As Dr. Ron Art took sufficient shape for me to launch it via a Facebook page three years ago, I wanted to share my Art Manifesto. This manifesto isn't just a set of beliefs about art, but also a proposal about the very nature of art. Physicists work at discovering the immutable laws of the universe, and in a similar way I work at crystallizing some fundamental truths about art. More broadly, art is an integral component of The Tripartite Model, along with science and religion.
My Art Manifesto
- Art is cross-art by nature
- Art is always autobiographical
- Art is sensuous
- Art is synesthetic
- Art is never completely original
- Art has value
My Art Manifesto is the undercurrent for these projects. This is the third of six articles, where I introduce this manifesto.
Touch
Nicholas Cage as Seth and Meg Ryan as Maggie in `City of Angels (1998) have a moment at the library. She feels him hold her hand and run a finger on her palm. She had questioned his feeling that she was an excellent doctor, and had tacitly dismissed such praise from the stranger. In one regard, this beautiful, poignant film is her story, she who is first baffled and skeptical, then shifts from science (analytical and skeptical) to art (experiential and authentic). At the end, she glides on a kind of ribbon of religion, where she lives life fully, with the wind in her hair and the sun on her face.
Taste
Sight
There is quite a lot in the following clip from `A Beautiful Mind (2001), where Russell Crowe as John and Jennifer Connelly as Alicia go a first date. The visuals in general are arresting. But if we believe that God is truly an artist, then the visuals of a Marc Chagall painting are as transcendent as Alicia sees it and also as stunning as she is. At her behest, the geeky genius John sees a certain artistry in the cosmos.
As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste... as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy.From a passage in A Moveable Feast, by Earnest Hemingway, which Seth reads.
Sight
There is quite a lot in the following clip from `A Beautiful Mind (2001), where Russell Crowe as John and Jennifer Connelly as Alicia go a first date. The visuals in general are arresting. But if we believe that God is truly an artist, then the visuals of a Marc Chagall painting are as transcendent as Alicia sees it and also as stunning as she is. At her behest, the geeky genius John sees a certain artistry in the cosmos.
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| Self Portrait with Seven Fingers (1913), by Marc Chagall |
Charlotte Church sings `All You Can Be, as the love theme, in a hauntingly beautiful voice. In fact, the soundtrack James Horner is in and of itself sensuous.
Scent
`Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is an unfortunate title for this lush and lavish 2006 film. Indeed Ben Whishaw as Jean-Baptiste Grenouille does kill, in an effort to capture the intoxicating but elusive scent of a woman. But his killings are simply one part of a rich story about his ungodly heightened sense of smell. In reality, of course, we as the audience do not smell what he smells. But through the filmmaker's craft and our imagination, it was quite easy for us to smell all that captivated Jean-Baptiste.
Finally, my poem on a stunningly fragrant, long lasting Casablanca Lily:
Not all pieces of art will engage our five senses equally. But if we give free reign to all of our senses, then art as a whole rewards us with an inviolably sensuous experience.
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