The Astronomer (Jan Vermeer, c. 1668, Oil on canvas)
Art and Science were once allied disciplines. Leonardo Da Vinci wrote treatises on anatomy and mechanics. Su Song was a poet and calligrapher as well as an engineer, botanist, and zoologist. Sir William Herschel was a musician and a composer before becoming an astronomer. Earlier this month, on the occasion of Sir William Herschel’s birthday, I wrote about how science has become a technical discipline conducted by teams of extensively trained professionals narrowly focused on certain esoteric problems (often on certain aspects of certain problems). Art has travelled a different path, turning its back on universal problems to explore the autobiographic and the intensely personal. Is there anything for art to contribute to science or vice versa? Do visual and performing arts offer something to the world of ideas other than circular self-references?
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (Rembrandt, 1632, oil on canvas)
I don’t know. My family members are mostly scientists, whereas I’m a troubled artist. I always hoped the latter discipline had some aspects of the former (along with a hint of shamanism and a good bit of charming charlatanism). Lately I feel like art is almost all charlatanism.
Art grows ever more solipsistic. Whereas once the artist stood beside the scientist as the two peered together at the marvels of the world (see the images above), today’s artists seem preoccupied with wholly artificial rhythms. The quintessential contemporary artist is obsessed not with humankind’s collective quest to understand the universe, but rather with interpretation of entirely personal idols. The resulting work is edgy and direct. It has the nearly psychotropic power of outsider art (indeed it sometimes seems the only difference between a successful gallery artist with a famous installation piece and a crazy man with a foil monstrosity is a good business manager). Art has become a self-obsessed eccentric uttering vivid maunderings about corporations, stingy lovers, or the fatuous excesses of popular culture.
I’m not sure that I like that sort of thing very much.
Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (Tracey Emin, 1995, tent with textile appliqué)
Art was once like philosophy—a place for the genesis of other disciplines. The sculptor became the anatomist. The painter of birds became a natural scientist and then his works spawned ornithology. However as biology has fissiparated into biochemistry, physiology, ecology, biomechanics, histology, symbiology and a thousand other disciplines each more specific and refined, the hapless artist cannot follow–much less contribute. Artists once tried to keep up with what was happening in science, but today, understanding the broad parameters of scientific endeavor requires painful depth of study. Even politics and history are becoming rarer creative themes as contemporary art travels more towards the autobiographic and the intensely personal.
It has been said that “artists are the eternal adolescents through whom humanity matures.” That is right. Like teenagers, art can takes weird chances. It can run off into a rabbit hole for years only to emerge (comparatively) unscathed with new insights. That’s why art was once so handy and why it now seems so squirrely. Science was also once an adolescent discipline filled with eccentric geniuses and brilliant outsiders, but it has matured into a self-controlled workaholic edifice (which, because of its complexity and immensity is, alas, becoming opaque to outsiders). It would seem that science has no need for art. What can troubled dreamers offer to physicists or nanotechnologists? Science can get somewhere. Artists never really can–but we can always keep asking where we are all going and why.
So to the artists out there, where are we going and why?
Bridge (Jasper Johns, 1997, oil on canvas with objects)
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6 comments
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December 1, 2010 at 6:03 AM
jenny
I have thought a lot about your premise. I’m not sure. The intensely personal is universal, I think. What can any of us have experienced that has not been experienced before, many times over?
Perhaps the sort of thing that you don’t like very much is simply not well done?
Chekhov did not write grand historical dramas. Actually, nothing happens in his plays. His characters are small and reflect (I think) some intensely personal preoccupations of Anton Pavlovich. And yet…
Perhaps he is not modern. Also, true that he was a doctor as well as a writer, so he still embodied the connection between science and art. Still, his fetish for country life of a very narrow class of Russian gentry at a very specific time speaks to universal themes.
December 1, 2010 at 11:22 AM
Mom
The art I like is beautiful, makes me feel good, or invites me to think deeply. Those are all very personal responses and maybe that isn’t so bad. If a picture makes one person feel good or makes them think about something they normally wouldn’t–doesn’t that improve understanding and life–isn’t that a good thing? Of course, the same could be said about delicious vanilla ice cream with pieces of peppermint stick in it. It is beautiful sitting in its ice cream container or bowl, makes me feel good when I eat it, and I think pleasant thoughts! I suppose it is art of a sort–any way the peppermint ice cream is certainly making my Christmas season more merry!
December 1, 2010 at 5:16 PM
Hieronymo
Jenny, I like Chekhov too. He wrote microcosms in which he presented a nuanced view of the wider world within a tiny slice of it (just like the Vermeer at the top presents the 17th century Dutch view of the universe without portraying the whole thing). But you could be right that the modern art which I don’t like isn’t well done (or possibly I dont understand it). To quote Shamrayev from The Seagull, “de gustibus aut bene, aut nihil.”
Mom, Precisely! And I can never find that sort of ice cream anymore….
December 2, 2010 at 7:13 AM
jenny
The Seagull! Well, now, that is very, very apt!. Perfect way to make your point.
But, y’know, that play was not appreciated when it was first produced. Nobody liked or understood it.
February 6, 2021 at 5:44 PM
Kathy Finch
Sad. You are right. But art is different for everyone, depending on the subject’s life. But it all equals One. I’m glad most courses need art classes, but we need more open minded, positive, patient, non-opinionated teachers. People become afraid of art when they start with arrogant art teachers. Teachers, all teachers, need at least one course in self behavior, and alot of those “teachers” need much much therapy. Sorry, I’m still steamed about our children being told that they are stupid. Our world isn’t going to get better when people grow up believing they are stupid. Some children already get enough criticism at home.
February 9, 2021 at 4:37 PM
Wayne
Aww…I am sorry to hear that a teacher was so cruel and oafish to your children. It sounds like in this instance the fault lies with the educator rather than the students! A lot of art teachers suffer from the insecurities and inconsistencies of the profession–which is more than enough to drive a sane person crazy (and not artists start out all that sane to begin with). Additionally, as you note, there are no real right or wrong answers in the arts–which adds another layer of challenge to teaching it well. Some art teachers have only studied art (and they could maybe do with some liberal arts studies to contextualize what is going on in the studio…and in the wider world).