“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.
- Vladimir Mayakovski (early 20th century Russian writer)
Agree? Disagree? Discuss. (And thanks, Dave, for sending this my way…)
If I had a hammer…
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
damnit, you sucker me in with your quotes.
i think art shows us where we will be. as if whats reflected in the mirror is the future that art cant really do anything about. just report on.
interesting. you think all art is forward-looking like this? if so, i’d disagree…i think art at its best shows us not just what we might be, but what we are.
for example, last night i saw “no country for old men.” it raised the question of the extent to which our lives are guided by faith, by chance or by self-determination, or some combination thereof. those are questions about what it means to be human – not some day, but now.
but i generally dislike these proclamations about what art is or isn’t. i mean, they’re useful in that they provoke us to think through why we create, as artists, and why we consume art…its role and function. but ultimately, without wanting to cop-out, i think art serves different purposes: to make you think, to make you laugh, to explore or document beauty, to do something for the artist him or herself, etc.
ie: it’s a hammer and a mirror and a cold shower and a warm blanket and on and on…
do you think i’m being too much of a relativist?
Scenic:
A friend had this quote in her email and I couldn’t help but pass it on given this discussion:
“There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.”
- Pablo Picasso
wow! what a fun discussion point! if you’re being a relativist, then i guess you’d have some company, because i think i agree with you.
art definitely reflects – if nothing else, the inner life of the individual creator – but just by its creation, art becomes a tool. you can’t create and expect it not to effect something. (art, it seems should always seek some effect in its audience, no matter how small or large.) expression of any kind demands a response and creates ripples … or tsunamis.
now i’m just blathering.
you’ll have to let me know how No Country was. i’ve been wanting to see it. i love the Cohens and it just looks so fabulously bleak. like blood simple but scarier. it was filmed out near my hometown in nowhere West Tx. when i feel homesick, i’ve taken to going to apple trailers and pausing on a shot of my town’s mountain.
Looking at who the quote is attributed to it, the perspective makes sense. In a revolution, art does have more of a “shaping” role.
In quieter times (which despite whatever’s going on, I’ll argue that we’re in), art is more powerful is terms of what it says about where we are, or have been.
Art is, by definition, contextual. Art that was extremely important 25 years ago can be trite and meaningless now. (Try watching Best Screenplay winner “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” now. Powerful in 1967, bland now.)
And I’ll agree whole heartedly with Picasso. :)
Glad you liked “No Country”. The convenience store coin flipping scene is one of the best scripted, best acted scenes I can recall in anything for ages. I took a different take on the message of the flick… saw it more as a rumination on the nature of man coping with evil in the world. Cheery flick.
John: agree on the convenience store scene! Amazing. Also love it in contrast to the other coin-flipping scene.
C. Both of the above. There’s no reason to say art does or should just reflect life or just push change. (And, for that matter, holding up a mirror to the world can, itself, be a tremendous tool for hammering out change.)
Ok, so I’m a few weeks late on this, but something about the quote stuck with me and I kept going over it again and again in my head. I think it was just the idea that doesn’t just change HOW we view reality, but it changes reality itself.
So, while the quote is a little silly and bombastic, I thought there was a salvageable perspective therein.
First, it was Bertolt Brecht who said this quote originally.
But in all honesty I’d have to agree with those who have already stated that art is not merely one thing or another. Art is many things to many people. It’s impossible to even say what one piece of artwork is because the artist could have had a singular intention for it but each individual viewer/reader/audience member might come away with their own interpretation.
For example consider the testimonials from all the young boys who grew up reading works like “From the Earth to the Moon” by Jules Verne then were inspired to begin what eventually became the NASA program. Hammer
Or consider movies showcasing inner city violence. How many young people across the country say they prefer these violent gang centered films because such movies are the only genre that they can relate to. Mirror