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    The Thinking Arts
    The Thinking Arts
    The Thinking Arts
    Ebook73 pages1 hour

    The Thinking Arts

    By George Lowell Tollefson

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    About this ebook

    Intuition and Mind. Are they mutually exclusive terms? Or can a science of aesthetics help us understand the way our mind and emotions work together to create art?

    George Lowell Tollefson discusses these issues in light of literature, sculpture, music, and painting in this excerpt from his longer work, Unbridled Democracy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPalo Flechado Press
    Release dateSep 9, 2018
    ISBN9781386002604
    The Thinking Arts
    Author

    George Lowell Tollefson

    Lowell Tollefson, a former philosophy professor, lives in New Mexico and writes on the subject of philosophy.

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      Book preview

      The Thinking Arts - George Lowell Tollefson

      The Thinking Arts: Painting, Sculpture, Literature, and Music

      THE word art means the raising of a particular craft to a level of philosophical insight. Most of those who are called artists are not artists. They are merely performers.

      MODERN commercial society rejects what is truly meaningful in art. This is because a commodity, to be readily marketable, must shine like a waxed apple. Good art does not shine. It glows.

      THERE is a problem with much of modern visual art, literature, music, etc. It is that so much of it represents an abandonment of the humanistic tradition. It emphasizes non-human-based qualities and relations. No doubt, this is owing to the terrible events of the twentieth century: World Wars I and II, the Holocaust, the Stalinist Purges, etc.

      But a belief in Humanism is still valid. It is the idea that a better world can be discovered through a deeper understanding of human nature and experience. So, rather than that this idea should be abandoned, it should be clung to. It lies at the heart of Christianity. And it has been dominant in Western Civilization since Giotto painted his dramatic frescos in the fourteenth century.

      WHAT makes art endure is its underlying foundation of deep thought: its philosophy. When deep thought dies in a culture, art becomes fashion oriented and excessively self-referential. It then fails to endure, to survive into subsequent eras. This is because it cannot hold meaning for them, other than to satisfy some vague and ephemeral curiosity. Such art loses insightful reference to the fundamental obstacles and triumphs of life.

      THE core philosophical element in all great works of art is an integrated view of the world that involves a fresh way of seeing life, expressed as an attitude.

      GREAT art is a product of great intellect. Because art involves indirect expression though emotion, its intellectual insights may initially escape notice. But they will surface in the minds of attentive readers, viewers, or listeners over time. For they cannot be permanently overlooked. Moreover, what they clearly are not are verbal, visual, or musical tricks and high jinks of style. They are genuine insights.

      ART is precise in being imprecise. This peculiar balance is what makes it art. In fact, its craftsmanship, which is important, lies in a precise delicacy of imprecision. So does its philosophy, its deep seeing, which is equally important. The philosophy is understood without overt articulation.

      Take a literary work, such as a story. What this precise delicacy of imprecision does is allow an image, character, situation, or combination of these, to play loosely in the mind. It permits, indeed insists upon, a multiplicity of interpretation, yet within a specific framework. Thus the mental play is subtly directed in such a way that each suggestion in the mind leads to another suggestion, causing a forward movement of the action.

      IF at one moment the enduring heart of human nature is referred to, and at another moment the eternal struggles of life are spoken of (those which are often repeated under many guises and settings), if these two things are spoken of, they are the same thing. This is of course stated in reference to visual art, literature, music, etc.

      What is being said is that human personality is a compound of universal inner traits shared by all. These are the capacity for love, hate, etc. But they are invariably intertwined with environmental and social obstacles which result from the simple fact that human beings are limited in capacity. Put these inner and outer factors together, look at them with honesty and penetration, and what is found is what sincere art thrives on.

      THERE is a gulf between talent and genius. To effectively put strong feeling onto a canvas is something common. So what is it that keeps most people from making the leap from sometimes strongly moving works into works of originality and uniqueness of vision? It is the conceptual element that is lacking. By conceptual, philosophical is meant.

      Unless a person is willing to think long and deep upon some topic of life, unless that person is willing to risk ridicule or the terrible loneliness of simply being misunderstood and ignored, unless there is some truth about the human condition which has been discovered in these long hours of patient thought and exploration, there can be no breakthrough into a new level of awareness. That breakthrough is what is called genius.

      An illustration of this can be taken from a local New Mexican poet who has an impressive lyrical command of language. Upon first acquaintance with his work, a reader is readily transported by the beauty of his verse. But on closer examination, if the reader should momentarily set aside his musical flow of words and look for the meaning of the poem, she is disappointed at discovering the pedestrian nature of its underlying thought.

      There is no truth to be discovered, no unexpected enlightenment to assist and delight in the weary but often intriguing sojourn of life. In short, works held together only by talent may be pleasing in expression. But they leave nothing to a deeper contemplation. It is that element of contemplation, especially within an illumination of fresh insight, which lies at the core of every great work of art, every work of genius.

      A FUNDAMENTAL problem with any examination of details in a close and minute analysis is that

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