Rational Philosophy

In The Darjeeling Limited, Jason Schwartzman plays a writer who uses moments from his real life as the basis for his short stories, then insists to his brothers that the highly recognizable characters are fictional. The Darjeeling Limited is a gem-like movie, and this aspect of the story left me with a new insight, or the beginning of an insight into the relationship between art and life.

The actions of Schwartzman’s character create a text within the text. Schwartzman co-wrote the screenplay with Wes Anderson, the film’s director. So, we have the screen-writer playing the role of a writer who fictionalizes real moments in his life. The movie isn’t about art, Schwartzman’s fiction plays a minor role in the plot, but the film is about artificiality in life. The characters keep the world at arm’s length, rarely entering into events fully, yet believing that they do.

We use and appreciate art as a construct and technique to distance ourselves from reality. When it works, this distance provides a perspective that permits us to apprehend reality more fully, or to access a part of our perspective that would otherwise be hidden from us.

The artist takes a feeling or perspective, conscious or subconscious, and transfers it to some external medium (canvas, music, sculpture, text, etc.). After watching The Darjeeling Limited I was left with a new sense of life as unconscious art, or if not art then something akin to it.

Today is Halloween. Never in my recollection have I wanted to wear a Halloween costume nor enter into the spirit of the holiday, much to the disappointment of my wife and children. As I walked to the train this morning and reflected on this and on the premise of The Darjeeling Limited I felt a strong correlation between the two and the overlay of art in life.

If we think about distancing and abstraction as a critical construct of the artistic process, all of a sudden much of what we do in life starts to seem if not artistic then representational. Two days ago I got my hair cut, for instance, and felt disquieted by the relative neatness and attractiveness of my hair afterward. I now think that I was put out by the artificial construct of a haircut. We clothe ourselves partly for warmth, but the way we clothe ourselves is to a greater or lesser degree a representation of the image we seek to project to those around us. We are wearing an abstract perspective of ourselves.

The way we speak, the way we behave, the way we move, everything but the most automatic, innate impulse bears the impression of conceptual intervention. Focus on your breathing for a moment and all of a sudden you become conscious of how fast, how deep, how measured and the pattern of your breathing changes even if it doesn’t in fact become faster, deeper, more or less measured. The observation of your breathing makes it somehow different.

But whereas good art uses distance to bring us closer to something real, affectation in life distances us without achieving this ultimate closeness. Good art lets us feel or apprehend something more directly, more pertinently. A good haircut does nothing to bring us closer to reality. In fact, it takes us more deeply into the concept of ourselves as a person with attractive hair.

I’m not suggesting that we go about wearing sacks and with long, lank locks. But I am suggesting that being aware of the artificiality we invest in a good part of our waking life may actually be a step toward living more fully in the moment rather than in our minds.

Does art (any kind of art — painting, sculpture, literature, music…) serve a purpose? And if so, what is that purpose? Why do we create art? And must the judgment of art be entirely subjective?

On Sunday, I visited the Brooklyn Book Festival. One of the booths housed The Aesthetic Realism Foundation. (I misread the sign at first and thought it said Atheistic Realism — this brought me up short. But even after I’d read it correctly I stayed to ask what Aesthetic Realism is.) Aesthetic Realism proposes that we can better understand our lives through the application of aesthetic principles. The booth staffer gave the example of the aesthetic practice of balancing heavy and light — being aware of the need for this balance in life can come through an understanding of its balance in art.

To me, this approach seems fascinating and insightful (and very worthy of the foundation’s efforts — for instance, they are hosting a forum on the social and personal value of Rock ‘n Roll, how cool is that?), but completely backwards philosophically; wherefrom do aesthetic principles derive if not from life?

When we ask whether art serves a purpose we ask a conceptual question. Can we relate art to a concept or set of concepts, and do these concepts give us insight into art’s possible purpose?

The answer to the first part of this question seems obvious if we think about who creates art — primarily people (and some particularly intelligent animals — larger primates and elephants). Since art requires the abstraction of ideas or impulses, it requires a conceptual process (whether subconscious or conscious). Without the product of the artistic process, which is not itself but what it represents, we have no art, therefore art relates to a set of concepts.

And herein, I believe, we have the answer to the second part of our question: The concept to which art consistently relates is abstraction! (This would still apply to representational art, in which the artist abstracts the idea or impulse of what he or she observes and transfers it to the medium of their choosing in a representational manner.)

And we also now have a clue as to a possible purpose of art. If art rests on the concept of abstraction of an idea or impulse. The artistic urge is the urge to abstract an idea or impulse. What is to be gained by acting on this urge?

Does the artist gain anything from acting on the urge? Do others gain anything from the result of the abstraction?

If we again go back to the concepts we can delve further into the concept of abstraction. Abstraction is the recreation of certain elements in another form. Abstraction is a form of reduction or refocusing. It draws out and emphasizes some aspects of the original idea or impulse.

We can say that the product of the artistic process aims to communicate this refocusing. It communicates the artist’s particular point of view on the idea or impulse. And these ideas or impulses similarly become concepts or representations themselves as they are abstracted.

If it is successful, art helps us better understand the world around us and ourselves. The more successful it is at aiding this understanding, the more valuable it is.

Hence, we have a dilemma. Art that is derivative and of little deep value in helping us better understand life’s complexities may still have mass appeal (most pop music). Whereas art that delves deeply and profoundly into complex matters may have very limited appeal.

Does the value multiply out over the number of people affected? Can an equation be drawn this simply?

More for later!