Art Is Not Chickens, Ducks, Geese, or Rabbits -- It Serves Nobody!
2006/7/15 12:26:06
There's a bizarre notion that art should serve such-and-such. But art is not chickens, ducks, geese, or rabbits -- not something for anyone to consume or play with -- it serves nobody! Art is art itself. The true artist springs only from humanity's own artistic soul. Everything outside humanity's own artistic soul is nothing but superfluous garbage!
Any work created in service of something is inferior. Who did Li Bai or Du Fu serve? When Qu Yuan and Tao Yuanming wrote the greatest poems in human history in their solitude, whom did they serve? (A side note: the pinyin input method can't even type "Tao Yuanming" as a single word -- today's software is utter garbage!) Who did Beethoven or Brahms serve? When Schubert and Mahler wrote the greatest music in human history in their solitude, whom did they serve? Van Gogh didn't cut off his ear for anyone -- he did it only for his own artistic soul!
Why don't we have Li Bai, Du Fu, Qu Yuan, Tao Yuanming, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Mahler, or Van Gogh today? Because an era that treats art as service cannot possibly produce great artistic souls. An era that has only chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits cannot possibly have any art. Garbage that serves politics is shameless, and garbage that serves popular trends is equally shameless. Artistic talent may vary in degree, but artistic sincerity cannot. Sincerity can only be pure. Sincerity is lifeblood, and the lifeblood of life cannot be diluted!
Art has always been related only to life. Art has always faced only blood and death. That decadent, cosmetic garbage is nothing but the excrement of history. Art -- the ultimate baseline of what makes humans human -- an era without an artistic soul is nothing but a landfill of materialistic garbage, unqualified to discuss art!
Chán Zhōng Shuō Chán 2006/7/17 16:43:27
[ Art has always been related only to life. Art has always faced only blood and death.]
Doesn't that mean art is serving "life" after all?!
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Being related to life equals serving humans? It seems you truly have the makings of a chicken, duck, goose, or rabbit!