I definitely consider myself a far more “artistic” guy than a “logical” kind of guy – which is appropriate, I think, considering the odd looks and puzzled cocks of the head to the side I recieve from people who have known me for a long time when I tell them that I’m going to school to pursue a degree in philosophy. As a philosopher – actually, more so as a theologian – I spend a considerable amount of thought on the nature of the artistic impulse. What, for instance, does it mean to “create?” What is the significance of creativity?
When I reflect upon my own experience, the artistic impulse is almost always (most generally) characterized by a yearning for what is not (yet). Actually, if I’m to be completely honest, my own artistic endeavors, be they visual art, music, or poetry, are probably characterized more by a discontentment with what is. That is to say, my artistic energies are almost always critical. In fact, I’d probably have to say the same thing for most of my artistically inclined friends. Yet despite the obvious differences in focus between art characterized by yearning for what is not on the one hand, and art characterized by a discontentment with what is, on the other; there are certain, at least effective, similarities. An essentially malcontent artistic drive, is still, in effect, every bit as much a yearning after what is not (yet), as is an artistic drive that is explicitly focused on the potential of what can be. The two artists might define their respective artistic tasks in starkly contrasting terms, nevertheless the positive work of each will be focused on the generating of an “alternative” (or perhaps more definitively, a “new”) something. This is, I think, the positive essence of the artistic impulse: the generating of a new/alternative something. And both types of artist are equally exploitive of the contingency of what is.
I’ve never been much of a photographer, but I’ve got some friends and acquaintances who do amazing work with a camera. I think photography, when done well, can be some of the most beautifully breathtaking art. Yet, perhaps only in the back of my mind, I’ve tended to categorize photography as a kind of sub-art, not on par with painting, or drawing, or things like that. I know there’s a lot that goes into photography, especially if you’re developing your own film. There is a difference, after all, between a poorly taken photograph and a perfectly captured moment. But photography is limited in certain obvious ways that drawing and painting are not. You can’t photograph what isn’t there. If the artistic impulse really is to be defined in the way I tend to privately think about it, as the generating of a new/alternative something, then how does something like photography fit in as an art?
I was reflecting on Christ the other day, and on the incarnation, and on the eschatological dynamic definitive of soteriology, about how it’s defined as both “already,” AND “not yet”. The more and more I reflected upon the beauty of the incarnation in all it’s soteriological significance, the more and more I began to realize the beauty of photography. The more it seemed to define it’s own unique artistic impulse (although, yes, there is such thing as realist painting which is also exemplary of the same artistic drive). Eschatology has a strange resonance within human creativity. Photography, along with all realist style art, is the art of the “already.” It is the desire to capture the beauty of what Christ has, in the incarnation, united within his being. It captures what Christ has made sacred.
hmmm, I wish I had a camera…
