciliation, of having resolved in an aesthetic and harmonious way the discords and disharmonies present in the original situation.

The work of art, for example, for a moment re-orders and brings into balance the tensions of form and space, and in so doing, moderates the inner tensions of the observer, giving him a sense of encounter and fulfilment.

By identifying ourselves, however fleetingly, with the creator, we can participate in the integrating process which he has carried out for himself. The more universal the problem with which the artist is dealing, the more universal his appeal. This is why the pursuit of the personal, the neurotic, and the infantile in the work of artists is ultimately unrewarding, although it will always have some interest.

[Anthony Storr]
The Dynamics of Creation, p.236

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Fiction from Fiction

1 comments:

  1. If, in pre-modernist times, we were sure of ourselves - as a species; sure of who we were, where we were going - then perhaps the art of the time reflected this surety. Maybe it did not seek to challenge us, so much as assure us.

    Now art seeks to challenge us more. Perhaps now we need to question ourselves more, and art reflects this need. Instead of solidifying - reifying - us, it seeks to break us apart, or melt us down.
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