My Response to an Excerpt from Fear & Art

 Fear and Art

Response by: Zephan Dickey

I can see why you chose this excerpt for us to write about, because it aligns quite nicely with one of the questions answered through the ‘Artist of the Week’ assignments; the question asking about what would change if someone replicated the artist’s works.  The excerpt writes about how complex the artistic process is to do, as an artist.  The artist must fully immerse themselves in their art to excel.  The correlation between that idea and the concept of replicating art can be found through the idea of replication.  In order to replicate art, the fabricator must first elevate the process that the original artist used to create their work.  

Steinbeck had written about the change in the value of art with the development of mass media and entertainment. The modern ideal art for most people would revolve around mass media though some may claim themselves connoisseurs of traditional paintings. It follows the emotions of the modern human to believe that happiness is the meaning of life, but when happiness presents itself, most people would prefer something different. It’s like when someone listens to a profound piece of music, it’s not necessarily happy. Happy music is characterized as something along the lines of elevator music which is shallow and lacks depth or meaning, and it’s the reason that most people won’t listen to it consistently. It’s the same thing with modern art, we don’t seek to easily understand art, but more so, we seek to find complexity.

A few quotes that resonated with me. 

“In the ideal - that is to say, real - artist, fears not only continue to exist, they exist side by side with the desires that complement them, perhaps drive them, certainly feed them.”

This is especially interesting in the present day, though I don’t know when the text was originally written.  This quote proves its relevance with cancel culture, as an example, where the fear of being canceled allows the artists to push the lines of what is and isn’t acceptable in popular culture.  This is not a new idea, however.  Artists have been pushing boundaries since the creation of art.  

“Today artists often back away from engaging the times and places of their life, choosing instead the largely intellectual challenge of engaging the times and places of Art.”

This makes me think of the difference between art of the past and present day art.  There were few artistic craft methods found in history, although many crafts were lost to time.  The newer crafts found in popular culture of today can be found through  many different means, such as movies, music, and photography.  I would guess that this transition is largely due to a lack of faith in the American dream found through the first World War.  This loss of innocence was found through the trauma incurred by the survivors of the war, leading to a need for an escape from reality, and shifting away from a real-life artistic era.  

“Nominees for Leading Role in a Continuing Artist’s Funk are: (1) you’ve entirely run out of new ideas forever, or (2) you’ve been following a worthless dead-end path the whole time.”

This is obviously satire, but it does bring a good point to light.  I would say that it minimizes the issue.  Someone in this situation would most likely realize that they would not be eternally out of ideas, and that their art matters as a whole.  Those messages found through this quote might be enough to get the attention of the artist’s creative mind.  Or, it would make the artist spiral out of control.  Anything’s possible.  

“We’d all love to squirm out of this one, but the undeniable fact is that your art is not some residue left when you subtract all the things you haven’t done - it is the full payoff for all the things you have done.”

I’m a firm believer that art is anything that can be crafted and takes skill.  That means that a work of art is something borne out of the artist without being strictly tied to them, as all art is subjective.  This leads to an interesting rift, where there are famous artists with less famous artworks, or famous works without a famous artist. Not that the two concepts are mutually exclusive.  There are obviously famous artists with famous works, and less famous artists with lesser known works.