By Tom Hubbard
Schools consider art an aside from
intellectual activity. Once a college major is chosen, course selection becomes
more constricted. This constricted view sees imagination as a weakness. Social
conversation respects and rewards precision of thought. The professional world
rewards “critical thinking.”
There is a whole world of emotion
beyond this thinking. Think of a joyous moment in your life. It was driven by
emotion, not critical thinking. In
evolution, emotion came to early humans long before modern thinking. Emotion
drives evolution, then and now, even on a personal level. We find happiness in
emotion. Music, movies and literature are industries based on emotion. I think
it’s clear that emotion is in play when we choose political candidates.
In all of this emotion in popular
culture, fine art is a niche, but it’s becoming less of a niche every year.
Millennials enjoy a variety of group social activity. The art gallery scene is
a vital part of this activity. Think of
art as psychic antifreeze which helps you find you true SELF.
The culture does a good job of
stimulating activity, but it’s not so friendly to individual reflection. We are
all on our own. If you are not accustomed to reflecting, your first finds will
be a void. Fine art can help in filling that void.
As a medium of reflection, fine art competes
with the powerful mass media aimed at group audiences. The ultimate goal of
fine art is to stimulate individual reflection. Fine art hanging on a wall of a
home or apartment is a powerful statement of the obscure. What is “a powerful
statement of the obscure?” Sounds like an oxymoron.
Well, make you heart diffuse enough
to excite your imagination and bring about change. Find a world of fine art
that has been waiting for you. Fine art takes you to a land of confusion that
leads to resolution.
This is not la la land thinking. It
is basic to the primitive brain which guides us in more ways than we imagine. We
have been using this primitive brain for millions of years compared to modern
thinking of a few centuries.
When you consider fine art, relax
your modern objective striving brain. Let that primitive brain guide you. This
primitive brain has guided us a lot longer than our modern brain.
When you walk into a gallery,
pretend you are a Paleolithic human looking, for the first time, at the art
wonders of paintings on a cave wall. The
lighting in your gallery will be better than the cave, but both are examples of
art filling a vital human need. Humans have always needed art and reflection it
engenders you to contemplate the active side of life, whether that activity be
killing a wooly mammoth…or completing a spreadsheet.
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