---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape It.” - Bertolt Brecht
If we see Art as a hammer with which to shape reality we touch on a vastly more extensive, tangled subject. Reality. What is reality? Or rather, what is artistic-reality? Can it be “shaped”? Moulded? If artistic reality is relative, does this mean it is illusory or non-existent? Reality, by definition, cannot be relative or subjective. This would, of course, be contrary to its definition. However, what if the reality of reality is indeed that it is both relative and subjective? That it is not one fixed expression, notion or abstract. Maybe the reality of reality is that it is malleable, a theoretical quantum entanglement of two contradictory ideas, its truth (reality) being justified, and indeed, defined by its own contradiction. The fabric of reality is merely a metaphysical, human construction. I feel this is the truth of artistic reality, as it must be defined within the limits of human expression. Hence, the reality of Art is that it is un-real. Art can only be defined as undefined: indefinite, shadowy, and vague. This is Art. It can know no limits, as human expression is truly limit-less. Since the peripheries of human expression tend towards infinity; so too are the boundaries of reality, infinitely large. For a boundary to be elucidated as infinitely large is incomprehensible and so we can say that there are none; they cease to be.
To say that there are no boundaries defining or restricting Art is to stipulate that there are no two humans that share identical feelings or personal experience. Therefore no expression (Artistic act) can ever be the same as another, by definition. It is personal experience that shapes us, and therefore also shapes the outcomes of our expressions (our Art). Since no person can possibly have an identical culmination of life experience as another, then no two separate expressions can be identical either. Personal experience and psychology in the individual is so complex, far reaching and all encompassing that no individuals can be indistinguishable. The possibility of personal-experience-states must be infinite. I would also go further and claim that even the same person is incapable of producing exactly the same expression on more than one occasion. For example: If an artist creates one artwork followed by another piece, just a few minutes later, there has been an intermission and more experiential build-up where that person has existed and therefore experienced more. This happens every second and cannot be avoided unless an individual were able to transcend from the constraints of time (a super-dimensional being). The expression that culminated in the previous Art-piece will also have amassed and subsumed more insight into the Artist’s psyche, subtly changing it irreversibly. This means that “The Artist” (the experiential identity) is different to that of the person who created the first piece. The person, in the purely physiological sense, is the same but The Artist (in the psychological sense) is not. The two pieces of work are created by the same person but different Artists. No separate pieces of artwork can ever be created by the same Artist. This is how Art must function. To define “ The Artist” in the sense that I use here we can see it as follows:
The Artist is not a/the person. It is merely the state of the person’s experiential identity at a particular, specified point in time.
This is part of Art’s reality. If I were to conjecture further, by the same logic, it could be said that even every brushstroke, musical note, pencil line or dance move is created or crafted by a different Artist. If any time elapses at all, no matter how small the increment, there has been additional experience amassed into the creator’s subconscious, changing it forever. Thus The Artist is ever evolving, perpetually changing, being moulded by the passage of time and warped by the experience of life. The Artist exists for just a few fleeting moments, to then go on and die; disappear forever, leaving behind only a single fruit, the consequence and proof of their existence. The work-of-art.
To pursue this hypothesis to extended reasoning: If Art is not real, we might legitimately ask: Does “The Artist” exist? Can the creator of nothing be the creator of something? I hypothesize that infinite nuances and shades of The Artist exist but as it is the passage of time that destroys them, The Artist’s existence is also its death. As The Artist comes into being it is immediately annihilated with a diminutive passing of space-time; its existence is equally its own annihilation. The death of The Artist is also the birth of the next and so both death and birth are inextricably linked; two links in an infinite chain of construction and destruction. As time changes The Artist, it cannot exist within the realm of space-time. Yet it must also necessarily exist, unconstrained by the dimensions of space and time. Thus, it can be said that The Artist both exists and does not at the same time; its existence and its non-existence being in superposition: The Artist is Schrödinger’s cat.1
This is the profound and esoteric weight of Art. Maybe we realise and truly understand this significance deep in our subconscious. Could it be the reason we appear to be, on occasion, intuitively drawn to look upon artwork for no obvious, explicable reason? Does the work resonate an apparent supernatural, ethereal energy or nostalgia? There is certainly a romance to be found in art by simply knowing about the creator (not The Artist) of the piece. It gives us a personal connection and helps us conjecture and wonder about what is hidden or expressed within the work. An artwork provides us with a brief insight into the psyche of the creator, a connection with The Artist who no longer exists and can never again materialise, a glimpse back in time, the evidence of The Artist who never existed.