A warrior’s glimpse on art
June 14, 2016
We do call Aikido a Martial Art, but how accurate is that, to call a hand-to-hand self-defense method an art? Do we call a mechanic an artist? Well… maybe.
The main idea of art is, primarily, deeply connected with esthetics and beauty. Of course there is much more to it, like expressing the pallet of feelings and the depths of thought… But art’s foundations lie in our need to both, feed and refine our senses…
On a purely practical level it seems that art is of little use, if any. But who wants to live without it, in an ugly and without perspective world?
Speaking from the Martial Artist’s stand point, most of the time, for warriors, there was little room for fancy or excessive art. Simplicity suited them best. And that is easy to be understood for those who are seriously dedicated into Martial practice. Let’s face it, traditionally or not, any kind of warrior tends to lean towards being utilitarian…
Historically speaking, from the Samurai of Japan to the Spartans of ancient Greece and from the Tuareg of the desert to the Lakota American Indians (you could extend this list to any place and time of your liking) and you will see that, each in their own way, were artistically impressive, and had style, both personal and as a whole, but their approach and interest in art always was modest, economic and as close to utilitarian as possible… And probably because of that, whatever art represented them, as minimal as it would be, was standing out and was attracting attention in a way like a sole flower would do when alone on a field, instead of that same flower in a vase of a flower shop…
To give an example from the art of words… Spartan short statements still “echo through eternity”. There isn’t a month that goes by that I will not stumble on one… And note that their culture and way of life has been totally extinct more than two thousand years ago… While the mysterious Samurai haiku comments and poems have not exhausted their effect on being a mind opener, right down to this day…
That same spirit of economic art was to be seen in every aspect of a warrior’s life, on their clothing, weaponry, hairstyle…
Maybe that is why classical warriors are so beautiful and always “in fashion”. Their utilitarian approach gives room for only a slight touch of art, a discreet addition of beauty, which is destined to last longer in the course of time!
If we were to describe art to an alien species, that would have no clue of what art is, the following description would not be far from being true…
“Art is the un-necessary necessity which beautifies human life”
All things rise and fall, climax and deteriorate, bloom and degenerate, and so does art… Anything that exists, anything that is created, will be born and grow and then, later on when it has done its circle, it will spiral down to its death.
I somehow have the notion that as far as art is concerned, it should do this course in style!
Some people create art while some others “explain” it…
In any field of art, be it music, acting, painting, writing etc. we can have artists that can cover all sizes, from being very insignificant all the way to being great or even exceptionally brilliant. But all of them without exception share the common direction of creating something, as best as each can.
But after an art-work, of any kind, has been done, has been finished, I don’t understand what it helps rating it, explaining it and criticizing it.
Does it improve that work? Does it supplement something? No it clearly doesn’t… But still, an entire universe moves around art and about art, contributing literally nothing…
In art there are two tendencies which interact with one another… From the pain-striking effort to create art on one hand, and the senseless art and art- jabber, on the other.
A painter named Lolo
I came aware of the following story when I did read it in a tourist-guide, while I was visiting Paris and it is truly something unforgettable for me…
In 1910 a painting, called “Sunset over the Adriatic”, was being exhibited in Paris getting high critics for being a masterpiece. It soon proved to be a joke played by an art critic with victims his Impressionists friends… The “masterpiece” was a creation by a painter named Boronali, but in fact there never was a Boronali. There was only a donkey named Lolo who had been used as a “painter”. By tying a brush on his tail, and a little help on the colors and the right distance from a canvas, Lolo moved his tail randomly to all directions, just as any donkey owes to do, and as the French say… voila!
Of course this is an amusing example in order to mock a particular behavior in art. But not all such examples are amusing, for many of them might be annoying, disturbing, insulting etc. This naturally will bring us to the topic of “freedom of expression”, and just by putting this phrase into quotations I endanger myself in entering the “conservative people” list, which I am clearly not… Art and art expression is like everything else, so why is it going to be better if it is… limitless.
Freedom is my favorite word and freedom is a vast horizon in any sense… But who said that freedom cannot be abused?
There was once an artist, which unfortunately I am unable to recall, who was so fed-up with the people of his once-majestic city, and their tendency to follow any kind of sub-culture, that he suggested it was about time to have an Aesthetic Police on the streets who will arrest those who violate the laws of natural harmony with their unspeakable taste of “art”…
Of course, and in his own words, this was just a manner of speaking on his part…
But on the other hand, even if one was skinny and muscular as a classic Greek stature, if he would take a walk in the nude, let’s say from his home to the next bakery and back, he would have been arrested for insulting the public eye, wouldn’t he?
“Money for nothing and chicks for free”
And just as I was putting this text in order, the morning news threw at me a… potato in my face, giving me the opportunity to add one more example in making my point!
A photograph of a potato was sold in California for little above a million dollars! No, you are not reading this wrong. It was a regular potato photo, taken with a regular photo camera, nothing that would make it different, like this being the last potato on earth, or some kind of comeback of Lolo with a camera!
Which in fact, if I was forced to choose, I would prefer Lolo’s painting any day, over the potato photo…
The prime weapon of modern artists: Imagination
It is said once too often that in the prehistoric and classic eras of mankind, art was mainly a representation of what was simply seen around us. A sketch in a cave of hunters after their game, a marble stature of a half naked woman, a house on a prairie on canvas, the song of birds plus the wind on a piano…
So “the new thing” was to get away from that and take the next step. What I don’t understand is why any kind of trampling on art itself should be respected as free expression.
If art was to make a leap forward, so be it. But requesting from people to be open-minded is not splitting skulls in two with a painful art in order to open it!
I once had a long lost friend who was an amazing amateur painter and sci-fi writer… He was famous only within the small circle of his friends. The subject of his painting was usually fantasy, just as his writing was. He would paint like a maniac a vast number of nature sites, bizarre landscapes, cities of the future, ruins of the past of alien planets… Everything was totally “out of this world” nothing was real or seen before. And almost each time he painted something new I could not resist asking over the same question, of where he had seen these places, only to get the same answer every time: Nowhere! It’s in my head… He also supplemented that the world as we know it, bored him to death, since he witnessed it every single day… So, he needed something else, something new, something “out of here”. But all of his paintings, as crazy as some might have been, made sense, had tons of fantasy and needed no “explaining” by an art critic, art connoisseur, or anyone else whatsoever.
In time, and with the help of his few friends, he dared to put up a small exhibition… To explain small exhibition, it was a hired small empty space, which would serve as an informal gallery.
At premiere day the place was full packed with his paintings, we had no place to put them all up and only the ceiling remained vacant…
Two things happened… One, to everyone’s surprise he sold absolutely everything, to the point that near the end he was trying to “save” some of his paintings in order to keep for himself. And two, there was no-man visiting the exhibition with a normally attached jaw, all jaws were dropped to the floor, including mine… This amateur exhibition was a journey to unknown places, never seen before… Everybody was so excited, happy, loud and making gestures to one another of where they imagined these places could be…
To our amazement, we found out later on that one of the visitors to that small event was an art-critic by profession. And he did actually put up a small article in a local newspaper, giving all thumbs-up, and of course he could not resist and gave his artistic “explanation” of what he saw, on both the technique and the themes… Though it was a positive critic on all parts, his understanding of what the paintings represented was so bizarre, it left my painter friend flabbergasted. And then he proposed that maybe, like in a “Twilight Zone” episode, it would be a good idea if we somehow could send this art-critic in one of those strange places and… forget him there.
For the record, my friend’s vigorous success never repeated itself and he remained little-known but happy and without complaints, just as he always was.
The deaf composer who proved that “pigs can fly”
People who are actual artists in soul, seem not to obey all natural laws. They manage to bend them, move above and beyond them… And very much unlike our potato photographer, mentioned before, those artist care primary for their art, regardless if there is money involved or not. One random example, just coming to my mind, is the filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, who almost lost totally everything in his attempt to make his films just as he wanted to.
Most folks complain on their difficulties at their regular jobs, but being an artist is everything but a regular job. One might thrive by making art and the next minute be as good as destroyed…
Ludwig Van Beethoven’s life was as exceptional as his music was. There is no way to read his biography and not be moved emotionally and challenged mentally. He served his art with a passion, dedication and approach, that few did. In his words: “Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the divine”
Statistics means little to me, but did you know that to this day he is the most sold artist?
The 9th Symphony of Beethoven is unique and one of a kind. If I am not mistaken it was the first Symphony to incorporate a chorus. What is most amazing is that when he wrote it, he was almost totally deaf on both ears and he was pounding as hard as he could on his piano, many times breaking its keys. He did so in order to feel the vibration of the sound through the wooden floor and to the sole of his feet. Beethoven 9th is a creation which he himself never had the chance to hear, can you imagine that?
It seems that in any form of art, Aikido being no exception, there are two kinds of people. Those who serve entirely themselves and those who include serving a higher idea as well!