The Mechanism of Questions
After about twenty years of teaching artistic photography, I can say that I now understand the mechanism of questions and concerns, as well as their content. These are questions I hear during a class or lecture, repeated almost at a constant pace and at predictable moments. Sometimes I want to anticipate them; other times, I enjoy waiting for them. These questions have less to do with the nature and language of the photographic medium and more with art in general, its role, and its function in relation to the individual and society.
This constant repetition would risk turning the lesson into a routine, had I not realized the charming uniqueness of the teacher's effort to convey to a new receiver each time what he has himself mastered. Thus, the question I hear for the thousandth time seems new to me, since it comes from a new student and is the product of his own exclusive curiosity and innocence. For reasons I cannot fully explain, I do not feel the same tolerance and patience when these questions are posed in the context of a salon discussion. Possibly because in this case, those asking the questions give me the impression that they do not trust their curiosity and innocence, but are more motivated by arrogance and provocativeness towards something that eludes them and does not fit into their familiar interpretive schemes. Perhaps the fact that their presence in a class is in itself proof of their interest and humility purifies them in my eyes.
Anyway, the first realization one comes to in front of these questions is the well-known absence of any artistic teaching (and the resulting reflection) in the context of the basic education of modern Greeks. Most of these questions should have been answered, or at least posed, at much earlier ages than those of my various interlocutors. And this not to have achieved a (rare and difficult) consensus of opinions, but to be able to move on to more substantial issues of reflection around art and its specific photographic version.
The worst part is that the grid of these questions usually does not stem from a genuine primary curiosity of a person who comes into contact with the artistic event for the first time, but usually results from common (and rather erroneous) places that all the half-educated of the salons regurgitate with complacency. If this is added to the fact that no one accepts their ignorance, especially in non-scientific matters, then it is not surprising that we are bombarded by remarks such as: the artist expresses himself, the artist serves, art must have an educational character, art is communication, the criteria are subjective, what I like is art, my taste is the criterion, what is beautiful is art, art must be for everyone, art must be democratic and not elitist, and many others, which seem to have constituted a common code about art. I will attempt to refute some of these unshakeable places of the "hot" topics about art in the following.
ART AND ITS UTILITARIAN DIMENSION
One of the most basic and common questions is the one related to the usefulness of art and the reasons that cause its birth. Fortunately, my teaching career started after the bankruptcy of Marxist omnipotence. Otherwise, I would continuously stumble over the (blindly accepted by the largest portion of the militant left world) direct relation of art to its social outcome and its socio-economic origin. Today, it is probably widely understood that Marxism, despite its undoubtedly interesting views towards economic analysis, did not manage as well with the approach to the artistic phenomenon. The cause and the causative did not prove to be capable tools for interpreting genius. But even the political-social goals, even when they had noble springs, did not prove to be effective artistic motives.
In many people's minds, however, the perception of the social role of art, which justifies it in their eyes, remained rooted. These people, skeptics towards the artistic event, apply the utilitarian argument to art, which governs all modern everyday life. Therefore, according to this perception, art should tend either towards entertainment or towards decoration, and always with educational outcomes against the social whole. This art, of course, must express a least common denominator that will embrace the maximum number of citizens.
This view ignores or despises the privileged relationship of the creator with the artistic work. In this relationship, the work is the creator's mirror. The viewer will use the mirror as a window to the world, only through the distorting personal filter that the artist has interposed. Consequently, the viewer's relationship with the artistic result will always be as unique as that of the creator. The least common denominator will never be feasible, since these unique relationships would have to be subordinated to a similar and common framework. Then the presence of the artist's personal filter would disappear as an obstacle.
The existence of art "per se," i.e., justified only by its own birth, does not negate the possible and desirable other effects of art, but refers to the equally unknown, if not absurd, presence of the world and man within it. The artist discovers that art is one (and perhaps not the only) answer to his unjustifiable presence in the world. For this reason, the "religious" artist produces art ad majorem Dei gloriam – for the greater glory of God – since art expresses his relationship with his existence, as his religious consciousness imposes on him. Only that this intention does not constitute a utilitarian reason for the presence of art, which is not justified by the scope of its outcome, but by the connection of its creator with the world and possibly the Creator.
SELFISHNESS AND ELITISM
The previous thoughts almost certainly lead to the question about the artist's selfishness and elitism, since his work does not aim at society and especially not at its largest percentage. The artist acts primarily driven by a personal need and desire. Motives so vague even to himself, so that his engagement with art is simultaneously his effort to clarify them. The attempt to satisfy this desire and its motives leads to the artistic work, whose function and role within society change from era to era. The artist watches the fate of his work, ardently wishes for its social acceptance and integration, but never gives, nor should he give, it primary importance. This does not cease to be his own need and desire. And only if he remains artistically selfish does he have the possibility to be artistically sincere, and thus creatively interesting. Changing the hierarchy of goals would adulterate the result.
This selfishness does not harm his neighbor and society, given that art does not constitute (and fortunately) a necessary element for the survival and happiness of all people. Art is a tragic luxury that certain people need and that should not be imposed on everyone. Whoever desires it will seek it, either as a creator or as a receiver. The only duty of the State is to indicate to its members the paths that lead to it, so that whoever needs it can seek it.
The creative and positive selfishness of the artist is interpreted by many as elitism. This term is used most often with a negative connotation, as if the world fears the existence and acceptance of the opinion of the best. However, if we accept this negative approach for the purposes of our reasoning, we must note that (bad) elitism begins to show its face from the moment it despises and considers all other opinions and approaches inferior.
However, the artist, who is engaged in the search for the paths of creation and who does it out of joy and anxiety, does not place himself above others. He simply has the need (and the right) to protect and armor himself by placing himself in an individual (and not always social) space. His obligations towards society are limited to the minimum of necessarily common manifestations. Usually, the issues to which each person attaches the greatest importance are rather those related to the cycle of his personality and his relationship with the world.
Those views that support that society, and not the individual, has the primacy, are entitled to place the individual and his art in a subordinate position to a social "good," independent and superior to individual existence. The proponents of such perceptions are entitled to judge the artist's selfishness as "useless" and "unhelpful" (though it cannot become harmful). The issue, therefore, boils down to a fundamental difference in philosophical perceptions and not so much to artistic reflection.
The person involved in art must protect his selfishness, not to exercise it against others, but to use it as a shield against those who seek to adapt him to a least common denominator, dissolving his sincerity and denying his difference. The great American photographer Walker Evans rightly said that the artist is concerned with thoughts to which he attaches great importance, while they are indifferent to the majority.
ART AS COMMUNICATION
The sense of difference from the majority generates in the artist a sense of loneliness and alienation. This feeling, painful by definition, becomes increasingly painful as the depth of artistic reflection and search increases. There is no artist who does not desire acceptance from the social whole, but there is no worse way to cultivate your art than the pursuit of this acceptance. This, of course, does not mean that the artist does not desire communication with his fellow human beings. However, those who think that art is primarily a form of communication commit the mistake of elevating a potential goal to a primary one. The artwork has as its main starting point and main destination its creator. Its course from there resembles the bottle in the sea thrown by a castaway. He hopes, waits, and does not know. But perhaps this is also true for all our significant actions; our lives are filled with actions that we believe we ought or need to do, the happy or unhappy consequences of which affect us, without, however, guiding our behavior. The artist hopes to find supporters, would like to live from the exploitation of his works, would above all wish to earn the admiration of his loved ones, would consider it a great honor and joy for his work to delight and even better to educate his fellow humans, but all these are potential and uncontrollable outcomes of his only and dominant desire for creation. If someone assured him that none of this would succeed, the genuine artist would have no choice but to continue his creation.
SUBJECTIVE JUDGMENT AND OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE
Half-knowledge, combined with complex formation, and the denial of any self-awareness and self-criticism constitute a mixture of explosive provocativeness. I have encountered this audacity of half-knowledge very often, and it has almost always caused me more sorrow than anger. And this is because I feel that it hides more fear than malice or stupidity. The modern person cannot accept his ignorance. The media and the way he was raised have given him a false self-confidence and a defensive audacity similar to that which some psychologists try to transplant ingeniously into their patients.
Art, and every art, has its own language, its own discipline, its own laws. And each of us always has much to learn, no matter how much we already know. After all, the adventure of creation is simultaneously an adventure in the world of knowledge. Art, in fact, escapes from the logical dimension of established knowledge and requires different tools to conquer it. The receiver of art cannot but be an active receiver. And this requires knowledge, thought, and effort. The average person in our era has not learned to invest knowledge, thought, and especially no effort for his pleasures. He consequently considers that something he does not enjoy is bad. Or, in the best case, that it is bad for him. And he fortifies himself behind the walls of subjectivism. This relieves him of any effort, but also of any future possibility of considering it good. Since his opinion is not based on knowledge and thought, the only other basis can only be his "taste." "Taste," however, is just the last (and certainly not insignificant) stage of our choices. And it is less arbitrary than it seems. It is based on many parameters that are either imposed on us unknowingly or (an oxymoronic but valid figure) we choose unknowingly. "Taste" is thus shaped. In its shaping, knowledge and intellectual effort play a significant role.
Therefore, the criteria in the field of art may not be logically describable, but they are nevertheless based on a basis of objectivity, which is knowledge, especially the knowledge of the past. Especially when we accept that one of the basic characteristics of art is its linear (straight or circular) course through time and its continuous connection with its own past. The judgment about it is always comparative. The masterpiece would not be conceivable without the monstrosity. Nor today's masterpiece without its counterpart from the past. This knowledge of this course and relationship determines our judgment against the artwork, but - even more importantly - our enjoyment of it.
Consequently, no one tries to exclude the personal choices and preferences of each person against art. Only he must accept and understand that these are less subjective and more objective than he thinks. The right to subjectivism will be given to him by objective knowledge. And as this grows, he will find that his subjectivism suffers serious blows in favor of documented judgment. Without, however, ever the objective knowledge eliminating the personality of the creative receiver. After all, it is precisely in this that the difference between the mediocre and the genius creator or receiver lies.
AN EXPRESSIVE MEDIUM
Even before the fashion of communication, art found recognition in the eyes of many as a means by which man "expresses himself." But if I was forced to take the distances I mentioned earlier with communication, even greater will I take from the one-sided exploitation of "expression" by art. And this is because I am not allowed to deny any human activity its expressive capability. Man lives and expresses himself continuously.
If, with this common place, which everyone regurgitates easily, it is implied that art is the only way for one to express his psyche "spontaneously," the error is even more pitiful. It is thus overlooked that art is not spontaneity, but a space of exercise, discipline, apprenticeship, and hard work. That art is subject to rules and that spontaneity plays a very small role in creation. Unless art is confused in the minds of most with the opportunistic manifestations of song, dance, and play that often accompany our lives as an extension of our childhood. Necessary and cathartic manifestations, which are not related to the creation of artistic work. It would be completely arbitrary and selfish to monopolize authoritatively the expressive need and capability, the property of every person, enclosing it only in the space of artistry, a space of choice and exercise.
IN THE SERVICE OF ART
As strong as the foundations of the relationship between art and expression are in common perception, the roots that want the artist to be a servant of his art are equally deep. This perception is flawed in multiple ways. First and foremost, because it attributes to art a value beyond human, possibly divine or God-sent, which the human, as a new priest, is called to serve. On the other hand, it exempts the human from their own responsibility. They are no longer the master and responsible for the game, but the instrument that, almost reluctantly, serves a higher power. They become the worker who lays bricks in a building, according to the widespread scheme of educational oppression.
Conversely, art exists only because there are artists. And its history is nothing but the history of artists. And the significance of artists varies depending on the quality of their contribution, but also equal by the mere fact that they create. The building is not the total of "bricks," but the aggregate of many small independent and self-contained individual constructions.
DEFINITIONS AND TERMINOLOGY
The form of our communication and the way we organize our knowledge favor the formulation of definitions and require the specification of terms. When we refer to art, it is good to accept these restrictions but also necessary to allow them wide margins of movement. Art, like all areas of human intellectual activity, moves in realms where metaphysics and abstraction dominate. For this reason, every attempt at definition always leaves something very important out, possibly even the most important. This observation should not deter us from formulating definitions, but should also make us supplement every definition with a permanent question mark. The definition should be a starting point for thought and work and never a definitive conclusion.
Even greater is the need to define the perimeter of words. Because despite the abstract and metaphysical dimension of artistic things, our communication about them is primarily through the undoubtedly inadequate and restrictive language. Therefore, the definition of words is necessary, so that our understanding in the Babel of art is possible, even if we all accept and continually bring back to our consciousness the fact that no boundary is absolute and inviolable.
THE DISTINCTIVE DIFFERENCE
According to the above, a definition of art would facilitate many cases of controversial confrontations. A definition would allow the exclusion of areas that have many external characteristics with the world of art, but not the decisive distinctive difference. The distinctive difference, that is, the element that would make us attribute the characterization of a work as a work of art, regardless of its quality, is what generates the greatest reactions from the public. And this is because on the one hand the boundaries are indistinct and on the other hand the content of the difference is abstract. This content becomes, through knowledge and familiarization, much more clearly visible, but can never be encompassed by a definition.
Things get even more blurred in our time, where every activity, whose external elements refer to artistic work, rushes to self-define as art. This is supposed to refine it and confer social prestige. Thus, whoever designs is considered a painter, whoever writes is considered a literati, etc. In this confusion, the uncertainty about the characteristics of art also adds. For example, aestheticism is considered by most an artistic dimension, while on the one hand one finds aestheticism (fortunately) in many objects and activities (non-artistic) of everyday life, and on the other hand, I do not see how anyone could characterize Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" as an "aesthetic" painting.
Those characteristics that would clarify the landscape somewhat are again so abstract that the relevant definition again ends in ambiguity. "Spirituality," for example, of the work of art, while it is something real, is not something definite. Likewise, if we refer to the necessary integration of the work of art into the trunk of the history of the specific form of art, or to the discipline of an artistic language, or to the formation of personal elements of language, again in the mind of a logical, but not familiar with the artistic event, observer, all these will sound arbitrary.
Often the purpose of art helps us to define it. This is because art is essentially 'purposeless'. Consequently, when a work has a main purpose outside of art, we can say that any artistic ornaments exist to serve this main and non-artistic purpose. A photograph whose main goal is to advertise a product and broadly to disseminate and sell it is logically using all its expressive tools to serve this purpose. Even its originality or aesthetics must succumb to the commands of its basic intentions. The fact that on a marginal level such an image can possibly, after serving its primary goal, also exist as a work of art, is such a unique exception that it should not be considered. The view of recent postmodern movements, which consider all applied manifestations of our everyday life, including advertising, as part of art (which I, of course, disagree with), can be discussed, but it certainly cannot excuse ignorance, something that even its supporters would not want.
The inherently commercial nature of advertising helps some to keep their (artistic) distance from it. However, the same is not true for entertainment. Usually, the majority of people consider art to be entertainment and vice versa, so that these two areas are almost identical. However, entertainment, especially in our times, obeys laws and directions that are set by people outside the artist. But even we ourselves know that art is not the ideal way for entertainment, if by this word we mean relaxation, a mental break, a calmness of the senses. Art, on the contrary, tends to tire us, challenge us, requires active engagement (at a time when entertainment leans towards passive presence) and if art delights, it does so not only through the senses but mainly through the spirit. Even the serious art lover desires and needs entertainment in their life, and knows that usually, art will not provide this. The boundaries again are indistinct. And for the sake of better clarity of different positions, it is advisable to choose extreme examples so that positions are understood and not examples that move on the boundary between the two activities. It is futile and ultimately exhausting to constantly repeat that all abstract distinctions in life (which are also the most important) have fortunately vague boundaries. Even science in its advanced concepts avoids absolute definitions. Only the Law (and not Justice) must have clear boundaries and for this reason, it is (unfortunately) often unjust.
REPRESENTATION AND ABSTRACTION
One of the great confusions that art causes in the general public is based on the belief that art exists to skillfully represent reality. The spread of non-representational painting was not sufficient to eradicate this perception. The scene of a movie that realistically represents an event that the viewer has experienced raises the director in their esteem, just as the absolutely realistic acting of a theatrical actor is particularly appreciated. According to this entrenched view, art should talk about life by copying it with high fidelity. The artist is nothing more than a master of representation. The work of art is nothing but a dollhouse, the realism of whose furnishing generates admiration.
However, art, and this is not easy to substantively understand, observes life not to copy it, but to invent 'points' based on which it elevates its observation into a new creation. This is roughly the so misunderstood notion of transcendence. The artistic result refers to life. It does not depict it. Therefore, no work of art is ultimately realistic. Even if it adopts a naturalistic form. The method to achieve this transcendence is abstraction. That is the reduction of form to that limit, where the remaining points, the details, are freed from the role they hold in the real world to adopt the new role assigned to them by the creator. That is why we also call him 'creator'. Otherwise, we would call him more accurately 'reproducer'.
THE INSPIRATION
The familiar icons, depicting the Apostles with the Holy Spirit as a little tongue above their heads 'visiting' them, seem to have influenced many people, who believe that this is how the 'God of Art' inspires artists. The perception that the artist helplessly waits for inspiration to touch him adds a charming metaphysical dimension to art, but is far from the truth.
The artist produces work by combining the mind, the senses, and the psyche. The separate cultivation of these three elements, as well as their coordination, are only functional within the artistic act. Inspiration is a product of the artistic act. It is thus a phenomenon of discovering what one desires within and not outside the artistic process. Neither before, after, nor alongside it.
Inspiration, therefore, whose existence is undeniably evidenced by the result, should not concern the artist. The artistic work will reveal it to him. Outside of this, it does not exist. The practice of the medium is simultaneously part of the inspiration. The artist thus places himself in conditions of inspiration, which are nothing else but conditions of work.
TOPIC-FORM-CONTENT
The audience facing a photograph is entirely bound by its truthfulness and the depicted subject. And this despite the fact that photography (much more than cinema, theater, or literature) is merely a trace (in the sense of a mark) of reality, through a trace (in the sense of the minimal) of truth.
The first way to begin approaching the uniqueness of the photographic impression is to start understanding the significance of the morphological elements that compose a photographic image. To understand that a photograph, to exist beyond the dimension of an imprint, must be composed ("composition") of form elements ("form") that lend weight to the selection and rejection of these elements. To grasp the importance of the four sides, the angle of shot, the choice of specific lens, the depth of field, the degree of contrasts ("contrast"), the arrangement and juxtaposition of volumes, etc.
Realizing these elements is such a significant revelation for the viewer that it directs their interest, almost exclusively, towards the realm of form, with a tendency to nullify the significance of the subject. This tendency (necessary in the process) is as mistaken and unjust as the previous one that ignored the form. The connection of subject and form must necessarily lead to content, which logically is also the core of the work. Understanding the concept of "content" in art also presents the greatest difficulties to the audience. The first and easiest escape is to resort to symbolism. After form, this is the first thing the average viewer perceives and embraces. However, symbolism usually remains at the level of the message. After all, that is precisely what the audience perceives. And such symbolism has no interest after it is decrypted.
Understanding the essence and significance of "content" belongs to the realm of the "mysteries" of the artistic event. Because if content could be defined and described, then the artwork would have no reason to exist. It would be nothing more than the illustration of an idea or a phrase. The specific combination of subject and form each time yields a content, which (and forgive me the sacrilege) "emerges" sometimes more from the subject, sometimes more from the form, and sometimes indiscriminately from both. And it is always (at least in significant works) polysemous and abstract.
POSTMODERNISM-PICTORIALISM-CONCEPTUALISM, ETC.
The great, though fascinating, difficulty in making the content of art and especially of "poor" and "newcomer" photography comprehensible has led both the uninformed and the initiated onto bypasses of convenience. The views according to which art only depicts signs of its era and is not connected with its creator, or that art constitutes an illustration of concepts that exist before the construction of the work, as intention, and afterward, as result, as well as that photography is just another technical neologism of painting recur from time to time, become fashionable, and alternate with similar ones in a general trend of succumbing to the charm of the obvious and superficial. These trends can easily answer various questions about art and soothe the anxiety of those asking, who cannot accept that in significant matters of life (and art for some is one of these) there are not always, at least easy and clear, answers. Moreover, the more precise and specific we attempt to be in all these significant matters, the more we deviate from their truth.
LABOR AND REWARD
Although all the above questions-doubts, almost without exception, are posed in every one of my classes, and although their answers have sometimes led to disagreements so sharp that only these significant matters of life, those that escape logic, can provoke, rarely has anyone posed the following question.
Why should we engage with art at all? Whether as receivers or as creators? Why should we immerse ourselves in something that alienates us from the least common denominator of the world, that restricts our communication with the broader circle of people, that requires mental torment and continuous questions, that more often fills us with disappointments than with satisfactions, that troubles us without always entertaining us?
The answer is one and simple. Not at all necessary. But if one has tasted the indescribable joy and pleasure when filling their mind and soul with a great work or when producing even the smallest sample of creation from their own mind and soul, then they want to relive that deep and enduring joy no matter the efforts, doubts, and questions it hides.
Plato Rivellis