What are the motifs (central themes) of visual art?

[coberst]

What are the motifs (central themes) of visual art?

 

The motifs (central themes) of visual art are designed to compete with nature and can only be derived from nature. Every natural entity is either organic (living matter) or inorganic (dead matter). “Motifs in visual art must be either organic or inorganic.”

 

Nature shapes inorganic matter into crystals, which are geometric (symmetrical forms conjoined at angles throughout) in form. Once we humans discover the need to create meaning--using dead matter as a substance--we are destined to use the natural laws of crystallinity. “Art, after all, deals exclusively with inorganic matter, including once-organic materials, such as wood and bone, which become lifeless after losing their growth capacity.”

 

When we humans were contesting with nature while trying to create something both decorative and practical we were confined to use inorganic nature as our model. The basic formal principles “such as symmetry in lines and planes, have continued to assert themselves in human artistic production up to the present day. Only in the design of inorganic forms does man stand on equal ground with nature, for here he creates purely out of inner compulsion and uses no external models.”

 

Neither practical nor decorative aims in art provided wo/man with the opportunity to stray from inorganic forms; however, our conceptual needs did provide such an opportunity.

 

Abraham Maslow informs us that we humans have both organic needs and conceptual needs. The three fundamental organic needs are physiological, safety, and love (belonging), while the fundamental conceptual needs are self-esteem and self-actualization.

 

“Because it was the liveliness and movement of superhuman forces in nature that so impressed human beings, these could only be conceived as animate and organically mobile…conceptual needs brought organic motifs to art.”

 

Quotes from Historical Grammar of the Visual Arts by Alois Riegl

[lemit]

There have been many attempts to define the history of the visual arts in a single sentence. I think I can describe all those attempts in a single word: crock.

 

--lemit

[coberst]

Unfortunatly our (American) educational system has left us all with severe learning handicaps.

[Boerseun]

Unfortunatly our (American) educational system has left us all with severe learning handicaps.

Care to elaborate? How does this post pertain to the prior?

[coberst]

Care to elaborate? How does this post pertain to the prior?

 

Sophomoric—conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and [intellectually] immature

 

American culture enshrines and ritualizes hubris.

 

Hubris—exaggerated pride or self-confidence

 

Specialization is a boon to narrow mindedness.

 

Our culture is permeated with an obsessive desire to acquire stuff. We educate our self so as to gain quick entry into the race for the acquisition of more stuff than our neighbor. We are going to hell in a shopping cart because our educational system focuses attention upon the practical problem of preparing our self for the race to efficiently produce and consume more stuff.

 

Normal science, i.e. those sciences controlled and guided by paradigms, which I guess are primarily those based upon the sciences of physics and chemistry, have been so successful in meeting their respective goals that we have placed this form of intellectual inquiry on too high a pedestal. We have become deluded into thinking that the methods utilized by these sciences are not only the best but the only useful means for acquiring valuable knowledge.

 

It is human nature to be attracted to the mere appearance of things; the survival of many kinds of animals is dictated by the ability of the male and female to attract one another resulting from the colors and forms of eye appeal. We dress in the morning often based upon what type of trial we are facing; we gain a sense of confidence when we are confident of our appearance.

 

Our culture provides us little incentive to examine the common principles of our nature in such matters as morality and aesthetics. Such principles represent the very foundation for our actions. We finish our formal schooling without even rudimentary comprehension of these fundamental aspects of our nature. Not only do we finish our schooling with this fundamental ignorance but we leave schooling with a disdain and dismissive attitude of such matters.

 

We finish schooling with a prejudice against our self. We develop a satisfaction only when we think of our self as being surrounded by objects and laws independent of our self. We finish school unaware of the psychology which is the instrument of our speculations about these laws and principles. We aggressively dismiss the exclusively “subjective and human department of imagination and emotion…we have still to recognize in practice the truth that from these despised feelings of ours the great world of perception derives all its value, if not also is existence…had our perceptions no connection with our pleasures, we should soon close our eyes on this world”.

 

I think that specialization is perhaps a necessity but it is not necessary, nor is it health, for us to graduate sophomores who lack the rudimentary knowledge of fundamental human capacities and limitations. Also the self congratulatory attitude resulting from a mistaken hubris leaves us handicapped in any effort to develop a sophisticated comprehension of our problems after our school daze are over.

 

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. (Mohandas Gandhi)

 

Quotes from The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory by George Santayana

[lemit]

Many years ago--stop me if you've heard this one--I developed a theory I called "The Power of Profundity." A basic statement of the theory is: If something you read or hear makes you think, "Wow! I never would have thought of that," there might be a good reason. It might be really profound, but it's probably just crap.

 

I don't know what made me think of that, but it's a theory I like. Maybe I should post it on a thread where people would read it.

 

--lemit