What is art? Nature of the phenomenon and the practice

You might ponder about this question: “What is art really?”. Which it has not an easy answer, but here is my take on the topic.

“Artist is a spirit catcher, caresser of intuitions, explorer of the phenomenon.”

Was the quote I made up after pondering about Kant´s writings in the “Critic of pure reason”. I do not plan to take faithfully his knowledge and ideology since Kant speaks about epistemology in the intellectual battlefield that was philosophy in the late XVIII century between rationalists and empirics.

Without intention of turning this article into a philosophy class: Kant explain the difference in between knowledge that we perceive through the senses as “a priori” knowledge and knowledge that we perceive after thinking, using intuition, etc. Knowledge “a posteriori”.

The “a priori” knowledge we perceive, is the phenomenon through our senses. Meaning: a rainbow. We perceive it through the eyes. The taste of coffee, we perceive it through the mouth. These are intuitions acording to Kant.

 “A posteriori” knowledge we perceive the noumenon. Things such us: numbers, time, the soul, etc. Things that we do not perceive through the senses but we do have knowledge of them based on reasoning and rational experience. These are concepts, each with their own nature and announces that Kant goes in depth.

“Artist is a spirit catcher, caresser of intuitions, explorer of the phenomenon.”

The metaphor in the quote:

Imagine you are in a paradisiac beach of turquoise waters that meet with the beige sand, surrounded by magnificent green coconut trees. At the same time, you smell the salt of the beach carried by the light wind as it crashes to the coconut leaves which emit this rustle sound alongside the waves crashing onto the beach. Meanwhile, you are perceiving the warmth of the sun against your skin and the texture of the sand under your legs.

All of these sensations are what I like to call “spirits”. Our subject, the artist catches this experience, these feelings, this spirit with the emotional reaction they felt while living this. They go to the studio and start painting. This is the part “Artist is a spirit catcher…”

Our protagonist paints an artwork on this topic they make a piece, a series, etc. At some point this artist exhibit their work. Visitors and collectors gather around their artwork and they cannot help but to feel these sensations towards this specific art that conveys a somewhat warm but fresh feeling and laid-back notion of relaxation. The visitors can fell a somewhat more or less successful recreation of the spirit that the artist perceived in that beach.

The fact that the artwork made the visitor have these feelings; these sensations is why I continue my sentence with: “…intuition caresser, …”. The visitor is using their senses to perceive a code that are colors, brushstrokes, size, medium, form, composition. That lead to an internal intuition of what this artwork might be about.

In essence an artist is one who explores these phenomenons and noumenons, based on the description of Kant, take them in, shapeshift them and evolve with them. But above everything, represent them in any art form. That´s why an artist is an “…explorer of the phenomenon”.

Sometimes, the process works the other way around. An artist start working on their art and along the way, the artists make a connection of what this artwork wants to mean by itself.

Even the most extreme cases of working on the most experimental type of artworks where the main focus is about technical expertise and bringing the medium to new heights… Eventually is speaking of another noumenon. Sometimes is something as simple as to push the thickness of the paint into the canvas to the limit.

“Art is a language of knowledge and experiences brought back to you with spirit”

In essence art is a language, with all its component, medium, channel, code and message.

All over trough history we saw art being used for different purposes. Whether it was to bring a sense of unity with the hand printed in the cave walls to explore new realms of knowledge.

Art is a medium for the information to be emitted, travel and received. It revolves around the world of semiotics. However, the thing that differences the art as a medium compared to, for example, written words. Written words as in the activity to write without any artistic facet to it. Taking in consideration, poetry and literature are art mediums.

You can see often artists that do take, for example, a urinal, turn it upside down and eventually become art. Because art has this nature of taking in different disciplines and facets of life and fill them with spirit, even another completely different meaning.

Essentially what distinguish a simple writing from a piece of art in writing form is the intention and the execution with the artwork. It´s not so much about having the intention to turn it into a work of art per se. But the fact to provide the artwork with spirit.

That´s why, many times memes and jokes can have this artistic side to it. Because comedians do look forward to fill their jokes and sketches with a spirit that do touches the senses of the people in order to entertain them.

This is my take on the topic, let me know your thoughts about it on the comment section.

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Love,

Daniel

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