Copyright © 2009 Ernest Bloom.
Thus spake Lajos Egri:
"The principal aim of all story telling is to
Expose the inner workings of the human mind
Through conflict. . . ."
Through conflict.
"Found art" is junk re-glued
At random and welded against any
True hope for emergent purpose.
The gear teeth are melted off or
Sheared away. That's no way
To seek immortality in sculpture,
Or in poetry or prose.
To expose the inner workings
Of the human mind. . . .
By a deliberate process of peeling back
The psyche, assault by dreadful assault,
To make 'em sweat and
Keep 'em guessing.
That, my friend, is drama.
Yes, perhaps this is the beauty of art and fiction. In scientific writing, we can easily convey a mathematic formula or the complex machinery of one or other phenomena. In art, however, we have the rare possibility to convey those meanings not through direct statement but rather, through elaborate affirmation by means of presenting contrasts and conflicts. So in art, we can present both falsehood and truth, pain and beauty, future, past as well as present while in non-fiction writing we are roughly limited to the here and now and the absolute point of our argument.
ReplyDeleteThe conflict,however, need not be present, I think. Art is there to please us- that is the basic axiom. Both in poetry and prose the mere beauty of language and the pictures presented are very much sufficient to be called artful and valuable. Though I admit, I personally prefer the more complex, conflicted images in art, I do find some pleasure from reading/writing simple poems, presenting an everyday object in an unusual or particularly sublime manner.
Still, the first statement remains valid- all art, including storytelling, relies on the reaction and structure of human mind(even more complex given the variety at hand) and thus, the mere existence of a piece of art that influences us in a specific way constitutes an explosive exposition of the human psyche.
By the way- that Lagos Ergi person exists? For the love of me, I couldn't google him/her and that means something. I can google practically every person in my family.
sorry: dual typos. 'lagos ergi' --> 'lajos egri'....
ReplyDelete"There's no way to seek immortality." You've just reached the crux of all aesthetical problems. Why do we create art? To satisfy something profound in us. In doing so, we seek to gain access to that 'original feeling.' We strive to apprehend some kind of spiritual immortality. But, maybe you're right, E.B., maybe we're too human to do that.
ReplyDeleteone's striving should always exceed one's grasp: that is True Art.
ReplyDelete