still life # 4 ~ evidence of past lives

Bat, moth, and butterfly • click to embiggenRecently, Michelle Parent put a link on ku # 497 ~ 99.999% redux to an essay, Art and Communication, by L. Ron Hubbard. I won't even begin to touch on his belief system of Scientology, but his essay addresses the 'what is art' notion from a, if not an original perspective, narrowly defined, but not entirely unfounded, one.

Hubbard's definition of 'what is art' is simple - "When a work of painting, music or other form attains two-way communication, it is truly art."

He goes on to explain, "True art always elicits a contribution from those who view or hear or experience it. By contribution is meant 'adding to it' ... That work which delivers everything and gets little or nothing in return is not art ... While it is quite all right to commune with oneself, one cannot also then claim that it is art if it communicates with no one else and no other's communication is possible."

Hubbard also specifically addresses photography - "... one can ask if a photograph can ever be art, a controversy which has been raging for a century or more. One could say that it is only difficult to decide because one has to establish how much the photographer has contributed to the "reality" or "literalness" in front of his camera, how he has interpreted it, but really the point is whether or not that photograph elicits a contribution from its viewer. If it does, it is art."

Aside: It should be noted that the 'controversy which has been raging for a century or more' has actually been decided quite awhile ago. Photography has been accepted as Fine Art for decades.

Hubbard's position, re: 2-way communication, is IMO a valid one although I find his premise that it is the only criteria on which to determine what is or is not art to be seriously flawed if for no other reason than there is no room in that dictum for art that is created to be merely 'decorative' and 'relaxing'.

That said, It should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed The Landscapist, that I am in complete agreement with Hubbard regarding the value Art that establishes a connection with the viewer that serves as a trigger for 'communication'. In most cases the 'communication' is not an actual discourse between artist and viewer but more of a virtual one in the mind, heart and soul of the viewer.

In addition, in most cases (and of equal importance), there is also an actual communication / discourse amongst the viewers - to include critics - that "adds to" the work in question. This communication can significantly "add to" the understanding, meaning, narrative, and appreciation of the work, so much so, that the communication becomes an integral part of the work itself. It can be said that without this 2-way communication the work could be considered to be lifeless and sterile.

That, of course, is my opinion and it should be taken with Hubbard's admonition: "Art is probably the most uncodified and least organized of all fields. It therefore acquires to itself the most "authorities." Usually nothing is required of an "authority" except to say what is right, wrong, good, bad, acceptable or unacceptable."