Robert Beck, August 2014

Robert Beck maintains the Gallery of Robert Beck at 204 No. Union St., Lambertville, NJ

www.robertbeck.net (215) 982-0074

Shedding Light

I had my guitar in my lap and was playing one of the seven tunes I know when a song from the past came to mind. I thought it would be a good addition to my pathetic repertoire but I couldn’t recall the music. The words wouldn’t come either, or the title. I sat there wondering just what the hell it was that I was remembering.

That answer came to me later as I learned more about the role of symbols in our lives, and in art. What I was remembering was not a song; it was the feeling I associated with it. Like when I’m in the supermarket and California Dreamin’ comes over the PA and I get cold feeling in my stomach because it was on the radio in Jimmy Smith’s 442 when he picked me up hitchhiking the last day I saw him alive. The song doesn’t do that, the mind does.

All of our communication is built on things that are something else. Spoken words are vibrations. Photos are grained, screened or pixilated simulations. A written letter is just marks on paper. When they are organized in a predictable manner these things can convey an idea. We just have to see or hear them often enough to recognize the patterns and give them meaning.

Once we start using symbology and metaphor to represent larger or unrelated thoughts the opportunity to describe expands exponentially. Interpreting those ideas presumes having experienced something you can relate them to. One thing builds on another creating more effective communication.

Painting builds on itself that way, as do all the arts. If someone looks at a painting of an old Iranian farmer holding a pitchfork standing next to a woman in front of his arched-window home it will have special meaning if the viewer is familiar with Grant Wood’s American Gothic. It will mean even more if the viewer knows that the woman in Wood’s painting is not dour-faced because she is the Midwestern geezer’s long-suffering wife but actually his daughter who has to endure him protecting her virtue. 

Not only does the Wood painting inform the Iranian farmer image, the concept becomes larger by reflecting back and giving us more to think about in Wood’s statement. There is a conversation going on there. Conversations about ideas are good.

While some ideas should be repeated and reinforced, new ones need to be expressed without being weighted down by layers of convention. Over time, painting has broken free of ecclesiastical restraints and the confines of patronage to discover new truths in subject matter and new ways to communicate with color, drawing, and abstraction. 

Restrictions have been challenged. Does a subject or viewpoint have to be static? The Cubists decided to depict their subjects from multiple viewpoints and time frames. Do paintings need recognizable subjects? Some artists attempt to leapfrog representation or symbolism and tap into realms we don’t have words or images for.

It’s understandable when someone who hasn’t been exposed to the evolution of art doesn’t see the worth in a lot of the ideas being presented today. Some of them aren’t worth much to begin with. You certainly can’t judge a work’s contribution to human dialogue by the market. Popular art can be repetitive, derivative, or lame. Commercial success doesn’t guarantee artistic excellence, or vice versa. Regardless, we absolutely need this form of communication in all of its voices.

Like science, art is constantly expanding on itself. What makes it different from science is that art is all about imagination and discovery, free from the rigorous pursuit of objectivity and proof. Art is not created for economic advantage or personal gain. Art is not subject to the drumbeats of performance, winning, and trouncing the other guy. Art is us at our best, experimenting with ways to communicate complex thoughts, and constantly asking “what if.” We need more earnest dialogue, and art is a universal means to have it. 

In addition to being all-embracing language, art is eloquent. A thought of immense proportion and reach can be conjured up by a few touches of a brush, and understood by people anywhere in the world. Six strokes on a field of blue can transport them to an unparalleled moment in time, or invoke a torrential cascade of personal memories, questions, and emotions. A simple image can convey enormous definition.

Art is more than decoration. It is more than a recreation or pastime. Art is the sum of our collective experience and imagination, and the most powerful way to present ideas that we have.