Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?

[Multitudes]

In an Interview with Francis Bacon, David sylvester puts this question into play... "DS: Why do you think that people are upset by what they think of as extreme distortions of the human form? Why does this disturb them so much? Why do you think they tend to call distortion ugly?
FB: I think because they link life and painting. I always remember my mother ringing me up when my sister's first child was born. She said: 'The child is beautiful - it's got ten toes and ten fingers', I suppose they have a fear that a monstosity is going to be born. And this may be how they feel about paintings"...
I think this link people make between art and life is our biggest mistake, art as I mentioned above is profoundly artificial. Painting, in that sense, is really unique thing in the sense that writing is not, because writting and common speech are very near to one another(..ofcourse there are always exceptions), whereas painting is something totally removed. It's the most artificial of the arts. You know that all great art is profoundly artificial, but painting and sculpture is the most artificial of them all and sculpture is less artificial than painting because sculptors are actually making the image in three dimensions, whereas painting is an illusion of something... but never an imitation....

 

[Estella*]

i agree with you about the artificialness (if that's a word), multitudes but i don't think you can completely seperate art from life. because the moment where they touch/ link, even if it's an imaginary thing, is the one that draws us in. linking art to life may be the reason for people to be shocked by bacon's paintings but it's also the reason why they are deeply touched by them, don't you think?

 

[Multitudes]

Yes... Estella you are right.. I think, its not so much a question about if there is a link between life and art, because ofcourse there is... I think that the very great artists were not trying to express themselves. They were trying to trap the fact, because, after all, artists are obsessed by life and by certan things that obsess them that they want to record. And they tried to find systems and construct the cages in which these things can be caught. so the link is definatetely there... its more about how we approach art as an imitation of life, a meaning, a narrative, that I would like to question(and maybe I wasn't clear enough in my last post..), because the more it's removed from life, the more you strip away the imitation, the more it touches us physically, our senses.. And I think that is why Francis Bacon is so interesting and draw us in as you put it.. I don't know if I'm making sense here...

 

[travis_nw8]

as an existentialist i would say the latter...

 

[fourboltmain]

Why can't art just chase it's own tail?

 

[Multitudes]

I was looking at this painting by Paul Klee earlier called Twittering Machine(1922) and it made me think...

No art is imitative, no art can be imitative or figurative. Suppose a painter "represents" a bird; this is in fact a becoming-bird that can occur only to the extent that the bird itself is in the process of becoming something else, a pure line and pure color. Thus imitation self-destructs, since the imitator unknowingly enters into a becoming that conjugates with the unknowing becoming of that which he imitates. One imitates only if one fails, when one fails. The painter or musician do not imitate the animal, they become-animal at the same time as the animal becomes what they willed, at the deepest level og their concord with nature. becoming is always double, that which one becomes becomes no less than the one that becomes - block is formed, essentially mobile, never in equilirium. Mondrian's is the perfect square. It balances on one corner and produces a diagonal that half-opens its closure, carrying away both sides.
Becoming is never imitating. When Hitchcock does birds, he does not reproduce bird calls, he produces an electronic sound like a field of intensities or a wave of vibrations, a continuous variation, like a terrible threat welling up inside us. And this applies not only to the "visual arts", Moby-Dick's effect also hinges the pure lived experience of double becoming, and the book would not have the same beauty otherwise. The Tarantella is a strange dance that magically cures or exorcises the supposed victims of a tarantula bite. But when the victime does this dance, can he or she be said to be imitating the spider, to be identifying with it, even in an indentification through an "archetypal" or "agonistic" struggle? No, because the victim, the patient, the person who is sick, becomes a dancing spider only to the extent that the spider itself is supposed to become a pure silhouette, pure color and pure sound to which the person dances.

On does not imitate; one constitutes a block of becoming. Imitation enters only as an adjustment of the block, like a finishing touch, a wink, a signature. But everything of importance happens elsewhere: In the becoming-spider of the dance, which occurs on the condition that the spider itself becomes sound and color, orchestra and painting.

 

[republicofstyle]

I've never been sure of colors myself, ever since I was a kid. How do I know that oranges are really orange? The orange I see may be yellow to you.

I agree with that, as based on the values of postmodern society- the way we view art is influenced by the beliefs, experiences and values which mould us as individuals. Whatever to me is absolute truth (if there is such a thing) may be the total opposite to another.

And about that boy in the white room- I believe he has an instinct of imagination, just as all humans were born with an instinctive ability to walk, and all birds were born with an instinctive ability to fly. It is only that his imagination will be vastly different from conventional form because his experiences will be viewed in a different light.

My verdict: the artist finds inspiration in his/her surroundings when creating the artwork- which in turn inspires others. So- a bit of both.

I doubt anyone else but me would've understood what I wrote... And I spent an awful lot of time just to say 4 words...

 

[Naimah]

Very good points made^.

I think it's a bit of a continuum when it comes to life and art... I find myself drawn to cinema, paintings, music, fashion (through colors and mood) that directly mirrors what's going on in my life. On the other hand, my art definitely reflects whatever state of mind I was i while I'm being creative. Later on in the day/month/year I get inspired by these emotions. It's never ending.

 

[stardrifter]

I think are imitated life in the distant past, before we had cameras and such, artists tried to draw as lifelike as possible. But these days, we don't need artists for that as much and art has become more abstract and imaginative.

 

[ultramarine]

Hum ... sometimes it happens one way and sometimes the other ... the thing's it doesnt happens as isolated events in my case ... it happens in "clusters" (like when someone dies, other people follow and such)