So I am reading an article in a magazine, Atlantic, that’s telling me we’re all too bigoted to even perceive reality in an objective, rational way, so might as well give up knowing anything -- the impression I got. I’ll concede present conditions lend credence to such an assertion, hermetic encampments lobbing real and imagined facts like grenades back and forth, but turns out they’re just islands floating in a sea of rampant subjectivity. Let’s go back to the idea we’re not likely to know what’s real anyway, because our antennae are tuned to block certain information, and large chunks of reality just aren’t available. So why is that, and can we do anything to fix it, more to the point.
Education helps, retracing the steps of people who faced the same obstacles before we arrived is a head-start, and a broad life-experience tempered with empathy and curiosity can be effective as well, but both require significant investment of time and commitment, and we’ll all so busy. Better it would be to acknowledge there are holes in our version of reality, and narrow channels of habituation that keep us from seeing everything there is.
Believe or not, that’s art’s job, its largest responsibility. From the renaissance forward, artists have been opening eyes, inventing and suggesting new ways of seeing. Each day people from around the planet cue up in front of Amsterdam’s Van Gogh museum to spend a couple of hours looking directly at his work. They emerge to a parking lot full of chirping birds, wind on their face, and the sounds of passing traffic in their ears, everything that was there before, unnoticed. How long does it last, a couple of hours, the rest of a lifetime, one thing sure, each person feels braver and more independent after seeing his example, more ready to see and accept what actually is.
How much can you see of world around you, and in what detail? It’s a question no one is prepared to answer, since how would anyone know? Everyone else might see the world the same way you do, but while watching the evening news it becomes pretty clear they don’t. Artists make suggestions, offer advice, and give examples of instances of time in which everything is accounted for. The photograph is recorded all at once, but in a painting every detail required attention and acknowledgement, and the craft to make it visible. In this way, the painting becomes a lens for the perception, elevating a chosen moment to full awareness, and like a laser, aligning all levels of thought and meaning into a picture of something. Some people find sensual pleasure simply in looking at art, lighting up parallel circuits, mixing memory and imagination.
Does it carry over into the everyday, and what’s the advantage? More thoughtful and more humane probably wouldn’t hurt any of us, and seeing more detail, becoming more aware of nuance and atmosphere can help to discern the truth from all the flotsam on social media, in the news, perhaps even in personal relationships. The individual or family who lives with a broad array of art is likely to be more open-minded, more ready to accept and ‘see‘ a greater portion of reality, and more equipped to appreciate each moment. Art is the renewer of a more open perception, lighting up thoughts and feelings in rooms seldom visited, an enhancer, and in the end a practical thing.
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